Doughboys - Dave & Buster's with Allan McLeod

Episode Date: September 15, 2016

Actor and comedian Allan McLeod (You're the Worst, Drunk History), aka "Molasses Boy", talks with Mitch and Wiger about video arcade/eatery Dave & Buster's, discusses growing up in Alabama, and brings a portion sized surprise. Plus, the debut of Dinner and a Movie.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1953, Michael Kogan, a Russian-Jewish businessman who had settled in Japan during the Second World War, founded Taihito Trading Corporation. Like the many foreign industrialists then gravitating toward the island nation, Kogan aimed to capitalize on post-Imperial Japan's rapidly modernizing economy, and so he imported vending machines and jukeboxes, as well as his ancestral homeland's national spirit, Vodka. In 1969, a Tokyo Engineering School graduate named Tomohiro Nishikado joined the company, at first designing mechanical amusements and later, after Nolan Bushnell's Pong initiated

the video game craze, Arcade Games. In 1978, following minor successes like Speed Race and Western Gun, Nishikado created Tai Toh's Killer App, Space Invaders, an enduring classic that launched the golden age of video arcades. In the 1980s, the dank cabinet-filled halls became omnipresent at shopping malls in Japan and North America. In 1982, restaurant owner David O. Corrivo, an arcade owner James W. Corley, merged their businesses under one roof in Dallas, Texas, naming the eatery by combining their nicknames,

creating a grown-up version of Bushnell's Chuck E. Cheese's. The concept exploded in popularity during the 1990s by focusing on the alcohol-consuming adult market. Just as more powerful home consoles from Nintendo, Sega, and Sony pulled the youth market away from arcade sticks and onto their living room couches. Now with over 80 locations in North America and over $500 million dollars in annual revenue, the original barcade continues to be a force in the chain restaurant sector, and perhaps the only arcade that remains at all relevant.

This week on Doughboys, David Buster's. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're a part of Ferrellaudio.com. The best way to sport ours and other shows in the network is to use the referral link on our website anytime you shop at Amazon. I'm Nick Weigar, alongside my co-host, worst-case scenario, Donal Loge, Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man. Mitch, that roast was cut sending courtesy of Dave King from Netflix's Love.

Dave King. Your buddy. Hey, he's a great guy. You can call me whatever you want, baby. Donal Loge, a lot of credits. Gotham. He was in the Patriot. Gotham.

Law and Order. I remember his Law and Order. Baby Batman. Yeah, what was it? Gotham. What else was it? Young Baby. The Tower of Steve.

That was his movie, right? The Tower of Steve. Yes. Oh, what a classic. Baby Batman. Baby Batman's learning how to... There's Baby Batman and Baby Catwoman and... Do you think they should have just called it Baby Batman without it being a bigger...

They should have called it Baby Batman. ...more relevant than Gotham? I do like... I did like Muppet Babies, and I feel like there could have been more like babies as just a thing. And Marvel Babies, that would be a show people would watch. Okay. Mitch, I want to...

Oh, you have your bullshit to do, right? Oh, yeah. I just want to have a big... The Spoon Nation. That one was a little flimmy. Here we go. Fuck Harry Potter. I think Harry Potter sucks.

I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost.

I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost. I got lost.

I was wandering around for two hours and I didn't see anyone. What is that fish? That is truly Mike Mitchell. That's in a nutshell. I got lost. I mean lost. That's Mike Mitchell right there. He's a little funny.

There's no... That's that one. I couldn't tell because those were some... There was like an embarrassing anecdote that you were relaying, but then there were also a lot of very nice compliments from other people. Yeah, that was from Ethan is a fungi on Twitter. On Twitter? That's what he said.

Okay. From Ethan Wisegarber. Thanks, Ethan. Wait, was that the right one? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. We are clicking today. Well, hold on a second, would you?

One, I want to say that I don't like Harry Potter. Right. And you know what? I was thinking about it and the reason why I don't like it I think is... Even though, listen, Star Wars has that same thing of like Luke is a chosen one. It rubs me the wrong way with Harry Potter where I just feel like it's like... He's the chosen one and be careful with him. Like Luke is the chosen one, but he's not like babyed as much.

He's kind of a... But he's... He becomes like a... Yeah, but he's flying off in the... Like he fights in the X-Wings and shit and he's not like... I think Harry... I've only seen like the first Harry Potter movie. I've never read any of the books.

I'm not super familiar with the franchise, but he does some like badass shit, I think. Yeah, it's just like that's a little special generation. Fuck those guys. Fuckin' millennials with their participation trophies. That was from Analyze Fish, I know. It's when we went to a... We went to a fish concert. Right.

And I took Molly that night. That was the interview. I was on Molly. I hope my mom doesn't listen to this. She wouldn't listen. Has she ever listened to the podcast? No, she... She kind of doesn't really know what this is, right?

Yeah, she wouldn't like it too if she didn't hear it. But I got lost and I was walking around the fish concert. I remember that. So my mom called me and she was like... And this is the thing that they didn't play on. I think they decided after I stuttered over my words to not... Ackerman decided to cut me out completely. But my mom called and I was on this Molly or whatever.

And she was like, oh no, what happened? And then my phone died. So my phone gave out. I was like, what the fuck is she talking about? I didn't know what she meant. And I was walking around this concert. It was a fucking awful experience. It was really bad.

But hey, all right, P. Harris. We miss him. Yeah, Harris. Let's get to hear his voice. Great dude. I didn't know that it was going to be a... What a surprise. I should listen to these before I play.

We've said this like multiple... Probably 10 times in a row at this point. You should listen to these at a time. Yeah. You're not going to do it. It's part of the charm of the podcast. You know what? Just hold on.

You know that I have more than that. Oh, right. You have a new... A new segment you pile on at this point, right? Mm-hmm. What is it? What is it called? Toast.

Spoonman. Toast Spoonman, right? The counterpoint to roast Spoonman. All right. Here we go. This one comes from Brian Levy. Mitch, I'm a big fan of you. Your personality, your work, and your frustration at Nick Weiger for existing.

I don't know if you were there since it was so long ago, but back in 2010, many of the birthday boys came to my shitty UCLA night school sketch class and very politely answered questions from my classmates, like, so do you like comedy? Question mark? And who are you? Question mark. If you're willing to engage with night school dregs like me, is any indication of your character? Well, I gotta say, I think that you're just the bee's knees.

A big boy with a heart of gold. That's what you are. You never let anyone fuck your wife. Thanks, Brian. At Baby Boy Brian. You gotta tighten these up. You can't take like five minutes of the top of the show. I think I can take as long as I want.

To do it, to play your drop and then to read a... What a nice toast. I think you're just mad that I had a nice toast. Have a big self-indulgent compliment towards yourself. No, that's very... Some acolyte. I'm reading this and it makes me feel great. Some Spoon Nation sycophant who's eager to get his name shouted out on the podcast is just

gonna be sucking your dick verbally. We don't need that horse shit. Baby Boy Brian. You just said you like muppet babies. We got Baby Boy Brian. Well, Baby Boy Brian would not make the cut with Gonzo and the gang as far as I'm concerned. Oh, okay. You know, Mitch, you had your...

Real quick before we introduce our guest, you detest Harry Potter. Last week on the podcast, I mentioned that I detested Heathcliff, the comic strip. We got a lot of feedback. A lot of feedback and... We got a lot of feedback like five tweets or something. Yeah, but that's a lot of feedback by our standards. Sean O'Connor, a past guest from the Last Olympics episode, which we will never mention the Olympics again, but he mentioned a recurring character in the Heathcliff universe that

I had forgotten about, but I was familiar with who is an abomination, the garbage ape. This is a running gag in Heathcliff. Hold on a second. I get self-indulgent. I read a little... It's a play on your roast Spoon Man. Yeah. I say something nice about myself.

The roast Spoon Man, which is literally like four words. All right. This one was like, I don't know, a hundred words or something. A full paragraph. But listen, now you can waste time talking about Heathcliff's enemy or what? I have a point to make about the garbage ape. He is not his rival. He is someone that Heathcliff admires from a distance for some undetermined reason.

Okay. That sounds funny. So, okay. So, the garbage ape recurs throughout the strip or the pan... Whatever you call it, one panel comic strip, one of those far side style things. You know what I mean, which is what a Heathcliff is most days except for Sunday. And so it's things like this. You get to learn a little bit more on Sunday.

So, this is a typical garbage ape appearance. It's an ape on top of a hill with his arms outstretched holding two garbage cans. Two raccoons are watching Heathcliff and the Lady Heathcliff, whatever her name is, embracing atop a trash can. Hotcliff is what I call her. Hotcliff, Heathcliff and Hotcliff. And the caption is, they fell in love beneath a garbage ape moon. Koon is saying that about Heathcliff and Hotcliff.

That's like just, that's a strip. Here's another one. It's garbage ape. Again, carrying two trash cans running down the street. Two owls are looking at him. It's Christmas. He's got a Santa hat on. Heathcliff and Hotcliff are cheering.

And the caption is, be of good cheer. It's the garbage ape. These are not jokes. They're just little slices of absurdism that have no, they don't make any sense. Another one, the caption is just the garbage ape. It's again, Heathcliff and a raccoon cheering on a gorilla driving a tank down a street. That's funny. Knocking over trash cans.

This is not funny. This makes no sense. There is no artistic merit here. There's no comment. There's just a guy who exists in the Heathcliff universe called the garbage ape and has no connection to anything. You gotta relax. Well, I'm just saying the garbage ape is horseshit as dumb as Heathcliff is. I'm gonna say this.

The dumbest thing within it. Weigar and I had a meeting today. I won't say what it was, but you and I had a meeting today. Right. And uh... Let's introduce our guests and we'll talk about this. But I know what you're getting at. It's an embarrassing...

It's a big day for... Before we get... No, you know what? You're right. Let's just get to the guests. Let's introduce our guests. Because you know what? Our guests can be a little slow.

Right, right. He's been... We've been taking our time at the top of the show, but it's appropriate given our guest. It's gonna be a good 20 minutes before he gets his name out. An actor and comedian from You're the Worst and Drunk History, our good friend, the super funny, great dude, Alan McLeod is here. Hi, Alan. Hey. It's your boy, Big Al.

Alan, you have a nickname that I learned about via... Where was this newspaper article in? Which publication? It was the Mobile Press Register or Al.com, I guess. It's my hometown newspaper. From Mobile, Alabama. Right. And this is where we all learned.

Many of us... And just to be clear, that newspaper, it's printed on napkin, right? It's handwritten. It's like patches of overalls. We... Alan, I've known you for a long time. I've known you for longer than I've known Mitch. You're a wonderful guy, an insanely funny man.

Why didn't you bring up that you knew him longer than me? I'm just saying we have a long-standing personal connection. Yeah, I've known Alan a long time, too. I know, I'm just saying that... It's just so people don't think I just walked in off the street or something like that. I'm saying we have a personal history. What's wrong with establishing that? That's fine, go ahead.

That gives some context to what I'm about to relay. Okay. Which is that I learned via this article something that none of us knew about you, which you had a nickname in high school which was... Molasses Boy. Yeah, the coach of the football team gave me that nickname. Again, I don't know why... Now, I should have never mentioned it. That literally became the headline of the article.

Right. And then I think I've called you ever since that article. Yeah, yeah. So everybody was like Molasses Boy. It was like... Hi. Yeah, it was just like I played... I was a lineman and on the football team I was terrible and I was really...

