Doughboys - Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. with Paul Scheer

Episode Date: July 7, 2016

The 'boys are joined by Paul Scheer (The League, How Did This Get Made?) to discuss his experiences with the oddly successful Forrest Gump themed eatery Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. And, it's a throwback to childhood in a new Drank or Stank.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Zero Audio Run, Forrest, Run! That's perhaps the most memorable line in a film full of them. Robert Zemeckis' 1994 American Epic, which traces the life of its slow-witted but big-hearted title character Forrest through the latter half of the 20th century. The flick secured the best picture statuette in a year that also saw the release of classics Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, and Hoop Dreams, and also needed a second best actor Oscar for Tom Hanks, completing his transition from comedy star to America's

most esteemed actor. In 1995, Paramount sought to capitalize on the staggering popularity of their prestige pick in an unusual way. Not the usual toys or t-shirts, but rather a full-service restaurant based upon the Seafood Company Forrest opens with the help of Lieutenant Dan. Like the film's fishing boat, it takes its name from the pea-brained army private Forrest fought alongside in Vietnam who suggested to him the business plan. The restaurant became a surprise real-world hit and has since opened dozens of branches

in tourist-heavy areas where diners gobble up the seafood and the nostalgic Americana of its source material. For 20 years since the film hit theaters, there are now 40 locations including 11 outside the U.S., perhaps indicating the off-beat chain's influence may endure longer than the film itself. This Week on Doughboys Shrimp kebabs Shrimp creole

Shrimp gumbo Pan-fried, deep-fried, stir-fried, pineapple shrimp Lemon shrimp Coconut shrimp Pepper shrimp Shrimp soup Shrimp stew Shrimp salad

Shrimp and potatoes Shrimp burger And shrimp sandwich are on the menu because we're talking Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're a part of ferrelaudio.com. The best way to support ours and other shows in the network is to use the referral link on our website anytime you shop at Amazon. I'm Nick Weigar alongside my co-host, a marshmallow someone dropped on a barbershop floor, Mike

Mitchell the Spoonman. How you doing, Mitch? That's alright. I don't mind that one. That's not too bad. Yeah. That's actually kind of a compliment. It's not bad.

That was courtesy of Terri LeCase. And if you've got a, thanks Terri, and if you've got an insult you'd like me to use on Mitch at the top of the show, email roastspoonman at gmail.com. Or don't. It's optional. Yeah. Just don't do it. I mean, more people are emailing that than our actual feed bag email.

Which is good. Howdy ho. To Spoon Nation. I haven't listened to this one yet. That's the way it is. There we go. A little Mario Kart backing music from, I think the original Super Mario Kart. From Chris Howard.

Chris, I don't know what you're, oh, hold on, I do have his email, sorry. You need to have out his email address? No, I'm not going to give his email address. Jesus. It's Chris Howard, it's at a Chris Howard. I think that was Mario Circuit. I think that's what that one was, right? That's like, it's just the main track.

Yeah, I think that's the main track. Yeah. Okay, all right. There's like five of them. No, that's not the end of the game music. No, no, no, no. That's Mario Circuit. You're right, you're right.

But is it, wait, is it called Mario Circuit or is it just called Mario? Mario, yeah, I know it is. I think it's Mario. I think that sounds right. I mean, but you're on like, it's like flower or is it their cups, right? Yeah, all our listeners are falling asleep. That's two autistic men trying to figure out what course that is for Mario. Is that Mario, that's Super Nintendo.

That's the original, yeah. That's the Super Mario Kart. Super Mario Kart. Yes. Okay. Now, Mitch, this ties in with our restaurant today, which we'll get into in a little bit and we'll introduce, I guess, in one second. But we have a little contest to announce that we're going to be launching.

That's right. So we have a souvenir Bubba Gump Shrimp Company cup that we will be giving away to one of our listeners. And this contest we came up with just before recording is we're going to see. Seconds ago. Seconds ago is we're going to gauge whoever has the best Mike Mitchell forestgump meme. Hey, wait. What the fuck?

So matching up two of America's most beloved simpletons, Mike Mitchell the Spoon Man and Tom Hanks' iconic forestgump character, you want to take a still from the movie, a still of Mitch, a Doe Boys quote, a forestgump quote, some combination of the two, use them however you see fit, and use the hashtag MitchGump and we'll announce the winner on a subsequent episode. You fucking pulled the wool over my eyes. You told me it was going to be a Doe Boys meme with forestgump included. You didn't say it was going to be about me specifically.

I think somebody I think a little bit more specific will help people. Well, good luck to you. If you win, we'll send you garbage. Let's introduce our guests. From the league, fresh off the boat, and the essential podcast, how did this get made? Our good friend Paul Shearer is here. Hi, Paul. Hi.

I am very excited to be here on the tall chairs, which I've heard so much about, the creaky tall chairs, and excited to talk about forestgumps theme restaurant, bubblegump. Because when you just mentioned in the opening, the movies that it lost out to in Best Picture, you could argue that a Shawshanker deficit restaurant or a Pulp Fiction restaurant would have more staying power in the culture of today than forestgump. I don't think that people reflect on forestgump. I would argue that most millennials probably have no idea who forestgump is, and this is just kind of not Red Lobster to them.

You remarked as we were eating, what percentage of the patrons actually are familiar with forestgump, the film? Yes. Like, is the franchise as a restaurant is maybe bigger than the movie now? Well, I have been eating a forestgump probably for the 20 years that it hasn't been open. And I say that sincerely because my parents vacationed in Orlando, Florida on the Disney property and there was a forestgump there at Universal. One of them, there was a forestgump, bubblegump, sorry.

But it was much more forest theme when I was there. Now it's much more shrimp theme. There's a comical shrimp, but before it was, I felt like there was much more of the outfits being displayed like a Planet Hollywood of only one character. The host who brought you to your table was dressed up as a white feather and he was sort of flutter about the floor plan of the restaurant. It was really complicated to get to your table, it really went up and down and around. Well, for those millennials who haven't seen it, forestgump is about a dumb virgin who

runs through history. Nearly avoids getting AIDS. Nearly. The one time he has sex, he has sex with a, it's very strange. The one time he has sex, he gets the girl pregnant and doesn't get AIDS. He narrowly avoids. It's like a reverse Tyler Perry movie. People have pointed out to me like the kind of like a right wingy themes and forestgump

later on, which I didn't, I liked the movie. It should not, I mean, I liked, I liked the movie too. I haven't seen it probably in 20 years though. I feel like. I feel like Shawshank Redemption is more rewatchable, right? No one's like sitting around. I mean, look, we're all in comedy. We all like movies.

Do we really? I can tell you that I've talked about Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction probably in the last year and probably casual conversation, right? I don't think forestgump is popping into that conversation. I mean, is it with you guys? I mean. I think it comes up as a reference. I think people like, you know, think of the quotes or just think of the general tone or

the aesthetic. The amazing CGI work. The amazing CGI work that is endured. But I think, yeah, it's not, I don't think it's been, it's the same caliber of film. It's not quite as good. It was kind of like a good piece for 1994 because it just kind of struck all those emotional chords for baby boomers at the time. But it should have been Pulp Fiction because it's like, oh, isn't that the whole thing

like the Academy Awards? It's like the one that wins isn't the best one. It's like, it's like, you know, very rarely. Shakespeare in love sort of deal. Yeah. It's sort of like, oh, yeah, that one, sure, it's like what was kind of more popular in the moment, but not the one that's defining like Pulp Fiction is defining for, you know, for like 10 years of like film.

But like, I think if you step back and look at like a category like, you know, best original screenplay, you're more likely to get a gauge of what the not always it's not one to one, but you're more likely to get a gauge of what the consensus best film of the year was versus, you know, what the best picture winner is. Certainly their cases like a film like Schindler's List, I don't think everyone's everyone's looking at that year and be like, no, it should have been the piano, man. You know, like, no, they also have a great burger restaurant. Yeah.

I think they're very poor taste. They open that up. Schindler's List is my favorite fictional movie. Oh, boy. Oh, man. E.T. and Schindler's List, two of the greatest fictional characters. I will say all this forestgump bashing aside, I am a fan of the Bubba Gump restaurant and I've had run-ins that like I was very excited.

Yeah, this is the restaurant that we got to do as a fan of the podcast and also a fan of this bizarre weird chain, which I think and I don't know if there is any research about it, but it seems to me like a front for like, we want to open a seafood restaurant, but I just can't call it like Al's Seafood, let's just buy the rights to forestgump and we'll do it. Yeah, we need a licensing deal to support this business plan. Yeah, just because it's in weird locations, it doesn't feel like, yeah, I feel like it's helping a seafood restaurant.

It's helping, yeah, it's like you'll get fresh seafood there, I guess. It certainly gives it more of an identity than a place like a Joe's Crab Shack, which is sort of like, oh, it's like a generic, you know, seafood place. Is Joe's one of those places that gives you a little attitude? No, that's the other one. Dicks, oh, Dicks or whatever. Dicks is, yeah. Dicks Last Resort.

Dicks Last Resort, why would we call Dicks Fuck House? I think that was what it was. Was that what your guess was? Dicks Fuck House? Yeah, I don't know. The one little fact I know about Dicks Last Resort is if you're in the comedy world that we're all in, is that Matt Besser worked at Dicks Last Resort and was fired for being too mean. Oh, Matt Besser from our Krispy Kreme episode, that's Holy Tracks.

I buy that completely. There's a fact that he think he told us in one of his classes what time and I always remember it, like insult the people and they were like, no, no, no, not that much. Matt Besser's just like, you're just not going to make it. Why are you trying this? Give up. Jesus, man. All right, let's talk a little bit about, because I want to get in a bubblegum.

But you are a Fudruckers fan, correct? I am. We were talking about this a little bit before. I like, Fudruckers to me was a very exotic burger place. I'm from the East Coast, New York, and the only Fudruckers I knew of at that point was right outside of Six Flags. And it was like... Which Six Flags was that?

Great Adventure. Six Flags Gator Adventure, okay. So we would go there... This is Breer Post, Old Dancing Man, was it? It was pre. Okay. American Screen Machine was the coaster that we all love before the Batman, before they sold out when they were just coasted for coaster sake, all right, not like adding a name on it.

I remember it was the big ride that was there, it was a free fall ride, and it scalped a woman. Oh my God, Jesus. That was a big thing, because her hair got somehow caught in something and she was scalped. Do you know what's crazy is that this is the second instance we've talked of scalping on rides in the podcast. It was a Chuck E. Cheese rip-off in Quincy where it happened, right? It wasn't in Quincy, it was in Hingham, but it was a bonkers, and there was a little girl

who got scalped. Oh yeah. And she lived, but... You can live from a scalping, I think. Yeah, yeah. The thing that's... It was a horrific scarring. That's so scary.

It seems like it's somewhat common. You should be heard in a bonkers, yeah. Yeah, like this has happened multiple times, out of amusement parks, people's hair gets ripped out. That great adventure, and again, when you grow up, you're like, everyone knows what great adventure is. I didn't even know it was Six Flags. It was just a great adventure, and there was only one in my mind.

That was another one where it stayed open. New Jersey had these theme parks that were just death traps. They had a haunted mansion that caught on fire, and people died on the inside. Jesus. And then there was another competing park that was called Action Park, and Action Park was more water slides. Oh yeah, I've heard of Action Park, yeah. People were breaking their necks on these crazy slides, it was like, yo, go in a loop

to loop, and people were cracking their... New Jersey had very unsafe theme parks, so if you made it out from there, you would have a nice meal at Fudruckers. But I am like... This podcast speaks to me because I don't necessarily prefer to take in fast food now, but it's... I love it. I love it.

We just ate at City Walk. At City Walk, it's kind of like Universal decided to make like a... It's like Downtown Disney or 42nd Street, but it's all like theme restaurants, chain restaurants. I love all that. I am a big chain restaurant fan. I don't eat there often, but I love it all. Universal City Walk is right adjacent to Universal Studios, the amusement park.

