Doughboys - Buca di Beppo with Drew McWeeny

Episode Date: January 12, 2017

Film writer Drew McWeeny from 80s All Over and formerly of HitFix and Ain’t It Cool News joins the ‘boys for a family style taste of Italian chain Buca di Beppo. The ‘boys discuss movie snacks and food films. Plus, a special listener submission edition of The Wiger Challenge.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Feral Audio Joe's Basement No, it's not the unreleased sequel to Joe's Apartment, the 1996 Gerry O'Connell Cockroach buddy comedy. It's the rough English translation of the name of one of the biggest Italian-American restaurant chains, which began in the basement of an apartment building in Minneapolis in 1993, while predecessor and competitor of the Olive Garden states in their slogan, When you're here, you're family.

This eatery makes family part of their core business concept, serving its dishes in giant communal portions intended for sharing. Italian-American food has a long-standing relationship with Italian-American cinema. In Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci's Big Night, Italian food is itself a character. Films The Godfather, Lady and the Tramp, The Freshman and Spaceballs include Italian food in memorable sequences. Recently, the original prestige TV series David Chases the Sbranos featured the obsessive eating of mobster Tony Soprano, the virtuosic home cookery of neglected housewife Carmela

Soprano, and the ongoing travails of tortured beta male chef Artie Bucco, whose restaurant in Fasuvia was repeatedly exploited by its mafia clientele. The show even included as a cast member the real-life owner of Italian restaurant Reo's, Frank Pellegrino, who played FBI Chief Frank Cubitoso. And of course, there's Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese's 1990 mob movie where mafiosos refused to pay huge restaurant tabs, prepare gourmet dishes in prison, and stop off between a murder and a corpse disposal for a home-cooked Italian meal. The film also includes a brutal scene in which, after a minor insult during a poker game,

Joe Pesci's Tommy angrily guns down the teenage spider, played by young Michael Imperiali, later Christopher on the Sbranos. The poker scenes take place in a basement. Today, the second most notable lower-level and to Italian-American culture, Joe's basement, the basement of Giuseppe, nickname Beppo. This week on Doughboys, Bucco De Beppo. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're a part of Ferrellaudio.com.

I'm Nick Weiger, alongside the former president of the Harvard Lampoon and SNL's resident John Kasich impersonator Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man. How are you, Mitch? We're still doing Joe's Spoon Man. Another edition of Joe's Spoon Man is opposed to Roast Spoon Man, where I insult you. I'm trying to be less contentious in the new year and comparing you to Colin Joest from Saturday Night Live, which I know is one of your favorite shows you watch it religiously. I thought you'd appreciate that.

Well, first of all, even if you're trying to be funny and say, like, I hate SNL or something, we have a lot of friends that work on that show, so I'm not going to be like, I hate SNL, which I don't hate SNL. You watch SNL a lot. Yes, I know. But that makes it sound like any time you say, like, Mitch loves something, it makes it sound like I hate something. I wasn't being sarcastic.

I was saying you watch it a lot. It is one of your favorite shows. Now I feel like this Joe's Spoon Man is a Roast Spoon Man. It's not a Roast. If it was a Roast, they'd say something insulting. I don't think there's any insulting about the comparison. Fuck, dude. Fuck, damn you.

I'm doing well. You know what? I just want to say hi to Spoon Nation. You know what? I am literally pulling the drop up right now. So this could be bad news. You've had over a week for this moment. I've had over a week for this moment.

I'm about to push play. Okay, this one's 47 seconds. All right, great. This will be fine. Okay, great. Here we go. Here we go. Oh, fuck.

Come on, isn't that a fair shot? If you want my secrets, you'll eat my sandwich. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Spenser, you should really listen to your drops. I was hoping this would happen when I was the guest, but we'll see. Was that actually Spenser? Was it from Spenser? I think it might have been from Spenser.

Oh that's fun if that was from Spenser. No, it's from Mike Kylie. Unless you got a little fake. Or your friend Mike Kylie. Maybe he's got Nailius. Maybe. Is Mike Kylie Spenser's alias? Mike Kylie is Spenser's Chris Gaines.

It's his alter ego. Well I liked that one. Spenser, if that was you, that was fun. And whoever, if it was actually Mike Riley, a great job too. Mike Kylie, then great job too. Or was it Mike Riley? Who gives a shit for him now? It's over.

It was Mike Kylie. I'm doing well. You know that I had been sick for, around the beginning of November I got sick and I was sick for like two weeks. You had a few different bouts of illnesses that have come and gone. I think we figured it out finally. And then I was like for a week I was better and then I got sick again and then about a week ago I finally got better again.

I woke up on Saturday. I couldn't swallow. I just couldn't swallow. And I was like this is weird. I've never had this sensation before. So I went to the WGA Health Center and I said I can't swallow and they said well hold on a second. And they sent me into a doctor and I had strep throat.

It's a bummer. Yeah. I had strep throat. I had no idea. And I wonder, I don't know how long you can have strep throat without, I'm fine now by the way. I've taken the Z-Pack. It's over with.

But I don't know how long you can have strep throat without knowing it or what the deal was. Also I gotta say my doctor was, he was kind of like, listen, my dad was sick. I love doctors and I love nurses and I love people in the medical profession that put in time and care about patients. My mom was a nurse. It's an impossible job. It's an impossible time.

A lot of people doing it. A lot of sacrifice. A lot of great people doing it. This guy was just one of those doctors. It seemed like he did not care. Sure. And it was frustrating because I was like trying to tell him my whole saga about being sick and how I don't know what's going on.

He's like let me guess, it's the holidays and you've been like getting fucked up. I was like, no. And the answer is I really haven't been drinking. I haven't been drinking at all and I have been sick for a really long time and I haven't understood what, I mean this podcast, most of all sleep, which I've been doing bad with sleep and you and I talk about this and eating with the podcast is kind of besides that I've been going to a trainer. I've been doing all right.

And he was like, do you have any marks on your body? And I was like, yeah, I showed him this mark that like, all of a sudden I got a scab on my arm. And I was like, this is like a spider bite or something. I didn't know what it was. Turns out you can get, these can appear because of strep throat I've read. And I showed it to, because he was like, do you have any marks? And I don't even know why he asked me for marks.

I showed him the marks and he's like, you got to start washing your towels, dude. And I was like, I wash my fucking towels. I'm like a big bearded guy and I like don't shave and I'm chubby. And so I feel like people are like, that guy like properly smells like shit and like uses like an old towel. Like I don't do that. Also was your doctor Sean Penn from Fast Times at Ridgemont High? It was, it was a, I can't, I couldn't think of the, the movie where he's bald and he's

wearing the fake. No, what's, I am Sam, is it I am Sam, maybe the one where he's mentally challenged. Yes. No, no, no, no, it's not. I am Sam. Okay. Forget I even try to say anything. Um, uh, no, he was just kind of like a, this, I feel like a guy who's ready to go home for

the holidays. Yeah. And so I was kind of, I was annoyed by that, but I, but I took antibiotics and I'm good to go. Maybe wash those towels, buddy. So you don't, so you don't have to watch stick monitor. I wash my fucking towels. I got two of them.

Yeah. I got two, that's how I, that's how I do it. I got two towels at any given time and I, I, I use it. I switch off between the two towels and I, and I wash them too. I don't, I don't go more than like two weeks with two towels or something. Right. You rotate them in and out. Yeah.

I think you're a hygienic man. I trust that you take care of yourself before like, I'm not a, I'm not like one of those, I'm not one of those big guys who like smells or something. No, you're not like a grimy guy. I think it's just, I honestly think we've talked about this a little bit. I honestly think you need to get more sleep and I think that that will go along with, because you also don't get restful sleep. Even though you're a guy who like sleeps in, but it's not because you're sleeping for

like 11 hours. It's like you're going to bed light and you're sleeping a small amount of time. We've talked about that. That's one of the most frustrating things in my life is like, I have this reputation of like that guy is like a sleep or something and I like probably sleep. I probably don't get as much restful sleep as, as, as the people who get mad at me for that, but whatever. New year, things are changing around it.

I think that I'm, I think, I think that these antibiotics are finally working. I think I'm, I think I'm back on the road to recovery. So let's hope so. And speaking of the new year and speaking of things changing around, Mitch, you are booking our guests for this episode and, and five separate episodes, six episodes. Can I just say it's gone pretty smoothly so far. It's gone to, we have a great guest today. I'm, I'm very impressed by who you got in here.

Um, let's kick things off with the Spoonister six. Why settle for one ridiculously over the top supervillage when you could have seven ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the sinister six. Was that from Spider-Man turn, what does it turn? Spider-Man, turn off the dark. Turn off the dark. The performance of a freak like me needs company on David Letterman, uh, several years back.

I didn't realize you said seven in that. I thought it was six. Oh, that, that's okay. Cause I am one of the. You are one of them. Yeah. I'm one of them. Okay.

You're included. Okay. Um, I wonder what was going through David Letterman's head as that song was going on. He was probably so fucking angry. I hope the FBI finds my kids safely. Oh my God. Was that contemporary when that, when that was happening? Jesus Christ.

Oh, anyway. Letterman's a legend. Um, that was in poor taste. We'll delete this. Let's introduce our guest. Uh, we're, we're very, very excited to have him. Uh, you may remember from our Rogue One minisode, which, uh, came out last year. He's a writer and film critic from Hit Fix and Ain't It Cool.

Uh, check out his new site and podcast at all80sallover.com. Drew McQueenie. Hi, Drew. Hey, thanks guys. Oh, thanks for being on here. Thanks for being on here. Uh, before... Drew, we got to say, I think Weigher and I both think, when I was reading Ain't It

Cool news and stuff, you're, you're, you're my favorite guy to read. I got into Masters of Horror because of you. Oh, thanks man. Yeah, yeah. You've, you've, you've written some great stuff over the years and, and we're really happy to have you. It's exciting because I just appreciate it. I, I'm a fan and I have, I've really enjoyed the podcast.

I, I love the ups and the downs. I, I love Susser the Hand Grenade when he rolls in and blows things up. Oh boy. So it is a kick to be on this side of it and to actually be here. Thanks. Oh, we're happy to have you. God bless you. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, and I feel like we've talked about this before, but if, if we didn't do a food podcast, we talked about kind of movies and TV and, and, and kind of pop, pop culture-y sort of stuff. So... We kind of don't do a food podcast. I mean, we don't have the criteria to do, we're, we're done. The credentials.

No, not at all. The credentials. Thank you. We're, we're, we're, we're kind of, I mean, I'm the dumber man. You are known to be the smarter man, but we both don't know things about food. Right. We're not well educated on the subject. Yes.

We just have strong opinions. Yeah. But, Drew, this is one thing and, and while we're on the topic of, of movies and your writing, we, we were at dinner earlier, or lunch, or lunch rather, um, and we brought up a piece of yours from back in the day in reference to Jurassic World, which was the John Sayles. And who else was, uh, John Sayles and William Monahan, the guy who won the Oscar for the departed.

That's what, yes. The two of them had written a draft of what was originally going to be Jurassic Park 4. Back in the day, and years ago, we read a write-up of yours, and what were the details of this Jurassic Park 4, the original take of this? It was so crazy because it felt like they, they had decided that, and I remember Spielberg at the time was giving interviews where you'd say, we finally have it. We have the idea. Yeah.

This is it. And it makes me laugh because then when you read it, you're like, is this really the idea that got him that excited? Really? It opens with a baseball game, like a little league game, and a tyrannous, and a pterodactyl comes down out of the sky and grabs a little leaguer and flies away with him. And we learned that the dinosaurs got off the island and got to the mainland and kind of blew the cover of everything.

So everybody knows now what happened. And then it cuts to a guy who is hired, like a mercenary, to go back to the island from the first film and find that shaving cream can with the embryos in it. Yeah. They're going to use that. And so you think that's the movie. You think, okay, the whole movie will be him looking for it. But he finds it like eight pages later and he's on the island and there's like nine new

kinds of dinosaurs that have evolved. And you're like, okay, I don't know where they're going. A military helicopter comes in, takes the shaving cream can, kills the dinosaurs, takes this guy hostage, and he wakes up in a castle in Bavaria, where then he is introduced to the raptor human DNA hybrids that they've raised. They can speak English and that they are going to use as a military team to take out drug dealers and kidnappers and stuff. Didn't they have like, I think they had dog DNA added for obedience or something?

Everything. They're like a soup of all this stuff. And so they all have their code names. They all have wacky personalities and they go out on adventures. And in the second half, they have like machine guns that have been built for the dinosaur arms. It's so great. Truly one of the weirdest big budget films I've ever read.