I was 50 pounds heavier, I was slow off the line. And so they would just call me Molasses Boy. And I tasted very sweet. But I was just... They would just insult you to motivate you. Right. But they have like... Because the South has the reputation of being kind of like a slower pace of life.

It's not like the hustle and bustle of LA or New York. So you were slow even for this slow pace of life. Coming through. Watch out, everybody. Yeah, that was the other part. I would announce my arrival. Oh yeah, that's not good in football. It's especially not good.

Stealthy. This is key. Now the football season has started again today. Are you excited or do you not care about football anymore? I don't care that much about the NFL. But now that the Rams are here it's kind of exciting. It's kind of exciting when there's a hometown team. Right.

That's why, you know, like Alabama doesn't have like an NFL team. But we have... You don't really need it. You have college teams. Do people... Like when people root for the Cowboys down there or the Falcons? What's the NFL team of choice? Probably...

I mean, the NFL team of choice? I mean, I don't know. Maybe... Is it just not relevant? No one cares. It's not irrelevant. Maybe the Saints. Right, okay.

But mostly it's all burned in Alabama. But yeah, so I went to University of Alabama. So I'm an Alabama fan. So I pay attention to that. Okay. But I don't really pay that much attention otherwise. You know, the Rams I'm interested in now that they're here. What's that L.A. Rams all about?

There's going to be a lot of Fairweather Rams fans. Yeah, I think I'll be a Fairweather Rams fan. That seems like a fun thing to do. I like the L.A. Rams growing up. But then they moved away and then it was like... You're going to take a side because you hate football but then you like it. Also, by the way, everyone out there who says, Tom Brady, whatever. Why do I even still try to do this?

They said that, didn't the NFL say Adele had lied? Like she had been offered a Super Bowl halftime spot. And then the NFL said that she lied. So just for those people who out there who think that Tom Brady is a liar, the NFL is also accusing Adele of being a liar. So just so you know that. She going to have a four game suspension? It's bullshit.

Was this what the meeting was about earlier today? Oh yeah, we should return to that. Real quick, what is the elephant about with the Alabama football team? Oh, uh... It's the Crimson Tide, right? Alabamans are just like, fascinated by the elephant. Look at it, it's grey and big. Well, it's got that big long nose.

You see? So, you know, it makes a great mascot. No, it is a confusing because we're the Crimson Tide, we're not the elephants. So we're the Crimson Tide, which is, you know, evocative of a red wave, you know, coming, but it's an elephant. I honestly don't know. The Crimson Tide, I know comes from like, you know, someone just calling, you know, referring to the team running down the field.

Okay. Crimson Tide. But I don't actually know the origin of the elephant. I forgot it if I did. Do they just love Babar down in Bama? Big Al is the name of the elephant, actually. Oh, Big Al, okay. I refer to myself as Big Al, but also the name of the elephant is Big Al.

Do you think you might be the new University of Alabama mascot someday? Molasses Boy. I hope that I get some honorary mascot ship there, you know. I would love it if their mascot became Molasses Boy. I would love it. Boston folks don't, we don't really root for college football as much. There's BC and BU, but they don't really care as much. It's the NFL all the way for us.

Is it because your college teams are pathetic at football? BC at one point, right? Where are they good? I don't know. Who cares? That's why we don't, we just don't care. You got the Pats. Is Babar, is he French?

I don't know. He's French, I believe. He is French. Yeah. Alright, interesting. Alan, what do you like instead of Molasses Boy? Or do you like Molasses Boy? What nickname do you want now?

I mean, I'm fine. It was, it was, like I said, it was a bit shocking for that to, what? Alan the quickster or something? Should we change it up? Yeah. I think that would make me, actually make me faster if people just would, you know, I need like a toast, a toast Molasses Boy segment or something, or something. Or there's actually room to, because you have Rose Spoon Man and there's Toast Spoon Man.

And then I guess the, I guess the logical next step is like re, twice baked Spoon Man or something. Yeah. Well, I could just, I could just toast, I could toast Molasses Boy at that point. That could be the, a just ordering segment. Toast Molasses Boy after the toast Spoon Man. Yeah. Yeah.

Hashtag Toast Molasses Boy. Oh, that's a fun one. Yeah. Let's see. Alan's a guy worthy of praise. We love Alan. He's a very funny man and we, and a great guy. Give him a toast.

Here's a toast to Molasses, Molasses Boy. I texted you about this yesterday, Alan. There's a sketch you did. We were in a sketch group together, a kiss from Daddy. And there was a sketch you did. What was this, like 2008, maybe 2009? Yeah. Where you were, it was Butterfly Kisses was what it was, right?

And I'm, I'm gonna, do you want to, do you want to set this up? We don't have to talk about this. I think you're good at distilling sketches. Okay. I'll give my memory of it. So it was that you were a father giving the toast to your daughter who was getting married. And you were wanting to sing a song. You want to sing Butterfly Kisses to her.

But you were, you were too nervous to sing. But you could confidently sing in the shower. All right. So you'd recorded yourself taking a shower, which you were going to play while you were singing the song. So you, like, it's all set up as this like beautiful, like toast to your daughter who you love and it's very sincere. And then you play like the soundtrack of a, of the shower playing and like kind of gets

this like heartfelt laugh. And then as the shower's going, it was clearly the dad was taking a shower and you're, you start singing Butterfly Kisses like a karaoke track to, to the karaoke track while this water effect is playing. But then it was clear that you would recorded yourself in the shower like jacking off. So we heard this dad like starting to jack off and moan and fart while you were also singing Butterfly Kisses to an audience of wedding attendees. It was a very complex layered sketch.

And it was like, but it was so funny when I saw it. And it was just like, I was laughing so hard. I was laughing so hard just remembering that this crazy jigsaw puzzle that you constructed that somehow created this moment of a comedic brilliance. Well, I appreciate that. It was a long road. Very long road. Yeah.

It's a very long road that also like the logic didn't really follow, but it was so engaging. Well, you know, you record, he had recorded himself in the shower and then he just sort of forgot it was recording. He starts kind of getting feeling good, I guess. He didn't listen to it again. He didn't really listen to it. He didn't just run the shower while he wasn't in it. He felt that he had to actually be taking a shower.

No, he's a normal. Just a dad. He's not overthinking his speech or anything. Yeah. And naturally just leave the, I guess, a mini recorder going while he was beating off. And then while he was done, just hit stop and just decided to use that audio. Right what you thought. All right, Mitch, get your story that you were going to tell earlier.

So we went, Weigar and I had a meeting today. And we went into this meeting. It's a dumb kind of Hollywood thing. You just have meetings for no real reason. So we went in for this meeting. Weigar, first of all, I got there and I got there with five minutes to spare. Yeah. And you went off to get a coffee, which I was already like, that's weird.

They would have just given you a coffee in the meeting, but you went off and you got the coffee. There was a little cafe there. I was there a little bit before you. I just wanted to have a little something to sip on. That's fine. So we went and got the coffee. We were upstairs.

And right as the man, the important man that we're supposed to meet with walks in, Weigar dropped his entire cup of coffee on the floor like a fucking goon. And it went everywhere. And then like you got down on your, like you crunched down and you were like wiping it up with like just like one, what I assume is like your handy jerk off napkin that you carry with you. I always have a napkin handy so in case of spills. So you pulled that out and you were just like mopping up this floor and then this man had

to like touch your coffee stained hands is my guess. I didn't have that much coffee on the shake. Here's what happened. I had a lid that wasn't fully attached. It was a disposable cup. I had a lid that wasn't fully attached and I had it in my right hand and every step of this was avoidable. Like I didn't realize the lid wasn't fully on.

I went to transfer the coffee to my left hand so that I could shake this important man's hand. And as I was doing so, the lid popped off and I squeezed a little hard and the coffee kind of just spilled everywhere. It was my fault. It was embarrassing. I do. What else do you want from me?

Yes, I fucked up and I probably ruined an opportunity. I feel like with those Honda robots, it's really hard for them to like switch one thing from one hand to the other. You're comparing me to Osimo? You're close to Osimo. You and Os... I think that you could like probably sit in a room with Osimo and converse with it for like three hours or something.

I think you... I think me and Osimo could host a very compelling podcast. Good. Cook up a fucking Osimo. I don't want to do this anymore. Anyways, it was very funny to watch you. It was funny to watch you fuck up. It was good.

It was a... It felt good. It was a faux pas. All right, Alan... Wait, it was not a faux pas. It was a fuck up. What do you want me to call it? Alan, so you mentioned earlier, you dropped some weight.

You used to play the offensive line now. You and I, I think you're about the same size. You're a man who's slimmed down quite a bit. Do you have the... A little bigger than you. But you know, when the same ballpark, how did you lose that weight? You mean back in... Yeah, back in the day.

Well, so I guess the... Basically, I sort of changed schools. I was playing football at this private school. And I was just doing that to make friends. And it wasn't working out. I wasn't good. I also came in and there were a couple other McLeod cousins there. And they had both been captain of the football team.

So they were really good. And so they had very high expectations of me when I joined. And I just was terrible and sports was never my thing. And so everybody was just a disappointed in me for three years. So I would just eat and eat and eat and eat, you know, just to cope, you know? Oh, sure. How much I hated myself and I hated at school. Very relatable.

And then, but you know, I decided to... I saw a play there. I saw a little shop of horrors at the school. And I was like, I should be up there. I could do that. And, but I couldn't do it in front of them. And so I told my dad, I was like, I'm done there. You know, I'm not...

I sort of like made him happy with football because I ended up... They kicked me down to the JV squad. And then I was like sacking the quarterback because I was like twice everybody's size. I was like the hero of the team. But so I had sort of achieved somewhat of a little bit of a success on the football field. So I was like, okay, now I'm done with that and I'm going to go try to pursue theater. And so I had to switch schools. So I went to this public school and just that...

Just that, I don't know, that was a huge weight lifted off of me. And then I was... And then I literally over a summer dropped like 40, 50 pounds. Just removing the anxiety of that situation. Removing anxiety. It was all new friends. I could sort of, you know, reinvent myself. I took a theater workshop over that summer.

Did you come in with sunglasses the first day? Yeah, I rode in on a motorcycle. And then, yeah, and I started... I got in the first play I auditioned for a new school and then just got in the drama club. And, you know, and I was the new guy. They had all been going there for three years and then I was the new guy coming in. And everybody loved me and it was great. It was like, you know, and I got...

We just vibed and those friends that I made that senior year of high school, I'm still friends with them to this day. And I don't ever talk to anybody from the first school. Damn. It's crazy. I transferred schools. I went from a private school to the... My mom sent me to private school my freshman year

because I fucked up at middle school a little bit. And my issue is that... So I transferred to like the public high school I always wanted to go to. My issue is that anywhere I go, sooner or later people just know that I'm like the fuck up idiot. It happened in high school. It happened in college pretty quickly. I know you're on the side of sooner in terms of sooner or later.

People pick up on it pretty immediately. They pick up on it quick, but I can trick them for a little bit. And then in LA it happened also pretty quickly too. I was also bad at football. My godfather and his sons were good football players. But like, I remember when I went to the school, I was just a weakling when I transferred over to North Quincy High School. And I remember I was in a scrimmage and there was this coach,

coach Glennon who was always kind of just rough to me, which I heard he was bad at football later on. The coach was? Yeah, like he was bad when he was younger. So maybe there were some... Had a chip on his shoulder. He had a chip on his shoulder or something. But I got put in...

I hope I've never told the story before, but I got put in into a scrimmage my sophomore year before the school year started to see how I was doing. And I got put in the scrimmage and they were all lining up. And I was like, I don't know what the fuck to do. And then from the sideline I heard coach Glennon yell, Get Mitchell out of there. He's gonna get himself killed.