And yeah, it is like a... I feel like a tourist hub. I feel like there aren't a lot of LA locals. I feel like we even got in our lift to come over here. We got to ask, hey, where are you guys from? Just assume that you're picking up a car full of tourists. And then Weigur punched them in the back of the head. LA motherfucker.

And then showed your red bandana. He spit on him. We used to get warnings... On that note, we used to get warnings that like the... Because the Six Flags Magic Mountain, which is the one in Valencia, California, which we would go to locally, and they would be like, oh, careful, that's a dangerous place where bad kids hang out. We go on school field trips or whatever, and they'd be like, oh, it's warning.

But if it's a rough and tumble kids, you'd frequent that spot. But I... What are they talking about? Popeye? Yeah. They weren't talking about Popeye. But I did experience there. I was waiting in line at Riddler's Revenge on a...

Nice classic ride. Yeah, classic. It's the... I think it was in the aftermath of what? Batman Forever? Yeah, the Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey. Yeah, of course.

And that is... I was on a field trip and there was a black guy with his kid and this white trash guy that was harassing him. It was one of those things where he was a little bit ahead of me in line, so I didn't quite get all the argument, but I could just see two guys kind of yelling at each other. But it's the first place I ever heard the phrase race card. Like, the white guy at some point was just like, you know what a race card is, motherfucker? And then the guy was like, look, man, I'm just trying...

I'm here with my kid. He's like, you're using a fucking race card. And I was like, whoa, what is going on here? And then like two days later, I heard it on like a Geraldo talking about the OJ trial or whatever. They dealt it from the bottom deck. Yeah, yeah. From the bottom of the deck.

The... The... You know, theme parks, I'm a huge theme park guy, like I said, my parents literally went to Walt Disney World 20 years in a row or maybe like 15 years in a row. And I grew up right down the block from Adventureland. Not event... It was... The movie was called Adventureland.

Maybe it was called Adventureland. But basically it was like a shitty small theme park. Right. I love that culture, but it is... There's always an underbelly of like, someone can get stabbed here. Like you can make a... Yeah. Like back when I was a kid, like you could sing along to like a Beastie Boy song and

then also maybe get stabbed in the parking lot. It was like... It was like... There was fun and then ultimate danger in there. I feel like they must get better now because I had a situation where I went to Canobie Lake Park, I think it was, and this is like a New England one. Yeah. It was me, my friend Anthony, and we were in a ferris wheel, but you can control the

ferris wheel, like you could flip the ferris wheel out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, yeah, it was like a unit or whatever and we were like... Our arms couldn't reach the wheel and we like fell out of our harness and like we're like laying on the door of this thing and I was like, if the door opened, we'd die. Yeah. And I was like... Kind of like Beverly Hills Cop 3.

Great... Yeah. Great park movie. It was very... It was probably... In this little contained unit, but I was like, it just doesn't seem to matter. I feel like it's got to be different now, but... I feel there has to be bigger safety precautions.

Back at Adventureland, I figured out a way not to put down the harness when I went in the Haunted Mansion and I'd pop it open and then I'd get out in the ride in the Haunted Mansion ride and then scare people in the ride. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was so much fun and I think they thought I was a hired hand, but I was just like a sixth grader jumping out at like people just going through a very slow moving Haunted Mansion. You never got busted for that?

No. Because it was like they didn't care. Yeah. Because I would get back in a next open car. Yeah, yeah. There's no cameras. I also kissed my first girl at an amusement park and I was like, she was like, I'll ride with you.

And I was like, yeah. And I was like, you want to get out in the ride and scare people? She was like, no. And then I was like, oh. And then that's when we kissed in the Haunted Mansion. I mean, I remember being bummed that I couldn't be getting out to scare people. I was at, with some friends once, I was at Knott's Berry Farm, which is a amusement park.

That same as Knott's Scary Farm? Yeah. Is it near there? Yeah. It's not Scary Farm. Knott's Berry Farm isn't near Knott's. They're all separate parks, but they're in the same county. It's Knott's Berry Farm most of the year.

And I was there and my friend, Cam Sath, was like, he was like our age, but he was like a small kid. And so we went on the Kingdom of the Dinosaurs ride. I think that was what it was called. It was kind of like this really shitty animatronic dinosaur ride, but he was able to slip out because he was so small and get out of the ride. But as soon as he got out, lights came on and we were just like, get back at the court. They just had cameras on us and he was just immediately shamed.

Yeah, I don't know. So as an amusement park aficionado, what are your favorites? What would you put on your Mount Amusement Park more? Oh, Jesus. Oh, man. This is all right. Well, I'm going to put right at the top, I know where I'm going, which is Transformers the Ride at Universal Studios.

That's the ride. It's a great ride. I think that that's the future of rides. Originally, it was Spider-Man the Ride at Universal Islands of Adventure. Yes, that's a great ride. That's a great ride. But I think Transformers has trumped it because I think to combine the car mixed with the 3D technology and the giant screens, if the Transformers movies were as good as that fucking

ride, I'm like in. I'm like, we got it. When I go to Universal Horror Nights, which I go to every year with a gigantic group, I'm like, we got to go on that. That is one of my highlight ride rides. Do they Halloween or rock at all? No, not like Jurassic Park where they play Welcome to the Jungle. That's the Jurassic Park waterfall ride.

They start playing Welcome to the Jungle, and it's kind of in the black, but it's like Welcome to the Jungle. It's like a dinosaur just pops out and then you drop. The raptors are kind of like, almost look like they're dancing to Welcome to the Jungle. They may have put sunglasses on one of them. They do put sunglasses on them. Scary. Welcome to the Jungle being one of the biggest Halloween songs of all time.

Yeah, of course. You got to just rock it out. Number one, Monster Mash, number two, Welcome to the Jungle. The other one, some other good rides, and again, I have not put these in any sort of definitive order, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Disneyland classic ride, not available in Disney World anymore, probably because it's a ride where you, as the character, go to hell. And someone was like, well, first of all, no one knows who the hell Mr. Toad is anymore. I don't even think I understand Mr. Toad is the wind of the Willows movie.

Don't think I sat for it. And then you're just going to hell, and not a message that you want to give out to kids. So that ride is very high up in my list. I have a lot of Disney favorite rides, but I want to kind of, I would like to branch out from that. I think that the Goliath is a ride that I think is a very, like, that's a Six Flags Valencia ride. Yeah, there's one of Magic Mountain, yeah.

Yeah, where it just kind of goes up and it's like, like a... It's a huge... It's just a very conventional coaster, which is like a huge drop, like a gigantic, like... You're still... You're like, oh, am I still dropping? And you still are. You're just like going down. Yeah, you go up to like the...

It feels like you're going up like 50 stories high, and then you're just plunging for like... It feels like a minute. It's crazy. Yeah. It's a very intense ride. And I think it's like the only ride that I feel like I've gotten like legit scared on. Yeah, yeah.

That feeling of, cook, cook, cook, cook, cook, cook, cook. And you're like, okay, okay. But that facing down is intense. I really liked... But I'd go back to Universal for a second. I didn't love this Harry Potter ride... Oh, really? That people like...

Oh, no. The broomstick on? Yeah, I thought it was like... It made me a little nauseous. Wait. This is like a Quidditch simulation? Yeah. It's kind of like you're playing Quidditch and then things happen and you're flying around

near broom. You know the thing with these rides, I think we've discussed this before, Mitch. Every time they've got one of these experience rides, it's certainly the case with the Minions Mayhem. It's certainly the case with the Simpsons rides, certainly the case with the Star Tours. It's like, you're like, oh, come on, let's go on a little ride. You know, this is fun. And then it's like, brrr, brrr.

Oh, no, something went wrong. It's like, why does the narrative have to be that there's this interruption of routine that like... It's become... The ride always breaks. That was always the thing. We tried to write a human giant sketch as a show I did with the season sorry, Rob Hubel and Jason Walner.

We tried to write a sketch because Walner and I were obsessed with this idea. The ride is breaking down. And so like the idea, I think, was, and I may be getting it right. No, I'm getting it right. It was... So basically, like, I think I would be playing a guy going to complain to like Walt Disney or like, you don't understand, a mafia man got on our ride and he took it, did a whole different direction that we were not supposed to go in and did not have any conception of

what it was. And like, and just furious that his ride, he didn't ever got the right version of the ride. You were playing sounds like Nick in real life. It sounds like you want a smooth ride. But no, like, why not just give you like, it's always like, uh-oh, Star Wars is like, we're going indoor. And I guess that would be boring, a direct flight to indoor.

You have to get... And you got to mix it up with Darth Vader and you got to like, you know, but I guess... But it is always... How many... Every ride is like that. It's like every movie was like, it's just like, it's the same plot every single ride. I agree with that. It's repetitive, but I like that little setup.

It's fun. You know, like... But I will say on my mount, on Mount Amusement Park more, I do have one ride that is just a free-flowing, fun ride, soaring California. Oh, that's a great one. That's a great... That's a lot of fun. I like that one a lot.

You smell oranges. Love it. Yeah. And nothing goes wrong the entire time. Yeah. Disney's California Adventure. That's a great little pleasant ride. Love it.

Yeah. That's sort of what I'm talking about. That's the spirit of what I mean. Just like we're having fun. Well, Pirates of the Caribbean is the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You happen to be taking a ride while a town is being pillaged. You're neither a part of it nor being detracted by it.

You're just like, oh, these people are burning alive, I'm just going to be on my stroll. And yeah. You kind of want to step in a little bit. Yeah, you know, I just let them figure out their own stuff. It's not my town now. I'm not one of these pirates. I did not like the addition of Johnny Depp to that ride. Yeah, I felt that kind of like, I felt like it was a little more timeless before Johnny

Depp got in. Yeah, I didn't mind it. I think, because I think the animatronic was well done enough. Yes. Like it looks really cool. And then also I feel like it doesn't overwhelm the ride. Like you get like, I think the, if anything's intrusive, it's the Davy Jones that they put in with.

Oh, I don't like that. Yeah. Like that's like on that miss section. It's like that. It's like, all right, that hasn't aged as well. But the little hints of Johnny Depp throughout, I think that's like fun. Well, you're on the record of saying that you think Amber Heard is a liar too, right? Wait a minute.

Hold on. Hold on. At our meal, you kept on showing us proof. You're a truth or you're an Amber Heard truth there? You sketched up a thing for the ride for Charizard Fires of the Caribbean, where Johnny Depp would be strangling Amber Heard. Jesus Christ. No.

I was going to be associated with this line of thought. That's all you told us. I have a bunch of favorite, I mean, Disney, I've spent many, many times there. You know, it's a great ride though, Toy Story Mania. Have you gone to that? I haven't been on that. Oh, I like an interactive ride where you see basically Toy Story Mania, you just have a gun and you just start shooting at whatever.

It's like knocked on the ducks, hit the plates, shoot the tanks. And it's as if you're basically like two people in a car and you get on a big giant screen and you just compete with each other. It's super, super fun. Is it the Buzz Lightyear one? That's a different one. A Buzz Lightyear version is like 1.0, this is 2.0. This is like, yeah, that kind of works.

We've upped the ante. Toy Story Mania is really good. I like that. I got to try. There's a lot of, there's still rides in Disney that I'm like, oh, I went on the Toontown ride just recently. Oh yeah, that's a great ride. And it's a great ride.

And hidden. And hidden. No one really knows about it. Gizmo's Coaster? Is that the one you're talking about? The little Toontown? No, no, this is the Roger Rabbit one, right? Oh yeah.

Wait, are you talking about a Gremlins Coaster? No, there's like, what's the... You're thinking of the... There are two rides in Toontown, you're thinking of like the small roller coaster. The little coaster, yeah. Oh no. This is like a full-on Roger Rabbit getting that car, the cab, whatever the cab was. I didn't even know about that.