Well, all I know is that I'm going to inject Weigur with some dog DNA at some point. I don't think that's how it works. You can just inject it. It might work. All right. If it makes you more loyal, Weigur, more loyal to you. Yeah. I don't think I'm disloyal.

You know, you know, the craziest, well, maybe you'll just give me your paw. The craziest part to me with, because that story is crazy. And also we had the realization, or I did at least, when you were talking about that story, I was like, oh, I know of this because you wrote this story for the website a long time ago. The craziest thing on Earth to me is that that parts of that remain in Jurassic World. Yeah. And you can see some of it.

The Raptor stuff, you can see where they went, OK, so we're going to take the part of this idea and we're going to give it to this creative team and say, well, we like this or do this. You can see how it's still in there somewhere. Yeah. You kind of have the most toned down version of that where Chris Pratt takes his squad of Raptors and takes them into the jungle to try to fight the bad dinosaurs at some point. If a Raptor was about to attack us, we would finally let our feelings go and embrace and

possibly hug and kiss. In our last moments, just sort of hand over hand, holding each other on the beach as a Raptor charges. We see a big flash of white. Yeah, I think it's possible. There's a chance. There is a chance that with everything that's going on, there was a part of me that felt like we wouldn't, like Jack Allison is the author of this idea, but the fact that we

won't get to the, like the world will end before the new year. And there's a good chance that like, you know, if there ever, if a nuclear bomb ever goes off that will be in this little podcast together, if that recording, I'll just say this. If they're, because right now we're recording this episode in late 2016 and planning to release it in early 2017, if we get strong signals by the end of this month that the world is going to end before 2017, we will release this episode before the end of the year. Fuck yeah.

So, so everyone can go out and wave goodbye to Planet Earth listening to Doe Boys. Listening on two times speed before the bomb drops. Yeah. Let's get through this shit so I can listen to Marin. This guy's so, there's someone out there who wants to finish all the podcasts. Interesting. All right, Drew, let's talk a little bit about movie snacks, because this is the thing that's come up on this podcast before.

I am a popcorn skeptic. I don't love popcorn. This is the dumbest shit that he does. Also, you got so mad at me when I said that you don't like fries, which I know that you do like fries for fuck's sake. Don't get angry. But this is just as crazy. You're a popcorn skeptic.

First of all, that means that you think that popcorn doesn't exist? No, I think that it's, I'm skeptical of its essential nature. There's just no proof that it exists. It might. It exists, one. Two, it's the best snack you can have in a movie theater. It is. I think the existence of popcorn, to be clear, I get that popcorn is real.

Like I understand that popcorn is real. I acknowledge popcorn's existence. I just don't think it deserves its status as like the movie snack. We got to have popcorn. I think it comes down to economics, because it costs like four cents a silo for the people buying the corn, and I think that's the real thing. It's a total profit driver for the place, so that's why it's always been the center. Once you work at a movie theater, that was my first, like, after I turned 16, that was

my first gig that I got, was at a movie theater, of course, just so I could be close to movies. I am also, I worked at the AMC in Braintree, I worked there one summer after my senior year. It's a rite of passage. Weigert, did you do it? No, of course not. And you learned to hate popcorn very quickly, and you also learned not to trust popcorn very quickly, because like they would store it in bags in the back for days and then put

it back in the thing to heat it when they were running low. Yes. And people would buy it. This is the grossest thing on earth, because I still got popcorn, but when I was, the way that we did it at Brainerys Cinemas, it's probably different now, but they used to, like, they had this front area that was like the popcorn maker, that you could see it on the other side, so it was glass, and it was kind of at the bottom, and you could see the popcorn, so it was like in this big kind of bin, like not on the ground, but like

a little elevated, and I was just like going down to this and scooping it up, and I was just, I remember sweating, and I was sweating into the popcorn, no doubt about it, and then you would scoop up the popcorn at the end of the night, and you would put it in bags to save it, and sometimes there would just be this bag of popcorn on the floor of an elevator that went upstairs, like it would just be on the floor, like cooked popcorn that's just sitting there, just sitting on a floor, and it was like that, that's just where you were storing it until the next day? In general, if teenagers are the ones in charge of handling and storing your food, probably

don't eat there. Yeah, that's problematic. And theater food in general, I like, Arclight has pretty good caramel popcorn. It does, you know what though? I like that, I don't get it often because you can't. I think that they have a great regular popcorn too, I got a thing with Arclight, and this is gonna not matter to a good 80% of our listeners, maybe 90%, but that's okay, that's what this public cast is all about.

Real quick, if you're not from the LA area, Arclight is a local chain of kind of luxury movie theaters, at least they were when they originally started about it 15 years ago at this point. And they're like stadium seating, beverage service, just really, really, they were very kind of like, whatever stadium seating theater is aspiring to do now is what Arclight was originally innovative. Yes, exactly, yeah. And we talked about the Alamo Draft House, we didn't have an Alamo Draft House out here.

This to me was like, oh, this is like the nicest kind of movie theater I've ever been to. And it's like a decent roomie, which, you know, like I went to the El Capitan to see Rogue One and the seats are tinier and it's kind of like more, a little bit more squished in there. The seats are nice there. The quality of Arclight has gone downhill and I'm gonna take a bite out of someone right now.

I'm gonna take a bite out of anyone who ever takes their cell phone out during movies. I want to kill you. Oh, boys, if you just take your phone out at all, just leave your phone in your pocket. But that's not an Arclight's fault. I know, but Arclight used to be good with that. They used to not let you come into the movie if you were late, which is bad for me. They used to not... They used to not let you take your phone, like they were on top of shit like that.

It just feels like the product has kind of just gotten a little bit more cheap lately. And I saw Rogue One for the second time at Arclight the next night, it was opening night. I went to the 1230 show. The screen, it stopped three different times, the projector, the bulb burnt out, it was overheating. And three different times it went out. That's no good. That's crazy.

And people were going nuts. They weren't gonna even give us a voucher for a free ticket and then it took so long and the sound was still going that they're like, here's a voucher for another ticket. Then it happened again, they're like, we're gonna reimburse your money and then it happened the third time and they just stopped and they said, we had to leave. And so the group I was with hadn't seen it. That's fucking crazy. It was insane.

And so the group I was with hadn't seen it and they just walked into another theater and I was playing it and so we went and watched it. Then I went down afterwards and I tried to be like, we want our money back or whatever and the guy wouldn't give it to me because we went into the other theater and I was like, that's fucking bullshit. And for one of the first time, I never liked any, it was just kid with a fucking smug look on his face. I don't like to ever get in confrontations but I was like, you ruined the movie for

my friend because it wasn't even my money. Armin had paid for the tickets and I'm like, you ruined the movie for these guys and you should pay them back for their money and you should give them a free movie ticket and you shouldn't care that they went and saw the movie. It's crazy. And the movie guy was like, all right, first of all, sir, stop crying. He was probably close to saying that. Second of all.

Any time I've ever, I feel like I've gotten into like interactions like this like three times in my life. Yeah. And I've probably been close to tears each time. Right. Yeah, you always feel like, okay, I'm going to put my foot down in this sort of confrontation and then like, like for me anyway, like I get super like, this is not my, I asked for an iced tea and I'd only, I never got it.

You know, all of a sudden I'm like very, I'm like scared for my life from someone who is just, whose job is to accommodate me and provide customer service. Well, it didn't annoy me because I worked at a movie theater and I'm just like, give them whatever the fuck they want. Right. It's nothing. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. Just make it right with the customer. Yeah, that's, that's how I feel too. You got to make it right. I used to, years ago, I worked in customer support at Activision. Um, there's another time when I used to work in video games, which is the thing I say a lot in the podcast, apparently. Uh, but.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But I worked at, my first job at Activision before was a game tester, I worked as a customer support rep. So people would call up and be like, hey, I got this problem with, you know, like I bought this video game and like it's not working. And a lot of times it would be something like they bought a PlayStation 2 game or trying to put it in their GameCube and you just have to be like, oh, you got to return that or

whatever. Um, but sometimes there'd be someone who'd be like really mad and really livid. And my supervisor was like, there was a, there was basically a panic button thing where you could transfer it to my, to your supervisor and he would like take care of things. And he always had this attitude of like, you know, like I'd, I'd, I'd put him on, I'd go out and go to him and be like, Hey, I got this guy, he's just like really pissed off. Like do you mind talking to him? And they always be like, no problem, man, I got this guy, send him my way, I'll take

care of this guy. Like kind of like this little badass and they'd transfer him over to him and he was like one cubicle away from me and I hear him go like, sir, I am so sorry. Like we, we, this is unacceptable. So like he was positioning himself like a badass, but then he'd just like totally go the other end of it. Little coward's corner over there. Right.

Right. They specifically groomed men with like low self-esteem so they could grovel in front of angry customers. Were you working on, uh, was this around the time of, uh, uh, what was it called G4? What was the, the, the bike racing game for Nintendo 64? Oh yeah. They had a, well. I kind of remember some Activision games.

There was a BMX one around then. I can't remember what it was. It was, it was. It was a Dave Mira? Who the fuck? No. It was like an F-Zero type game, but it was, it was like a, it were bikes. You know what I mean?

You don't know what I'm talking about? You know, one release I remember from around that time was Gods and Generals, which was a really, really bad PC port of the, of a terrible movie, a terrible Confederate war movie. Do you remember this one, Drew? I don't remember a game version of that. I can't imagine it would be any good though. You remember, do you remember the movie though? I do.

I do. I remember the miniseries. Very strange movie, but yeah, that was one of the games, but what were the high profile releases around then? Like 2004, 2005? Was this? Oh, okay. So this is after.

Yeah. This is like GameCube PS2 Xbox era, just, just before we, just before the, the next gen after that. The Golden Age. I guess you could call it the Golden Age. I was just kidding. I don't think it's that, particularly that game. No.

Nothing particularly notable. Um, you know, the Tony Hawk games were really big around then. Like Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 or whatever that, you know, like the Tony Hawk, that was a big part of that. I never, I never was a big Tony Hawk fan of the, of the, I like him as a man. He seems fun. Yeah. The games seem kind of pointless.

Yeah. That just seems kind of boring. But I met him once. He was very, very nice. Yeah. I met him once too. It was also very nice. I played his stunt double.

Oh, you know, that was the same day of shooting Tommy Bang Bang. Yeah. I played his stunt double in a sketch and you played a, a dumb PA. Yeah. Who got his head conked like a coconut. That's true. Right. Wow.

We just made a podcast for our mom. Remember that time you were on set with my Tony Hawk, Mrs. Weigher and Mrs. Mitchell will love this podcast. Um, wait, our sons are like 34 and 36. That's the highlight of their career when they had like two lines on a cable show viewed by like 30,000 people. All right, shut up, you fool. Jesus.

Um, Drew. Uh, all right. So. Oh yeah. I got a question for her. Please, please. Weirdest order you ever got at a movie there. Weirdest order.

Yeah. Um, I like, uh, one of the reasons that I love the draft house is because they'll do special events where they feed food and they'll, they'll do things that you don't expect. Um, when they showed, I was at Butnamathon for the curious case of Benjamin Button. Oh yeah. And there's that scene in the movie where Tilda Swinton in Russia teaches, uh, him how to drink vodka and eat caviar and about four minutes before that scene came on screen, the waitstaff brought a shot of vodka and a cup of caviar to every person.

Oh wow. So that as he's doing it and she's saying how to do it, eat the caviar, take the sip of vodka, let it melt on your tongue, you could do it with the movie and have that exact sensory experience. That's awesome. And I think with that, it's such a, it's such an unusual thing that a lot of people have never done that combination that it was perfect and all of a sudden you had that memory for the rest of the movie.

That's so cool. That's great. The weirdest order that I saw was a lady came up and ordered a thing of bonbons and a side of butter. Like for dipping? That's all that I can assume. Like the melted butter? Yes.

Melted butter. You were allowed to say no. I had to give it. For her sake. I know. I needed to see it happen. Oh wow. Uh, yeah.

It was very strange. Um, Drew, let's quickly talk before we get into the restaurant, which I know we're gonna do soon. What are some of your favorite movies of the year? Do you have any in particular that you love? I just did the whole big catch up because there was a period of a couple of months there where I didn't see anything. I left Hit Fix and I was getting a new thing ready and I just, I dropped out.

Um, so I just caught up. I really liked American Honey. Oh, okay. Um, I thought it was beautiful and I thought really unusual. Manchester by the sea, I think is really strong. And I'm really curious how you reacted to that one because it's, it's Quincy. It's that, that's so, to me, it's just, for you, it's gotta be strange to see them doing their version of what Quincy is.