That's what I heard right before a senior took me and put me in a spot. And then I got railroaded. I got destroyed. But then they made me sing the fight song and they liked me all right. Coach Crism and coach Carter, which were the JV coaches, like there was like a big equipment shed and they'd be like, Hey, we left a football in the back there and I go in the equipment shed and they would close the door.

These are my coaches. They trick you in and just lock you away from the rest of the team? They did. I forgot one notable guy on my football team was, you know, Jeff Sessions, the senator. Oh, yeah. His son, Sam Sessions. Wow.

Yeah. Jeff Sessions, the first guy to endorse Trump. What was Sam Sessions like? Any memories of him? He was a good football player and he had a lot of, he was very, you know, had a lot of ladies friends. He was like, he was all, you know, I never had any, I mean, I would have personal interactions with him on the team,

but he never reached out and tried to save me and be my friend and make me cool. He's probably on Wall Street now or something, right? He sounds like a piece of shit. His dad's certainly garbage. His dad is a piece of shit. So is there any food from Bama that you, like, that is specific, because I spent a little, I went to Charleston, South Carolina with my lovely wife Natalie last week,

which you and your lovely wife Stacy, we talked about a little bit, and they have some great regional cuisine there. Is there any cuisine specific to the, to Alabama that you think of, or just kind of blend into what you can get down in, in New Orleans? It's kind of an amalgam of, yeah. No. Hey, I appreciate it. I appreciate you giving a little bit of the answer.

No, you don't. It makes me feel at home. It's an amalgam of, like, barbecue, because Northern Alabama is like a lot of, like, barbecue there. Right. I mean, then, and where I'm from, because I was in Northern Alabama in Tuscaloosa when I went to school, but then in Southern Alabama on the Gulf Coast where Mobile is,

it's all, like, fried seafood and stuff. So, there's not, like, a quintessential, like, this is the thing that encompasses all of Alabama. To me, anyway, it's just kind of barbecue and fried food and seafood in the Southern area, because you're just right there on the Gulf of Mexico. So, when I think about food in Mobile, it's like shrimp and grits.

It's, you know, oyster loaves. It's, you know, hush puppies and that sort of thing. Yeah. Like, one of my favorite plays, I'll give a little shout-out to the do-drop-in. I always go to do-drop-in when I'm in Mobile. But the thing I always eat there is just, like, chili dogs. Oh, interesting.

It's chili dogs with sauerkraut on the top of it. Sauerkraut. Yeah, it's really good. That sounds good. It's really good. And just, like, a stripe of mustard over the top. And they also have really good oyster loaves. But they updated the menu recently,

so they have a hot, they have the do-drop-in hot dog sandwich. So it's basically two hot dogs in between two slices of bread. So it's basically, I would always eat two hot dogs anyway, so now you either get the sandwich or you get two hot dogs. Then maybe they made it for you. They might have done it for me. The molasses boy special.

I used to have a hot dog sandwich as a kid. That was a treat my dad would make me, between two slices of white bread. Just slice two hot dogs in half. Did you slice it? Yeah, yeah. And just sort of make them into a, it kind of fits that portion perfectly.

Yeah. Glory days. It is real good. It's a food to have some nostalgia for. Yeah, I went to, I got some shrimp and grits down there. We got some shrimp and grits down there. They think the place was called Hominy Grill in Charleston, in Chucktown.

Oh, wait, I was with you. Oh, no, I wasn't. No, that was in, that was a separate thing. It was in New Orleans. New Orleans, yeah. But yeah, man, they do it right down there. That is a real, real tasty meal if you get it right. I love shrimp and grits, yeah.

Grits, I guess, is, you know, the big, is like a big thing. Yeah. Just, it's, my cousin Vinny is true on so many levels. That's one of them. You know, when they called that, I remember that movie came out and my dad was like, I love this grit scene.

Grit. You know what? I'm on the fence with grits. I don't know what to think of grits. Really? I just don't know. Sometimes I eat them and I'm like, these are nothing.

They're plain and weird and nothing. You're like, oh, you're going to put syrup in them and stuff like that? It's fun to, yeah. I mean, I think, I think that alone, like I wouldn't just have a bowl of grits. It's a good accompaniment to other breakfast items on your plate.

So you can, you've got some bacon. You can scoop a little, some grits on the bacon and use a spoon or something. Yeah. Or it's good with eggs and stuff. It's good mixed with other things. That's why shrimp and grits is, happens to be a good combination.

It feels like. Palenta is a little bit like a more flavorful grit to me. That's, that's, Palenta, I like okay. Okay. Grits is like truly tastes like nothing. Have you had some cheese grits, Mitch? I don't think I've ever had cheese grits. Cheese grits are real good.

I'm probably getting some people upset because I don't really know my stuff, but. Try put some pepper in it. Some pepper on the grits. Ooh, boy. Ooh, my mouth is watering right now. Pepper and grits. And butter.

I feel like. I just put pepper and just like a thing of butter in the middle and then the butter melts in there. That does sound good. Yeah. You know. It sounds like such a southern thing. Like, I feel like, like there's always a big fat southern guy

who's like, I need, I love grits. Like, I feel like grits are such a big. There always is, isn't there? He's always raised like, oh, here we go. Here's this guy. You out there, everyone out there listening. Let us know what you think about grits. If you're a grit fan, use hashtag true grit.

And. Oh, my God. If you don't like grits, use hashtag. No country for old grits. All right, let's get to Dave and Buster's. Hey, before we get started. I had a cat named Buster for a long time. Did you really?

Buster Kitty. I loved Buster a lot. What kind of cat was Buster? A black and white cat. Much like the kittens I have now. Oh, that's cute. Oh, so these kittens weren't your first cat? No, I had Zip and Buster.

Zip, I got when I was five and she lived for 20 years. She died when I was 25. And then Buster. Actually, this is appropriate, kind of. Buster died like a few months after Zip, but I got her when I was about eight. So she was, you know, 17 or 18 or something. She was a little bit older.

Did you name her after James Buster Douglas? That is actually what she was named after. Really? She was named after Buster Douglas because she had white paws. Like boxing gloves was kind of like what they were trying to say. I don't know. It was a family. She was a wild cat.

The way I got Buster, here this is a sad, is that there was this Jordan Marsh, which is like a kind of like a marshal. I don't know. It was like some store where they sold stuff. And my mom and dad saw a kitten blowing around in the parking lot. This is when I was like, you know, 2nd grade, 7 or so. Blowing around?

Yeah, like it was just like a little kitten by itself and it was blowing around in the parking lot. Oh, I might cry. Oh, it was windy? From the wind. Jesus Christ. And they were like, we should get it or whatever. And it was like on the other side of this fence.

So they told me like, you want to go get this cat or whatever. I was like, sure. And we went down like one day and I could hear it meowing behind the fence, but we couldn't get to it. And then we went back the next day and like you could hear it meowing and my dad was like, like it was late. And my dad was like, tomorrow we'll go around behind the fence and we'll get the cat.

We'll be okay. And then we went the next night and we found the cat and it was frozen to death. And it stuck with me. It sticks with me to this day. Oh my God. It was like my first, it was a traumatic moment in my life and it stuck with me to this day.

And I think it got me very protective of the cats that I got after that. I'm sad. Do you need a cream? Why did I tell this story? Mitch, I haven't seen you this emotional since at dinner when Jack Allison ate the last boneless buffalo egg. Your heart is as cold as that cat was that night. Oh, that's awful.

Yeah. So we got this replacement cat Buster. I don't think it was Nate. I think it was Buster Douglas, not Buster. The timeline went about. We thought it was maybe Buster Keaton, but it was not. Was it Buster Blues? From Rested Development.

Buster lived a nice, long life. She was a weird cat. And she passed away in my arch-rivals video game cabinet. She crawled into the cabinet and she passed away. Wait, the basketball game arch-rivals? The basketball game arch-rivals. You owned one? I got one as a prize.

It was an old one for like a hundred bucks. Wow. When I was like 10 or 12 or something, my mom found a thing that was like a hundred bucks. It was my big birthday present. And then it sat in my basement and wasn't used. But Buster crawled in that thing and died. That makes so much sense because you were at Dave and Buster's.

You were on your hands and knees underneath the arch-rivals arcade thing. I was playing arch-rivals and crying. Buster, but a lot of my childhood was thrown out that day. Buster in the arch-rivals game. You had to get rid of it because the cat died in there. Yeah, sure. But then I have her atches. Her and zip atches are in my room.

Arch-rivals was a very insane touching story, bitch. Arch-rivals, I will just say, is a very strange video game because it was like a violent basketball game, right? Yeah, you punched and kicked and stuff and like, yeah, you could punch a guy and steal the ball away. Did you ever play this out? It's like how real basketball should be. It was like hockey but basketball?

Yeah, it was like kind of that era when all games, I think, were still Japanese-developed. And so it was like a Japanese developer who had a peripheral knowledge of basketball. The same way Double Dribble really has no... The old Konami game has no resemblance to the actual sport of basketball, but they just are sort of watching, I guess, VHS tapes of it or beta tapes of it and trying to reverse engineer what the rules are. But yeah, it's very foreign from what actual basketball is.

It's really a really weird game. They don't know what it is. Also, by the way, I bought myself a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide thing, so it will warn me if the kittens are ever in trouble. Well, that's nice for your current home. For my current home. I don't know what's happened to me. I don't know what's happened to me.

I'm fucking turning into a weird loser. Jesus Christ. You're growing up, Mitch. No, I'm not. I got two cats. I'm a fucking freak. Do you already have, like, urns for the new cats? Yeah, I got the urns already.

Come on. You buy them as soon as you get the kittens. It's a good investment. You're gonna need it eventually. I got my urn, too. It's a big boy. A lot of ash. You get a lot of ash.

It was a three for one. Two cat urns and one human urn. Things the size of an oil drum. All right, let's talk to Evan Buster's. So, Alan, what is your connection to Evan Buster's? Why was this a chain you wanted to cover? Well, the first time I ever visited New York, the first time Stacy and I went there was for, I don't know, help me out.

I mean, I went was the first, like, Del Close marathon, I think, that I went to... It might have been 2006, 2007, maybe? Yeah, something like that. So, we were in Times Square. The name of the marathon at the Upper East Citizens Regate Theatre in New York, if you're not familiar. Right, and so we were in Times Square and I'm just, like, amazed by my first time in Times Square and...

Wow. And I can just remember it now. Look at all the suns. Coca-Cola. Alan, get out of the street. It's Birdman on Broadway. What was the name of the play you did? Who cares?

Oh, yeah, was that what the alternate title was? I don't remember. Cats. In Birdman? In Birdman? He's in Cats. Are you sure? I didn't see that, Birdman.

Oh, sorry, you were in Times Square. Oh, yeah, right. So, yeah, I mean, anyway, I was just amazed by, you know, I'm going to the Eminem store, I'm going all the places. And we found this, you know, we stumbled upon the Dave and Buster's and I'd never heard of this and I just, you know, I had always loved arcade places when I was, like, in high school I worked at DZ Discovery Zone, which was, like, a play land for little kids. Sure.

You have, like, an arcade area and I was sort of in charge of the arcade area from time to time. I loved that. I always loved going to QZAR, playing arcade games and stuff like that. You know, I like arcade, but barcades I had not even been to before, like a place that's a bar and an arcade. And so I was just like, whoa, this is amazing. They have an arcade place that you can go drink at and stuff.