Oh yeah, it's kind of hitting in the back. No, I went on the, maybe Gizmo was in the name of the character. It's some inventor from like, from the Launchpad show. What was that show called? Tailspin? Yeah, he's either from Tailspin or DuckTales. I mean, there is one guy named Launchpad, McQuack. Yeah, yeah, but it's not Launchpads, right?

It's like Gizmo, it's something like that. Oh yes, Gizmo is like one of the little raccoons or squirrels or mice or something. I thought he was like a bird tinkerer. A bird tinkerer? Like, getting in there, you know, his little bird hands, messing up these rats. Look, if you know what this is, clear this up for us, use the hashtag Toontown Mystery Coaster. Tell us what it's called and tell us who the character is.

It's much easier than any sort of Google search. Yeah, no, no, we're not going to do that. So do you have a favorite amusement park food item? Oh man, that's a really, a good question. All right, I feel like you have to go, my immediate thought was funnel cake, but then I pulled it back from funnel cake because funnel cake, I think, is across the board, you can get it at any sort of amusement park, state fairs down to Walt Disney World. You can always get a good funnel cake, but I'm going to now revamp it and go, my favorite,

one of a kind snack is the dull pineapple whip that you can get. Oh, that's real good. You know, it's like you can't get it anywhere else. It's that thing. There's one place in Hollywood that sells it. It's like next to like the whole foods, but it's not as good. Yeah, that one's real good. The one in Disney is, it's amazing.

Yeah. Like in terms of a specific treat, I think that's a very good choice. I think I would maybe just say churro. I think a churro is a great walk around sort of snack. If you can get it done the right way, it's got to be warm because sometimes they're stale. And they get it, they'll get hard. Churro is up there for me, but that dull pineapple whip is one of my favorite things. I'm not going to, I love amusement park pizza, but I mean like a churro in a turkey leg in

like a pineapple whip or like the big ones. I was going to say that the turkey leg, I mean, I don't want to, I feel like I'm like being like a cliche standard, but did anyone ever figure out what is that a, is it a turkey leg? Like cause I don't, it seems so gigantic. Yeah. I feel like it was something that like someone forced on a bone. I saw a Reddit thread once with someone who worked there and he was saying that, if I

recall correctly, he was saying they are turkey legs, but they get them like, like, I don't remember the exact source. I think they get them from, you know, like, cause there's a lot of turkey breast meat that's processed and used for like subway and stuff, so they have just a bunch of surplus legs. So they get them for an insanely cheap per unit cost, like 10 cents per unit. Oh wow. And then they mark them up to like whatever they sell them for, like $7, you know?

So it's just like they're immensely profitable. But yeah, I don't think it's like great quality meat that you're getting. Well, I always feel like when I see that leg, these turkeys must be gigantic and afraid of that turkey. Yeah, I feel because the turkeys that I know from Thanksgiving seem like those legs are so small in comparison and that's a pretty big turkey I'm eating. Like, that leg is big. I think someone molded it in.

Yeah, these are the chemically fattened, I think. You know, they're loaded with a bunch of genetic engineering and antibiotics and they're growing to these giant sizes where they can barely stand. And yeah, those are the ones that I think that are used for like, you know, your mainstream chicken or turkey breast meat providers. Oh great, well happy eating. Try enjoying one of those ever again. Look, I mean, that's the cloud that hovers over this podcast forever is the fact that

we are an indirectly an arm of the nightmare of factory farming. This is, Dwiger just recently was telling me that he thinks animal ownership is going to be looked back on in a harsh light. I think from a futurist perspective, I think that there will be a time when there will be that the vegetarianism is almost the obvious next step. I think there will also be a point where people animal liberation movement will be like, we're not going to have zoos anymore. Which you will lead.

But I think there's ultimately some place in the future and I think part of what will lead this is there will be robot pets and virtual pets that will be, you know, the equal of real pets, real animals. So we won't need them anymore, but it will be viewed as unethical to have a pet. It will be... See, I disagree with that because I feel like it would be viewed as being positive. Like, hey, you took in this animal and you're taking care of them and you're making them part of your family.

I think zoos, I can, well, I don't know, I feel like pets, they feel like they're part of the family. So are they getting better treatment by you, like a dog with you in your house? Is that better than a dog in the wild? I think it is. I think it is getting better treatment. And I buy that line of reasoning. So this is why he's insane, so go on.

But I'm saying that I think I can see a future society saying what you're doing is you're depriving that animal of their agency and you're depriving them of the free will to make their own choices by imprisoning them in your domicile. It's a very Disney-pointed view. And controlling their diet, yeah. Or a Kevin Hart Pets movie, where it's like they've been so used to the indoors now when they have to exist in the real world. They're meeting all these interesting characters, all these interesting dogs and cats.

What a world. We should let them out into that fun world. If I let my two kittens out, who I love very much, who are very dear to me, so I'm insulted by what you're saying. But these kittens are fairly new, so I feel like I can't take that they're that near to you yet. Oh, my God. I thought I was going another way.

I mean, you know, in a year or two, say how near and dear they are. I'll tell you, Paul, I think about these kittens and I almost just tear up about how much I love them. This is true. I'm tearing your lips right now. Nick likes to make jokes that I am trying to eat these kittens. Well, it's the best meat, you know, the best meal is getting meat. I hold these little snacks up and they'll climb my body.

They climb up my body and they eat the snacks out of my hands. I feel like you've got to stop telling these stories about the cats, because each time I hear it, I'm always worried, like, they're in your underpants, you're having them climb up your body to eat food. Like, I don't like what's going on. I like the image of you with these two cats, but when I hear the specifics, I do get a little bit, I get a little bit worried about how they're being treated. My sweet little kittens, I was giving them a sponge bath in my toilet, like, Jesus, what

are they talking about? That was super, that will never happen. They want to go in the toilet. I swear to God, I think about them and I think about what would have happened to them. If they were out in the wild, and I think about bad things, and I'm very protective of them. They're my little tribe and I do love them quite a bit now. I mean, I've also gone insane, you're right, and I need to see some sort of therapy and help.

I also, I just got a, I took a sleep apnea test, which I talked about on this podcast. The results came back. I don't know if I told you this. You did tell me this. So now I'm concerned because I'm going to have to, so they test you for like instances of restlessness, and I guess anything over 30 to 50 is like a severe sleep apnea. And so I got tested and I had 102 instances per hour, and so I'm really, I really have more than one per minute.

That's crazy. I have more than one per minute. So you're going to get one of those CPAP machines? I think I have to get one of those Bain machines. Oh man, that's a tough, that's a tough life call. Yeah, I know. I know. It's, it's, it makes me feel kind of pathetic, but then I'm also like, I've always, I've

always had, I feel like I've always had this. Yeah. And so I feel like it will make me feel better. You're going to feel better. You're going to be a better person. That's kind of why. You're going to be a better dad to your cats. And I feel like I will be a better dad to my cats.

Wyger always makes fun of me for being dumb. It turns out there's oxygen not going to my brain. Well, I don't know if you'll get that back. Your brain is dead, but at least not more of it will die. So you'll stay at this level of intelligence from here on in, which is great. You'll stay at the farst gum bubble, not the bubba level, which is a very high. As far as gum seen is that much. He's smarter than Bubba.

He's smarter than Bubba. Yeah, I think so. They shouldn't have been in the fucking war, right? Well, of course, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a point about it. Yeah. There's a commentary. Oh, I get it now. You know what?

You know what I, you know what I did last time? I did this thing last night and I, uh, I haven't talked about it yet, but it was a crazy thing. I guess I slept on my arm wrong and I woke up like in the middle of the night and I literally could not feel my arm. Like I was with this hand like blomp and it was like, and it was like, and it was like a took, like I would say probably like 30 seconds to get like any sort of like, I was like literally like forcing my fingers closed and it felt like nothing was cut off. And I did a little read of research and I think there are people who, I guess it's in

extreme cases of drug addicts and stuff like that. They'll kind of collapse and then fall on their arm and they could self amputate. Oh my god. That's crazy. Cause like if you're asleep for eight hours on your arm, your arm's not getting, it's literally cut off from circulation. I'm kind of afraid that could happen to me now. I know.

It's the same. Cause I've w, I've woken up with like my hand on my arm and be like, oh, I can't feel my hand or something like that. Yeah. I've done that, but this is like, like last night was crazy. My wife is a very pregnant. We're almost ready to, or she's almost ready to have a baby. And, uh, and so the situation in my bed is that I'm like, uh, given seven inches to

kind of, of width and I have to make everything work in that small area. So I'm sleeping in the most bizarre position as my wife is like, sprawled out like diagonally across the bed. And, uh, I think I just got caught in a, in a really weird way. Can we ask you a question? Yeah. If the baby's born tonight, just tonight, will you name a dough boy? That's a great question.

Um, you know, I was thinking about Spoon Man for the middle of the car. Oh, God damn it. Hmm. No. Well, hold on. If it's, if it's born tonight, definitely. You know, yeah, if it's born tonight, 100% because there's absolutely no chance of my baby being born tonight.

All right, let's talk public gum. Yes. Um, so, all right. So, uh, this is a place and this was my first experience. We all, the three of us went tonight, went to the Universal City walk location, which is a giant restaurant. Oh, it's huge. It's like the size of a, of a casino floor.

It is so, it has so much square footage. It was amazed by how big this place was. Yeah. And, um, the three of us went together. Less depressing than a casino floor? Yeah, I think less depressing. People were having a good time and it was packed too for a Thursday night. It was, it was packed.

Um, but, uh, the three of us went together. This was my first trip to bubblegum, although I'd been familiar with it for some time and shared this is a place you've been to a number of times. I've been to a number of times and, uh, I was like, again, there's some things about this restaurant that I think they do aces. And I, and I, and this is the one thing I talk about no matter where I go about restaurants, I love this license plate system that they have there. Every table has a license plate.

And you flip it up when you want service and you flip it down when you don't. I want that all the time. I could, yeah, because I don't have to be like looking for the waiter and have to be just for that fucking license plate. Have them come over, get me my water, do whatever I want to do. And that, to me, every restaurant should have a flip sign. And it's two, it's two, it's a blue license plate and a red license plate. The blue one says run forest run and that indicates that a server is due

hustle to your table because you have some sort of actually urgent, urgent situation. And the red one says stop for a stop. No, you actually have it wrong. The red one stop for a stop is come. It's, it's, it's a come to. It's very, it's like stop here at the table. I, yes, I was. Keep on wanting doing your job.

Yes. And stop here at the table. Yeah. Which is strange to be like, keep doing your, you get, keep working. We don't need you here to be like, that's, that's the one. The green one means don't. Well, but that's the other problem with it. It's blue and red.

Yeah, it's blue and red. Yeah. Not like green, not green and red, which are the normal colors that you would want. You need to, you need a little tutorial. Run forest run means run on past our table and tend to the other customers. And stop for a stop means hustle on over. We got something we got to ask you. But did you guys like, I mean, I mean, I know I'm like, I know it doesn't have to

be as unclassy as license plates, but I like the idea. Of taking that anxiety out of dining. Sure. Cause I feel like sometimes I'm always chasing down like for whatever it is, then I could just flip it and go back to my own business knowing that they'll find me. Well, here's my thought. My, and Mitch, I'll let you chime in. I'm curious to hear that.

But my thought is, it actually gives me a little bit more anxiety. Because when we flip it, when we flip it to stop for a stop, I'm like, I'm like, where is this guy? Cause now it becomes an urgent thing of like, we need this guy now. Like where the fuck is he? You know, it's a versus like, if I just have periodic check-ins, there might be times when I'm like, I wasn't even thinking that I needed something. It was like, yeah, you know what, I will take another iced tea.

You know, I kind of like that. So you don't want to, you don't want to get brought to the moment of you, you want to be kind of falling into it. Like it's like, yeah, I think that's the manifesto. I think you're, I think that's so fucking insane. That you put, if you put the red sign over, you suddenly like, oh God, where is he? He's going to come in a couple of seconds.