Right. It's very, it was very interesting to me. I, I, I've said this joke a couple of times now, I think to you, Weger, and maybe even to you, Drew, but the funny thing to me is that the most depressed man on earth goes to a basement in Quincy and that is like literally where I'm the happiest on earth is in this little basement in Quincy. Right. And I was like, what's the big deal?

I mean, obviously we won't give away the movie. There's some sad stuff that happens in the movie, but I, I liked it, but it, there were some things I didn't love about it. I, I like, it's, it's, it's such a weird movie to me that's like, like so much of the movie is about this kid getting laid too. And I'm just like, it's kind of like, it's like, The kid, the kid's on his own. Yeah.

The kid is on his own little journey and it's kind of weird. Like, but I did, I did, I did enjoy it. I guess it didn't really, like, if you're going to show Quincy, I guess you might as well show a basement. I guess that's, I like to rival a lot. Yes. I thought that was very strong. I think there's, I think there was a lot of good stuff this year.

I think you had to dig a little harder. Yes. I think the big budget stuff this year was very safe and a lot of them fell down the middle. That seems like a pattern. Yeah. It wasn't a great year for big Hollywood stuff. Right.

It was, it was noticeably kind of bad. It was, it was, it was, I actually, I weirdly liked, uh, I weirdly liked the old, the old men, the, the old white men directors that I, that I shouldn't like. I like, I liked, uh, Eastwood Sully. I liked, I liked Eastwood Sully. I liked that a lot. And I liked, uh, I liked, I liked Taxaw Ridge a lot. And I, and I liked some, I liked Zemeckis.

I like Ella. I liked, what is it? Ella, yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed that as well. And those, like those are like, 20th century women. I haven't, I haven't. That's really good.

That's terrific. Yeah. Um, and beautifully written. That's, that's one of those movies where the screenplay itself, just a lovely piece of writing, and then Greta Gerwig is the perfect Greta Gerwig for that. Like it's a role that she was designed to play. That's, um, I think I, I, I said this to you guys before, but I'm going to be a hero when I, I have some, I got some screeners.

I'm going to, I'm going to be a hero when I bring home these screeners to my mom. And we're going to watch all these screeners together for like a week in, in my basement in Queens, right? That's a great one to take home. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm excited about that. I'm excited to see, uh, loving and I'm excited to see fences and a few other ones that, that, that I, that I hope are pretty good.

I think the nice thing about loving is it's super subtle. That guy, Jeff Nichols, um, he doesn't have a showy bone in his body as a filmmaker, and there's a version of that movie that would be the down the middle Hollywood movie where everything was a crescendo and everything was played as a big moment. Everything was a giant triumph and that's a really quiet, tiny little film. And that's why it works. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm excited.

I loved, uh, I really liked, uh, was it midnight special? Yeah. I liked that. I was, that was a nice, weird little moot. I really enjoyed that movie. May something. Moonlight too. I want to see, I got, I got a, I got a good stack of them that I got a big

backlog. I got a backlog. I do myself to catch up to, um, Drew, on that same topic, I'm curious, favorite food movie or favorite food scene in a movie? Um, big night is really hard to, hard to watch and not need to eat. Like I know smokers who can't watch certain movies without having to step outside and smoke a cigarette right through. That's a food movie where you better be eating something because it looks

insane, uh, um, Tempopo, which is an old Japanese film. Uh, that's pretty terrific. Um, and I, I really liked chef a couple of years ago, the John Favreau film, right? I thought I had a really nice attitude to, uh, the way the food was treated in the movie, the way it was shot. It wasn't, it didn't like go overboard or anything, but I also thought it did a really nice job of, it's one of the first films I saw you social media, the

way people are using actual social media. Sure. Do you know what's, you know, it's weird about, I saw a food truck that, uh, that was like bait. This is like the basis for the movie chef or something. Cause I've never seen, I haven't seen the movie, but there was a food truck that had that, that claimed to be like, like the inspiration for chef. That's probably just a lie.

Well, when they, no one would call, no one would call you out on it or maybe, or maybe used in the movies. I don't know when they came to South by Southwest cause Roy, uh, uh, yeah, it's Roy Choi is the guy who did the actual cooking for the film and created the recipes. Oh, okay. And so when they did the, um, premiere at South by Southwest at the end of the movie, you walked outside and the food truck was there and they served everybody.

So that was another case where like reality started, but they made that for the film, like the food truck was designed for the movie. I definitely liked it. It's just a lie. I might just be alive. I think that's cool if it's a lie. Just plain lying, just fabric and who was going to check him right there. You can get away with a committed lie.

Yeah. Hey, by the way, did you know that we got voted best podcast of the year? We could just put that, like if we just put that on our Twitter bio, everyone would just play, Oh, cool. Best podcast of the year. Great. Ever. People would just take that at face value.

Cause why would you lie? What reason would you have to do it for the dollars, baby? The money that rolls in from being the best podcast for you, um, the money that rolls into restaurants that we go to and spend our own money at, you know, one, one food movie that this, this is an obvious choice, but I really like ratatouille and I really like the food preparation in ratatouille. Like it's like, what's wrong with ratatouille? You know, I like ratatouille, but I knew you would have picked

some fucking children's movie. I don't think, I'm not sure how much of a children's movie it is. It's got some dark part. It's definitely PG. It's, it's veering on PG 13. It makes one of the strongest cases I've ever heard for good criticism. Yeah. And, and demolishes the idea of bad criticism utterly.

Right. Um, which I think is a very tough thing to do. And Brad Bird is a guy who doesn't take criticism terribly well. Yeah. So I think it's a really mature thing he does in the movie because I, I think it's harder for him in real life than he makes it in the film. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah. Cause that, and that, and he's a genius. Let's put that out here. He is a genius and that's his last great movie. Maybe, uh, I hear that every, they just started recording yesterday for Incredibles 2. Oh man. I hear that the reason it got moved up and everything else got moved

back is cause the script came in and they all went, oh, that's it. Oh, it's great. It's going to be great. How can it not be great? It's going to be great. He wasn't going to do it unless it was like there was, he held out for years and years and they begged him and drove Brinks trucks full of money to this house. Like it was until story, until you had the story idea.

Oh, so listen to yourself. It's going to be great. How could it not be great? What the hell is going on? I'm bullish on Incredibles 2. I think it's going to be good too. Tomorrowland was a little bit of a let down, a very confusing film, but Incredibles 2 I think is going to be great.

Tomorrow, yes. Tomorrowland is a strange one for sure. Just, you got to choose the, when one wolf is hungry and the other has a look of fear in its eyes. Go with the stronger wolf or whatever the message was. I love that you're quoting no one, literally probably any. I bet you'd be confused by that. Yeah, there's a big thing in that movie about what wolf you should choose.

It's very strange. Drew does this professionally. He has no idea what the fuck you're talking about. No, everyone forgot about that the second the credits rolled. They're on that wolf shit just just rolled right off your back. All right. Let's get into a restaurant. Oh, I have, I have.

Oh, go for it. Well, besides Spaceballs and Pizza the Hut, my favorite food movie is probably Goodfellas. Goodfellas are a great one. That scene, like that scene where they're, where they're eating dinner and Martin Scorsese's, and Pesci's mom's. Yes, is it Joe Pesci's mom? Yeah, it's Pesci's mom.

Oh, okay. I thought it was Scorsese's mom. No, I mean in the movie, but it's Scorsese's mom in real life. So yes. Okay, yeah, okay. But yeah, it's Tommy the character's mother. Yes. And yeah, the Italian cooking that is laid out on that table is pornographic.

It's so, oh my God. It's so great. And then they had that great scene where they are looking at the picture with the dog and he's like, that one's going that way. He looks like our friend. And then that guy is in the trunk and they don't know that. It's, it's, it's so, it's like one of my favorite scenes of any movie ever. I love it so much.

There's a lot of good cooking in that movie. I referenced my intro a little bit, but they've also got the, the scene, obviously the scene in prison where they're cooking the gourmet meals. And then you've got, you know, there's all, there's so, there's so much that's happening at restaurants just through that, you know, like walking through the kitchen to, to impress. Lauren, Lorraine Brocko's character. One of the great scenes.

Yeah, that's great. Just, you know, all the steady cam shot you're talking about. Yeah. Am I, the, am I, you know, like, like what you think I'm funny, you know, like that, that scene where he's not paying the restaurant tab that that takes place in a restaurant. Like so much of it, so much of that involves like meals and food. It's, yeah, it's, it's very interesting.

I think in film school is they were like, I had one professor that was like, you should, in any film you write, you should put, you should put someone eating it. Like you should have a scene where people are eating. And I was always like, that's fucking dumb. I mean, at the time I was like, that's stupid. And now as I get older, I'm like, it's really revealing. Right.

It's truly revealing. I, it's very social. Like you learn a lot about how somebody treats other people or how they value things, just from how they handle like family meals or, we have so many consequential moments of our lives while we're eating. Like whether they're first dates, you know, whether like people, a lot of people propose at meals with, we have memorable fights with our families at meals, holidays revolve around eating.

Like eating is like a huge part of just being a human being and being social. It's, it's a really, I don't know. Yeah. Of course some, it's, it should be a big part of Sitiba. Yeah. And, and, and, and every time, like, uh, and I guess one of my complaints when we did the, the row one breakdown, kind of like, uh, one of my complaints about both of the newer Star Wars is kind of the passage of time or whatever.

And it happens in a very compressed time frame, it seems like. Yeah. And, and, and meals kind of like, oh, it's the dinner or lunch or, you know what I mean, like it gives you kind of that sense no matter what. We want the, like in the hobbit when there are all the dwarves are washing dishes. That's, let's see, let's see. Bayes Malbus belt out a tune while he's scrubbing some plates. I feel like there's a little out of place, but also Bayes Malbus isn't that bad.

I think Bayes Malbus is great. We'll see that's the most memorable name. So attack of the clones where they actually go to a fifties diner. Yes. For some reason, there's a diner. That's really, really weird. I like that. I kind of like the prequels, but that's a very hard to defend scene.

It's like the fifties. It's good. Dexter Jett, what Jack Dexter? Is it Dexter Jett? Dexter Jett's here, I think. Oh God, Jesus, Lucas. They got, they got Fonzie's jacket on the wall. It's very disorienting.

I was going to try to defend him and his name is Dexter Jett sir. Yeah. It's Dexter Jett sir is better than all of Force Awakens. Dexter, Dexter Jett sir himself. And Yoda eats the little breadstick or fish stick. Our friend Charles Ingram was just talking about how he loves that scene. I love that An Empire Strikes Back, him, him going through and nibbling on things. Real quick, one, one detail on Goodfellas.

I'll just mention this because I've read the source book, Wise Guy, that Goodfellas is based on Henry Hill's memoir. The there's a detail in that scene where they're with Martin Scorsese's mom, Tommy, Tommy, Joe Pesci's character's mom in the movie, and they're all eating while they've got the corpse in the trunk. And there's a little detail where Robert De Niro's character, Jimmy, is just like dumping ketchup all over his pasta. And it's like it's just kind of in the background.

But if you read the book, Wise Guy, that character, the real person, Jimmy, I forget what his last name was, his Jimmy Conway, maybe? Is that right? That's Jimmy Conway, half Irish, half Italian guy. And but he loved ketchup and just put ketchup on everything, including Italian food. It was just like a little character detail. And there's just like a little subtle nod to it in Goodfellas that you kind of a blink if you missed it thing, but it's a nice little detail. Oh, that's great.

Yeah. Are you a ketchup guy? You're not a huge ketchup guy. I'm fine. I'm I'm fine with ketchup. I like ketchup. Eggs and ketchup are the other the ones I would do that. And some people even think that's weird.

Yeah. Scrambled eggs and ketchup. I will use ketchup. But, Drew, what do you think on ketchup? Are you bullish on ketchup? I especially for like a scramble or something like that. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's but on pasta, I don't know. Yeah, I don't fucking know. That's weird. Yeah, that's strange. What's the weirdest thing you've ever ketchuped? Hashtag. Help us out here, Ryker. Hashtag what?

Hashtag. Catch up yours. Oh, fuck. Oh, God. You put me on the spot. What do you want? Yeah, this is what you do to me a lot of the time. I try to I try to toss you alley oops, you can slam dunk.

I'm trying to throw the ball careening out of bounds. They asked you to hit a miracle shot. A better player would hit one. All right, let's talk about Bucca de Beco. Oh, boy, a boot. What am I? Fuck. Can't find my tongue.