So that immediate atmosphere was what I was amazed by. I was shocked to learn when we got back that there was multiple Dave and Buster's, like, I'd never heard of it. So I thought this was just a New York thing. But, yeah, Stacey and I had so much fun at that one that it was just, like, this lasting memory. We didn't need it that one. We just were drinking and doing arcade games and stuff.

So, but since then, I've always had this kind of thing with Stacey and I, you know, it's like we just kind of like, I don't know, have this fond memory of going to Dave and Buster's together in Times Square. And so it's this kind of fun thing. She doesn't tag along as much. But I just enjoy the atmosphere of the sports bar, arcade, you know, wacky drinks and stuff, atmosphere. Right.

I don't know. They certainly deliver on the wacky drinks. I feel like that's a land. I think that's a huge part of it. That's a big part of their appeal is they've got a lot of, like, glowing drinks and oddly colored drinks and just, like, very, just a gigantic menu of overly sweet, overly colorful cocktails. And tonight, the one I got for my first, I got two rounds.

So the first round I got was the Million Dollar Margarita, which was a Ornitos Reposado with Tuaca and Grand Marnier. And, you know, just a very conventional salt-rimmed margarita rocks. I was expecting it to have some sort of, like, day glow, like, neon look to it or, you know, like, maybe some blue curacao for a little bit of color. But it didn't have anything particularly there. It was just, like, kind of like a fine, well-made, probably a little on the sweet side, a little too much mixed margarita to fill out that larger cup size.

But it was totally okay. What about, what did you guys end up doing on the cocktail front? I stuck with the Mega Mojitos. I got the Passion Fruit Mega Mojito with mango, blood-orange blended liqueur with cruzon. I can't say else. You know, what attracted me was the mint leaves. Actually, it looked like, it looked like when I looked at the picture, it looked like a mint julep because I was sort of looking for, like, maybe a whiskey thing or something.

Do you like a mint julep coming from down south? Oh, I love mint jules. Yeah, it's a good drink. I don't know if it's just because I'm from down south, but I do love mint jules. I like the minty cocktail. Mint is a funny drink. A little mint drink is funny. It's a stranger.

Right. I appreciate mint in certain contexts, but within a cocktail is one of the places I will enjoy it. Yeah, so that was pretty good and it was not too sweet because I was looking at the, I was going to get either a margarita or a Mai Tai, but I don't really love the super sweet drinks. I like kind of one sweet flavor if you're going to have something like a gin and tonic or something like that, a little bit of lemon juice. Just one sweet thing in there is enough for me. Yeah, they've got a lot of cocktails that are basically just sort of like prom punch in terms

of sugar intensity at that. Yeah, I was, because I think all of us like didn't feel well at the end of this meal. Right. And I was like. You literally almost threw up at the table. That is true. I think I did almost literally throw up at one point and I was trying to figure out what it was and I can get into that in a second with the food, but I had the strawberry watermelon

margarita, which is blue agave, silver tequila. Does anyone even care what the fuck was in this thing? This watermelon pucker, finest call watermelon puree and minute made lemonade. Shake it in porn. This is important. Shake it and pour it over strawberry flavored ice cubes, which they are. They're like red ice cubes that are strawberry flavored within the drink. It's an insanely, it's like candy.

Yeah. And I mean the glasses sugar rimmed. It's insanely and insanely sweet drink. But not bad. It was pretty good. If you're going to have one of them, I mean, I feel like if you were drinking these drinks all night, you would throw up or be sick. I feel like just a sugar headache is what I'd get.

Yeah. You would definitely be hungover. If you got drunk off these drinks, I feel like you would be sick the next day. And then I also got the Backwoods blueberry lemonade, which I thought kind of sucked, which was Firefly, Moonshine, Strawberry, Absolute Berry, Vodka, Kai, Vodka. How do you say that? A-C-A-I? Is it a Kai or is it a Sai?

I think it's a Sai. I think it's a Sai. Lemonade and real blueberry puree. And this one had like a little red solo cup that Alan and I were just confused by the entire, we were just confused by. It was a shot-got-glass-sized solo cup that hooked to the rim of the glass. Yeah, and you're supposed to take it as a shot, but it tasted like shit. It was really, really...

Was that what made you make me throw up? I can't remember. I mean, maybe that was a part of it. It was like a combination of just everything that was going on, I feel like. Right. Because, listen, the drinks can be fun. That one was bad. But then there's like the Corona margaritas and stuff, and I've had them before, and

they're fun. They're good. They're not bad drinks, if you're gonna have one. I think actually the Corona margarita, which also are other dinner companions. Evan Susser, friend of the podcast, and Jack Allison, a past guest from our Taco Bell episode were there. And Jack got the Corona Rita for his second round. Yeah, I think that is the way to go.

I've had one of those before, and it's kind of like the right level of kitsch and fun versus like what you got with that little red solo cup shot glass is just sort of like what the fuck is this? It's a little too gimmicky. And yeah, my second round I got the Forbidden Fruit Sangria, which I didn't transcribe all the ingredients, but I was kind of disappointed in this one. It was just kind of like this murky kind of Pepto-Bismol color versus the artwork look like it was going to be like this deep sort of strawberry red.

And it was just kind of like, it's kind of like an oddly sweet little slightly off-putting watery cocktail. Yeah, I wasn't particularly happy with the Sangria. I think I'd say to something a little bit more conventional. I guess there's just sort of a crapshoot with your cocktail ordering there. And I would say, you know, I think our server did a good job. It was a very busy night. It was the NFL seat.

We were recording this on a Thursday. So it was the NFL season opener between like what was the Broncos and the Panthers. Yeah, the Broncos and the Panthers. So it was like very crowded with football fans. Which would be, it's one of those games that would be an interesting matchup in real life. Oh, like a herd of horses versus some Panthers. Broncos is particularly big horses. Is that what that is?

Yeah, they're big horses. Okay. A big horse versus a wild cat. Right. What do you think the numbers are? This is probably a certain cat centric. In gladiator times, that's what they would have done, you know. Yeah, that's true.

That would literally be Broncos versus, what was it? versus Panthers. Panthers. It would be Broncos versus Panthers. You're so sure of this and then you weren't really sure what the second animal was. And then if Joaquin Phoenix was dissatisfied with the outcome, he'd give a big thumbs down. A gladiator reference? Yeah.

Here's my issue with gladiator, quickly. Go for it. The trailer for gladiator had Kid Rock's Ba with the Ba. Did it really? Yeah, so I could never take it seriously. There was one trailer for gladiator that had Ba with the Ba. And I could never take it, like so I saw it. And then I was like, oh, it was kind of felt like a Braveheart.

Like a Roman Braveheart or whatever. I could never get behind it because I thought it was, because I saw that Kid Rock trailer and I never, I could never like it after that. Right. It's like that trailer for the English patient that uses Let the Bodies Hit the Floor. Just kind of inappropriate. Yeah, you know what I think was the worst one of those was the episode two trailer, the Attack of the Clones trailer that was Huda Man, Yoda Man.

And it was like Yoda themed and it showed it with his lightsaber. And I was just like, all right, come on. Is that the trailer where you finally get to see Yoda's dick? Yeah. It's like the scene in the Simpsons movie where you see Bart's dick. It just peeks out from under a fence. You know, I never thought of Yoda as like a sexual creature. Right.

Until now. Until now. Well, until Yaddle, honestly. Yaddle? And then like... The female Yoda he's seen in episode one. Oh. Did Yoda and Yaddle, did Yoda and Yaddle fall?

I have to think they fell. They were both on the Jedi Council. They were the only two of their species apparently in the Star Wars universe. So, yeah, I would think they probably fucked. Yeah, they were fucking. You think they really fucked? That's really funny. I guarantee you that there is definitely fan art of Yoda and Yaddle fucking.

Oh, yeah. Of course. How else would they keep their gene pool going, their race? That's a good point. But they're so old. Do you think they could still reproduce? Yeah, that's a good point. They're both very old.

Are Yodas ever attractive? Are they ever very attractive when they were young or anything like that? Oh, like they were hot when they were younger? They have good bodies. Yeah. You just never see them, but they're like ripped. You know, I bet you the internet can figure this out for us. If you got a cute pic of Yoda, send it to Weigar hashtag hotyoder.

Let's see what you get. Maybe you'll get some handsome Yodas. Here's a question. Do Yodas lay eggs? Why? I don't know. They look like they might be the kind of odd mammal that lays eggs, like a plot of us. I think they're like too evolved.

Maybe they do. Maybe they do. I mean, they're an alien species. Who knows? You know what? No, it is one of the fun, one of the star wars fun fact that I always like to talk about is that, is it Gamorian or Gomorrian? Gomorrian?

The Gomorrian guard. The green guys with the- The pig guys. Yeah, the pig guys. The one that gets eaten by the Rancor, lives in the Star Wars extended universe. Which I guess is probably why he made it out. He got eaten and then it died but he had some protective plate on his body. Oh, so he got a little crunched up but he didn't get digested.

He didn't get digested. Yeah, he lived and then he went on and had many more adventures. Well, good. And that's canon. I mean, it should be still until JJ came and fucking wiped it all out. Fucking asshole. All right, so we got a couple of apps. We started off with me, Alan, and Evan were there at first.

And we ordered the lots of loaded tots, which were crispy potato tots loaded with hot queso, crispy bacon, and green onions with sriracha ketchup. And the boneless buffalo wings, which our server advised us were half off due to happy hour. And that was eight boneless wings. They only have the buffalo sauce. They don't have different types of wings there. Just at one point I was saying a few minutes ago. Passive aggressive, by the way, that you said we were there first and that wasn't there.

Yeah, well, I didn't mean I didn't want to rub it in that you were about a half hour late, but it was totally fine. In any event, also Jack Allison went to Buffalo Wild Wings instead of David Buster's, which was probably a bigger mistake. But then again, he didn't have the responsibility to be doing it for a podcast. In any event, what is made about our server earlier is that he seemed a little harried due to all the football fans that were there. And so I don't feel like we got a lot of attention.

Like, I feel like he was kind of like trying to rush through things. And we asked for like a rack and he's like, oh, yeah, I don't know. You know, like he was just sort of like very... I don't feel like he was giving offering a lot of information. I ordered the water from it. It took a very, very, very long time to get it, but he did get it. Yeah. Though Jack did get the wrong order.

He ordered wings and burger. Like wings and sliders and he got wings and ribs instead. And there was no effort on the waitstaff's part to resolve that. They were just sort of like, oh, here you go. Like, oh, whoops. And they didn't even offer to bring... Well, the guy who brought it was a different guy. And he very much was just like, so who got the wings and ribs?

And we're like, no one. He's like, you know, who got them? And we're like, no one. No one ordered them. So he started just going like, okay, well, who got the salad? And then he's like, I'll deal with this part. And by the time he was done passing everything else out, he... Jack was just like, I don't care.

Yeah, Jack just took them, which is funny. I would have probably sent it back. I would want my real order. But Jack was very easygoing tonight. But that guy did... It was that sort of thing. He never admitted that there was anything wrong. It was very strange.

I think our server was doing his best. But I feel like we just weren't getting great service just as a result of the atmosphere. And so what did you guys think of the tots and the buffalo wings? Lots of cheese on those tots. Lots of cheese sauce. I'm gonna say that for me, both of them were the stars of the meal. Yeah.

I think you're right. I think that the buffalo, the boneless buffalo fingers or whatever the fuck they are or... They're just boneless wings. But they're not wings. They're boneless. Yeah, I know. Boneless buffalo fingers were really good.