They came within like, within a minute each time we did it tonight. They were very responsive. They were very responsive, totally on top of it. They're very on, they're looking, they're, they're running around looking for those red signs, I feel like. I thought the system was great. I thought it worked really well. It's a good system.

It's a good system. Mike, one complaint about it is stop for a stop, which is not aligned from the movie. No, no, no one, no one stopped him on that classic run by like Sally Field wasn't at the end going, stop for a stop. He's like, okay, he decided himself. He ran it out and then he was done with it. Yeah, he worked out his grief. And I feel like you're also, it's, it's also your cause.

Are you calling the waiter, forest, whatever? There's, there's so much stuff at this place that I like. But then when you like in the menu, it's like, um, like on one of the things like one of Bubba's favorite, like, like it was a bubblegum stamp on it to be like, this is the farce gum special. And in, in, in, in the description, it was like, when Bubba was around, this was one of his favorites. And it's like, why do we have to like talk about Bubba's death?

Wait, now, now this is what you just brought up saying that I really want to talk about, uh, in a meaningful way. It's too farce themed for me. Where's the Bubba memorabilia? Where is, this is Bubba's dream restaurant. That's true. And there is no trace of Bubba anywhere. There is at least traces of forest and minimal at that.

But there's no salute to Bubba. It was like, here's Bubba. Like out in front, there's the, there's the, uh, the bench, the farce gum bench. There's not the Bubba, uh, cleaning pads. Like, cause he used to like to clean the floor. There's not the Bubba, uh, you know, smock, you know, where, where are the Bubba? Where are the Bubba things?

And that brings up another good point of Bubba Gump's life. Seemed pretty bad. And he got killed in war and it was shitty. Yes. And then forest this Godlike man who fucks people with HIV and doesn't get it. Cause he's a God. And, and, and then he got, and he owns Bubba Gump's company. And, and this guy like gets fucked up and dies in Vietnam.

We're, it's just a, it's a weird thing. He carried on his legacy. He was, he made millions, he's evil. He stole it and he's evil. Maybe, maybe Zemeckis is making a point about, uh, uh, white cultural appropriation of black intellectual property. This guy's a nothing but a Zuckerberg and, and Sean Parker was Bubba Gump. And far as Gump was Zuckerberg.

That's what happened. Live it up, America. You saw it happen. Um, I, the one thing I want to tell you about this place, and I know we have to get into the food, uh, is there was a, there on 42nd street above next to the WWF restaurant, there was a Bubba Gump restaurant. And, uh, and I thought like when I first, uh, was in a position where I would take meetings with anybody, like agents or managers or whatever, I made them always

take me to Bubba Gump cause I thought it was a funny idea. Hey, where would you like to go in the city? If I Bubba Gump, like for someone to take a meeting at Bubba Gump, I thought I was in Congress, so that was, um, my one experience that I made like, I had like business meeting at Bubba Gump. And then, uh, one of the most defining relationship moments with my wife ever happened at a Bubba Gump, which was, um, I gave her my, I gave her my life there. And we, um, we went to go see this exhibit in the Santa Monica pier and

there's one at Santa Monica pier. There's two in LA. Uh, and we had a pot cookie and we were like, well, we were like, even we're like lightweights, whatever, we're having a half pot cookie and we're like, watch this amazing exhibit. Then we went to Bubba Gump and we got those ridiculous drinks, like these big, giant, crazy drinks and we're drinking that. So now we're like probably really drunk from these gigantic drinks, although

they told us they're very weak today. Uh, and we go downstairs and you kind of wait on one line upstairs and then bring it downstairs for another line. There's a girl down there and she's showing off this cup and you and I were talking about this cup. So if you hit the bottom of the cup, crazy light display goes off and we were, Jun and I were like standing in the back of line, a little high, a little drunk, watching this woman explain this cup as if it was like an iPhone.

Just going like, check this out. Some of our drinks come with this really cool cup. Now, when you're done drinking it, you can slam it down and then this happens. Then it just like, just like spinning the shittiest plastic cup with a couple led lights and they go, and so, and so she would do the same show for every next two people. So it'd be like, so as you're waiting, like the pre-show to your table was this impassioned plea to upsize to this cup.

And so we're, we, we're like, we're watching it. We're watching everyone and we're just like, we're in the back. We're like five people deep. So we were watching one, two, three. And we were just like, wow, she's really into it. She's really into it. So it gets to us when we're excited. Like, all right, we're going to get the show.

And she goes, have you guys seen this cup? At which point my wife started laughing in her face. And I was like, and then I didn't know what to do. And then Jun ran through the restaurant forward because she couldn't stop laughing and I was stuck there. I didn't know what to do and I was like freaked out. And I'm super like, again, I'm not in my senses or anything. And she's like, what's up with her?

And I was like, I don't know. I didn't know what to say. And then I just see as I'm standing there, I see my wife zigzagging through this restaurant, cheers and laughter, like a maniac. I've never seen a gene like this in my entire life. And she ran to the bathroom and disappeared for a long time. And then I was sat by my table by myself and she finally came out and she was like, she was in there for like 10 minutes.

She's like, I could not stop laughing for 10 minutes. I was like sitting on a toilet, just like cackling. And it was like, it just struck her as funny. And she's like, what did you tell her when I ran off? And I was like, I said, I didn't know. And she's like, what do you mean you totally didn't know? And I was like, I just didn't know what to say. And she was like, you tell her that I'm on medication.

And that was like, her, her reasoning was like, that was a better girl. That would make you sound insane if you were on medication. She's like, it's better than saying, you don't know. And I was like, it's like, we have this debate always that was it better for me to say, I didn't know why she ran off laughing or just to say that she's on medication and I thought that medication makes it seem weird. So I throw it to you guys as professionals, if you were in that situation, what would you prefer someone to say?

Like to be like, I don't know what just happened or I was on medication. I want to start off by saying, June is one of the funniest people ever. That's the funniest thing I've ever seen. One of my favorite moments watching her run through a forest. That's so funny. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I feel I think I agree with you. This may this may be a male versus female POV issue, but I think I'm with you.

And then I think the I get your get what you're saying of if you specify medication, then you're like, oh, that's a mentally unbalanced person. Yeah, that's what I think that she was like, I'm fine with that. I would like you to say that because then it at least makes me feel like I'm not. Like it justifies me in some way. I probably would have made up a lie. I would have been like, oh, we had this thing happen with a cup at our house. And then the person's like, what?

And I'm like, I mean, that would be if I was with all my senses and faculties, I think I could have pulled that out. But I was too. I also was biting my cheek and I was like, I don't know. And then I stood there and I watched the cup display. And would you would you point it out, by the way, this cup is too tall to fit in any cabinet that cup would go in. Yeah, it's too big.

Well, that's what I think one of the cups we have is around the same size. Yeah, they gave us some. So and I think this may be part of Bubba Gum's business model, which is that they hawk these souvenir cups and the cost of the cup is baked into the price of the cocktail. Yes. But you have to take the extra step of going to redeem your seat to pick up this cup, drinking it in the cup.

Yeah, you're not drinking in the cup that you're going to take home. There you're given a voucher for a separate cup that you pick up that's clean. And it's glass. There's a couple of glass ones. It's glass, but I think a lot of people don't redeem their vouchers. And so you're just they're just paying for these drink, these these novelty souvenir drinks, and they're never actually taking them home. So I think they take a little extra profit on that.

But the doughboys redeem them. Oh, yeah, that was on top of that. Yeah, no, the cups are and I kind of wish that we now had one of those cups to give the yeah. Well, this one was a special one this year because it was the 20th anniversary. So when you hit the thing, it would almost be a flashlight or like a Batman in the sky. Oh, yeah. To let everyone at your table know it's the 20th anniversary.

They projected the shrimp in the hat, which I have a question. Is the shrimp in a hat? And it was he wasn't in the movie, right? The shrimp with the hat on. I think there's a shrimp logo, but I don't think it was exactly. I thought it was like just Bob a gump. Yeah, like maybe there was a shrimp. I almost feel like it was a deheaded shrimp.

I feel like they've added the head later. I think it used to just be shrimp like like a what appeal and eat shrimp looks like. Yes, I think you're right. And also that's such a strange move to add the part of the animal back on that you're going to eat. But maybe people like do people like the top added shrimp? I feel like maybe that's a part of why I don't like putting top hats on any creature because they don't feel like they really have a saying.

Not even the not even the WB frog. I know, Michigan Jay frog. No, no, I well, you know, look, he definitely plays into it. You know, he's an uncle Tom for the for his top at, you know, he told he's sold out big time. He's like, I'll do the whole dance. I'll do a dance. I'll give me a game.

I'll do the whole thing. Michigan Jay frog goes on my like shit list of cartoon like animated cartoon characters. He sucks. Really? He had one he had one kind of classic cartoon, right? The he sings. He annoyingly sings. You like Michigan Jay frog.

I don't mind him. I think they're worse cartoon characters like Michigan Jay frog. I what I don't like is that my friends used to work at the WB when he was like the face of WB WB was now, I guess, CW. Oh, yeah, I have to answer the phone by going, hello. Sorry. It was like, it was maybe it was like, hello. Welcome to the dub dub dub dub dub dub WB.

You always had to say it like Michigan Jay frog. That fucking sucks. That's not even that job. There you go. So you like that asshole that made so many people depressed. No, I don't. I don't. That often was Michigan Jay frog even in a cartoon.

I feel like he was in one. Yeah, he didn't do anything. He made him the mascot. They made this lizard the mascot. Yeah, it's like making like the broom from Fantasia, like the mascot of the Disney Corporation. It's like, this is such a tertiary character. Yeah, it doesn't.

Yeah, it does not make sense. All right, let's get a little through to bubblegum a little bit. Oh, no, no need to apologize. Nick keeps this thing on track. That's his that's his job. I would say there's three things we were talking about this. Like there's three elements of this meal. One is the drink.

I think the drinks is like it was four pages of drink menu. They're really pushing their big specialty cocktails. And they are all substantial. And, you know, our server was very candid about them being on the water downside, though, he did offer to give you a smaller cup, which meant same amount of alcohol, but less mix for a little bit more of a potent concoction. And also them, if you wanted the really fancy cups, there are mocktails. They were not like we were all excited about like the Lieutenant Dan's, you

know, pineapple surprise. It's like, oh, that has no liquor in it. Yeah, they were like, I was like, we can put a shot in there, but it's going to be a very expensive drink. And I was like, wow, what? Why to me, that's like a big failure in what that place is. Like I like as a as a child, if I was there, I'm all in. I want to have a mocktail that I feel like I can drink and it'd be awesome.

But why don't you have the adult version of that, too? You should have two versions of every drink. Like I agree. And you just it's just an intimidating number of options. Like you mentioned, like four different pages, but it was spread across like three different pamphlets. Like we had one like seasonal thing and then like one foldout that was like some drinks and apps.

And then there were also more cocktails in the main menu itself. It was just a lot to process. And not even talking about the beer and wine section, which are also elements there as well. This is like just cocktails. Yeah. The first few pages you were looking at are all, it's crazy. It was so much drink.

There were so much like beverages going on it. But but like you said, it is fun. I mean, like it is that kind of amusement parky thing where you can try. Like we both had we all had two drinks apiece. Yeah. And we and we kind of some of them were a little bit crazy, Nick. You got we actually did end up with a Lieutenant Dan type of drink. Yeah.

I ordered the Lieutenant Dan's pomegranate punch, which is a Malibu coconut rum lights, light rum to Kuiper pomegranate liqueur. And then you and I actually ended up trading. Well, because I found I tried to order one of those crazy strawberry mango mocktails on the end. I found out that didn't have any booze in it. It was it was booseless. So I handed the Lieutenant Dan's pomegranate punch, which has the bubble

gum stamp on it over to you. And I got the Bubba's Blue Hawaiian, which was what the our server said was his favorite drink, which is vodka, Castillo rum, gin to Kuiper blue curacao and dole pineapple juice topped with Sierra mist. It was a stronger drink, which is good for you. Yes, it was stronger and a good amount of booze in it. I could really feel it. I don't like the implication here that I'm struggling with some sort of alcohol

as a Mitch. Well, we all know it. There's an indication that you give one young at the server more. You're kind of like a Lieutenant Dan with legs kind of. I got the Tennessee iced tea, which he said, if you like the flavor of whiskey, you'll like this drink. And I thought this was interesting because it was whiskey with sweet and sour and a splash of Pepsi.