Let's talk about Bucca de Beco. God damn it. I think the name is designed to make sure you can't say it. It's it's a little trip down the tongue. It's it's it's such like a Bucca de Beco. It's like if there was like it's such a weird name that I'm like if there was like an Irish I was just thinking about it as an Irish man. If there was like an Irish restaurant that was like Patty's Potato Wagon.

You're like what the fuck is like it's very it's a little too Bucca de Beco is too much. It's as I mentioned my intro Bucca de Beco basement of Joseph is what it translates at Joe's basement. Oh, well, that totally explains it. All right, it sounds Bucca de Beco sounds like what a hacky stand up is like making fun of Italian people. It does. Here's what I think I think they because it opened in a basement.

The first location was in a basement. And I think they tried they reverse engineered like let's have something that involves basement but also sounds super Italian. And even Beppo is like an unusual nickname for Joe for Giuseppe, which is Joseph in Italian. So like but they're like they sort of like really like fudged it. And so I think it's pretty it's pretty shoehorned in there. And yeah, it's intentionally kind of, you know, a trip of the tongue.

I should I should open up a Quincy basement restaurant based on Manchester by the sea. There's a utensil you can utensils and a gun you can hold. The saddest breakfast of the world. Here's the you sit at a at a table. The chairs are used the same couch cushions that you sat bear asked on to play in 64. They're all tables for one. Yeah. Quincy, Quincy basement. You would love a Quincy.

But I got to get I got to get you to Quincy basement. You'll probably be buried in one one day at your hand and my hand. Yeah, you're going to shoot me like a spider in Goodfellas for sure. Oh, definitely. No, no, I'm going to shoot you like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Oh, boy, when he's about to get made. I think I'm walking into her for a big party. It's like my 40th birthday is going to get made. And that doesn't make any sense.

OK, sure. That sounds good. Sounds vaguely positive. You say you're 40th birthday party. Yeah. All right. So this is like a flashback. I would just say this, that would be kind of the cruelest way to kill me by surprise, because I really really want to revel the onset of my own death, because I'll be the most calm I'll ever be knowing that it's coming.

And if I'm just blindsided from that, if you robbed that moment from me, that's kind of the worst insult of all. There might be a few seconds. We don't know how long you'd be able to tell that you were shot in the right lying there. All right, rooting for you, Nick. I hope it really takes a long time. Thanks, Joe. Probably long enough to hear my fly coming down.

Jesus Christ. Wow, that took a left, man. Are you going to piss on my corpse? Who knows? Or violate me? Jesus Christ. What the fuck? Dealer's choice. Anyway, it's getting back to food.

All right, Bukitabepo. This is a chain you suggested. I've been to Bukitabepo a number of times. Is this a favorite of yours, Drew? What's your connection to it? Not necessarily. I just I having listened to the show for a while, like there's a similarity to a lot of places like Burger Places or fast food Taco Bell type places

where it starts to become variations on a theme. And I just hadn't heard you guys do Italian, really. Yeah, we haven't done too much. We've done the Olive Garden. And is there anything else beyond that? Unless you're counting pizza, not too much. Yeah, no, not really. It's weird because Italian is such like a common food in America.

I'd say it's it's a lot of people's favorite food. I have to say Italian is my favorite is my number one. But how many Italian chains are there? Very few. Very few. A lot of a lot of them are just like people's beloved local Italian restaurant. That's what they think of or they think of just home cookery. Yeah, no, for sure. I feel like all the Italian places I love back in Boston are kind of like the local

of the local spots. But in that is what makes Bukitabepo so weird is like and it is because there are so many Italian restaurants in the world and like they were like, we're going to try to recreate that or whatever. But it's not it's like it's it's it's that weird thing where I feel like other restaurants aren't recreated in that, you know, like Olive Garden is a similar thing where it's like it's like an Italian eatery or whatever.

Very art directed. It is. It absolutely is. There's there's a quality when you walk in. It's appropriate that we went to the universal one because there's a quality that it's theme parky. Right. There's something like you're going to a theme park version of an Italian restaurant. Yes. Yeah, which I don't think I realized how much that was true. And maybe the one today is just excessive, but really walking through there,

it felt like somebody had thought about every inch of wall space. Yeah, no, like how to make it super Italian. Yeah, the universal one is not the exception. They are all like that. They are all very over the top. I've been to four different bouquet of bepos and each one has been just as gaudy. Do you know what? Do you know what? It's like it's like it's like maybe five kind of like the chain

which these exist, but like like a local steakhouse. Or you know what I mean? Like it's it's it's just such a weird unique weird thing of. Yes. And that's how it's been in the cellies here. I have been in the cellies. It feels like they're trying to do the packaged version of a machelli for sure, which is right down the street almost. It's very it's very close by.

And that's a place where authentically they just have wine casks hanging. They have a dude who plays the piano and sings. Yeah, that feels like an old school real place. Yes, it's been like that forever. Yeah, and it's it's so it's it's so like like an Italian restaurant like that of like there's a there's a guy playing piano or accordion or whatever. It's like it feels like early 19 like when like Italian like when Italian Americans were new to this country or something.

Yeah, I mean, it's like this weird holdover of like this new food. Or it's it's it's it's such a strange it's such a strange thing where the culture is so much on display or what what is supposed to be the culture is on display. And it's also too. It's it's a connection to how a lot of us have seen this is via films and via TV. You know, and I think it's trying to kind of be a representation of that because, you know, being established Boogatababoo came around in the early 90s. And so a lot of time in a lot of ways it was like a reaction to Italian American

cinema and the way that food was presented on that. Like I like I think so, right? Yeah, I think I know you're probably you're probably right. Because you see like pictures of like Rocky on the walls. I mean, they're not subtle about tying themselves to Italian American. From Outback Steakhouse. It really isn't in being like overly winky winky about what it's doing. Sure. That's a good call.

It's just that there's something about the Australian one that's really cartoony. They can't help but be cartoony. And Boog is not quite that cartoonish. Because at least Italian food exists. It's not like like the the the bloomin onion is not like the national national food of Australia. That's not like it. It's not the national food of Australia, which I hate to tell you. But Australian nationals don't tear up at the sight of a bloomin onion.

What are they? So veggie, they really love veggie. You know, I don't know what it is. But it's yeah, I think it's closer to things like that already on the show. We we've just forgotten everything she's probably told us. We have some Australian listeners, too, out there. Yeah. So any Australian Doughboys fans? Down Under Eatings. Hashtag. Hashtag Down Under Eatings.

Yeah, that's a good one. That's a yeah. Yeah, Mitch. Give yourself a compliment. A lot a lot better than what was the catch up one? Catch up yours? Catch up yours, Jesus. What the hell is Down Under Eatings superior? That's not even attempted anything.

Nice and basic and clean. I guess it's literal. We'll take a quick break or we'll be right back with more Doughboys. Welcome back to Doughboys. We're here with Drew McQueenie, discussing Boca de Bebo. So our meal today, we went to the Universal City Walk, which is right adjacent to Universal Studios. We're used to be a tour guide, you were telling me, Drew.

Very early 90s. It's funny that we talked about Jurassic Park, because I was there when they were shooting Jurassic Park. That was a tour guide. Jurassic Park, just recently, we were all while they were shooting it. We were we were listening our favorite Spielberg movies. Me and a few other guys, Weiger, you included. Yeah, Jurassic Park.

I know that that's like one that like people who love Spielberg are like, oh, that's like his big popcorn movie or whatever. It was a giant year for him, because it was that and Schindler's back to back. And it was pretty much like to do the biggest popcorn movie of all time. And I can win 75 Oscars at the same year. Right, like that. I don't think there's ever going to be a bigger Spielberg year. Jurassic Park is like one of my favorite movies.

I love I can't help but love. I mean, I was the perfect age for I love Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park, one of your favorite movies, Schindler's List, one of your least favorite movies. You don't like the message of it, right, Mitch? I mean, how can you? It's just so fictional, boy. I love Schindler's List.

Of course, I got to go, fellas. Good choice. Our engineers are walking out and everyone is gone. Well, I just I just saw that eighties all over.com has been taken off line. Sorry, damn Schindler's List is one of I love Schindler's List. That was the issue with with listing favorite Spielberg movies is that I'm like, they're so different. They're so hard to make a top five.

I love Saving Private Eye and I love I loved Bridge of Spies. I love so much of his stuff. So but that that must have been an amazing thing to witness. It was weird because we would sneak on and we would see the dinosaurs on the soundstage and the T-Rex soundstage that they had to stand Winston thing on. We got onto one night. That's fun. And it was because I've seen photos of God.

God. And but we still didn't know how they were going to look moving. And so they showed it to us three weeks before he came out. They brought all the tour guides in. And they showed the Alfred Hitchcock Theater, which is one of the big screening rooms on the lot. And for those who haven't been to a studio screening room, the Alfred Hitchcock is where they did final sound mixes.

So we saw it in the room where they did the sound mix for that movie. Wow. And they had it cranked and seeing it that first time where nobody knew what the dinosaurs would be like. The temperature in the room during the T-Rex scene went up about 15 degrees. Everybody started to sweat because everybody was so freaked out. Like nobody knew what was coming. That was a lightning bolt moment.

Because you realize at the end of it, it was like, well, he just, that's it. That's unreal. He just did it. That's awesome. And so for three weeks, we were on the tour telling people, you have no idea what's coming. It's, oh my God, it's amazing. And that's why they did it, was to get us revved up.

What a different time. Because can you imagine, like, there is no way that they would. Can you imagine ever having excitement like that? Yes. But also, like, there's no reality where they would have taken, you know, a bunch of Disneyland employees and shown them Rogue One three weeks before it was released because everything's so locked down now. That's, that's so, that is so cool of them to do that.

That's so awesome. Yeah, it was great. It was a great time to be there because we had free access to the entire lot. You could run around and do stuff. I have photos of me sitting in the Flintstones car with my feet through it, just because. That's amazing. And yeah, it was a fun time.

And I, like, three or four years after I moved to LA. So it was a really good early L.A. job. That's a great early L.A. job. I was a CBS page, which is kind of, that was, that was a fun early L.A. job too. Yeah. No, anytime you get to run of a place, right? It's good. Oh, yeah.

I had the wheel, which is so much lame or compared to the T-Rex. Yeah. The fucking price is what right wheel that I could go up and look at. That's pretty cool. Did you ever play Plinko? I did actually, because you know what? I was there for the transition when Bob Barker was leaving and, and Drew Kerry came in, he was coming in and they got CBS pages.

By the way, a lot of the pages were insane. They were like, like truly like weirdo. Like I was like, oh, these guys are crazy. And we got, but we got to play, we got, I got to play Plinko. I was selected as a contestant and I spun the wheel and guess what? It was slowing down. I was like, I'm going to get a dollar and then all of a sudden it just went to a halt and I realized that a crew guy was behind it and he just stopped it because

we were just playing a fake version of the game. And I was like, I would have fucking spun a dollar on the fucking wheel. I was so angry. Yeah, but, you know, he was a, he was a crew guy who could beat the ever living shit out of me. That's right. I didn't say anything. Not a lot of complaining.

There was no complaining at all. But, uh, that was when Bob Barker was leaving and it was so insane. Uh, I think I've told you this before, I was out front and I saw this lady and she was pulling food out of the trash and eating it. And, and she was like, one of these people who was in line forever to go see Bob Barker and I like, I went inside and I told my manager, I was like, Hey, there's like a lady outside like eating trash. And she went, Oh, they're eating out of trash again.

And she ran out of the building and I was like, Oh boy, they're eating out of trash again. This has happened more than once. She ran off to deal with it. I was like, Oh God, it was, it was truly like a madhouse. And like, I had to open up Bob Barker like mail, like they're like, our job was to handle the mail that got sent to Bob Barker and we'd send them like a type written thing back or whatever.

And so many, there were so many people who sent naked pictures to Bob Barker. Really? Still. Jesus Christ. Yes, it's insane. It was truly, it was a really insane. Like print photos. Yes.

Print photos. This, I mean, this is also a 2005. Yeah. 2006. So I guess like, that was back when, when Dick pics were slow motion. Right. It took commitment and time and energy and yeah, you had to want to send a naked picture.

They're not like your dick pic gifts that you send them. Oh, yeah. And I was like, it was a crazy time for those. That's, that's, that's yours. That's a, that's such a cool thing to witness. That's awesome. It was a cool moment. I don't think they really use guides the way they did back then.

We had to talk for two solid hours or, or three when we were out there and you would get stuck. You just had to talk. That's insane. And being a movie autistic super nerd, like a freak for every inch of that lot. I could do it. I could just sit there for an hour and go, OK, so this shot there, that's what that building was used for.