You've spoken in the past in defense of boneless wings. Why are you anti-boneless wings at this point? No, no. I like the boneless wings. I was saying they're really good. Okay. I'm saying that they're not wings if they're boneless. I don't understand this argument.

I'm saying that you can't call them wings. They're more like nuggets. But that's what they're called. Okay, fine. Fuck it. I think they're boneless buffalo fingers. I see both points. I feel like fingers are longer.

Yes. They're not. They certainly weren't fingers. They might have been nuggets. But if you're going to make that argument, then you could say that boneless wings just flat out do not exist. And I'm just confused by that.

That can be your opinion, but I'm confused by that because you're a guy who said in the past that you prefer boneless wings to bone-in wings. Fine. Boneless buffalo wings. Okay. The boneless... And that's what they call them.

That's also what... Yeah. That's what they've decided to call them. All right, fine. I was wrong on this one. Okay? Jesus Christ. They were good.

They came with some nice French fries. And they were good. They did a good job with them. You know, kind of like... Yeah. Not like blown away by them, but they were good. They were good. The tots were good.

The tots were normal. Standard tots. They had nice crispness, I thought. But the cheese is really what really makes that, you know, really enjoyable. The cheese brought it all together. The cheese brought it all together. It didn't look like that much cheese at first.

Right. And once we kind of got the top layer of tots off, then it was like just a whole bunch more cheese there. Yeah. It was a nice little lagoon of cheese that was swimming in. We ate all that stuff. That's not as appetizing. And then we got what?

The pizza thing? The pizza and pretzel? Oh, yeah. Yes. The app after that that Mitch ordered were the... I fucked up. No, you didn't fuck up. It was a fine thing to order.

Don't blame yourself for it. The pepperoni pretzel pull-aparts, they looked good. They sounded good. Jumbo bread and pretzel pizzas with mozzarella and pepperoni with a marinara dip and sauce. And they came... This was one out element. They came to the table scape in a skillet,

a cast iron skillet that was purely just for show. They clearly weren't cooking the skillet. The skillet itself wasn't even hot. It wasn't even hot. And I wanted to question whether it was plastic. Yeah, it might have been. Yeah. Yeah, no, the skillet was just for show.

I liked those okay. People were pretty hard on them. They were not good though. They were very doughy. A lot of dough. I had never thought about the combination of pizza and a pretzel or a big soft pretzel. But I guess I just don't like that as much.

I think it's good with just dipping sauce maybe. I like a soft pretzel with a bunch of salt on it and dipping it in some mustard or something. But for whatever reason, it didn't... I don't know. I went back. I had some more of it. Also, the sauce felt a little watery to me or something.

Yeah, not a great dip and sauce. The watery texture to it made it... It just didn't have the right viscosity to stick to the bread when you dipped it in. And the other thing was... You're right, but that was also a gross fire fire. Yeah, it wouldn't stay on the pretzel. It wouldn't stay on the pretzel.

It was very much like Moses. I mean, seriously. The redness parted around the pretzel when you dipped it in. It just moved it to the side. It was kind of strange. And it also had all this toppings on it and the toppings would fall off when you dipped them in. So then you started to get straight toppings

mixed in with the dip and sauce. Yeah, it was a subpar app. I think the other two were a lot better. I want to know where people's favorite boneless buffalo wings are from. I wonder. Because we've talked about this before. Chili's has some good ones. Right.

But where's the top? I think Bdub's has some good boneless wings. I'm very happy with buffalo wild wings boneless wings. I prefer bone in, but they do a good boneless there. That's the only type of boneless wings they have there, right? That's that one flavor. Yeah, they just have the buffalo. And they come with either ranch or blue cheese.

Our server did not ask us whether we wanted ranch or blue cheese. He just brought ranch, which is a little minor. It seems like you were annoyed. I feel like we could have gotten a little bit more personal attention, but it's fine. In any event, so let's talk about our mains a little bit. Wait, did you want to give a hashtag for people's favorite boneless buffalo wings? Champion Chicky.

Perfect. That's four or against? Oh, they just say what their favorite is. What their favorite is. They do Champion Chicky and what their favorite is. Okay. Great. Let's get to our mains.

I had the short rib and cheesy mac stack. Again, I asked our server, I was like, this was a... On our Red Robin episode with Darcy Cardin a couple of weeks ago, I had a burger with some mac and cheese on it. I was pretty dissatisfied with it. So I saw another sandwich with mac and cheese on it, and I figured I'd say, okay, I'll try and give this one a shot. See if this is a little bit more of a better execution.

You're like Yero, he dreams of sushi, but you dream of the perfect mac sandwich. Yes. I'm exactly like Yero. Wiger dreams of Mackey. Mackey sandwich. It hasn't worked out for you, though. No, it hasn't, no.

And I also don't have any sons to carry on my legacy, nor will I ever. Oh boy. In any event. So I asked our server, I was like, hey, have you had this, the short rib and cheesy mac stack? And he's like, all right, I'll get a short rib and cheesy mac. And then he just wrote it down like he was taking my order.

And I had to stop and be like, no, sorry, have you had this? And he's like, oh yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Every one of his opinions were probably bad. Right. He did not care. But this was, it had short rib, mac and cheese,

and onions between sourdough bread. And it was kind of like a basically grilled cheese sandwich. It came with more tots. The tots were good. The sandwich I felt like, I just felt like the mac and cheese just wasn't good mac and cheese. It was just kind of like the subpar, flavorless, slightly overcooked pasta.

And then the short rib, I was like, I don't know, I feel like it would have been better with some pulled pork or something else. Just like the short rib meat was just like very strange. You know I got a new theory. Yeah, go for it. You won't ever find a good mac and cheese sandwich. Maybe it just doesn't exist.

It might not exist. That's not true. There's that food truck that's got the mac and cheese sandwiches. You know what I'm talking about? There's a grilled cheese truck. Oh yeah, grilled cheese. Don't they do a macaroni and cheese? I don't know.

I know of it. I've never actually been there. I have no idea. Look at that one up. I think that's a good... If you haven't tried that grilled cheese truck. That's a good mac and cheese sandwich? I don't know if I've ever...

Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, have I ever had a good mac and cheese sandwich? I think my answer is no unless I just like the fat loser I am like made mac and cheese and then put it between two pieces of white bread. Was that sourdough bread? That was good bread. It was not bad.

Yeah, the bread was fine. It was like a good... I think I would have rather had a grilled cheese sandwich with that bread. You know what would be a good food gimmick? What? A good food gimmick? Tall rib.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do you mean like a physically like longer rib? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, instead of short rib. Just a short rib. Tall rib. Big tall rib.

Yeah, someone should make that. That's funny. You bring it to your plate just standing on end? Mm-hmm. Great. That sounds fun. Yeah. Moving on.

Good idea, Mitch. Bank that one. Alan, what did you get for your main? The Maker's Mark... I ran out of space on my phone to memorize what that was, but the Maker's Mark... You ran out of storage? You couldn't include another character?

Right. By the way, I've seen Alan's phone and if you open up... If you open it up, it's... There's no batteries operated by a cricket. The cricket jumping around gives it energy. Yeah, I know. He's busy making his little noises at night. He has to go, you know, chirp.

It's your little alarm, too. Yeah. He got out and Dave Varsons, you were chasing him all around, I remember. Oh, my God. I didn't get to play one game. But then he said to me that this was the most fun game I could have played anyway. I love my little cricket. The Maker's Mark...

I wanted a burger. That was what I wanted going there. Right. It wasn't just a normal cheeseburger. I had double cheeseburger I was thinking about. I was considering... I almost got the Buffalo Wing Burger. That was like a burger with a wing.

That looked insane. But then we had the Boneless Wings and so I was like, okay, I've had the wings and I'm gonna do that. So I went with the Maker's Mark Barbecue Burger, which had like some pulled pork and barbecue sauce on it, along with the burger. So I thought that was kind of a crazy combination. Yeah. It also, like the Maker's Mark Bottle, had red wax melted all over the top of the bun.

Yeah, that was my choice. I didn't like that. That was not tasty. But other than that, what I liked most about it was ultimately the pork more than the burger, the patty. Had a nice... The sauce had a nice sweetness and... The burger was weirdly plain though for something that seemed like so. Yeah.

It had a couple of... I mean, it had a couple things going on, but I should have maybe thrown some... I didn't even throw any ketchup in there. Yeah. I got distracted by the cricket. I feel like sometimes with chain restaurants, what you run into is they pile on a bunch of ingredients onto something to make it gimmicky or kind of give it its own hook. But the thing they neglect is just seasoning.

They don't put on enough salt and pepper. And particularly, I feel like a lot of these places, even though their dishes are loaded with sodium, they're reluctant to add salt because they just don't... They want to make sure they're not... They want to allow the customer, I guess, to add salt if they wanted. They want to air on the side of things being under seasoned. But yeah, it ends up with things that are kind of oddly flavorless at times. Mm-hmm.

Mitchell, how about your entree? Okay. I got the caveman platter. And that was what it was called. It was the caveman platter. It was four burger sliders, fries and ribs, all served in a little tin pail or whatever the hell it was, a little bucket. Right.

Mm-hmm. Like the cavemen used to have. Yeah. The bucket is one of the first things they ever dug up. Archaeologist. Anyways, I couldn't think about archaeology. It's been a long week, folks. I'm sorry.

We're all very tired. We're all very tired. That was a good addition that I gave there. We're all very tired. Yes. We're all very tired. God damn it. Hopefully, people aren't listening to this while driving, falling asleep on the road.

We're all so tired. Are you tired right now? Wait. If you are... I took a nap right before name busters. That's why I was a little bit... You are wired. ...a few minutes late.

Oh, I saw I was bouncing off the walls. Yeah. What were you going to say? Were you going to do a hashtag? Oh, I was just saying if you're driving right now... Just kidding. You're not being pulled over. That was me doing a siren noise.

Classic McLeod goof. I don't like that, though, in songs when they have a siren. I don't like it either. It's like, you can't do that in a song. I agree. I agree. I'm sure that some people just got frightened thinking there was a ghost in there. That sounded a little bit like a ghost.

Sorry, that was a police car. But with all the police brutality, I shouldn't make a joke. Jesus Christ. Oh, boy. It's almost 70 minutes. It's time to talk about police brutality. I got the caveman platter. And, boy, was it fine.

The ribs were very... So this is what I thought maybe was getting me sick was the artificial smokiness of the ribs. It was really weird. I had, I think, maybe one or two ribs I gave the rest away. I ate all the sliders. The sliders were fine, but it really looked like shit compared to the picture. It really did not look that amazing. The presentation looked fucking bad.

So a thing that really bugged me is they just fucking put the barbecue sauce on the ribs, but then it was drizzled over the burgers and it was over the fries. And I was like, now everything just tastes like fucking ribs. Right. And it was like a thick rib sauce. Not a ton of sauce on the rib, but it was still there. And the sauce was thick. It was just kind of like sticky and thick.

And there wasn't a ton of it. But it was drizzled all over the fries and the burgers. And the burgers were okay. And the fries were okay. But just kind of like whatever. Not worth like the $17 or whatever it was. You think you're getting like a sampler platter the way it's presented. You think of this grandiose thing and really you're kind of getting things that all kind

of taste samey. Also, why the caveman platter? Right. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense. Like we said, it was in a little bucket. Yeah. I mean, I guess call it a paint man platter.

Or who has a bucket? Right. No, you're right. The paint man. The paint man. His barrels. His barrels. But the Donkey Kong platter would have been fun.