So and I thought that that that all kind of worked together. And it worked together. Oh, but I do remember him saying that then I, I try you, you were nice not to let me have a sip of it. And he was like, you got to like whiskey to have it. And I tasted it. I was like, you don't have to love whiskey. It's not like it's not like it's like sometimes when you think of like, if

I'm drinking whiskey, like raw, like on the rocks or straight up, it's going to have a little of a burner kick to it. This was like, it like a smoky flavor like that. Like it was like whiskey in the most gentle sense. Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't overpowering at all. Whiskey in a Sunday dress. It was not a scary night time out in front of your house in a car smoking

cigarettes, whiskey. You know, I wonder if the, the, the, our server's preface was because of the kind of clientele that's there, which I feel like for a bubblegump, you know, maybe it seems like it's a lot of tourists on vacation. Maybe there are a lot of customers who aren't accustomed to drinking. It's like, you know, like, oh, I'm on vacation. Sure, I'll have a drink of alcohol. It's not a thing I regularly do.

And then if they got a drink like that, they might be like, whoa, that's a lot of whiskey. If you're, you're what you expected a chain restaurant is something that's like very sugary and sweet. Well, yeah, because it really, like, I mean, every one of their things, like, this is like the Georgia peach tea is just like everything is at, is it to Cooper or to Kuiper or like, I don't know, it's like a schnapps and like ocean spray, cranberry juice.

And it's like, it's, it's a lot of like rum based drinks, which is not a thing that I like. I don't, I'm not a big rum, a rum drinking fan loaded up with cordials and mixes and juices. I like rum, but I like, I'd like a light rum and a dark rum. I don't like any, I don't, I don't like any of the, some of the stuff that like, uh, what is that? Cursa, like, right?

Is that what it's called? Yeah. Cursa, yeah, I don't like that. Like, like, I don't like any of those weird, sweet, like the Dory, Mellon. Yeah, any, any, any of that stuff. I'm not, I'm not having any part of it. Like my mom loves like, uh, like some peach liquor or whatever. I don't, I don't, I don't need any of that.

And a lot of the drinks here had like those weird liquors that you don't usually see. It's, it was strange. It's the stuff that you never see anyone touch behind a bar. Yeah. Like being used. But I think they do another great thing at this restaurant with their drinks, which I'm sure has been taken.

I'm going to say that Bubba Gump invented it, which is, uh, putting the corona in the drink as you drink. I think this is a, a brilliant beverage move. Yes. And I, I love, uh, you, you could take home the little things to put your own crown at home on this, but I love that move of having the beer being funneled into it. I've had margaritas like that.

I've had, uh, other drinks like that. And I think it's a nice move to kind of consensus, uh, consistently kind of water down that syrupy sweetness and make it a little kick. That was a presentationally too. It is, it is fun for presentationally. And it is funny to me that you can take it, it like take it home. It's like, Hey, you can make your home life like dumber looking. You can be mixing a drink while drinking a drink.

I mean, that's really what it is. It's like, we're not mixing this for you. Yeah. The, the power of your straw will mix it. Like the power of gravity. Yeah. Um, God, uh, it is really like, but I feel like the drinks and the cocktails there, they're really fun.

Like they're kind of like, I don't think all of them are great, although I enjoyed mine. I enjoyed mine too. Yeah. I think they're all like fun and they have like a bit of a playfulness to them. I would say it's, it's one of the better aspects of the rest. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. I got, I got, I got a Corona. I got a watermelon Corona Rita for my second drink and it was, it was fun. It was super sweet, but it was, I was having fun watching it go down and, and mixing up and it tasted good. And yeah, you know what you're doing when you get one of those drinks. So like you're, you're, you're, you're in the mood for that sort of drink. And you, and you, and you have fun with it.

I think that their drinks, uh, right off the bat created a good environment. And I think that that they're banking on that. Yes. To help bring you through the meal. Yeah. Yes. Cause it's, I would argue, and we'll get into it, but the, the bookends of this meal are really where,

Oh, for sure. Where the heart of this place is. Yeah. Great first inning, great ninth inning. The middle section was a little bit of a struggle. Like a, like a most baseball game. Yeah. Yeah, it was a, cause I, I had an issue just cause I was like, I'm going to like this

play, like, like, I'm going to like this food. And I was looking at the menu before I went. And when I got there and all these apps and I was like, it's fun because it is because outside of Red Lobster, like a shrimp, seafood, heavy, like chain restaurant, they don't, they're, they don't really exist that much. It's, it's, it's rare to eat at a place like that. And I remember at least my impression of Bubba Gump was that, and it's weird because I feel like it's always how you remember stuff when you were younger.

Like, I was like, Oh, I could afford to eat at this fish restaurant. So I felt like they always had better. Like, Oh, they have good, like they can get better fish or something. But I don't know if I, after eating there tonight, I don't know if I believe that's the case because I think there was giant fluctuations in the taste of the shrimp. We had many different types of shrimp, all of us, I think tonight. Yes. And it started off with the appetizer.

Do you want to tell what we had in the, yeah, we had the, uh, let me get the name up here. I wrote it down. We got the run across America sampler, uh, which is referencing farce's famous run across the States. And you went back and forth until he was tired. No, until someone said stop farce. I will say that in that, they use, uh, running on empty in that montage.

Yeah. And I listened to running on empty. I've listened to it on my birthday, uh, on my birthday every year since I was like 16. It's really makes me upset. Yeah. You know, I've known about this for years and not only that, Mitch, you do it. You like listen to it alone, right? Listen to it alone and I reflect from 16 on, that has been a staple of your life.

And there's never been one year where you write, you know what, not this year. I didn't run on empty this year. Like that's almost like saying, like, I guarantee this year will not be good or, or this past year that just happened was bad. So like you're, you're either bringing in terribleness or saying goodbye to terribleness either way is not creating a great, again, a great book in like forest gump or bubblegump creates a great book. It was, it's been a rough 20 years.

I'll say it's, it's, it's in my nice little reflection song. And I've, uh, and, and, and I've always, I've always really enjoyed it. Uh, uh, Jackson Brown, though, not a great guy either. Oh, really? He's up there with, uh, with, uh, what's it? My column, uh, with, uh, your fan, the guy who I said you were a fan of and it was a terrible joke, Johnny Depp. Yeah.

Um, uh, the run across America sampler, um, it includes Bubba's far out fish and chips, chilled peel and each shrimp, spicy chicken strips, seafood, hushpups, and mama blues fried shrimp. Uh, so just an array of different, what? That's what it said. Fried shrimp were next to the hushpuppy shrimp. That was the, the presentation was part of what was confusing versus the description because here it seems like you're getting seven different items, six

or seven different items, but there you're actually only getting really like four different items and some of them are clustered together. Um, and I have to say for a sampler, I was, it was too, uh, it didn't feel like there was enough meat there. Yeah. You just did a thing with your fingers that summed up the entire sampler for me. Not enough meat. Yeah.

It's like bread, like crummy, it just felt like, I was like, oh, we should have ordered two different app. Like, I think that's the way to go. Yeah. Cause they did not like this. First of all, let's get the nachos out of there. Like that kind of just regular, the crazy thing was, is that I was like, nachos easy, the least will be good.

And I was like, these might be the worst of everything. Yeah. I clarify. Yeah. It wasn't exactly nachos. It was like some, some tortilla chips and some spinach artichoke dipping. And, and, and I would say in them, this, this, the shallowest dip I've ever had. Oh yeah.

There was no dip to it. It was like, duh, you're, you're in your, as your, your chip, it was, it was, you're breaking your chip. Yeah. No matter, like as soon as you dip it in there, your chip is broken as well. It was like a quarter inch dip cast iron skillet. It was, it was really frustrating. And also too, that wasn't on the menu description.

They like threw us a little curve ball and like, there was just like some spinach artichoke dip and chips at the bottom. It was just like, oh, I guess this comes with it. But it was like, it was weird that it didn't match up with what the menu description was. And also did you understand like when we, the peel and eat shrimp, they thought was fine. Like, I mean, actually, fine.

It wasn't like anything, it was like Vegas level, not even Vegas level because they weren't big. They were, they were in a school. Yeah. And I ate some shell, which I feel like has been sticking with me the entire time since I ate the shell. Like that's how it started off. Cause they were like, it was that weird thing too, where it was like, you're

right, they were tiny. And then I would pull, I was like, oh, I got all the shell off. And I'm like, oh wait, there still is like the tiniest see through shell. That's what the babies are hard with that. And I feel like, cause you were trying to get that much meat out, but there's not even that much meat there. So, but then he said, like, you guys, uh, you guys ate that sauce. No one eats that sauce.

Yeah. What the fuck did that mean? I was like, why? It looks like a normal, like a seafood sauce. It goes, it was like presented. Like, and I'm like, are people just eating raw dog in these, these peel and eat shrimp that's not peeling either. Like, or also like it made me self-conscious.

Like, what's weird about us that we ate this sauce? Like, is it, is it not good? And we just didn't realize it. I mean, that's essentially what like shrimp cocktail is. Yeah. Yeah. And dipping sauce. Yeah.

And that, that's, it wasn't like there were five sauces and we just chose one bizarre one. Yeah. It was the one, the one sauce. The only one there. Yeah. And he's like, wow, you guys ate that. No one eats that.

The chicken strips, I feel like we're forgettable. They were just sort of like, they were kind of like, but honestly, maybe one of the better things of the entire. I agree. I thought it was the best thing of that, of that thing. Yeah. It's kind of a generic sort of, you know, strip with a little bit of a, I guess, kind of an in-between buffalo slash barbecue sauce, some, some blue cheese for

dipping it, it was okay. What was wrong with that cocktail sauce? I'm, I'm, I will forever be one. I don't know. I have no idea. I, but maybe it goes back to the whole idea of like the tourist angle of it too. It's like, people will be like, ooh, I don't want to have that red sauce. I'd rather do like the cheese or the, you know, like playing into that thing.

I don't know. I mean, too spicy or. It's like one degree off from ketchup, like cocktail sauce. It's not that weird. I, I didn't get it. I didn't know what was going on. I don't know what's going on with this guy. I don't know if I would say it's one degree off of, of ketchup.

All right. Fine. It's, it's 10 degrees off. It's still not that different. Still, I need, I need more degrees. What kind of scale are we using? Up to a hundred degrees. Up to a hundred degrees.

Well, zero to a hundred degrees. Okay. So you'd say ketchup is like maybe at 50 degrees. It's like right in the middle. Ketchup is at zero degrees. I think everything was off. Ketchup is at zero. I thought every, like ketchup is at one end of the spectrum.

Okay. Yeah. So we can go from negative 100 to 100. So maybe we should, we should do it this way. Yeah. Ketchup is 98 degrees because that's the human body temperature. Okay. Okay.

And then every, and then the temperature as it goes up. Oh, okay. Is, is, is, is weirder. Well, that's not, by the way, by the way, maybe I'm dumb here. I never understood degrees being about like body temperature. That was like more of a navigational thing. Like go like four degrees to the left, not four degrees to the right. Not like go four degrees up in temperature.

Yeah. It's a temp. We're doing a temperature gauge. All right. Now it's a temperature gauge. You got it. 98 degrees is ketchup. Ketchup is a great condiment.

It's perfect. Right at 98 degrees. You know what? You can like, you can like cocktail more. I'm going to say 110. All right. 110. I'd probably agree with you somewhere around there.

Maybe, maybe 115 for me. I think that's fair. I mean, that would kill a human being. 115 was actually my first instinct. So I knocked it down. But I mean, that, it becomes down to, because 115, if you got a fever of 115, you're dead. Yeah.