And that was fun. Could you, if you think you went, if you went back, could you still, I know the whole tour. Wow. Hi, welcome aboard the Universal Hollywood Super Tram, presented by Texaco. It's burned in forever, whether I like it or not. Well, Universal, it is, it's a great, it is a great spot for that restaurant because it is, it's big.

And the funny thing is, is that like, I think of Italian restaurants like that as very cool. Yeah. There are like pictures on the wall. There's celebrities. There's the red booths and stuff. And this is very not cool. It's, it's not, it's not a cool place.

Yeah, it's like, as Drew was saying, it's a theme park version. It's a, it is a theme park version of it. Nick, well, should we get into food or should we talk a little bit more about it? Let's get into it. OK, so we all, we all sat down and our waiter advised us that the small portions feed two to three people, the large portions feed four to five. So we were opting with a small for a little bit for the three of us. And we started off with beverages.

Drew, you got a Diet Coke. I went with the Italian Primo Margarita and Mitch, what your drink was the, you got a mule of some sort. Yeah, the Milan mule. Milan mule. Yeah. I didn't see, I didn't know, since what was Italian about my Primo Margarita. It tasted like a very sweet conventional Margarita.

Yeah. I have no idea what the Italian elements were, except for the word Italian in front of it as a prefix. And same was for my mule, right? Yeah, it was just a mule. It was actually like an overly sweet mule. Oddly, Drew's diapepsie tasted the most Italian. Now, were they at least strong because I got to imagine the point of the

drinks is so that mom and dad can get hammered and take the kids back to play with the Minions in the afternoon. I will say, I mean, I was on an empty stomach. Over Weigar to just go enjoy the Minions by himself. I don't know if you know this about Weigar, but he loves the Minions. I do love the Minions. I think they're great. They're a lot of fun.

Love the Minions movies. Love the Despicable Me's. I like that Minion mayhem over at Universal Studios. It's a fun ride. Jesus Christ. I think they're fun, adorable characters and they got great personalities and they're, it's a laugh a minute. They're pretty huge in my house right now.

Yeah. The kids are big fans too. I get, I get why kids like them. I get their appeal. Mm hmm. Yes. His kids like them. Look, I think Minions are great.

As Stuart has one eye, he's the cutest. Oh, Jesus. Go ahead. I'm sorry for distracting. Anyway, the drinks, my drink was strong, but you tasted mine and it was also not good. It was not great. I thought yours was, Judy, is the word cloyingly sweet. Yeah, it was good.

Yeah. Great word. Yeah. It was just like a little over the top and that was the same thing with mine. It was just like, I felt like if I got this in a Mexican restaurant, I'd be like, Oh, this is just like a little too much sweet and sour mix. A little, not, not quite enough tequila. I did get a little bit of a buzz, but I think a lot of that was because it was

on an empty stomach when I, when I drank the first, the front end of it. So yeah, I'm not sure how strong it was. I honestly say I've eaten a Bucca de Beppo before and I think they've got a pretty decent wine list. And I would say if you're looking for an adult libation, it's an Italian restaurant. Get a glass of red wine or glass of white wine, you know, up for something. They've got an extensive wine list. They get a lot of options by the glass.

I think there's their cocktails are a little bit too sweet. Kind of where we were in the same, this is the same complex where we went to Bubba Gump and Bubba Gump also has very sweet cocktails. I think that's just like a big thing of these theme restaurants is they just go too far in the sugar. I'm going to say that the Bubba Gump cocktails were, were, were a step above. They were better than these. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I just, I don't think this is a strength of Bucca de Beppo is their cocktails. I would stick to stick with their beer and wine. Well, they asked me the question too. And it's, it's, I'm always curious what your take on this is. They asked me, we have DiPepsy, do you mind? And my first temptation is always to flip the table and run out. DiPepsy, right? Yeah. Like, yeah, I do, actually, but that's what you have.

So of course I'll order it. But that question, do you mind always bugs me? Right. Yeah. So let's just tell me you have it or tell me you don't have it and tell me what you do. Yeah, it's Pepsi. OK. No, it's not OK. None of this is OK. But that's what you serve.

So, OK, no, go get me a Coke next door. It is, it is very funny because it's like, we're like, like sorry, we're a little stinkers, we have DiPepsy. It's like, yeah, no shit, that sucks. Yeah, if your product exists as something you have to apologize for, maybe rethink your business strategy. Coke is just, I mean, Coke is the clear winner. It's insane. It's right.

Is it, I mean, like these, like, I know that Taco Bell has it in that they actually do do some good stuff with their beverages. I tip the calf to Taco Bell. They do some mountain do stuff. That's great. But they don't apologize to. Yeah. Oh, no. There's no apology. At least that's just what they have.

Yeah, no, but it's that sort of thing of I feel like most places should have. And if you're going to, you know what, I think you're drinking one right now. But if you're going to have diet, get diet due. If you're doing Pepsi products, give me give me give me a few options at least. Right. Because I would maybe if you know if you said you had diet due, I'd say, huh, maybe I'll have a diet due. Maybe I'll have something else besides diet Pepsi if you don't have a Diet Coke. Yeah, I kind of feel like if you don't have Coke, maybe just don't have soda.

Like because I like how much more of a disappointment would that be versus like like Pepsi OK or just like, oh, we just don't have that like period. Like we have no options because Pepsi is such a compromise to a Coke drinker. Now, look, I was a Pepsi family growing up. My family drank diet. My parents drink that makes you insane. I drank Pepsi. I don't mind Pepsi that much.

It's on a podcast where the Star Wars prequels are defended. I think it's OK to stick up for Pepsi a little bit. But it's clearly the number two after Coke's number one. Like I get that. In 20 years, when they when you have your version of the jinx, I can't wait for you to be sucking down Pepsi. It's it's just it's just it's just not it's it's it's too syrupy. It's just not as it's it's the clear second place.

And yeah, it would probably be third place if there are there's there. What is RC Cola or something? Oh, I like real crown cola. That's great. I'm just saying, you know, you can't even get those options. That's why it's number two. Right. If it's if it's in a fountain, the only the only ones you're getting, unless they've got some weird artists in thing, are going to be Coke or Pepsi. Yeah. Yeah, the drinks, the drinks were a bit of a bummer.

Also, I mean, I like to look because, listen, I love Italian food. I even if it is the corny version of it, I'm like, I'm having fun. I'm smiling that I'm in this place or whatever. The the way when we sat down at first, I want to say it was a bumpy start because the waiter seemed very fast. He seemed like a micro machini guy fast. I was like, does this guy like not want us to be here? And then I turned I thought that he turned out to be a pretty good server.

I thought I thought he was actually was steering us in the right direction. But he seemed to be he seemed to kind of run through everything extremely fast. Yeah, he had kind of a flock of seagulls haircut. He did he did a great job, but he kind of had that little swoosh look. And I thought like a little bit of attitude at first. And then he softened as we went. I just realized I think it was like a little bit rushed. I think there was some lunch rush or something.

He was trying to take care of her. They were also repeated those things 50,000 times. He's got it down to where he says it is a sound that comes out of his face and he doesn't it's not words anymore. Yes, well, the chicken. Right. He has that whole thing down and prepared. And yeah, yeah, it's spilled.

It's kind of spills out of him. And I was the only one who who hadn't been there before. And I felt like he was like, I'm doing it just for this dumb ass. I didn't really explain the family style to you. No, he didn't. That's another thing. When you asked why why Bukit Apepo, I'm intrigued by the idea of family style restaurants because it's really hard to get right.

And there's a place in Austin, outside of Austin called the Salt Lick, which is a barbecue place. You drive like 30 minutes outside of Austin to get there. It's in the middle of Texas chainsaw country and surrounded by nothing. And but the food when you go, you order it family style and just plates of meat come to the table with sausage and brisket and ribs and rib tips. And it's amazing. And it's the best way to because we take like groups of 30 out.

You just have a table just pile with food that everybody's sharing. Yeah. And I think done right. It's one of my favorite experiences. And this is different because we bought it over Lockhart. We were talking about a little bit, which has, which has three different barbecue chains. And I went out to Austin this last year and it was like, that was like one of

my favorite moments in my life was going to these three, like, well, we only ate at two of them, but we looked at all three. Yeah. And it was like that to me was, was one of the best food days I've ever had. It was, it was so much fun. It's, and so different than any barbecue I had ever had. And it was so good. Well, he blew, he blew through this family style description to you today,

though. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like barely, barely explained to you what it was. He barely explained to me what was going on, which is, which was fine. I knew because what, well, Weigher ordered. So when we got into our orders, Weigher ordered the small versions of everything. And I was like, I don't know if that's going to be enough. I was kind of, I'm a hungry guy.

I was like, is that going to be enough food? And then it turned out to be way more than enough food. It's a gigantic amount of food, but you're right, Drew, that he kind of raced past a very crucial detail of this eating experience, which is that you're not ordering for yourself. You're ordering for the table. Yeah. And that does create its own difficulties, especially with this kind of food where,

you know, if you've got one person who's maybe a verse to dairy or doesn't like seafood, you're really limited in what you can get. So like for an Italian restaurant, I mean, I feel like you've got a kind of, I'm not sure how I'd feel about going to that place with someone who had a dietary restriction, because I feel like it would create a lot of problems for the table unless you had a larger party and they could just kind of be, be doing their own thing. But like if you didn't, if you were like lactose intolerant, I feel like it would

be very difficult to eat there with a part, with a family or with a group of friends. Yeah. Or you would just have like a gigantic bowl of broccoli. You know what I mean? Like you would have a gigantic, like that you would only be able to eat like a quarter, one quarter portion. What was that?

Mitch didn't quite catch that. One quarter portion. Oh, okay. Right. Right. Like Uncar Plut. Yes. Just like Uncar Plut.

Yeah. Um, so let's, I guess we can talk about what we ordered because we did, we did do family style. We did family style. For an appetizer, we got these things called the mini meatballs. This was a recommendation. I didn't get our server's name. He actually ended up being very, very helpful after his initial pick up.

Um, he recommended this. These were meatballs that we made with an Italian cheese blend sauteed in homemade marinara with house baked Italian bread. The first thing I'll say is over, I don't know what's, but I don't know what was the, the, the overwhelming taste in it. Like if it was like, I don't think it was a Reggino. There was, but there was something in the meatballs and I like a Reggino, but there was something, there was something in the meatballs that just like tasted

like a spice or, or something that was so overwhelming to me. Did you get the same feeling? I think it was a basil note. I think it's, was it? Oh, really? I think so. Okay. That's cause you're right.

It was very strong. Right. I will say this. I thought they tasted fresh though. They tasted like whatever they used in it, they actually cut like that. Like they started with vegetables, not canned stuff or anything. Like that. Yes.

I thought they, they were fine. They were, they were good little meatballs and I thought it was not an overpowering red sauce. Yes. I agree with that, but that, but whatever that, whatever that note was, it was fucking heavy. Whatever it was, did you feel the same way? Yeah.

It, I mean, there was a little bit of that overwhelming, an herb flavor is what you're talking about. An herb. Yes. Like, yeah, it might have been the Reggino. It might have been a basil, but yeah, it was pretty strong, but I don't mind it. I, I, I like fresh herbs. Um, I think it was just, it just, it just, like, like,

it kind of overpowered the meat a little bit, which was, I can see that issue with it. The meat kind of gets lost. But I mean, I think that's part of meatballs too. A lot of times it's like the meat is kind of buried or disguised and they're putting a lot of filler in there. And that might have been there. That's a part of meatballs too.

Yeah. Part of meatballs too. The movie with, was Bill Murray gone by that point? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Without Bill Murray. He was long gone.

Um, yeah, I, I, I wasn't, I, I didn't hate them, but they weren't, I was like, oh, okay, they're not my favorite. And this is, I had a bad drink and now I have had these bad meatballs. I'm like, oh no, is this, is this going to be a bad meal all around? But that's not bad though, right? You, you think they were bad? I don't think they were bad, but like, like, you just said I had these bad meatballs because I now feel bad that you guys liked them so much.

I didn't like them that much. I thought they were fine. I thought they were fine. Whatever that herb was, fine is where I am. I thought they were fine. I thought they, they, they tasted the others. It's clearly what they wanted them to taste like. Right.

But it is a very strong note that they, they had on them. And I thought the bread was disappointing. Bread was very weird. Fresh baked Italian bread. Fucking weird. I thought it was going to be something really good on this and it's not. It's just little slices of a very generic white bread. Yeah, it was real.

That, that bread was, it was like salad bar bread. It was just like a little, it was very, very disappointing. I guess, I guess, because it wasn't even warm. It was like room temperature. And also like that he had recommended this appetizer as being like the best thing. And also I was just like, I'm like, Italian food can be great. And it can, you can be, have it be simple and be really good. And I, but in my mind, I was just like, I feel like this might end up being a bad meal.

Yeah. Here's my issue with it too. I just, just to add one more thing and then we'll go down to mains. Seventeen dollars. I know. So fucking expensive. That was like a cereal bowl sized portion of meatballs. Yeah.

It was, it, you know, it was very, very small. I think we had, I think I had four meatballs. We, I think three or four. Yeah. I said three of us. I had three of fat fucking, you stole the meatballs from Drew and I. Right. We split between 10 to 12 meatballs among the three of us.

And that's, I mean, that's just not a lot of value for the amount of money we're spending for a place that's, you know, I mean, you know, it's not like a super cheap place, but I think it's supposed to be. They're pitching it as a special occasions place. Yeah. That's what, and if you look at their, their menu in the front room, that's clearly what their whole goal is special occasion. You're going to come here with your family to celebrate something.

There's something great. So yeah, if you're going to pay for that, then it should be great. It should be a celebration. Right. Yeah. Then we went and moved on to our mains. We got the spicy chicken rigatoni. Now, this was one of our server advisor.

He asked us if we liked spicy. Yeah. And we said, yes, we like spicy. And he's like, well, this is the spiciest thing on the menu. The spicy chicken rigatoni, which is, and then we all looked at each other and said, yeah, we like spicy. And then he went back in the kitchen and was like, all right, two guys out there who look like real pussies, make sure we make them cry.

We got the chicken breast, garlic, crushed red pepper and peas and spicy rosa sauce. We made it Nero style, which supposedly makes it fires of Rome hot. Spicy chicken rigatoni. Oh, no, like those fires of Rome. Yeah, like the fires, the fires that burned famous fires of Rome burned Rome to the ground while Nero fiddled. Very strict.

Like that's a strange thing to tie it to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Yes, they're so hot it will end civilization. And it's also it's just also like a funny thing of like, I don't think of the fires of Rome, like ever. Like I never think of the fires of fucking Rome. Right. And not a phrase in common use. How about like Mount Vesuvius or something?

Right? Is does that make more sense? I think that would make more sense than this. It's a very strange metaphor. Pompeii. Pompeii, there you go. That's great. Pompeii works.

Nope. The fires of Rome. The fires of Rome. It's like saying, you know, like, like Dante's pink ass after it got paddled by his wife, like, what the fuck are you talking about? I wish that was more and wish Dante's peak was Dante's pink. Here's the thing. I really, I actually really ended up enjoying that dish.

Yeah, I was pretty good. That was good. And the big problem I always have when somebody warns you about spice is it's rarely actually hot. I didn't think it was uncomfortably hot, but it had a kick. It actually had some heat to it and it was tasty. Yeah, I agree. It had a little bit of heat to it.

It wouldn't make my wife flinch. My wife is a real heat seeker. She has, you know, she has super, she's in a super duper spicy food. But it was definitely if you wanted something hot, you'd be like, oh, this is decently hot. That said, I think if you're going to warn somebody, I think if you're going to go to that level of like, like, watch out. I mean, maybe American tolerance for spicy food is just a lot lower than than we

realize, but it was like, I'd say it was like kind of to pretty spicy. It wasn't like really spicy. No, no, not worth the extra warning. Yeah. She's a heat seeker, you said? Yeah, she's a heat seeker. Looking out for hot foods and so on. Right.

Yeah, like a little spice in the tongue. I got you. All right. My dad was like that when I was growing up and I didn't get it. I love spicy foods now. Right. I do. But I thought he was crazy.

We had a neighbor who went to Greece and there's a pepper that you can't export that is supposedly one of the hottest peppers on the planet. And she brought back a thing of them and they cooked them to eat on meat together. And I just remember walking into that house immediately bursting into tears just from the insane fumes and leaving. Oh, wow. Not understanding how anybody would enjoy that. Yeah, that's insane.

I thought you were going to end your story with like, and they died. They ate the peppers and then they died. We never saw them again. And yeah, but I just, I can't, there's, I enjoy it, but I don't go out of my way to like these challenges or something that like threatens to actually hurt you. Right. Can't do that. I can do like the ghost peppers.

Do you know what I think your, your wife should seek? A divorce lawyer. She should leave you is what I'm trying to say. I mean, I think that would probably be for her, the better, better, like of her life. I think things would look up for her. Every time I make that joke, you then make it sadder. I'm like, oh, man, I didn't mean I shouldn't have done that. No, I agree with you.

Um, she could do better. Yeah, I'm not a good husband or a good man. I'm not good at this. I'm not good at my job. Shit. All right. Let's change the subject before you break down completely. I'm pretty good at civilization six.

Hmm. Oh, maybe she should. Maybe she should stay with you. Um, anyway, the, the, especially where your chicken rigatoni pretty good, but yeah, not worthy of the morning. Tweet out a hashtag, heat seeker. Oh, yeah. If you're, and I guess I'm with you, I, I, I like it spicy, but I don't like to be

uncomfortable. I don't like to have to drink like three glasses of milk or something like where I can't like where I can't talk or something. I don't like that. But I like a kick. I actually thought today was kind of like pleasant. I enjoy it. Right.

It was good. It was, it was an enjoyable heat, but nobody's going to go in there and be like, oh my God, I couldn't take it. And it was, it's not going to, yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. We also got the pizza Bianca, white pizza with ricotta, fresh mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan, garlic, oregano and garlic infused olive oil. We got, this was something as opposed to the red sauce. We got something with a little bit of a white sauce here and this pizza is very thin.

It's like that, that, is it Neapolitan style? Is that what they call it? Where they've got the very, very thick, like wafer thin pizza dough. Yeah. It was very, very thin. We've talked about this on the show before. I liked getting the white pizza because I thought it was a good change because we already had a couple of things that kind of had the red sauce going on.

I just don't know if I think, when it comes to pizza, I think I'm a red all the way guy. I don't know if I can, I might just be like, get that white sauce out of here and I've had good versions of it. It's just as never as satisfying to me as a red sauce. I get what you're saying. I've had some great white pieces, but I think you're right. I didn't think it was a great white sauce. No, yeah.

I think a really great white sauce is really buttery and it's got this, and it's tasty on its own. I thought the white sauce here was functional, but it wasn't particularly, you didn't want to go back for a second piece necessarily. It tasted almost like garlic paste. It was very, very garlicky. It's a really crackery crust. It really breaks very easily.

It was not, I'm glad we tried the white sauce to see what the difference was, but I thought the red sauce at least had a more aggressive flavor signature. Right, yeah. Here's what I'm going to say. I agree with you that this was not a good version of the white pizza, but I don't think the white sauce was the problem. I think the problem was the pizza. I don't think they do a good pizza there.

I've had pizza a couple of times at Bukit A Beppo. I feel like that crust is like, it's like- They feel like they have to, but they don't do it well. Right, there's nothing, like it's like a pasta place. Like get the pasta, get the entrees, the pizza. Yeah, get the pizza off the menu actually. It's like bagel bites quality pizza dough. It's not like, it's not good.

Right, did you, I mean, did you think that crust was good? The crust was not good. And the great crust, you know, I just moved, and you know, moving in LA from neighborhood, you have to relearn everything, all your favorite restaurants and everything. And it's a crust thing. Like I found a couple of places that I thought were okay, but the crust would come either burned on the bottom or not prepared right, and I just won't go back. It's really important.

Great, good, tasty crust first. Yeah, yeah, it's huge. It's a, oh yeah, that's a good, that's a nice ranking system. What, the ingredients of a pizza, if you're taking a cheese pizza, what are the most important things? And I would say that crust is maybe number one. I think it's very, I think it's like, tomato sauce is right there too. The crust isn't there, it's like, what's the point?

Like think of the pizza without the crust. It's like, you think of a burger without a bun, and it's like edible to sometimes good. It's like, you can have a good pizza, a burger that's like wrapped in lettuce or that is just like on a plate. But it's just a big mound of like marinara sauce and cheese with pepperoni on it. Like that's fucking gross. No one wants to eat that shit. The crust is so important.

It's like the baseline. It gives the pizza what it is. It sounds like something you ate as a teen, by the way. I have done that before. And that's a huge argument. You know, west coast, east coast, crust differences in different parts of the country, the Chicago style deep dish, and it all comes down to crust. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. And my thing is, if you, if you, it just doesn't seem like you care, why do it? They just shouldn't make the pizza there. They should concentrate on pastas and, you know, like entree dishes, and that's it. It's got like a chicken parmesan there. It's pretty good. Like yeah, the pizzas just don't work there. Here's what I'd say to Bucca de Beppo.

Dabbo's coming to town, because this crust-y needs to get canceled. Wow, I hope everyone watches The Simpsons. All right, we also, Pizza Bianca, go for it. A former Simpsons writer just tweeted at me earlier and said, I want to be on Doe Boys. Really? And I'm waiting for him to, this episode hasn't been released yet, but I'm ready for him to tweet back and say he doesn't want to. We also ordered broccoli, a spicy broccoli, yes, the spicy broccoli, it was the Italian

broccoli Romano. What was it? Nero's ass, bro. It was Debbie Mazar's car on fire, level of heat. And I actually enjoyed the broccoli. I thought it was fun. It was a little cool, a little kind of soggy. It was cold.

Yeah, it wasn't hot at all. You're right. Yeah, there was no heat. And the idea that they had a little warning on the menu for that one, ludicrous. It was insane. That's because I thought it was fine, it was tasty, but it was cold like you say. And there was no spice heat at all. A smattering of garlic and some red pepper flakes, but it was perfunctory.

But here's what I will say, though, cooked. It was cooked. Well cooked, yeah. It was well cooked. It was a bummer that it's cold because I was like, oh, it's cooked through, it's not too hard. I went back for a second or third bite. Yeah, yeah.

I thought it was tasty enough. Good vegetable side. Yeah. And that wraps up. That was our full meal. That was our full meal, except we also got a, we had a little picture taken, which we'll put online from someone who was a fan of yours. That was very strange.

I thought it was a little weird that you guys did the lady in the tramp thing actually in the restaurant. I think the waiter thought it was weird, but it was a really cute picture. Yeah. Your wife's going to love it. Just joylessly too. Just glaring at each other. Let's fucking do this.

Yeah, I wonder, I think that that, I think she thought I was Bruce Full Hedge. I don't think she was. That's as charitable as you'll be to yourself. A guy who's 30 years older than you. I feel like she, she gave that sort of thing of like, I'm like, I don't know if you, but it was very nice. It was extremely nice. I was, I was flattered.

Okay. Here's what I'd argue, Mitch. I think she knows who you are. I think she recognized you from love or the birthday boys. It certainly wasn't dough boys because she didn't recognize me or maybe it was dough boys and she just doesn't like me. I think it was dough boys. But she, but here's the thing.

She said that after she ran your credit card. So she knew your name at that point. So she, I think she knows that was Mike Mitchell and she put the name and face together. When I was at a store in the valley, that's how I would meet people is I'd see the credit card name when I ran it and I'd know there, this was before the IMDB and I'd know their filmography and nine times out of 10, they'd be flattered because, right, you know who I am. Nice for writers or cinematographers below the line guys who just never get that recognition.

100%. That's awesome. It was something like cinematographers. That's great. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's, it was, it was, it was, it was very, very nice. She knew who you were, man. And I also gave a tip right when she said it.

She was like, she was like, I'm a fan and then I literally was like, here's a tip for this photo. And then I heard her saying it at other tables, huge fan of your work. We got for dessert after the picture, we got the Italian cream cake, six layers of rich lemon cake and marscapone cheese filling served in a pool of raspberry sauce and topped with whipped cream. Hey, there was a lemon component to that. There was a lemon that I didn't really get.

I didn't get it at all. That's crazy. He handed me a knife, our waiter handed me a knife. He asked who was going to do the honors and then handed me a knife and then you stopped me from plunging it into my own heart. And then I, and then I cut the cake into three pieces. It was pretty good, pretty, a lot of whipped topping. Yeah.

Lots of whipped topping. It wasn't, it wasn't bad. It didn't get, like I was like, oh, it was a nice little, it was a nice little climax to the meal. It was, it was, it was, it was a nice ender. I'm sorry. I'm not. Climax.

I'm sorry. Jesus Christ. I'm very uncomfortable now. I'm sorry. You know that I, I fuck up my words constantly. It was, it was a nice, it was a nice little ender. It was a, it was, it was, it was a coda. It was a nice coda.

Thank you. It was a, it was a nice little coda to the end of the, end of the meal. I thought it was a, I thought it was nothing special, but like I also like didn't care that it was nothing special. That makes sense. But, but then again, like to Drew's point earlier, like if it's a special occasions restaurant, if this is a place you were celebrating your sweet 16 and you had that as your big dessert, like what would your reaction be?

Right? Yeah. I don't know. What did you think of that, that dessert? I think it was, I think you're, you nailed it when you said it's a lot of whipped topping. Yeah. And the fact that we don't taste the lemon at all in something that makes that the, what is evidently the foundation and the way they describe it.

Right. No, I thought it was, it felt like sort of a very quick to assemble, but not particularly tasty dessert. I forgot to say, it's a really quick place, man. Yeah. You know, you go to a real Italian deli and you ask for the desserts and they're going to be really rich and memorable and dense and interesting. Right.

Yeah. And that should be another signature or don't do it. Yeah. Yeah. Typical climax dessert. And you know, the funny thing about that too is that that place seems like it has a huge staff. Yeah.

It looks like there's a lot of people back in the kitchen. Can you imagine the overhead? There was an upstairs or a downstairs we could have been at. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a huge footprint. Well, I guess we can get into that in our little final breakdown. Yeah.

Let's get to our final thoughts. So, this is how this will work, Drew. You've heard the podcast before, but just a refresher. We'll go around. We'll sort of give our closing statement, all our thoughts and our lifetime experiences at this particular chain, and then we'll give a ranking on the order of one to five forks. We will start with you. Overall, I thought that Bucca di Beppo, this experience with it summed up what I've experienced

in the past, which is I think there are things they do fine on the menu, and I think it's the basics. I think if you order like a chicken parmesan or I think if you order the chicken rigatoni that we got, you'll get what you're asking for, and it's a fresh, well-made taste. Not remarkable. Right. But good. It's a good version of Italian down the middle.

I think anytime you vary from that, though, at this place, they seem lost. I think their pizza was indifferent, and I thought that as a dessert, I could have done without. Like, it wasn't worth what that dessert, and especially, I know, Mitch, if you're doing Weight Watchers, it wasn't worth it for the points that that thing would have cost you based on taste. Definitely. Like, if you're going to spin those points, don't you want to, at the end, go totally

worth it? Oh, for sure. Well, I also should note that since my strep throat, I've been terrible with Weight Watchers and I've done a bad job. Well, look, I respect you. I did it for a while before I had my first kid. I really had to be serious about it, and I think I dropped like 85 pounds on that. I've gained it all back, but that's because that was 10 years ago.

But man, it's the only system I ever tried that worked. That's what everyone, and me being sick was not helpful to... This last month has been very bad, but... That's what's tough about Weight Loss, though, is that life events get in the way, and then you just go back, because it requires so much effort and so much self-controlled to maintain one of these things, and if you've got other shit going on, it's just impossible. Oh, yeah. I thought overall, if I were going to rate it, I'd say two...

2.75 forks. 2.75. Wow. That's a good score. Yeah, very, very reasonable score. I'll go ahead, Mitch. So, growing up, I was the... I mean, Quincy has a lot of Irish people, as you can see in Manchester by the sea.

But on my street, the two of my best friends, Justin Kiley, who I've mentioned on this, he's played a little song for us on The Hometown Hero, and then the two foes up the hill. They were a very Italian family, so I used to go over there, and I was like the little Jimmy Burke running around, and is that the Goodfellas guy named? Jimmy Conway, I think. Oh, Jimmy Conway. I think it was Burke.

I don't know. No, it's Conway. So, I would run around, and I would be eating up at the two foes house, and Mrs. Kiley would make Italian... And I loved Italian food, and I don't know how those handsome devils eat so much and still look good, and thin, and gorgeous-looking people. But I... Are you talking about your physical attraction to your childhood friends?

They all looked good. They were great. All right. That's great. They were all good-looking Italian kids, and they had these big, hearty meals. But I think it's because Irish people eat butter and fucking starch, the shittiest. But I have just such a fond place in my mind of having big Italian meals up at their house, or over my friend's house growing up, and the two foes would have pasta night dinners

and stuff, and they were so good. I love it. It is my favorite food. I think number two is Mexican food, is probably my second favorite now. And that's changed over time, but Italian has been number one my entire life. Bucca di Beppo does an okay job at it. The environment is fun, but also a part of me is like, this shouldn't be up at CityWalk, because I think the surroundings of CityWalk kind of take away from the fact that this

is a big, fun Italian place. If that was somewhere downtown or something, I'd be like, oh, Bucca di Beppo is... It's an eclectic, funny Italian restaurant thing, and it's fun, and you go and you have fun. It's like how Macelli's feels. That's what Bucca di Beppo should be. It doesn't feel like a place that you go for a celebration right now, especially because of that CityWalk.

It felt pretty empty. It should get rid of its pizzas. Italian food, it can be basic, but it's not easy, and I just feel like it was kind of... It was a little bit underwhelming, but the one pasta dish was good, and I couldn't complain because I was like, this is good, and I would eat a bunch of this. And that's all you need. If you get one good pasta dish out of a restaurant, then, oh man, that's great. If I had nothing to eat now, I had that big whole bowl, I could do some damage to it,

but it needs to change some things up, because just as times have changed or whatever, and the corny side of it, and the fact that it's up at Universal CityWalk, and I feel like that's kind of where it exists throughout the world, right? It's the grove. They just put one in, and it's the same thing. It's the same enclosed sort of bubble environment. Right. I almost just wish I had cheesecake factory-level food.

You know what I mean? Oh, it's nowhere close to cheesecake factory. It's nowhere close to that, and if they just gave me that, and they charge like it is, they do. They absolutely do. And so there's so many things that frustrated about me. If it was like cheesecake factory, it had the kind of same setup, but the food was of that quality, and it was the same...

I would be fine with that. The Italian version of cheesecake factory is all I want from it, and it doesn't kind of deliver on that. So I'm two and a half forks, because that one pasta dish was good, but I will always want to go to your first pick. It'll never be my first pick ever. I think you guys make a lot of valid points. Food is disappointing.

I feel like it's down the middle Italian food, but I don't even know if it's like mediocre. I feel like it's slightly below mediocre. I feel like it's not... That's fair. I think you may have talked me down to 2.25. Yeah. Right. Right.

Yeah. There's a lot of good... I feel like there's a lot of good Italian food in a lot of good places, and it's going to be an unusual situation where Bucca di Beppo is the best Italian option in your city. Maybe. Maybe there's some metropolitan areas where that's the case, but I don't think so. I think there's probably going to be a local place that's better.

The thing with Italian food is that you always have a local Italian place. You always have a local place that's probably going to be better. In terms of quality of food, you can't really evaluate it on that. You have to take the whole experience in as part of it. To Drew's point earlier, it's like a view it through the same prism as a theme park. It's an entertainment experience. From that standpoint, if you go with a large party, as I did with some coworkers a few weeks back, my boss Joe Randazzo took a bunch of us out.

We had like a 20-person party at Bucca di Beppo at the Grove. We had a great time, and it was a lot of fun. Was it crowded in there? It was not crowded. It was like today's level of crowdedness. It was like that late afternoon crowd. It was just like so many people around a giant table sharing so many dishes. I feel like, oh, that's what the restaurant is for.

It's not for three guys to go on a weekday and have lunch. That's just not what it's intended for. I think it's for a larger party. It's for a big group gathering. A few times when my dad was going to run the LA Marathon, the whole family and some extended family got together and had a big meal at a Bucca di Beppo in Santa Monica. That was a fun experience. It was kind of recreating the idea of this Italian communal meal, like this Italian

family meal. I get it from that standpoint. You have to have the experience and you have to have that event, that group of people that's going to make it feel like it's something greater than the food deserves. Otherwise, I feel like it's not worth going to this restaurant. From a food standpoint, it's mediocre, it's certainly overpriced. Our meal today, three men, two cocktails, we got two entrees, an appetizer, a side and a dessert.

We spent $140. There's a lot of money and I don't feel like we got our money's worth from a food standpoint. I feel like in order to justify that, it has to be like that larger sort of group communal experience. I actually think that a lot of the listeners should Venmo me. What is your Venmo? I have no idea. Mine's Nick-Weiger.

No, this isn't fair. I can't remember mine. If anyone Venmo's me money, I will give it to Mitch. That's Scouts on it. I was in the Boy Scouts. I achieved the rank of life scout. If anyone wants to send me money, I'll refund it to you. I'm not going to give Mitch any of your money.

Keep your money. That said, for Bucca de Beppo, I mean, two forks, two tines, two and a half forks. I mean, I kind of wish it was better, but it's not. That was Bucca de Beppo. It's time for regular segment, and for this, I'm going to duck out of the room real quick. You guys mark time for just one second. I'll be right back. Well, I'm excited to see which regular segment I landed on.

This one is going to be interesting. I'm excited. It's a strange one. Drew, do you have allergies, Drew? I'm sorry? Do you have any allergies? No, not at all. Phew, we should have asked that beforehand.

Drew, I'm going to ask you now. It's the new year, officially 2017, when people listen to this. What are some of the movies, and to turn this into an even more movie-centric podcast than it already was, what are some of the movies you're looking forward to that are coming out this year? I think 2017 looks like the year the popcorn stuff is really going to work. There are some really good-looking trailers that have come out. We talked earlier today about Luc Besan, the guy who made Fifth Element, his new one, Valerian

in the City of a Thousand Planets. Such a great old-fashioned sci-fi title, anyway. I love it, yes. It's so big and weird. I'm going to see the trailer. There is a trailer for it. The trailer's beautiful. It's Dane Dahan and Cara Del Vigne.

Yeah, okay. They're like space cops. He desperately wants to sleep with her. She ain't having it, and they run around and they do crazy stuff. It looks awesome. It looks beautiful. It sounds like my life in space, kind of. I thought the new Spider-Man kid they found looks great in his trailer.

Yeah, he was good in the Avengers movie. It was so much fun. It was so much fun. I think, and for me, the kick this time is seeing a kid be Spider-Man finally. Yes. Because Toby McGuire was 37 in the first one, and yeah, I was set in college. Was he really 37? I don't know, man.

He was old in the first one. In Andrew Garfield, they always looked older. That's funny. The fact that I believe that is like, oh yeah, he was probably too old. I like the kids. I like the idea that Spider-Man, because that's what I liked in a comic book, was the notion of a little kid who suddenly finds himself doing this stuff, and who's still got to deal with getting an exam in fry school.

I am a Spider-Man, a Sam Raimi Spider-Man defender. I like his. Weigher knows it. It's one of my favorite. Spider-Man 2 is one of my favorite Marvel movies. Spider-Man 2 is great. I think it's one of the best superhero movies. I don't know if Spider-Man 1.

A lot of people like it. Okay. Here's the segment. We've got a mystery drink, and Drew and Mitch must guess what it is. It's a listener submission edition of the Weigher Challenge. Now, I want to tell everyone, we received a drink in the mail. It's from this guy, Mitch. Mitch, thank you for sending this.

He sent us a bunch of stuff. Not you. A different Mitch. Yeah, a different. I wasn't saying myself sent this. No, I was just clarifying. A guy named Mitch, and look, we received this in the mail. Mitch was like, we should all drink this blind, like not even look at what it is.

Drew, this is what the bag looked like. Mystery drink. It's a McDonald's bag with mystery drinks scrawled on it in public marker. It's the same hand writing we'd use for if you ever want to see your kid alive. Right. Yeah. It looks like it was sent by the Riddler. And Mitch was just like, let's just drink it, blind, without checking what it was.

I thought that was insane. And that's to be fair. Weigher, you for sure thought it was going to be bodily fluid. I thought it was going to be some sort of prank drink. Possibly a bodily fluid. Probably a bodily fluid. Specifically one. Yeah.

And Mitch, you licked your lips at that point. But we settled on a compromise, which is I was going to check what it was, make sure it was safe for consumption for our guest, and then we're going to do it as a Weigher challenge. So you guys go ahead and tell us what you've, we've both got red solo cups filled with some of this drink. Tell us what you're seeing, what you're tasting, what you're smelling. Sort of a dark red.

Dark red and bubble, it smells bubblegummy. Very, it does. It smells like either a fake bubblegum or a cherry cream. Ooh, cherry cream is good. You're each taking taste of this drink. It's a strong one. Well, it has a weird aftertaste too. Yeah, it's a little medicine-y.

It's not a real strong cherry taste. I will say, I think I can say this without ruining anything. I think you're right. I think it's bubblegum. This is something that does not need refrigeration. Oh, huh. Whoa. Okay.

I mean, it's better cold, but it does not need refrigeration to stay fresh. This is really hard. It's a boxed drink. Oh, okay. It could be a boxed drink. It almost tastes like, I'm trying to figure out whether it's more on the line of, I think it's a soda, but I think it is a soda, but whether it's in the line of a Hawaiian punchy sort of thing or I can't, it doesn't taste enough like fruit juice to be a Hawaiian punch,

but I feel like it's, but I don't know if it's like a, like a, like a sun-kissed or, you know what I mean? Like a, like a cherry sun-kissed sort of deal. You know what I mean? Like if something like that or, or, but it tastes so much like bubblegum. It's not a seltzer. Yeah. It's, it is, it's very strange and Mitch is, uh, I think he's from Canada.

Okay. Is that true? I have no idea. Okay. I don't know this guy. I don't know this weirdo who mailed us a paper bag covered drink. I don't even know if Mitch is from Canada actually. Um, it, it tastes a lot lighter than it smells.

It's got a really heavy soda smell, but it's not really, it's not like a Coke heavy. It's not like super syrupy. Yeah. I think this is, I, oh my God, I just realized what it, I just realized the taste of what the taste is. All right. Mitch is going to take a shot, I think. I think that it's cotton candy something.

You think it's cotton candy? I think it's a cotton candy soda. You think it's a cotton candy soda? Yes. Is that more specific or is that going to be cotton candy soda going to be your guess? I don't know what type of brand to guess is the issue. You don't have to guess a brand. It's up to you how specific you want to get.

I won't guess a brand. Cotton candy soda is Mitch's answer. I think you're right. And I think the, the trick of it is it's going to be an all natural something. All natural. That's why it's not super soda. Oh, all right. I like that.

I like that too. All right. That's as close as I can get. All natural is your guess? It's going to be an all natural something. I think he's right on with the candy flavor. It's either cotton candy or bubble gum. It's not a natural.

It's not meant to be a natural flavor. These are very vague guesses. We're going with cotton candy soda versus all natural something. This is one of the hardest, weirdest ones we've had. Okay. Well, I'm going to reveal what it is and then I'm going to determine who won. It is genuine, fago, delicious, rock and rye, artificially flavored cream cola. Wow.

These are carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, potassium, benzoate, caramel color, artificial flavor. Wow. I think the cherry cream isn't truly wrong. I think you might have beat me because you brought up cream first. Yeah. I think that's the smell is cherry cream. This is definitely not cotton candy.

And so for that reason, I'm going to say Mitch, you have lost the Weiger challenge. Drew, you have won. You can get the balance of this bottle. No. I'm going to take a sip of this. You should try some for yourself. No, it's not the worst thing ever, but it's not my... It's a very strange...

It is. And like I said, I'm surprised. I thought fago would be nothing but syrup. That's bizarre. Because I... You want one more? Fago's the jugolo drink, right? It's the jugolo drink.

Yeah. If you're down with a clown, whoop, whoop, you might drink fago. I would have thought it would be like the really heavy, cheap syrup stuff. Yes. It doesn't taste that. I thought you were onto something with it being like a substitute for something. Yes. Hansen's sort of weird, like a weird Hansen's version of it or something.

It is a strange taste, though. It's really strange. What is the... Hey, Mitch. It's not you. The other one. The weirdo who mailed us this. Let us know what rock and rye fago is.

He's probably on a jugolo campground. Look, if you're there with Shaggy Too Dope, see if you can get some answers from him in terms of what exactly rock and rye is. Because I'm just not sure. It's some sort of weirdly fago flavor. What the fuck is this? Yeah, we have it and we still don't know. This is the first time ever that where I'm still confused.

Well, congratulations, Drew. You've won the Weiger Challenge. You've called the... And you still have no idea what you're drinking. That's good. It's also funny that it's genuine and also like it's so much more red in the cup and then you look at the bottle and it looks kind of more like Coke. Yeah, it really does.

When you were going to get this, did you think it was more like Coca-Cola? I assumed when I saw rock and rye, I thought, yeah, I thought it was going to taste maybe like a cream soda or maybe like a root beer. Because I was like, rye, I guess that kind of evokes like a... Rye. Weird. Yeah, weird. Right, well, because rye is like a spirit.

That maybe the only soda to ever use rye as a selling point. Right. Yeah, that's bizarre. Good job. I think it's an interesting drink. It was an interesting submission. Thanks, Mitch. No one else send us things.

No, send us stuff. Listen, if you've sent us stuff, I think there's one other person who's sent us something that we haven't used, but if you send us something we haven't, tweet at us and yell at us, because we've talked about this, we feel very bad about it. Besides the everything chips that continue to disappear at the fucking federal audio offices... The old dress... Yeah, I'm sorry, the old dress chips, we've been getting them here and they are...

I think someone just likes them here. Right. Well, we got to get snack or whack those at some point. But thank you for everyone who sent stuff in. This was great. That was the Weigar Challenge, just like a restaurant with value or feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Rachel Love.

Rachel writes, I've been listening to this show for a while now and I'm recently going through a breakup and have found that listening to it helps take my mind off of things, so thanks. I've found that when I go through a heartbreak, I have no appetite, which is strange because normally I turn to food as a comfort kind of thing when I'm sad. My question for you guys is, then, when you go through something like this, do you lose your appetite or turn to food as a form of escapism? Hmm.

I'm definitely a stress eater. What about you guys? Like, how do you respond to life events? Do you eat more? Do you lose your appetite? Um, I, uh, yeah, I think I eat more. I definitely do. I think that's a big part of, um, yeah, the last couple of years, I know I put it on

and I, I, because I moved out of my house and I have visitations with kids and it's totally different and I made food into an event with them every time they came over to try and at least have something, some little something that during the weekend was a big deal. Right. Um, so we ate out a lot more, I noticed. And I just, it felt like an easy way to go be out of the house and do something fun. Yeah.

That, I mean, that definitely makes sense because I know, and, and you know, I'm, I'm just, for me, I'm thinking of a career situation where I was working, when I was working on this Fox show party over here that got canceled, um, but I had like a very stressful sort of work schedule on that and then I would just come home and just like eat like shit and then drink heavily. You said you get a little bit of weight around that time, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And terrible hours. Yeah. I gained quite a bit of weight over that. I gained like 10 pounds of the course of, you know, four months or whatever because I was just like stress eating and stress drinking. Yeah. And it wasn't like it, it wasn't. I got the new chairs at Farrell.

My fat ass was snapping them in half. A man who wears a hundred pounds less than me. Uh, no, I, I, I, I definitely, I stress eat for sure. I, it's funny. Here are the times where I eat bad when I'm, when I'm sick, when I'm hungover sick, when I am, when I am actually, when I actually am sick, because if I have like a sore throat or anything, there's like certain foods that I can't eat. It's a very, it like, like it reminds me of, it's like, it's like being hungover where

I'm like, I have a certain taste for something and I have to eat it. That's another time I do it. So this, so I've been eating poorly as you can tell the last few weeks. And then besides that, I don't know if like break, like, I don't know if like breakups or anything like that happened, but like, I remember when my dad passed away and I mentioned it on here, like we got, you get sent some like, like a lot of the times people will send you food. Oh God.

Yeah. Yeah. And you, and you do eat it. And it is kind of like comforting to be around people and eating and it, it does make you feel better. I've said this before, I don't think it's a plus side to someone dying, but it is, it's a, it's a, it does bring relief for sure. And it was, and it was helpful to have that one when my, my dad passed away or whatever.

As far as breakups, I don't know if I've ever like been like, but you know what, maybe I think if I'm more depressed or something, I will, I'll just like, oh, who gives a shit in order of pizza or something like that. I'm more likely to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely can't relate to losing your app. I don't know if I've ever lost my appetite.

I'm trying to give, like I've definitely seen some. I had a mono twice. Okay. And that was crazy. Right. I highly recommend it if you want to lose weight. That's insane. We're just not craving food at all.

What was happening? No, I had it in high school and the first time I got it, I got it so bad that I was super dehydrated, the roof of, the roof of my mouth split. Oh my God. Like from dehydration and I couldn't eat. Like I couldn't eat anything. And I went down to, and I was already like six, one, six, two. And I think I got down to like 160.

Oh, wow. Which is the thinnest I've ever been. Yeah. And then had it again when I moved out here for about six months. And mono is just one of those things. It's an immune thing and you just get flattened by it. You can't eat your throat swells, everything. That's crazy.

So yeah, that's the only time that's ever been the case. And it was a physical thing, not necessarily nausea. Right. Jesus Christ. Hmm. If I murdered you, does that mean that people would send me like a deli platter? Well, it's a reward. Yeah, exactly.

As a congratulations. No, I mean, if I covered it up and they didn't think I did it, they'd buy a poor Mitch. Oh yeah, his friend died. I think they might send things to my wife first. Well, I definitely go over and eat some food. Are you going to food cuckold me? Going to break bread with my wife?

You piece of shit. Oh, she's mourning her dead husband. You're in the grave. Yeah, she'd be happy. Yeah. So would I. Um, maybe Sue extra sad because her name is you said Rachel love. Yeah, Rachel, everything is going to be okay in the long run.

It's it's it's worth it, even though it's hard right now. That's that's the truth of the matter. It will all be worth it. And in a few months, you're going to be not even a few months in a few weeks, you're going to be back up on your feet and you'll be feeling good. You're going to live up to that last name of yours. Yeah. I hope she wasn't married to Mike Love from the Beach Boys.

Yeah, you know what? If you were a fuck, that guy sucks. Yeah, good riddance. Yeah, that guy is no good. Yeah, Beach Boy music sucks. He can walk into the ocean for all I know. Well, look, I think the Beach Boys are pretty good. But Mike Love is not the key part to the Beach Boys.

He's pretty disposable. Yeah, animal sounds. Yeah, you're darn right. Sounds like a bunch of fucking animals. Forgetting Mike Love. I prefer Kevin Love. Yeah, the NBA All Star, the Cleveland Cavaliers, who I think is related to him. Oh, really?

Yeah, it's like a weird like thing of like, that seems like a fairly common. In fact, hey, Rachel Love, let us know if you're related to Kevin Love. Because if so, I think about... Which means that she's related to Mike Love. OK. Are you in some vague way, a Beach Boy? Rachel, I hope that you're doing better and everything's going to be all right. This was actually recorded before the holidays, but I hope you had a good holiday.

And by this time, I'm sure you patch it up. Everything's going good. Yeah, you're probably dating me right now. If you still have that hole in your soul, fill it with food. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspodcasts at gmail.com. Check out our Facebook page, Do Boys, follow us on Twitter at Do Boys Pod. Hold on a second, you can't just go right into your fucking thing after saying

if you have a hole in your soul, fill it with food. I feel like that's fine. I feel like that's good advice within the spirit of this podcast. All right, OK. Wrapped it all up. Real quick, if so, if you're out there, a lot of people have rated us on iTunes. We're told that it helps us a lot if you like write a review. So if you like the podcast and you haven't reviewed us yet on iTunes,

it takes just a few minutes, go on there, give us whatever rating you have, one to five forks, and then type out a little something. You know, Mitch sucks, Wiger's carrying the load. Whatever you want to say, something along those lines. Without Wiger, there'd be no podcast, bitches, a little psychic bitch. Whatever you want to say, just like type in a few words of what your feelings are of the podcast. Just general suggestions.

Just anything, whatever comes to mind. Hey, how about my first Spoonerster Six guest? Hey, how about your first? The first guest, the Spoonerster Six, Drew McQueenie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. The website and the podcast, 80sallover.com. Tell us real quick what we can expect there.

We are reviewing every movie of the 80s, month by month, starting with January of 1980. That's amazing. Myself and my co-host, Scott Weinberg. And it's basically as an antidote to 80s nostalgia that only focuses on a little sliver of that decade. I, you know, I was there for it. I remember it.

And I think going through and talking about how we watched movies then, how we digested stuff on video, just the differences, I think, is also interesting. Right. And so we're up to October of 1980. It's still very new, but come jump on. And also at that website, 80sallover.com, you can find my new magazine, Pulp and Popcorn.

That's amazing. Awesome. That's a great concept, and everyone should check that out. That'll do for this episode of Doughboys. Until next time, for the Swingman, Meg Mitchell, I'm Nick Weiger. Happy eating. See ya.