It's an arcade type of platter. I bet you Nintendo would probably have some old ups with that. Right. Yeah. It was just the ribs were kind of, the ribs weren't even bad. I was okay with them. But I was also like, I don't need to eat these. This artificial fucking smoky flavor.

Jack made a good point that they were kind of like McRib ribs. Yeah. The meat tasted very processed. And I had one of your ribs and that sauce was just so punishingly sweet. Yeah. I think that was when y'all hit a wall. That was when you both kind of were like woo. Right.

I felt legitimately sick after eating that rib. Yeah. The burgers and fries, the sliders and fries were okay. But just not great. Disappointed. I was disappointed. Because I think that Damon Buster's does some stuff okay. Right.

So I was kind of disappointed overall on the meals. But we had a fun time with the arcades. Oh boy. Let's talk video games, guys. Some games too. So after we concluded our meal, we wrapped up our check, we went over to the arcade. We messed around with a few different games. Alan, you and I played a little two player time crisis five.

That was great. That was a fun little shooter. You know, I used to like the original time crisis. I didn't realize at this point in the series, because the gimmick of time crisis is you've got this little pedal that lets you duck. In time crisis five, at some point in the series, they added two pedals. So you've got one pedal to duck left and another pedal to duck and maneuver right. In addition to having this gun that you're using to shoot bad guys, it's like a lot to

process. I felt a little overwhelmed, but it's very fun. It's very satisfying. Yeah. It's like you can sort of strafe over and run around the guys and they're still shooting at where you were or your partner if you're playing with two people and then you can get them in the side and stuff. I've had fun with that sort of the 3D world they were playing.

It almost felt kind of virtual reality-esque or something a little bit. Yeah. I'm not good at shooter games. I have bad aim, but I enjoy shooting games because it's just like fun to shoot a gun and to fuck up things. That's what I like. They have a big variety of those. Oh, yeah.

Well, I remember... You were a little bit sad they didn't have like a Columbine game for you. Jesus. Right, Nick asked the head of the David Mouser. He said, how come you don't have a Columbine shooter yet? And we said, Jesus, Nick. None of this is true. That was a horrific tragedy.

The very cause of a lot of strife in a small town. Why are you crossing your fingers right now? Also, yeah, no one thinks that was true, you fucking weirdo. No one thinks that you actually went up and asked if there was a Columbine shooter game. Yeah, I know. I'm just underlining that I'm a little outraged at this line of accusation. I like that they have a lot of physical games there. Not just like Dance Dance Revolution, but you have stuff where you're like,

I gotta jump on these pedals and I'm cheating and doing some things. We played that Ghostbusters game too, or you guys did, and then I played after. That game sucked. That was horrible. I didn't like the ping pong balls. Why were they shooting ping pong balls? I don't get that. I guess it's supposed to make it lively and fun, but the actual game itself was so stupid.

The graphics look like shit. Yeah, it was like Runner Ghost from Ghostbusters 2 was the first boss. Right. It was a really, really poorly made game. And Vigo the Carpathian, who's the main bad guy of Ghostbusters 2, was like, Yeah, you see him right away. You see him right away, and he's fucking easy. He's really easy.

Trivial, trivially easy to beat. The graphics look terrible. The ping pong balls don't make any sense, and then just like the only song, the only music in it is Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters theme, which is a great song, but it's just playing on loop. Yeah, it's a very, very lax presentation. And also, Mitch, you and I teamed up to play that Luigi's Mansion. We played some of Luigi's Mansion.

Which I got immediately killed and I did not understand what was going on. I kicked your ass, even though we were supposed to be a team. You were dead very quick, and it was much harder for me by myself. I thought that was kind of fun, but the weapon was a little unwieldy. You've got like a vacuum cleaner you're using, and it's like very physically cumbersome. Yeah. Some Nintendo arcade games are very strange. We also played the Mario Kart game.

Yeah. And I ended up being Pac-Man. I was in first place pretty much the entire race. Then you hit me with some sort of weird fucking shell. I hit you with a well-timed shell that I had been saving. Whatever the shell was, it doesn't exist in the real game. Well, while Luigi, my character crossed the finish line in first place. That's right.

Wiger won on the very last lap. And I think Pac-Man actually came in third. Pac-Man came in third or fourth. Yes, you fucked me over big time. And also, they did the thing that Mario Kart sometimes does, where they reward the guy who is really, really bad. They give you a lot of good items and then you won. No, that's not what was happening.

For sure, didn't it? Not at all was happening. I was consistent. I was consistent. I was not in last place at that point. Yes, you were bad. No, I was not in last place. I was in second place.

No, you did bad. No, I was in second. I was in second and third place. I actually had first place at a couple of laps. I did not do bad. No, not for a couple of laps. I did. Also, you and I did have a bone to pick with the game

because there was some weird not-of-the-world announcer who was like, Pac-Man's in first. Oh, yeah, it was really bad. It was not. He did not sound Mario-esque at all. And then also they had another character, Don-chan? Who the fuck was Don-chan? Yeah, Don-chan.

He was like a sentient barrel? That's who Jack was. Yeah, Jack played the little sentient barrel. What the fuck was that? I don't know. Very strange. Yeah, they made some options. I mean, it was Namco developed.

So, which explains why Pac-Man is in there. But it's not really a true... The Mario Kart GP is not a true Mario Kart. It's a little bit. Is it shitty? I can't tell if it's good or not. You picked a shitty level. I know that.

I think it's kind of bad. I think it's very much like for a Japanese audience like a lot of... You know, it's just a weird game. I don't know. I didn't like it. And then I played to keep with the ghost theme that we had going on earlier.

I played a little... Like a horror video game that blows air and shit at you. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. You know that one? It blows air and it's very scary. It's the haunted house one. Yeah, yeah.

And you wear 3D glasses. Anyways, all the games were fun. They were all fun. Right. I like the setup where you can play like four people can play each other on a... I mean, I think that's worth going there. You can just kind of hunker down on one of those setups, you know, for a while and just play a bunch of Mario Kart together with your buds.

Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of nice. I mean, like I would just say that my only thing, I think David Buster has made a smart move by doubling down on like the physicality, like these large like, you know, games that have some theatricality to them. There's this pirate game that I played there with Matt Myro and went for work once and that's a great thing. You're like steering a pirate ship and firing cannons is a great time.

But like so many, so many of the graphics are just not... They're just not up to par with what you have at home consoles. Like your PlayStation 4, your Xbox One is going to be pushing more polygons than so many of these games. They just kind of like look behind the times. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. They also had...

I had never really noticed before they had all these, you know, phone games. Right. That are there now. They had Fruit Ninja and I hadn't been there for a little bit. I don't know if I love that new era. I don't like that new stuff. Those games are boring to me, like runners and stuff like that are dumb. So, also a new thing that they do now is they incorporate,

like they'll take your picture and shit. Yeah. Like I don't like that. I don't like to see myself gaming. Leave my face out of this. You like to stay off the grid. I like to stay off the grid as they say, yeah. I don't want people...

I don't want to see myself gaming, which I had to in Mario Kart. They take a picture of your... A close-up picture of your face as you... Yeah, very unflattering light. But it's like you're one of the... Like if you're Mario, you have like a big must, you know, the nose and a hat on and stuff like that. So, it sort of disguises you.

They tweak your avatar a little bit. Yeah. Except my fat face didn't fit within the picture. It was like my nose and mouth. You got to back up. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back with more Doe Boys. Breaks!

Welcome back to Doe Boys. We're talking David Buster with Alan McLeod. Guys, it's time for our ratings. Alan, you know how this works. We're going to go around. We're each going to give our closing argument in giving what we think of this particular franchise, and then at the end of it, you will give your rating on the order of one to five forks.

Alan, we'll start with you. Okay. Okay. So, as I said before, I love the atmosphere of an arcade. You start with that. I love a sports bar. You add that in the mix. These two combine.

This is a fun concept to me. Having some wacky drinks. That's fun. But, so, I mean, all that combined is great. We're already starting at five forks there. So, now we're going to start going down. So, then it's the food. You bring the food in, and it's like everything seemed to be so over the top.

I think it's more of a... I would say that Dave and Buster's is more of an enjoyable app place. You're going to have some fun apps there and have some fun drinks. And you can get normal cocktails. You don't have to order off the wacky menu. But I would say you have some fun apps there, and that's what you would enjoy. Because what you have left are these kind of absurd entrees

that don't really deliver. And if they had just kept it simple... Now, I haven't had the cheeseburger there, but maybe that's great. But I had one of the more simple hamburgers, and it still was lacking. I certainly didn't finish it. Now, we ate a lot before that,

so that might have something to do with it. But it still tasted a little bit... The patty still tastes a little bit bland to me. And also, I think the part I gave you, I don't think you had any pork in that part. I noticed that I took the bun off, and I think half of it was like... Yeah.

I think some of the pork had slid to one side of the burger, the side that I ate. So I don't know if you got the full effect. I think I just got a little sweet burger and didn't get any of the pork in there. But then, so then you have the games, and then I had a little drama behind the scenes. You guys were playing.

I couldn't get my card to work. I had my card that I already came there with. Right. Your power card. And my power card. I was excited because I knew I already had credits on there. And so, then I had to go to the front desk and get the person to check the card.

And she saw the credits on there. She fixed it. And then I even added some, and then I went back out there to play, and then somebody had already set down the pirate game that I wanted to sit down that pirate game. That pirate game, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And so then I went over to try to play some other game, and then the card wouldn't work again. So I had to go back. So this is my, this is my, like, you know, sad journey that I was on that you guys were completely unaware of. And you were chasing a cricket the whole time. And this cricket, so that my phone would work. And then I went back, and then there was a long line

at the front desk that I had to wait through. And so, but anyway, for that... Sounds like a very molasses boy, sort of. I had to... I didn't get to play one game. I didn't really get to play the games. That was what I wanted to go there. That's what my favorite thing about David Buster's is,

drinking and playing games there. And so anyway, because of the food not being that great past the apps, and because I particularly had, you know, like a bad experience of trying to get my power card to work and had no power, if you're thinking of... It's a part from Back to the Future 2. You can't fly a hoverboard on water unless you have power. Right, right, right.

And so, I will give David Buster's three forks. Three forks. Very respectable. Go ahead, Mitch. All right. I just want to say this. Every time I go to David Buster, you know when you go to... When we went to Chuck E. Cheese, there was a thing of like,

oh, it smells like a dirty diaper, like in a section of the restaurant. Right. And it's disgusting, and it's just a fucking gross... We've talked about how Chuck E. Cheese is fucking just like gross. Yeah. David Buster's has that quality a little bit, sometimes. It's the only place that I've been where every time I've gone, I've had to go to the bathroom and wash my arms.

Not only like my hands, like my arms get sticky from the table, and like the menus are very sticky and fucking gross. You're right, yeah. The menus are really gross. I went one time and like one menu had been puked on, and I got the menu. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.

It was actually very fucked up. And so... Had you puked on it? Yeah, I puked on it. And tonight I almost did the same thing again. So, it has its kind of gross Chuck E. Cheese size. That being said, a lot of my sober buddies like David Buster's, because it's a place you can go and just have some fun.

Oh, sure, okay. The drinks are fun. You can't have too many of them, but you can get one. There's a few on that list that are tasty. And it's like Alan was saying, it's an app place. If you get the right apps, you're having a good time. Some of the apps are actually are good. So, but as far as main courses go,

I feel like probably the more simple you do it, the better. I feel like if I had just gotten like buffalo fingers for my meal with fries or something, I would have been happy. Yeah. But, you know, I tried that caveman platter or whatever, and it was not great. And I shouldn't have ventured out. I know that now, but I didn't know that earlier tonight.