You're, you're going into shock, but you can endure a temperature, an external temperature, 150 degrees, 115 degrees. It's a good, bad shock, obviously. Bad shock. Yeah. But I mean, like if, if it's 115 degrees outside and you're in like palm desert, it's like, oh my God, it's so hot, but you can still survive. Oh yeah.

Yeah. You can, you can take it. Your body, you can't have palm desert inside your body. Yeah. Maybe we should have done it by the perfect room temperature. You know what I want to just, just give a, just a moment of a negative review to is their seafood hush puppies. Oh, well, bad.

I thought these were terrible. I like a hush puppy. I think it's very hard to go wrong with a hush puppy. And I just thought this had a weird flavor. I thought it was just, it tastes like a, like a dirty, like dirt. Yeah. It tastes like a sea barrel or something. Like a barrel that would be a lot.

I used to, I was a garbage man. I picked up the garbage along the. The Spoon Man was a garbage man. Spoon Man was a garbage man for a summer and I picked up a, what Wyger? What the fuck? No, I'm just saying, I think it was maybe a career misstep to get out of that line of work. You could have had your pension already, but at this point running an empty would have been great. Every night.

I'm painting a sad picture of myself, but I used to pick up the garbage cans. Along the beach in Southie, in South Boston. And actually one of the first days I did, I remember people just leave plastic bags out and I was wearing shorts and I got. Not a good thing for a garbage man. Not a good thing at all. And I got pricked and the guy was like, a lot of heroin users, like you can, you don't, like you get to wear long pants.

And I was like, oh my fucking God. I was so scared. Jesus. And that job just like sucked from there and out. But like that's my garbage guy comes in full a suit of armor. Is this a what's now? Not going to be the Zach Braff movie. It's so fun.

Or you know, I guess it's the first one, right? When they come up, you know, wait, what garden state garden state? Is he a garbage man that wears a suit of armor? Is he? No. He, I think his mom fucks away from medieval times and they're having breakfast and he's like, who are you? And he's like, I work a medieval time.

I like to think that in the self-funded one, there's a garbage man who wears a suit of armor. I think there might be a guy. I think there is a suit of armor in the self-funded one. Yeah. That was a Kickstarter reward for someone who donated to wish I was here. I think it'd have a walk on in a suit of armor, pulling a garbage can. We should do, we should do a Kickstarter and you can come on Doe Boys. What do you think of that?

Like, wait, just like, just to get money? Yeah. So we have no goal except we want to collect as much money as possible. Yes, of course. I think that sounds great. And then the largest donor gets to come on the podcast. Yeah. No, I think that sounds like a ham-fisted scheme.

Oh, wait, hold on. The largest donor, but then everyone who loses to, we get their money. Yeah, this sounds like a Ponzi scheme. He's going to be doing this. Whatever. Anyways, that is what the seafood hush-puppy reminded me of those empty barrels that had sand and smell. It just tasted like how it's like a bad ocean smell.

And we'll get into our main meals, but I feel like that would be the thing that I would talk about with all the, sometimes a piece of fish would have a flavor to it that I didn't really particularly care for. Or I actually would say the shrimp had that kind of a flavor. Yes. The fish I had actually was quite good. My fish was good, my fish was good too. I would just, just real quick on the seafood hush-puppies, I think that, I think it's

just an ill-conceived dish, because it's like, it's a, it's a hush-puppy, which is kind of like cornbread and, you know, a deep fried, and it's, it's kind of got its own deliciousness to it. And then just snicking some, sticking some like, like tuna in there, whatever it was. Yeah. It just was like real gross and made it taste real, like you guys were saying, real stale and like had gone bad. So then we got into our, we had the app sampler, which I think was underwhelming all around

We got into our mains. I had the Lieutenant Dan's drunken shrimp, which when I said it, when I ordered it, the guy immediately, our server immediately said, oh, that's my favorite thing on the menu. And who knows if he was BSing or not. But the description is large char-grilled shrimp. He sounded earnest. He sounded earnest.

Okay, good. That's how I read it too, but I wasn't sure. Which is, he was quick to answer, but then he also like jokingly was like, I say that for everything after, but I think he was being earnest. Okay, good. Large char-grilled shrimp and andouille sauce. Andouille, how do you say that? I think you said, I thought that was right.

I thought it was andouille. Yeah. Andouille was andouille. Andouille sausage with mashed potatoes and bourbon sauce. Exclamation point. Good. I thought it was pretty good. I mean, the shrimp was, the shrimp was good.

The andouille sausage, I think was a little tastier than it. The mashed potatoes were very yummy and they had some like, they had an interesting thing which they had mashed potatoes and then they had shoestring potatoes jammed in for a little bit of crispness. Yeah. And it was kind of like nice to, you get a nice fork full of like that smooth mashed potato with a little bit of the crispness from the shoestring fry. And that was like an unusual way of, way of consuming potatoes.

Are you mixing it all together? Are you getting a little piece of sausage, a little bit of fish and a little bit of potatoes in it? Not every bite. I like to keep it separate. Okay. Much like the classic offspring song, when it comes to dining, I keep them separated. But I did have some bites where I combined them and I think the components

all worked well together, especially that bourbon sauce, which was very, very amply provided. So yeah, that was a nice dish. I'm going to go out on a limb and start my thesis, which is, I feel like sometimes the non-shrimp food are the things that really rose to the occasion. Yeah. Like you're right. You know, like we, we like the chicken.

They, we like, there are elements. You would think the shrimp would be the thing that is taking you like, while the shrimp is great. Yeah. But here I feel like the sausage was the highlight. Yeah, so better. Yeah. Let's see.

I agree with, so I had the Bubba's After the Storm bucket of boat trash. And he looked at you like, wow, that's a lot of food. He did. And I ate quite a lot of it. This was the only meal, not that this is a good, smart thing to do. This was the only meal I ate today. And I ate a lot of food at this Bubba Gump shrimp factory. Yeah.

And I felt like shit. I still feel like shit. It was, it was a huge mistake. And, and, and Paul, you, you, you, you, you were smart because you, you sauce, you were going to order this farce. Yes, I was going to get the, it was a, the farce gum favorite. I'm going to read you what I was going to get the farce seafood feast, which was voted the number one favorite of the guests of Bubba Gump, which was hand breaded fried

shrimp, fish and chips are made from scratch. Seafood hush puppies, which we already know how that came out, serve with fries and dipping sauces. And yeah, and that's farce favorite meal after Dan a boat. And according to this, you know, and that's Canon, the menu is Canon. Yeah, it is. I mean, you never see him to ever see farce eat anything in the movie. Oh, he has, there's a, there's a scene where he's holding a glass of milk after Jenny

leaves. I, that's one thing I remember. I just actually noted milk lover, Nick Quyger. Of course, there's a really good shot. And I really like it because it's just like, you're seeing a very sad man and he's just sort of like processing grief, but he's also holding a glass of milk. So, you know, like, oh, he's also going just through the raw mechanics of life. Like, he's just like, oh, well, I have to have some milk, but I'm going to sit here

very sad for a little bit. I don't know. I like it. I mean, suck it. Quentin Tarantino with that kind of image. Hope Fitchin does suck now. Do you just kind of brought that to my attention? I would love it if Tom Hanks was listening and he was just like, I just called him

a forest. God, I'm like fucking forest. God, I'm going to tell people one day I was on a podcast with you and you at that point will become a noted serial killer. When you run through my life, I'm like, I had a podcast with Nick. Why? Oh, I got it. You're sitting on a park bench.

Actually, hold on. This brings up a very good point to me that if Nick died horribly in the war, what restaurant would you open up to keep his memory alive? Hmm. I want what it be called. I mean, you know what I want to say. Cuck Wigers. You know, that's what I was going to say and we'd serve glasses of milk.

There'd be no music played in the restaurant at any times. How many tables in this restaurant? Just one. One solo table. It would be a disaster, I'm sure. I wouldn't make out at all on that. So it's just a restaurant with a glass of milk alone table and silent. In dessert, you can get a spoonful of mayo.

She'd basically be building an insulting monument to carry on my memory. That's appropriate. Apparently, by the way, it's very big in Japan, Cuck Wiger. They have over 50 franchises in Japan. The one thing I know is that if I died, I don't have to worry about this at all because the chances of Mitch having the initiative to do anything on his own are nonexistent. He wouldn't even do like another episode of this podcast.

It would just be like, you get like one tweet from the Doughboys. Yeah, Wiger died. Sorry. And then that'd be it. I think people, what would happen is you would die and then months later people would find me in my house a skeleton in the clothes I was wearing the day you died. I just go into my house.

Cats eating your bones. Anyways, I think you read that scene wrong, but the farthest comes. I might have read too much into it, but I just remember like in the image. Sure. So you, you don't divert it from that. What did you end up doing? Yes. And I got the grilled seafood trio, which I felt was going to be a little healthier.

It was also a bubblegum favorite. Got the sticker, the stamp of approval. A trio of our most popular grilled seafood, shrimp and veggie skewer, the shrimp New Orleans and our Bourbon Street Mahi Mahi. I want to start off with the best, which is the Mahi Mahi was great. I think it may be that Bourbon Street sauce. Yeah, we may have been on the chicken too. I like that sauce.

I felt like it was the whiskey, the bourbon. Those flavors are coming through big. Not too sweet either. Not too sweet. That's what kind of a nice tang to it. Yeah. What I didn't like was the garnish. There's too much garnish on this plate.

I felt like I was constantly moving away pieces of grass. I know it's not grass, but it was some sort of, you know, it was too much garnish for me and I was getting too mixed up and everything. I'll tell you what I hated. Absolutely despised the shrimp New Orleans, which were dirt shrimp. It tastes like dirt shrimp. They were in a like a creamy, a creamy kind of sauce. Yeah.

That it didn't work for me in any way. It, uh, I neglected going back there every time. I said, well, maybe I'll try another thing. Maybe more sauce. No, it just, the shrimp didn't taste right. And I don't like, I don't like an overtly creamy sauce. Yeah. I don't like that.

The skewer was fine. It's a skewer. You grilled it up. Yeah, sure. Put on a skewer, nice piece of, yeah, whatever. What's going on? Why, how come this place can't get the shrimp right? I don't understand what's happening.

It should be easy and the shrimp should be bigger. That's the other thing too. The shrimp should, we should have some heft. And again, you go to Las Vegas, you're going to go to a shrimp buffet. They're going to give you some nice size shrimp. And we're paying top dollars. This is not like a cheapo restaurant. It's not, it is, it's not cheap.

And, and we were spending like what about 150 bucks there tonight? Yeah. It was a, yeah, even, even a little, a little bit more. It was close to 200. Yeah. It was like 200 bucks. Wow. Yeah.

My entree was $19. I mean, these aren't super cheap, super affordable items. I, the, the type of shrimp you're getting is, it's a, the type of shrimp that Faris was catching before that big storm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I would argue like if you went to, uh, well, I mean, you'll, you'll find out soon enough when you guys do your red lobster.

So I think you're going to get a better quality shrimp there. And then, you know, like for $20 for an entree, let's, let's pull out the, the top dog shrimp here. Let's like, who are we fooling? I mean, we're paying 200 bucks or three guys. Let's get the, let's, let's do this. It feels like the one thing they should get right is the shrimp. And I feel like it's the one thing that was consistently disappointing

throughout our meal. Unless it was heavily breaded in the sky. Yeah. Let me, let me quickly just say before, before cause, cause I didn't really get into what mine was, but Paul, you made the right, you, you made the right choice by being like, I'm not going to get the far, the forest one because it's too much fried stuff. Yeah.

And we were going to have hush puppies to start. We're going to have hush puppies to start. We were, so you were going to repeat some stuff, but I, I made the mistake. I thought the name Bubba's after the storm bucket of boat trash was funny. Yeah. I thought it would be a good time and, and, and it wasn't, it was not good. It was the flash fried shrimp, uh, fish with Cajun spices and a steamed cluster of snow crab, uh, served with French fries.

And it came in kind of a bucket. The crab is just, was too hard to eat. And also it was cold and I couldn't crack it open. I agree. Like when I, I had a piece of your crab and I was like, it's fine. It's like middle of the road crab. Yes. But, but, but just the pain of even getting it and it was like the shell was,

it was just hard to break. I hate bucket service too. Yeah. Come on. Like get it out of the bucket. Like why don't I dig in in a bucket? Like, like I know it's hilarious. It was a bucket of boat trash, but it's like, but now I have to force

to eat in this novelty. I don't want to do that. I want to like put it on a plate like a human being. Like let me, let me throw my shells in the bucket, but like don't present it to me in a way that now I'm like, find, I have to find extra room on the table or this small plate to hide my shell. And then you were yelling at this at me the entire time. I was mad.

I was like, come on. Put it on a plate. Get it out of the bucket. You know, there's a great restaurant I went to in Florida. Another chain there. They put buckets in the table and that was a great thing because it's like, boom, peanut shells in the bucket, crab legs in the bucket. Boom, boom, boom.

Music and they just keep on removing that bucket. Like I want that. That's great. I think that's it could, it could have used some creativity like that. And also the other thing too was, it was a bucket, but then it was just flat on top. So it was just a plate. There was nothing.

Yeah, there wasn't a deep bucket. It wasn't a deep bucket. It wasn't really, it was like a bucket. If you turn the bucket upside down, but anyways, the, the, the shrimp, it just had, you guys talked about the breading. I, the, the breading on these ones were, it just was kind of like the same breading, boring taste across the board with the shrimp and like they got a little soggy from these crab legs that were on top of them.

And the fries were all right, but there was so much of that fucking spice on it that even the fries weren't really good. The best thing was the Cajun spices, the Cajun spices were all over the fries. And I was just like, it's too much. And it just kind of, it just, it made it have like kind of like a, the entire thing just kind of had like a, a, a sandy, uh, um, like, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Like a gritty?

Yeah. Like a, like a, you know, but, but worse. No, that's not, nevermind. Yeah. A gritty course kind of taste to the entire thing. Like it just, it just, what word are you looking for? Those work. I'm not going to think of the word.

Uh, granular granular. Okay. It was like a granular texture, like just across the board and it was all, gotcha. I gotta tell you, it feels like this restaurant is served off of a boat. Like it does feel like, it doesn't feel like high quality seafood. It feels like, yeah, yeah, this is what we got today. Like the quality is roughly boat food. Sure.

I agree or, or, or at best cruise ship food. Yeah. Um, do you think that the Doughboys listeners, one of their favorite parts of the podcast is you trying to help me come up with adjectives. That was impressed with granular. Well, cause it's always you being like, uh, you know, it's like, uh, uh, the same color as, uh, uh, uh, is a Tom Brady's helmet. Like, like, like what's silver?

No, like the, the color of the part where the guys holding the football. Like blue. Yeah. Blue. That's the word. And Mitch, I was saying that this has must have been a real, a real bummer for you because, uh, last night, uh, Ben Affleck made a great case for your, uh, your Patriots and, and to come off of that highlight of last night to feel

vindicated and, and deflake it to then have this disappointing meal. Yeah. It was, it was, I was very happy that Affleck talked about everything that I've tried to tell everyone on this podcast, but I'm just not that good of a public speaker. Sure. Uh, he, he, he was, he's very well informed and educated and he made an, and he's handsome and he's nice to look at.

And he made a nice little case. What if, what if when Weigar is sick or, or, you know, he has a rest or whatever, you move in, uh, you move in Ben Affleck here, the two of you guys can go out of there. I promise. I bet you I didn't profile the podcast. I think so too. I think I know if that's you.

Hey, look, he just does every now and then guest villains. On deadline. Weigar out. Affleck in his. Doughboys host. What the. London in between shooting the Justice League to talk about Kukaroo. That would be a much, much better podcast.

I kind of hope it happened. But, uh, yeah, no, the, the, the, the kind of the, the texture of it all was just kind of, it just had that sandy, shitty kind of taste to it. The, the Cajun fish was the, my favorite of the bunch. It was, and I, I asked him some for some Tata, uh, tartar sauce. Sorry. And, and I was just dipping the, the, the Cajun fish in there and I, cause it was enjoying it.

And they looked at me weird when I wanted tartar sauce, which I thought was pretty normal. It's very normal. It's a good restaurant. Yeah. I don't know why it seemed kind of weird. But, and they give you ketchup and, and Bubba's hot sauce on the table. So it's not like they're being stingy with the sauces.

Um, and then for dessert, we got the best of the best sampler, the hook line in sinker, uh, which was mama's Warren bread pudding, homemade biscuit topped with fresh strawberries and melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chips cookie Sunday. I'll just say real quick, that chocolate chip cookie Sunday was the highlight of the entire experience for me. That was the single best single best fighter of food I had. Here's the bookends. Yeah.

Yeah. It, what, what, you know, I don't normally like a cookie Sunday because, uh, you get a couple of things. One, you get a cookie that doesn't feel like it's actually a cookie. Yeah. Uh, or you get a cookie that's cold. Uh, this was like a warm, almost like, uh, right out of the oven. Like it had every taste of a cookie, but you, you could just get it with a spoon.

It was great. That cookie consistency in the ice cream worked perfectly together. It was a kind of like the ideal, like brownie Sunday kind of thing. But this is, I thought that was great. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was one of those things I took a bite of it and I was like, where the fuck did this come from?

How like, how like, this wasn't what our meal was like at all. You know what I mean? Like a different caliber of food, a hundred percent. And the other two desserts that were fine, they're both capable, but I think that that cookie Sunday was, uh, was just delicious. I didn't get up in arms, but I was a little disappointed that you guys aren't, both aren't, uh, fans of bread pudding because there was bread pudding. And then what was the other one?

Like a strawberry? Yeah, the strawberry, the strawberry, the strawberry was, yeah, maybe a little dry. The, the bread pudding, I thought was fine. I, I'm okay with bread pudding. I think it has to be great for me to be totally on board with it. But if it is, if it's a great bread pudding and moves up to like the top of my dessert. Interesting. All I'm gonna say is this, it's like, you can't judge those two other desserts

effectively because it would be like, I don't know, pick a very try. Like it would be like, like Jennifer Lawrence. Like, I, like, I don't know. Like, like that one dessert was so highly elevated. Yeah. That like you're just saying, you're just watching either. You're just nothing else can compare to that. It's like, I already blew it out.

It's like, well, it's not as good as that. Yeah. So I can't even judge these other ones against it because the other one's so high. It's so big. It was like a Ben Affleck. And you, why are you like Tom Brady? If you have Tom Brady, right? You can't look at any other quarterback.

Cam Newton, not to Tom Brady. No lie. Yeah. A hundred percent. It was like, yeah. It's a Tom Brady and then Trent Dilfer. Yeah. And like, who's another and like, who is a who is not Joe Montana's backup?

Not Steve Young, but the guy who backed up Steve Young. Oh, Jesus. I don't, I don't know. Rich Ganon. Oh, Rich Ganon. Rich Ganon was a Raiders quarterback. Why can't I think of a shitty quarterback? Rex Grossman.

All right, fine. He started. Tebow. Tebow, shitty. Let's just talk some more athletes who could beat the shit out of us if they wanted. They can't catch me. All right, let's get to our final thoughts. I'm going to start a rumor on the podcast that I'm fast.

That would be a huge surprise to me. All right, let's get to our final thoughts on this, on this chain. So, Shere, we'll go around. We'll, we'll sort of give our closing argument and then give us your rating from one to five forks. We will start with you. Okay. I had very high expectations going into Bubba Gump. I had great memories there.

I know that we don't rate with nostalgia depending on the person, but I'm going to go without nostalgia. I was expecting a better meal, but I will say we're this place. Upgraded itself was in the atmosphere, uh, the fun of the place. I love the, I love the license plates. I love the drinks. I love the desserts. And I'm going to say if you start strong and you end strong, you'll forget what didn't work in the center. Yeah.

So I'm going to give it a, a bold, well, first of all, yeah, I'm going to give it a bold three forks because I left there going, that was fun. I had a nice time and while the food wasn't the best, I understand it's not going to be the best because it's kind of that chain restaurant, but it was the bookends really, it would have been a two. It would have been a two fork with it. If that dessert didn't come through, I think it would have been a whole different story for me. I really agree with how you summed that up. It was fun.

When I was leaving, I was like, that was fun. I didn't really enjoy the food. You know, Forrest says that life is like a box of chocolates. And the Bubba Gump Shrimp is also kind of like a box of chocolates in that, and with a box of chocolates, there's a lot of shitty ones that you don't like. And for the majority of them, I don't like chocolates and I don't like a box of chocolates. And it's kind of shitty, but then you get a couple good things here and there. And you get that maraschino cherry.

Yeah, there you go. Stop all your head. It can make and I think with this place, if you pick and choose, you pick your maraschino cherry chocolates out, and those are maybe the drinks in the desserts, unless you hate maraschino cherry chocolates. But I'm saying, whatever your favorite chocolate is, there's just not a lot of good stuff from what I saw. And the shrimp just needs to be better for that. But it seems like it's doing well and there's not a lot of places like it. And it's a place that's like baffling because of its success.

And it's a movie that's 20 years old that we went over all of this. How is this place still successful? And I think it's because it is unlike any other place. Besides Red Lobster, there's not a lot of seafood places. But Red Lobster doesn't have that sense of fun. It doesn't. Red Lobster is doing that charade that Cheesecake Factory does over at Grandville, whatever that place is. Like, no, no, no.

100%. This knows what it is. This is just like a step to the side of like a Benignans or TGI Fridays. And I think that's what makes it work. I 100% agree with you. And I had fun and I liked my drinks. And you know what? You kind of convinced me.

I was going to go two and a half orcs. I'll go three because I'll go and get those desserts and I get those drinks. And I enjoyed myself. It's that weird thing when the bottom line comes down to it. I enjoyed myself. Yeah. And I think that's a fair assessment. And you know, as far as my thoughts on this chain, you know, oh, fuck off.

Your mom always said, hey, stupid is as stupid does. And as far as my assessment of this chain, yes, Forrest Gump is a simple man. This is perhaps a simple restaurant in terms of the food execution. But I think it does a great job just as the film takes you on a tour across America through these different eras. We see a little bit of Forrest playing ping pong in China. We see him experiencing the horrors of the Vietnam War. We see him inventing novelty slogans like have a nice day.

We just see all these things that remind us of having a good time. And I think the restaurant does the same sort of thing. Classic America, China and Vietnam. Don't derail my argument. What I'm trying to say is there's a lot that we that reminds us of the good and the bad. And I think that's the set. That's what America is. There's a little bit of good.

There's a little bit of bad, but it all kind of goes together in this this big tableau that gives us our self identity. We get the same sort of thing in the bubblegum shrimp company. We get the goodness of the cocktails. We get the mediocrity of the food. We get the we get the great way we get some some great camp and atmosphere and some nice service. And, you know, like like a lot of nods to the film, but a lot of nods just America in general. I had a great time with you guys.

And I think that's what this is all about. I agree with you. Three forks for bubblegum shrimp company. Wow. Look at that. So that means that it's in the hand holding club, which is nice. Yeah, we all and since it's in the hand holding club, it's also a member of the ballpark. Oh, shut up.

Because we're all in the same ballpark. Did you guys like the Viet Cong shrimp? It was really I was one thought I had that I didn't get a chance to even mention, which is like it was a restaurant conceived. First of all, it's a restaurant conceived by a writer. Right. Like some writer who wrote the farce gum book was like, yeah, here's a fucking dummy. He's like, you know, like Google a bunch of shrimps and they have Google back then to go to the library.

But no, and then just write that. And that's fun little part. And then they actually created a restaurant on not and it's a bad idea. It is a bad idea. It's definitely about this is the best review we've given to a shitty shitty place. But I think it like your idea. It's America. Yeah, like the rock doberfest restaurants that we had.

It's kind of like campy and that that's part of the fun. I think it does a good job of that. I saw I got to go back to that point of there's so much stuff on the menu that is named after its mom is favorite thing. Bub is favorite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jenny's thing, all dead characters. It's a weird, it's a weird crypt of a place. It's oddly depressing.

Yeah, the Jenny's blood cocktail. All right, that was Bubblegum Shrimp Company. It's time for a regular segment. We got a beverage and we're going to determine if it's worth pouring down your throat. It's Drank or Stank. So share. I'm going to toss one of these to you. There you go.

Wait, Mitch, there you go. So just as we talked to talk to barrels, a good amount earlier for whatever reason, we appropriately have little hug fruit barrels, which is something that our producer Dustin picked up for us. So we, a lot of people would recognize these. These are these kind of drinks that you had in elementary school, probably right around when Forrest Gump was coming out for a lot of listeners. Bug, bug juice is like kind of like it has that kind of it's like pre-packaged bug juice.

Yeah, it's a little kid drink. It's a little kid drink. Looks like Windex. It's got the same color. Yeah, it's 100% right. And what kind of flavor is this? I think it's blueberry. It's blue.

Let me check. It is blue. Blue raspberry is what the box says. Let's see if these hold up because I did enjoy these when I was younger, but Paul looks like he's not having a good time here. You know, while I'm drinking this, I'm reminded real quick something I meant to mention earlier. Our intern U-Song was telling us before we started

that he had his first drink of alcohol at Bubblegum Shrimp Company. Oh, wow. That's right, yeah. He lied about his age and they didn't card him and he got an IPA. Well, guess what, U-Song? We're turning it in. I don't know. I feel like this appeals to a kid's palette.

As an adult, I'm not sure why I would drink this. I would like to see it chilled. Yeah, chilled would be better. It feels like you should pour this into water and then mix it. You're right. It feels like concentrated. It's a little too rough around the edges. Yeah, so you have a child and a child on the way and how does it make you feel

that if they would be drinking something like this? Oh, it would never. I mean, I get freaked out when he drinks orange juice. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I'm like, that's too much sugar for you to have. Yeah. Yeah, I feel, this is strange that these were like cornerstone.

But these are a cornerstone, I feel like, of when I was younger of kids' lunches who brought lunches from home and didn't buy the lunch. I think they might have, they've kind of fallen out of favor. And I think this is now kind of, you know, it's maybe a cost-friendly option. But I think, yeah, maybe people are a little more health conscious in terms of what they're going to give their kids. I mean, you know, I think a kid's palette, I think my nieces and nephews might like this because it is just so sweet.

But for me, it's just overpoweringly sweet. And even if this was a cocktail and had a little bit of booze in it, I don't know if I'd want to drink this. This is a stink for me. It kind of has that little thing that hits you in the back of your, the back center of your tongue where it's like, it's that kind of sweet. It's not, it's like, yeah, it's a, and like I said, it feels like concentrate to me. It's a stink for me.

I will also, I just can't believe that I used to love this though. But maybe it was different. Maybe it was, but was it this, was it this sweet? Dude, little kids really have that, like it's that different of a thing that they like things that sweet. I guess so. I don't know. That's crazy to me because I still like sour patch kids and stuff.

Or, you know what I mean? I love a sour patch kid. Yeah, I like, I like sweet stuff. Our senses dull over time. Yeah. I don't know. Okay, Jesus. Running on empty air.

Yeah, stink. Yeah, that's a unified stink there. That's a stink. All right. Hey, before we go to the question, can we just talk about some fun, quick news? I know, I know it's a long one today, but they announced some Star Wars characters and you were excited about it, right? The Rogue One characters?

Oh yeah. I'm excited to beat this. They announced a few different characters. Maze, Maze Busman? What's his name? Let me, I want to get the name up to confirm. I wasn't prepared for this or else I would have put this in my show notes. But I believe the name is Baze Malbus.

Baze Malbus. Is that, that's not Forrest Whitaker, right? No, that's not Forrest Whitaker. That's one of the, one of the supporting characters. Yes, Baze Malbus is his name. Baze Malbus, are you excited? It's a weird name. Yeah.

It sounds like a fake Star Wars name. I'm still excited about the movie, but it's a weird name. I will bring you back to something that you may not even recall. The two of you with Ryan Perez just having a good old time about Constable Zuvio. Constable Zuvio, yeah. Who doesn't even appear ultimately in the film. It does not appear in the movie. You know, we don't know how much their names will be said.

Yes. And I think that that's a very big thing because I would argue that for many of the characters in Force Awakens, you know, it's like even Maz Kanata, I'm like, eh, it's Maz, like that sticks out to me more than her whole name. I feel like it's context. Yeah, you might not get a lot of it. It might be an Uncar Plut situation where you never hear his name spoken. All you hear is this iconic phrase, one quarter of portion.

Yeah. For all the listeners. The goat, the goat on the, on the trilogies, Mission Impossible, Star Trek, Star Wars, doing it up. All right. Just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Dan, aka atAntonSquaredBeat.

Dan writes, in college, I lived next to a place that specialized in taco pizza. I really loved them and liked that it came with sour cream to put on top. After college, it took the next level by putting large amounts of sour cream on any type of pizza, taco or otherwise. Seriously, you guys need to try it. It's so good having a thick layer of cold sour cream on top of the hot pizza. Fuck any of you that grimaced or made any sort of wheezer bar at my expense. My question, are there any foods that you eat in an unconventional way?

Thanks. P.S. Hashtag Nangang. Dan, yeah. I mean, I'm sure I have some weird tastes in terms of consuming conventional foods, but I certainly don't put a thick layer of sour cream on a pizza slice. I gotta tell you that Dan and I share a similar thing. Yeah.

You're a creamer? You're a sour creamer? I don't understand this to be. I am a creamer. I cream all the time. I did not know this to not be the way to do it, but my mom, we used to get Doritos. I loved Doritos as a kid. Doritos is one of my top, if not my favorite snack.

I also quickly say that Human Giant made one of the funniest sketches that Doritos got. Oh, Doritos, yeah. That's great. Thank you so much. But my mom would be like, I feel this is how you eat Doritos. We dip each Dorito into a sour cream. Really?

I like that. That sounds good. That sounds good. And that's essentially Taco Pizza because it's the same idea and it was a great, cool, it was really good. I have to say this to Dan, I'm with you. I don't know if I love the idea of a taco pizza because a taco pizza is just a really taco with different soft bread.

Yeah. I mean, it's almost a burrito. Just have a burrito. Yeah. I don't, I mean, if it was a taco pizza, I would do the sour cream. If I get like a cheese pizza, I don't want to put sour cream on it. It sounds a little, I won't give it a try, but it sounds a little much for me. I, you know, like I would have a lot of weird shit that you do.

I have some weird things. But my mind went to fries in a shake, but that's not that weird. I think enough people do that. Here's one that I'll confess that I think is a little strange. There's an episode of The Simpsons where there's a, it's Barton Lees are playing hockey and Homer asks for a condiment. And they send him mustard. They whip over mustard and he's like, hey, ask for ketchup.

I'm eating salad here. And then he puts mustard on his salad and it's like meant to be like, oh, Homer's so gross. He's having mustard on a salad, but it kind of works. Oh my God. Like here's the thing. Honey mustard is a dressing you'll have? No. Like I don't know.

No, you won't. You'll have a honey mustard vinaigrette. Yeah. I'm not saying like it's like, oh, that's like the perfect dressing to have. But if you've got like some dry grains and you've got some leftover mustard. I'm glad you're not saying it's the perfect dressing, but if you've got some dry grains and like, okay, let's say some, some mustard and mayonnaise came out of your sandwich and you've got some dried greens on the plate, you can just mix that up and it'll be totally

serviceable dressing. I enjoy the honey mustard aspect of it. I get that, but I'm picturing like yellow mustard. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's the makeup of most sandwiches. It's mustard, tomato, lettuce, and then meat. So you're just thinking of the meat and the bread. Paul has given us a lot of his time tonight and this is the first instance I've seen

of him wanting to leave. Because you're fucking mustard salad. He was asking us to confess an unconventional eating thing. I'm not saying it's a thing I do all the time, but it's a thing I've done and I think it works. Barbecue sauce also works as a salad dressing. Oh, God. That's fucking disgusting.

No, it works. It absolutely works. No, it doesn't. Yes, it does. No, it works. A barbecue chicken salad works and you can have a little bit of barbecue sauce with ranch. I think you can take some mescaline greens, put a little barbecue sauce on them. Not too much because it's very potent, but I think it's not.

No, that's fucking gross. No, no, no, no. No, no. This is disgusting. You're really mixing it up here. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Who is this fake e-mailer that you can just fucking confess all this shit?

I'll tell you the thing that I never get, I see when people do it, is ketchup on steak. Yeah, that's a little weird. That I never go to town on. I don't like that. When I was younger, I did it and I don't do it anymore. I used to do steak sauce and then I kind of even grew out of that. Now I'll just take a well-seasoned, well-cooked steak. Do you have any weird food consumption habits mentioned?

Anything come to mind? No, not like you. That's for sure. I can't top you. I like ketchup on scrambled eggs sometimes. That's good. I think people kind of get weird with that. You know, sometimes I like a bagel.

See, these aren't even that strange. Yeah. A bagel with cream cheese. I remember this from back in the day, or an English mother with cream cheese and then put jelly on top of the cream cheese. Yeah. I used to do, I mentioned this before on the podcast. It's fun.

I would have, for breakfast every morning, I would have a bagel with butter on the bottom. Butter on the, as the first layer. Cream cheese is the second layer and jelly is the layer on top of that. What? I would have butter, cream cheese, and then jelly. Jesus. Wow. Yeah.

It was excessive. I remember I watched a rerun of a TV show. I don't even remember the TV show at the time, but I used to mix milk and coke together. And I thought that was tasted really great as a kid. Whoa, that's crazy. That's insane. That might be the craziest thing so far. I remember loving it.

I think it was so good. I've heard of people, I've actually heard of people putting creamer in their Diet Coke. I've heard of this a couple of times because it's like, so maybe that's where it comes from. I mean, I guess it's like, it's similar to Roop Your Float or something like that. Yeah. Like a meanish. I don't know.

Barbecue sauce with my milk, I'll do that. Just a little bit. However you want to eat is fine. I'll say that as long as you're not hurting anyone. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at dowboyspodcast.com, dowboyspodcast.gmail.com, check out our Facebook page, Dowboys. Follow us on Twitter at dowboyspod. We have a free second, rate and review us on iTunes.

Paul Shear, thanks for coming here. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I'm a huge fan of this show. Oh, thanks for saying that. Paul, you're one of the funniest and then also one of the nicest guys around. There was an instance and I did this show, filthy, oh, it changed the name. Oh yeah, now it's filthy prepeteens. Filty prepeteens.

One of my favorite verses in that show, you're so hilarious. Oh, thank you so, and thank you, and you wrote a thank you to me and I was like, I should've given you a thank you and that just shows what a nice, you're such a nice guy. Two of the nicest guys in the biz right over here. Oh man. Everyone's nice all around. Don't drink that casually though, you just picked up the hug. It's going to wreck this whole moment if you just slugged down a hug.

Do you have anything you'd like to plug, Shear? You know, look, check out, bubblegum, check out Forrest Gump. See if it holds up and definitely, you know, tag that with, you know, yay or nay, you know, run Forrest Rund if you thought it was great and hashtag stop Forrest Stop if you thought it was bad because I think we need to check it out. That's right, we didn't have any hash, that's great. I do want to hear people's review of Forrest Gump. Oh, they'll be sending those fucking stupid memes too, you fucking asshole.

Yeah, hashtag Mitch Gump. That's it for this episode of Doe Boys, until next time with the smooth man Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigher, happy eating. See ya. Bye bye.