So, and then the other side of it is those arcade games are fun. Why isn't Chuck E. Cheese more like Dave and Buster's? If I was an adult, I would bring my kid to Dave and Buster's probably over Chuck E. Cheese. I mean, I guess there's probably more kid-centric games at Chuck E. Cheese, but like, why doesn't a Chuck E. Cheese look like that? Like, the place looks fun. The arcade games are set up well.

There's a lot of stuff. Even though, like you said, you said that the games are dated, which they are, but they're newer than a ton of other places. And like, you know, besides maybe like a cool... Actually, almost every arcade I go to now is like kind of dated and shitty. And this one actually does attempt to have new games. I feel like they pull new games in every so often. It's more that the new games that are being made,

the horsepower within them just doesn't even live up to what home consoles and PCs have. But that's okay. It's a different experience. All that being said, it's fun. It can be a fun place to go watch a game and hang out with your friends. It's not as good as Buffalo Wild Wings. Right, for sure. I would rather just go to Buffalo Wild Wings, I think. Me too.

But there are fun arcade games there. It can be a good time. I'm gonna go a little higher, three and a half forks. Three and a half forks from the Swoon Man. The food was bad though, so I feel like I should go three. Yeah, three and a half is what it is. You know, I think that's fair. And I think you guys make fair points.

I will just say that we had, I feel like, two good food items. I'd say the Buffalo Wings were like passable. The tots, I think, were pretty good because of all that cheese and I think they were well-fried tots. But everything else, I feel like, all the food was pretty, was bad, terrible. I had Susser, Evan Susser had a salad and he said it was really... A chicken Caesar salad, it looked bad.

He said it was just totally subpar. I've gotten a salad from Dave and Buster's before and I did not have a good experience. I feel like I've never really had great food from there, aside from some apps. Drinks, yeah, I think you guys have made the points about the drinks being fun. I would just say, like, also it might be a place

to, building off of what Alan was saying, just order from the bar and just get a vodka soda or a beer or a glass of wine. If you're scared off by all those gimmicky, sugary cocktails and you don't like a sweet drink, maybe just call your own liquor and just order something simple because they can make the standards. There it is, a full bar and they have bartenders. Also, if you're scared of drinks, you're a cowardly person.

I'm not saying I'm scared off because you think it might be something you won't enjoy. I'm not suggesting cowardice. They also have some deals like, you know, the happy hour. They have like a two for Tuesday thing. Yeah, they do have a lot of deals there and they have a lot of ways you can bundle a power card with your meal.

There are ways you can extract value from Dave and Buster's. So in terms of having a budget-friendly night of entertainment, it's certainly something that can accommodate that. I get the appeal of going there with some friends. I think it would be a very sad experience for a solo diner, but going with some buds, I think it's a lot of fun. The games, here's my thing about the games. The fatal flaw, I feel like, is your-

There's like no jerk-off game or anything? No, I don't need a jerk-off game. I don't need some hypothetical hentai game that I can crank off to in public. No, that you could jerk something off. Oh, like something you could physically jerk it off? I don't know, that might be fun. It seems like that'd be fun.

I'd be into that. Ever hear that game Boonga Boonga? It's this Japanese game and it's like this giant butt and then your goal is to poke the butt with a finger-shaped controller to make the video game avatar yell. It's like a very specific- Yeah, it just looked really fun.

I thought I saw that game there, but I was just standing behind Mitch. I was wondering how you were putting your fingers up there. I was looking for that cricket. But yeah, I mean, I wish- Here's my thing about the games. The flaw is- The chocolate-covered cricket.

Jesus Christ. The big flaw with the games is you're eating a lot of greasy food and greasy hands and sauce-covered hands and video game controllers do not mix. So it's just- Who washed your hands in fucking sauce? But I'm just saying,

I wish there were more Knight's Forkfuls you could have, so you didn't have to go run to the restroom in between your gaming session. We talked about this, some gamer grub. Yeah, some gamer grub. Give me something I can eat with a spoon- Ten sanitizer napkins. That's actually great.

Have some sanitizer. Have some wet naps on the table. Have some hand sanitizer on the arcade floor. Find some ways to bridge that gap. Also, I just feel like a lot of these games, I just rather play something on a tablet or on my computer or on my PlayStation. I just feel like I kind of get the interactivity

and the gimmickry of this big old thing that you sit in, but I'm just like, I don't know. It's a social construct. Yeah, which I just like, I don't need that. Did anyone come up to you and try to play you that because they thought you were some machine? They thought I was anissimo. No, Mitch, that did not happen.

Oh, God. You're taking everything bare of your literal tonight. But, you know, food was bad. Absence, some good apps. The drinks were okay. The games, I don't know. I could take it or leave it. I just feel like the whole Dave and Buster's thing is like,

maybe it's just not for me. But just remember before you give the score, Buster was the name of my cat. Okay, in honor of Mitch's cat, I will upgrade my score from two forks to two-and-a-half cat paws. Two-and-a-half cat paws for Dave and Buster's. Oh, that's very nice. Yeah, it's a really nice, no forks.

No, two-and-a-half, but two-and-a-half cat paws. A nice tribute to Buster. Yeah, he would have appreciated that. And the Kennedy and the Marsh may they both rest in peace. And Zip, and my dad and everyone else's dad. Alan, got any dead-loved ones you want to shout out? My mom, sure. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I have a cat paw for you, mom. Yeah, dad. Dad, I'm raising a cat paw for you tonight, dad. I love you. That's our review of Dave and Buster's. That's just our list of those podcasts. What the fuck are you talking about? That's our review of Dave and Buster's.

It's time for a new segment. Mitch, I'm going to let you set this one up. This is your idea. It's Dinner and a Movie. That's right. Dinner and a Movie, Alan. Huh? Yeah.

This also known as one of these games we'll play when we're not doing some sort of snack thing. It's this weekend coming up, you got Sully coming out. Right. As of this recording, Sully is about to come out. And this podcast, Sully has come out the previous weekend. Perhaps it's done Baffo Box Office. Perhaps it's bombed like a... Is it an early Oscar contender?

Who knows? But guess what? You're seeing it, Alan. And you get a little picnic basket. And we're going to ask you, what are you bringing to Sully? What are you going to sneak into the movie theater? Dinner and a movie. Oh.

So we've got a plane-based movie. It's starring Tom Hanks, directed by famous crank. Clint Eastwood. Sure. And we can help you out here. Okay. Because you know what? I'm going to go with Beverage.

I'll see if you agree with us, Alan. Oh, so you guys play it too? We'll play it with you. Yeah. Okay. This is Mitch's idea, so it's very well thought out. Oh, okay, okay. He planned this out.

I think people are going to go crazy over Dinner and a Movie. I think it's a good idea. I like doing sort of a themed... You get to try something new. Oh, we do it. Yeah, wait. Oh, what? The act of bringing food to the movie?

No, I'm saying this game is something new. Oh, yeah, yeah. Jesus molasses, boy. You know, I always like ginger ale on a plane. Oh, sure. Yeah, that's a good badge. That's good. I like Canada Ginger Ale.

The other option is Tom Hanks was in a movie called Joe vs. the Volcano. Uh-huh. And Sun Kissed is loved by the Islanders in that movie. Right. Which I think it's probably an offensive movie. I haven't gone back and watched it, but that's my guess. Uh, so Sun Kissed is also a good option, but I like ginger ale. Airplane food.

Uh-huh. What's a great airplane meal? Well, I don't know if there are any great airplane meals, but I mean it is, you know, there are certain things that I think one thing that is something snackable, perhaps peanuts don't appear on planes anymore, but maybe like a little bag of pretzels. A little mini bag of pretzels will give you some. All right. Oh, yeah.

So you got a ginger ale and you got a little bag of pretzels. Not really a meal so much as a snack so far. Uh, I maybe bring a sandwich. Just any particular kind of sandwich? Well, maybe a, you know, uh, well, wait, I got pretzels. I would maybe bring a peanut butter and jelly, you know, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Melissa's Boy took a full minute to land on PB and J. Jesus, dude.

Fucking Christ. Well, I don't know if I'm bringing food to the movie theater, but, uh... You could do any meal you want. Tom Hanks, life is like a box of chocolates. That could be your dessert. Think about it, Melissa's Boy. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. I would bring the little ear of corn that he eats in big.

Ooh, that's perfect. Yeah, and, uh... So, so far you have, let me get this straight, so far you have a can of ginger ale. Mm-hmm. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Right. A bag of pretzels. You guys picked that, but yes.

A little mini piece of corn. Sure. Just one? One. And, uh, I would bring some candy that isn't a theme of the Angry Birds, um, because I think they had something to do with the engines. Damaging the engines. Right.

Right. That's the post-credit sequence. So, like, dummy Angry Birds. I'm not sure if that really exists, but something that's... Okay, so, so far... It makes sense, though, right? That makes sense. No, that makes plenty of sense.

I mean, not really at all, but... Yeah. Mm-hmm. I have a suggestion. What? How about bringing some, uh, some silver sardines to match, uh, Sully's silver pubes? I would bring some sardines. Isn't that one of the things that they grill them on?

Yeah, yeah. So, like, how you were drinking? He's like, no, he's like, are your pubes are silver, right? And he's like, no, they're not silver. Yeah, he's like, dab and sweat from his head in the Senate floor. He's like, 38 years of being a pilot, and I'm graded for my silver pubes. I used to eat sardines. I would bring...

I would eat sardines. I used to... That was one of my grandma's favorite snacks, was sardines with mustard on a cracker. You've ever had sardine sushi? That sounds bizarre. Mm-mm. You can get some real good sardine sushi. This place is Sushi King.

My wife and I would go to in Santa Monica. They do it great. Sardine's too salty for me, but hey, it's your weird basket you got going here. Mm-hmm. So, I got the sardines. You got sardines. You got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You have a little piece of corn.

You have a can of ginger ale. Yeah. And I'll omit the pretzels. You don't want them. We can get rid of the pretzels. I put the pretzels in there. Okay, the pretzels are in. And peanuts, because I usually choose peanuts when I'm on the phone.

Okay, so you also got peanuts. Oh, and those sugar cookies that they have, the long cookies that Delta has. Okay, cool. Like a biscotti or two. You could literally have any meal you want to pair with this movie. So, so far you have a bag of pretzels and a bag of peanuts from an airplane, a little cookie from an airplane, sardines, a ginger ale from an airplane, I guess, which means it's smaller and probably slightly warm, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that

you make yourself. I know. I usually eat before or after the movie, so this was hard. Okay, so I would have a some note, some gnocchi, you know? Oh, gnocchi. Oh, gnocchi, yeah. Gnocchi. Like the Italian.

Oh, the Italian. Yeah, yeah. A bowl of gnocchi. Is there any particular reason for that? Just because it's a tasty treat? Yeah, I had some the other day. Here's my suggestion. I like the chewiness of the gnocchi balls.

All right, so you got a bowl of gnocchi, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, sardines, you got your pretzels, you got your peanuts, you got those cookies, and you got a can of ginger ale. I think that's a pretty good meal. Yeah, I'm not sharing any of it with you. Good, I don't want any of that shit. I would go to the snack line and get a popcorn, I guess. Popcorn.

I think this molasses boy episode is longer than the movie selling. We warned everyone. All right, talk about the game. If you sped up Alan's, he's probably said less than anyone we've ever had on. I can't get a word in edgewise. We're like talking about the meeting you had. Your cat, the frozen cat. That was a very sad story.

I mean, I know, but you know, what am I supposed to say? Do you have anything else that you would like to add to this? Well, I brought you all a gift. Oh, you did? Really? Okay, all right. So wait, will you be bringing this as well? This is what, yeah, I was going to say, I was going to bring up the movie Sully and say

this is what I would bring Sully. But this is a, hang on. Now, this is a family recipe. Okay, it's a little something, a tasty treat for you. Alan is gradually unwrapping a towel that was inside a bag. And it looks like a pile of silver pubes. Yeah, it's a silly thing. So I have family in Alabama.

I also have a few, I have some family in Jakku. Oh boy. And this is a recipe that derives from Jakku. Oh my God. You may, it's lost some of its color. It's been sitting in my car since 530. It looks green. Yeah, it was greener.

Now it's white and with the green sprinkles it doesn't look as good as this. Is this what Ray? This is a portion bread. It's a fold family recipe. Has somebody already brought you all portion bread? No, we haven't got portion bread. We haven't got any of what Ray is scavenging for. It was green, I promise it was green.

I put sprinkles on top. That's why it's got green spots. It looks like you have something that you would take paint off the wall with. Like a stripper, what is that called? Yeah, you've got like a little tool you would smuggle into prison. It's a cheese knife. Oh, it's a cheese knife. Yeah, smuggle into prison.

It looks like the kind of tool that someone would smuggle in so they could gradually take a hold. Alan, what a nice surprise after her dinner and movie was a complete failure. We needed this, this is good. This is great. Yeah, so I brought some portion bread to share. And you're going to cut it with a cheese knife? Cut it with a cheese knife because I didn't want to bring a real knife. Right.

Can I get a pick of that real quick Alan? I'm going to stick yours. It's not, like I said, it's not as green as it was. Did you make this? It should have been green. I made it, it wasn't very hard. Oh, wow. And there's something online that tells you how to make portion bread?

Oh, it's an old family recipe. All right, I'll come clean. Yeah, there's something online that tells you. It's from Unkar Plutt's secret stash. And so, do you want, would you like, would you like one quart of portion bread? Please split it up. Yes, Alan, I very much would like that. Split it up into four quart of bread portions.

I made, I did a first draft of the recipe and it was like not bad and so I tweaked it a little and... I hope we get to see you Unkar Plutt in episode three. All right, while you're cutting that and dishing that out Alan, I'm going to open up the feed bag. Today's email comes to us from Peggy McCauley, Peggy writes, how do you feel about or deal with the awkward situation when you're eating with coworkers or casual acquaintances and all the food does not come out at the same time?

If my food does not come out before the others, I always tell them to go ahead and start but nobody does. On the other hand, if my food comes out first, they tell me to eat and I really just want to but I usually just sit and stare at my food until their food arrives. It is just weird. What's the correct protocol in this case? What do you guys think when food is arriving at different times? I say go ahead and eat.

Yeah. I just say go ahead and eat for God's sakes. I'm going to be sitting there for the meal until you're done anyways, so like, you know what, here's what I usually do. I usually give a good four minutes or something and if I get the okay to eat, I will eat. If it's kind of more like a, what, if it's more formal or something, maybe it's like a thing of where you can... But if it's more formal, they shouldn't be fucking up by bringing your food at different

times. That's true. Yeah. They should wait. But this just happened that Tim Calpacus got married. Right. And a... Lovely wedding.

A lovely wedding. A great time. And I was puking the next day, as you know. And they brought out the, at the rehearsal dinner, they brought out the food at different times and we were waiting and the person who's meal didn't come, she's like, don't wait, eat. And then we did eat and it was good that we didn't wait because it was like almost 15 minutes.

It just came, came much later. And that would have ruined it. The meal would have been cold. It was outside. You know what I mean? And it would have ruined it. So I'm always of the mind of, if people's food come, I'm like, eat. Don't wait.

Don't wait for me. I don't want you to wait for me. And I like when people do the opposite for me and tell me to eat because I do want to. I'll give it a courtesy a few minutes. Yeah. But I think everyone should just dig in. I'm 100% on the same page with you. You don't even know it's about a...

Don't be embarrassed. I said, but Tim Capacus's wedding, it was a lovely wedding, a lot of fun. Him and his new wife, Jess Jordan, they had eight bridesmaids and eight groomsmen. That's true. I made it in. Man, they're so... Yeah, you were in there. I was like, I don't think I have eight close friends.

I really... I don't not know how I could fill out like eight... If my wife had wanted me, but we eloped, we just got married in Vegas, just the two of us. But if she had wanted like a more formal wedding, it was like, I have eight bridesmaids. They'd be like, fuck, I don't know how to fill this out. I'd be calling in favors from like old coworkers. How are we going to find eight people who are willing to dress in suits and stand next

to me? Craigslist sort of thing. Yeah, probably. I guess I could hire some celebrity impersonators, but I just do not have that many projects. Isn't this the plot of a movie? Oh, it seems like I could. Oh yeah, that seems like... It's Kevin Hart.

You would... Like Kevin Hart gets hired. Right. Like the bachelor imposter or something like that. Yes. Some title like that. Yeah, I'd need to hire whatever Kevin Hart was in that movie, whatever that... That's always a weird movie premise when there's like a fake job and that's like what

the comedy is about. Like this guy's got this fake job. I definitely... I would no show your wedding. Yeah, you'd be right to do so. Alan, how about yourself? What do you think about it? And feel free to dish out that portion bread while...

Because I think we want to do this. But how do you feel about the food arriving at different times? What do you think? Now, look, I was lying about it being a family recipe, so if you don't like it, it's okay. I made it one other time. It's probably not going to be good. But you have to keep in mind, this is what Ray would eat after a long day of pulling parts out of a ship, a destroyer, a star destroyer.

Oh, yes. You don't please don't take more than one bite if you don't want to. We each got one quarter portion. Here we go. I'm going to try it. The green... So I would say... It's the greenest food coloring, I'm guessing.

No, it's Masha powder, which is like a green tea. And then there's sprinkles on top that sort of melted into... It's not bad. You know what? It tastes like I would think it would in the movie. It kind of has that kind of like, kind of a weird, spongy texture to it. It's made very much like it looks in the movie when she lights it on fire and it blows up. But in a microwave.

So Alan, imagine you are on the planet Jakku. You and your fellow scavengers who've gathered around at a restaurant that serves the finest portion bread on the planet. And two, your dining companion's portion bread comes out early, you're still waiting for yours. What do you say? I'm normally like, go ahead and eat. You know, it takes them a little while to make a bantha burger here, the way I like it.

So please just go ahead and eat. But if someone, if the table's a turn, I don't really, I do try to hold off unless somebody gives me the green light to go. And then... I mean, you don't want to hold chewy from having his, eating his meal. Oh yeah, rip your arms off. Yeah, he loves, that's where his name comes from, he loves to chew. So yeah, if someone's really, I wouldn't eat, especially also if somebody was like really

starving, if it's a starving, you know, person across from me. Yeah, it's hard to tell if there's famine in Jakku. Wait, oh, if famine was involved, okay. Yeah, if a famine was involved and my food came first and I was eating across from someone who hadn't eaten in days, I'd feel weird eating. Well, here's my thing. With portion bread, I mean, like there should be no delay. Right.

I mean, it literally you pour water on it and then it fluffs up into portion bread, right? Maybe they only have like one weird little dish or whatever. The whole portion bread. That's pretty good. Yeah. One quarter portion. No, it was pretty good. I mean, I was like, I feel like the recipe that you got was trying to create something

that would taste authentic, as authentic as a fictional thing would be, but it kind of was like, felt like it was very carb loaded. And I felt like I was on the famous Jakku planet. Yes. Now, that's my question for you. Does that, now that you've walked a mile and raised shoes, so to speak, do you like Force Awakens any better? My God, I think it's now my favorite movie.

Now that I re-think it all, that pig monster was cool and Han Solo getting killed was cool. It was a cool movie. Hey, all right. Yeah. This is like what you do, Wiger. You lie to yourself. No, I don't lie to myself. I actually enjoy the Force Awakens, like most people.

If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email Doe Boys podcast at gmail.com, check out our Facebook page, Doe Boys, follow us on Twitter, at Doe Boys Pod, and please subscribe and rate us on iTunes, Alan McLeod, Molasses Boy. Thank you so much for being a guest for the show. It's only fitting that the Molasses Boy has one of the longest episodes. And you know what? I didn't even talk about the first three episodes.

I wouldn't want it any other way. I love you. We wouldn't want it any other way. You're the best, Alan. Well, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I've had so much FOMO waiting for this moment.

Oh, no. Yeah. Well, we love you. We love Pizza Stacey. I wish I was there at your first Daven Buster. Jesus Christ. At your first Daven Buster experience. Oh, okay.

I think it's just that you called his wife Pizza Stacey. Which is her screen name, but I think it was just like... Oh, should we bleep it out? No, I don't think. I think it's fine. I was just trying to figure out what Alan's reaction was. Oh, he just had a pause at our first... Yeah.

Oh, gotcha, gotcha. He's perverted. Oh, I got it. And he put it on me. I'm a good boy. I'm a good boy. Well, I love you guys too, and I'm happy to be here, and I appreciate it. Do you have anything you want to plug, Alan?

Oh, my Twitter, Alan McLeod, A-L-L-A-N-M-C-L-E-O-D. And yeah, oh yeah, keep those hashtag molassesboy, toast molassesboy, you know, get those going. And oh, and you're the worst on FXX Wednesday nights at 10 for... I don't know when this is coming out, but I assume it'll still be. It'll overlap a little. This will be out in one week, so it should... The season should still be on, I believe. Absolutely.

Yeah. Please launch it. We love you, molassesboy. And molassesboy is a great nickname. What do you think? What do you think for me? I'm the Spoon Man. Right.

What do you think about, like, the big bear, though? The big bear? Spoon Man, aka the big bear. I mean, I think it's very appropriate for you physically, but I think it'll be sexualized because of the connotation in the bear community. Another thing, I mean, that's fine, but I mean, just be aware that that would be a consequence of it. Bears are sexual animals, too, so... Is that true?

Yeah. Yes, they are. Bears get nasty. Hey, as long as someone's liking me, I'm good with it. All right, cool. The big bear. Spoon Man, aka the big bear and molassesboy. Great.

And who are you? I guess I'm Burger Boy. That's kind of tapered off. Burger Boy, so you need a new nickname, buddy. I don't think I need a... Like, you just decided to give yourself a second nickname when you already have one. Look it, I give myself two nicknames. You can't give yourself one for God's sake.

Slick Nick. All right, Slick Nick. Slick Nick is not cool. Slick Nick's great. I think the people should give you your new nickname. No, because they're just gonna write, like, cuckoldry jokes. Yeah, well, then, you know, I'd say it should be a real Nick. A real Nick name.

All right, you know, I've said before that Nick is... The thing I used to say as a kid is that Nick is the ultimate nickname. Because my real name is Nicholas. This is right before a bunch of kids beat the shit out of you. I was beloved by my classmates. I would just say this. They feared you. Uh-huh.

I would just say this. If people want to give me a nickname, that's fine. I make no intention to commit to it, necessarily, unless it's something that passes muster. And also, like, let's just maybe not make jokes about me wanting to watch other guys rail my wife. Though he does. But, yeah, tweet us. Hashtag name that nickname. Great. Hashtag name that nickname.

That'll do for this episode of Doh Boys. Until next time, for The Swoon Man, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya.