Doughboys - Mac To-Fight with Evan Susser & Van Robichaux

Episode Date: February 16, 2017

The writers of the new film Fist Fight, Evan Susser and Van Robichaux, join to discuss two topical McDonald’s stories: the Big Mac’s new offshoots the Grand Mac and the Mac Jr., and The Founder, the biopic about trailblazing but controversial McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc. Plus, the theme of the 2017 Tournament of Chompions is revealed.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now on the sidewalk, ha ha, woo sunny morning, ah ha, lies a body just oozing life, eek, and someone sneaking round the corner, could that someone be Mack the Knife? That's a selection of lyrics from Mack the Knife, a pitch black song about a serial murderer composed by two German leftists as part of a Marxist post-World War one opera. The song in isolation was translated to English and became a hit in the United States after the Second World War, performed first by swing legend Louis Armstrong and later by lounge singer Bobby Darron. In 1986, the world's largest and most powerful fast-food outlet needed a new ad campaign

for its signature burger and opted for a series of surreal spots featuring a quarter-moon-headed jazz pianist named Mack Tonight who sang a jingle to the tune of Mack the Knife. The restaurant chain had grown exponentially under the leadership of Ray Kroc, the controversial CEO who'd converted the fledgling hamburger chain of two Southern California brothers into an internationally-franchised juggernaut, but cutting the men of whose name was on the buildings out of the process. The chain's most popular sandwich was and continues to be the Big Mac, a transparent rip-off of Bob's Big Boy's signature Big Boy burger, and it features two beef patties,

lettuce, pickles, onions, and a Thousand Island-adjacent special sauce served on a three-piece sesame bun. The Mack Tonight commercials were startlingly popular, and the crater-faced crooner and in turn the song Mack the Knife became forever affiliated with the Big Mac, a sandwich that remained unchanged until this year, when, in the wake of an unauthorized biopic about Ray Kroc, the restaurant released two Mack variants, one smaller, one larger. So is the original Big Mac the just right in this Goldilocks story, or is it bested by its big and or little brothers?

This week on A Special Doughboys, we discuss McDonald's new Mack Trio and the film The Founder. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're production of Ferrellaudio.com. I'm Nick Weiger. This week's roast is courtesy of TK Wilson. Please welcome my co-host, Dr. Robotnik on a Mean Bean Bender, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. A Mean Bean Bender?

Right. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. That's right. It was a, what was that a clone of? It was a clone of Dr. Mario. It was a clone of Dr. Mario. Thank you. I guess it's jamming in.

Now, yeah, quiet guest. Now online they're gonna be like, Mitch actually isn't that much of a nerd, because he didn't know Dr. Robotnik, he didn't know who Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine was. You're really concerned about people thinking you're not enough of a nerd? I'm sick. Is that Matt Besser commenting on the internet? Matt Besser, he's gonna be back soon too. You know what?

Everyone's gonna come back soon. We'll bring back every guest. That's the Doughboys Guarantee. Every guest is coming back. All right. Howdy-ho! It's a Spoon Nation, a little, you know, it's a Doughboys AM today. We're recording this one in the morning before our schedule with our guests, and then with

my work schedule, it necessitated us recording this, it's 9.25 AM right now, so it's bright and early for you, Mitch. Here we go. One quarter portion. How do you think I don't like fries? I used the sheets for like another week, and then I think I just took them off the bed and added them back to them. How could you think I don't like fries when I woke up and just had like, just the hardest

directions? I just, just like super hard. I don't like fries. I'm very fond of this wet dream. This is actually well produced. I'll say that much. Right. It's a well produced drop.

Some of my greatest hits in there, I guess you could call them. A few times I've disclosed a little TMI on the podcast. That drop was courtesy of Remington Chandro. That's a good name. That's almost as bad as my AOL email address. Yeah. It's right up there. Yeah.

That's pretty. But thank you, Remington. Sounds like a Rogue One droid. R6509? Yeah. It actually is maybe like a better, like that's like a good new droid name. Yeah. It sounds awesome.

Yeah. It should be more confusing. You know what? My big idea for a Star Wars droid. What's that? Like he's a big droid that helps like load things at the docks and his name, he's LOD3R or Loader, they call him. Oh.

Yeah. I thought that would be like a cool thing of like, you know, BB-8's like a little droid. The next one they get, they get a big droid. Like he's like giant. My question to you is, why are you thinking this one? Two. Yeah. I guess just why are you thinking, what is going on that you're thinking?

Why am I thinking about cool things that could be in Star Wars? I don't know. You're not going to occupy most of our thoughts? I mean, why are you thinking so much about loader droids? I think it would be awesome because it's like, okay, here's the thing. In this, like you look at the docks, right? The docks that exist now in our reality, it's like these giant shipping containers, then they need these massive cranes to be able to lift them onto and off of barges, right?

So like in the Star Wars universe, the analog would be some sort of droid that would have that sort of strength, the physical capacity. Yeah. Now, if you think about that guy, he's got that one job, but for the adventure, he gets taken out of that world, but he still has that massive strength and durability that he can use in all sorts of adventures. That's pretty, that's kind of, I feel like K2SO was kind of like a strong droid. Yeah, K2SO definitely had that sort of strength aspect to him.

You know, I like it. All right, thanks, Mitch. You should, you should write a star. You planned on writing a Star Wars. Yeah. I've got a big idea for a Star Wars prequel. Yeah. And you should do it.

I might. Maybe I will. Write it on spec. See if you can sell it. Hey, you know what? The weekend of writing things on spec in the Star Wars universe are two, are two guest today. That's how they got their start.

Our two guest today start out that way with a, with a spec that was on what's called in Hollywood The Black List, a list of the best unproduced screenplays called Chewy. And they're here with us today. I want to clarify, they are not part of the Spoonister 6, correct, Mitch? That's right, no. Okay. You guys are not part of the Spoonister 6. Unless, can I just be done with the Spoonister 6?

Yeah. You can be done with it. All right. The Spoonister 9 is complete. Great. So, they're the writers of the new film, Fist Fight, starring Ice Cube and Charlie Day, which is in theaters this weekend, Van Roby's show and friend of the podcast, Evan Susser. Hi, guys.

Hey. Hey, how's it going? Welcome back to both. We've had you both on in isolation, Evan, in your case, too many times. But we, this is the first time, you guys are a working duo. And this is the first time we've had you in the studio at the same time. How's it feel? You know, we're already planning to spend the rest of the day into the night together

and working. That's fun. And no, it's not fun at all. And so, this is an extra time together we did not need. Yeah, we're spending a lot of time together. Actually, this is so weird. So, tomorrow night, or tomorrow evening, we're doing movie fights at Screen Junkies. Oh, that's fun.

And we got sent the questions. Oh, I forgot to reply to this. And one of the questions was, come up with a Star Wars droid that's not in any of the movies. Really? Yeah. It's a loader. Yeah, you should.

And who's ever thought about that? And then, here you are. So, I think maybe Van will be arguing for... Nick, are you the... I do write the questions for Screen Junkies. Look, it makes me 50 extra bucks a week for a freelance rate. That would be the least surprising thing on Earth. Right.

That you're some job because you're 50 extra dollars. I'm not above that. That's a real Cloud Atlas moment. They're like happy... It's exactly like Cloud Atlas. True Cloud Atlas, they call it. Okay, so... True, true.

Is that... That is Cloud Atlas, right? That is Cloud Atlas. That's true, true. All right. And little Georgie Hansen over the shoulder. All right. So, let's talk about...

One thing I think that people who... Not everyone who listens to this podcast, but certainly a lot of people, I think, might be interested in how you guys got involved as working screen writers. You got a movie coming out. And that's like something a lot of people who don't, you know, who are right movies professionally, they don't necessarily even ever get anything produced. You sell a script and it just sort of sits on the shelf for years. So you had your original spec, Chewy, which was a script you wrote about.

It was a loose... I've read it. It's very funny. It's like a loose, pretty fictionalized biopic of Peter Mayhew. Would you sort of define it like that? I mean, it's not that loose. I mean, it is a pretty, you know, Peter Mayhew's story about who plays Chewbacca in Star Wars. It's his story about how he came into the movie and...

Went from working as a hospital orderly to being in Star Wars. And the making of Star Wars. And yes, we wrote that script together and that led to a lot of good opportunities. And then we had the opportunity to pitch this movie fist fight. And like you said, you'll write a lot of scripts. Sometimes they just sit on shelves, but this one happened, which was very exciting. Shit. You let out a shit there.

Oh, boy. The reason a lot didn't happen was Evan kept shitting on Chewbacca. I hope that someday I just get cast as a monster. It would be great to just be cast as some sort of monster, a famous monster. I forgot the Peter Mayhew connection. I was like, oh, I thought that was a non-sequitur. Just an unrelated... Oh, no.

No, no, no. I think you'd make a great monster. Thank you. Thanks, Sus. Hey, think of me for the future whenever you guys write some sort of stupid monster movie. We have a few. Yeah. I think you could play like a real-world monster, like the BTK killer or something.

The Boston Strangler. Oh, you'd be a great Boston Strangler. Yeah, I didn't think I'd know who my first victim will be. So guys, we give Evan a hard time for having stains on his shirt occasionally. Have you ever turned in... All right. I'm happy to be here. Hey, I'm a sloppy guy too, Sus.

Who cares? You're going to take offense to this? No, no, go ahead. Have we ever turned in a script with, like, Cheeto stains on it? No. It's all over email. This podcast is fucking dumb. Was that the question?

No, it wasn't the question. What was the question? You guys were looking really nice in your suits the other night at the premiere. Oh, very sure. Thank you. Yeah, I jumped all... I'm defensive. I guess I jumped all over you.

Yeah. That was the question. We give you a hard time. It seemed up nice. I saw the two of you flanking Ice Cube. Yep. It looked real cool, the star of the film. Yeah, I just want to know how the premiere was.

I mean, this is the first... I guess this is a Doe Boys brought to you by Vist Fight, even though we're not getting... Yeah, we're not getting any money for this. We're not getting any money for this. This is purely favorite territory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a favor for a multi-million dollar movie. So how was the premiere, guys?

It was great. It was fun. It was in Westwood at one of those days. The Bruin. The Bruin. Thank you, man. Oh, yeah. I saw Fight Club there.

Yeah. Well, they specialize in fight movies. And yeah, it went over great with the audience. It was obviously very exciting. Got a picture with Ice Cube. And yeah, it was fun. That's great. Did he not want to take one with you or how?

No, he was... We've met him before and he was in Good Spirits, as was everyone. That's great. All right, guys. Let's hear it. What do you think the Rotten Tomatoes score is going to be in the movie? It's probably... Yeah, because we don't know now and it'll probably be out on Thursday, right?

Yeah. Are they screening it for critics? Yeah, they've been screening it. Okay, good sign. I'm looking for a 71. 71. That's a good number. For a respectable score.

I think for a comedy, it's especially hard. First of all, Rotten Tomatoes is garbage. I want to give that caveat right now. Yeah, I hate it. It's garbage. I think 71 for a comedy would be really good. Also, I regret asking you this. This now feels like mean or something.

No, I have no idea what it'll be. So what they do with screenings is in exchange for letting critics see the movie early, they let them... They give them a date where they have to hold back their review until this specific... Okay, got it. An embargo. An embargo. That's the work.

So they went to one of these screenings and they didn't realize the whole embargo thing, so they just posted their review. And one of them was positive and absolutely loved it and said it was one of the funniest comedies in years. And the other one hated it. Oh, man. So who knows what it'll be. Now, the guy who didn't love it, Boston College.

Wow. I could have told you that. Boston College. See? Yeah. That's what I tried to explain to him. Yeah, Boston College. Fuck Boston College.

Right. Did he not like that the movie had black characters? Yeah. You got the wrong idea. Boston College is fucking snooty. Oh, is it really? Yeah. Boston people don't like college people.

It's fine. Yeah, the whole working class there has a real different... That's what Goodwill Hunting's all about. It's like the working class versus the stuffy Harvard and MIT kids and everything. See, I think the stuffy Bostonites also are racist in their own way. Yeah, I think it's just really across the board, Mitch. Are we sure this guy's from Boston? Wow.

He spent enough time there. Yeah. I think he did it at Boston's own. Boston's own. Yeah. Well, fuck that one guy. Hey, if he's listening, the three of us, the four of us challenge you to a fist fight. Yeah.

Oh, boy. Okay, that'd be a fun brawl. The four of us beating the shit out of a college kid. Van, a vanquin legit fight. Van was a college wrestler. Am I right about that? That's true. I did not wrestle in college.

I was a high school wrestler. Oh, okay. State champion, though. I was recruited by the number one college wrestling team in the country at the time, Mizzou. Why didn't you fucking do it? I'm a pussy. No, I wanted to...

I was kind of done with it. I felt like I'd accomplished what I needed to accomplish with respect to that and wanted to move on to new challenges. Funny. I don't see the WWE title around your place. No, that's actually fake wrestling. No, it's not fake. It's a work.

It's prescripted. It's not fake, you know. Yeah, there's definitely some exertion and risk of injury that occurs in professional wrestling. I kind of forgot that when I'm like, oh, we should just beat up this college kid. It's like, that's not like saying like a high school... I mean, also high school kids, too, can be very strong. Yeah, well, the one college kid's winning.

Plenty of college kids could kick all... One, there are plenty of singular college kids that could kick all four of our asses, I feel like. Right. And judging by the review, this guy, I don't think he's got much. All right, then let's whoop his fucking ass. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Weiger.

What I was going to say is that the transitioning from the fist fight in the movie, transitioning from this hypothetical fight we're proposing in real life or we're going to beat a college kid, let's talk about another type of fight that we stage here on Doe Boys. Yes. Last March, we had the Tournament of Chompions. That's right. Munch Madness, Burger Brawl, and it out was victorious. And Evan Susser, you were the commissioner of the Tournament of Chompions, it became

of this big contentious thing over the course of the month, and we have an announcement on this podcast. It's back, baby. It's back. We're bringing back Munch Madness for this March, and Susser, we've discussed what the theme is going to be. Yep. And Mitch.

And Mitch. I'm just saying I want to give the commissioner the big reveal. Yep. I feel really good about it. I think we tried to recapture some of that magic with the Olympics. Maybe that was a misstep, but the original is back, baby. We're not doing burgers because we've done burgers, and it would just be too contentious. It's been saddled.

And an out one. So this year, Tournament of Chompions, chicken. Chicken fight. Chicken fight. Hold on a second. No, we're not calling it chicken fight. Chicken fight brought to you by fist fight. Tournament of Chompions, chicken fight brought to you by fist fight, but yet we will not

receive a cent. We're not getting any. And also, too, I think they're going to be a real sponsor. I think for a lot of you, it's trying to get us an actual sponsor, so we may have to lop off the fist fight for you. No, you just put them both on. So Tournament of Chompions, chicken fight brought to you by fist fight. Actually, brought to you by the undies or something.

Also, Susser, also Munch Madness has to go in there. Tournament of Chompions, Munch Madness, that's a separate poll. Oh my God, I know. I'm sorry. I just want to apologize. I just realized that Susser's commissioner character is him, but just more energetic. He seemed so sleepy until you said he was commissioner. I gotta light up.

More excited. Also, now that the two of you are in this room, I just want to say, Van, you created something called Mitch Dot Pizza. We've talked about it before. Oh, yes. Yes, podcast. It's really been a thing that's stuck around. Yeah, Mitch Dot Pizza has been a real success.

Give us a real quick summation of what it is for people who might not be familiar with it. Mitch Dot Pizza is a startup that I founded. Our mission is to connect the world to Mitch and to bring the world to him. Mitch can be hard to get in touch with, and so we saw there a place for optimization in society and we're trying to do our best to do it. We launched initially with the mic at Mitch Dot Pizza email address, which is an email address that anyone can send a message to, and it gets hand-delivered to Mitch at his

apartment. What really took off was when we launched the Mitch Dot Pizza texting service, which any text message you send to 855-756-4824, that's 855-75Mitch. Any message you text to that gets texted directly to Mitch's phone. By texting that service, you sign up for the Mitch Dot Pizza texting service, and then when Mitch replies to those messages, those will go to your phone. So any hour of the day or night, if you text that message, it will go directly to Mitch's phone.

Yep. That's the truth. How's that working for your data plan, Mitch? You get a lot of text? Then that's a good question. Does this affect my data plan? Well, you had many bills. How do you not know?

I mean, nothing seems to change, but I did get a thing the other day that said I'm almost over my data limit. I get it every month. It's going to count against your texts. I'm not going to lie to you, but most providers these days offer unlimited texting, right? Okay. So is this service costing you anything, Van? It costs me plenty.

Just to show, Van, how much more wealthy you are than I. How much do you spend on this thing a month? So right now, I would say it's costing around $2 a month. Jesus Christ. What the fuck are you doing? What's wrong with you? Hey, Twitter loses millions, millions every month. So by comparison, I think we're really lean and we're running a really stressful business.

Just give me that money. You know what, guys? That's phase three. Just give the money to Mitch. If you want to donate to Mitch.Pizza, hit me up on PayPal, and I'll shoot it over Vansway. I'm going to go ahead and just ask the Mitch.Pizza user base who, you know, I love every one of you. Please do not send any money directly to Mitch if you intend for it to go to Mitch.Pizza. That's not going to Vans.

Anyways, yeah, whatever. We'll keep it consistent. No money from this show. I'll never make a cent from this show. But I have a big Mitch.Pizza announcement to make, actually. Ooh, go for it. We have a new feature launching. You know, a common complaint of Mitch's has been that he doesn't know who's sending him the messages.

They do come through completely anonymously at the moment. That's true. We are introducing pizza names. Wow. And pizza names, you might be familiar with usernames from other services. Pizza names are a little better. They're the name that Mitch sees when you send him a message on Mitch.Pizza. Wait, how is that going to function because isn't it just via text messages?

How is that going to work technologically? It is. What's going to happen is there's going to be a sign-up page where you choose your pizza name and you associate it with your phone number. Then the Mitch.Pizza.Pizza.Cloud system takes care of everything. And it just sends that username to you. And it's only going to cost Van $800 more a month. Yes.

Is that included as a prefix within the original text or is there an additional text that's sent? Right now we're doing it as a prefix then with a line break and then the original message going through to Mitch's phone. So my question is, how annoyed is this guy, the guy who is the man who does all this? Arcota Rizwan, who lives in Pakistan. Okay. He does the majority of what I'll call the technological heavy lifting for Mitch.Pizza. And Rizwan is thrilled.

He loves working on Mitch.Pizza. He messaged me a few weeks ago asking if I was looking for any new features and that's where pizza names came about. So the engineer just said, hey, can I do more work? And you're like, yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes at Mitch.Pizza. Are we sure he's thrilled about all this? I think so.

Okay. Well, thanks Rizwan. We appreciate it Rizwan. That's very nice. Shout out to Rizwan who's making this expensive, ongoing bit possible. He's also thrilled about chicken fight. You've talked to Rizwan? Yeah, I've talked to Rizwan.

Van, I gotta say there's a nice community of people on there. They send some nice texts to me. Jack Allison was recently saying, the text, some of them get very personal and nice, but I think it's very nice that people send me stuff. I think it's a very special place with a really nice, positive community. And I think sometimes it's nice, sometimes it's mean, it's like the world. Right. It's a great community of people even though I don't know why you did this to me

and why it continues to happen. But I can't fault the great people who were on there. Yeah, it seems to attract an earnest clientele. Yeah. Susser has Van's Mitch.Pizza work ever intruded on your guy's professional work? Oh, yes. I believe it. Well, yeah, I mean Van, look, you bought a Van.

You bought a Van basically as a bit, right? What the fuck? A bit lifelong dream, you know, call it what you must. Right. What's a lifelong dream? Well, I mean, it's for months, for several months I've wanted it, if that counts as lifelong. All right, no, not at all. So you've got your own, you're very obsessed with personal branding.

Your Twitter handle is at Van the Brand. You have a logo that is just your name Van in front of a blue Van and the Van you've purchased is a dead ringer for the logo that exists, like the existing blue Van that was on the sticker. I would say that's all correct, yes. Right. So is it just because you've got like a name that is a vehicle? Is that basically, like if you were a Truck Roby show, you'd be getting an Afford F-150?

Well, you know, as a young child, I was bullied a lot. Right. Because your name was Van or just because of your personality? Both, actually. But one of the things that the kids keyed in on early on was that my name was Van and that Van is a vehicle. And it was really hard for me. I even tried to change my name once as a child.

Mm-hmm. And so the... To Truck Roby Show. So a big piece of the Van the Brand project and my embracing of the vehicle is kind of trying to take that back. Right. And tell those bullies that they can call me whatever they want. I'm gonna own it.

Hey, you know what? You guys, we were bullied growing up. Now you're writing a movie about a fight in a school. How about that for a while? There you go. Was that ever involved in your pitch? Yeah, no. I talked about that stuff and it was involved a lot in the writing of the movie.

Wow, okay. So when you're pitching a movie, it's cool to cry in front of the people you're pitching to? You know, I think actually you'd be surprised. I think showing, you know, some emotion and some depth of your own personal humanity can be very effective. Okay, Weiger's not gonna get this. Well, Van, you know what? Thank you for Mitch.Pizza because I gotta say that there are a lot of great people that I love out there.

They're very nice, great people. So a shout out to them, the people who waste their time with me in text. And you know what? You see, I answer a lot of the time. Probably when I should be working. Probably right here in the studio I've answered while we're doing the podcast. Weiger, can I ask you, has Mitch Pizza interviewed, interfered with your work on Doe Boys with Mitch? Well, you know, Mitch's work on Doe Boys basically involves the 90 minutes when he occupies the studio each week.

So I don't think it really is intruded beyond when he checks his phone on a normal... But that could be for any reason. That could be to see how the Celtics are doing. Meanwhile, Weiger is at his home base working on the show every second of the fucking day. Jesus Christ. This is fucking bullshit. I'm done with this show. I'm done with it forever.

Well, the Spoonerster 6 is wrapped up. You got Mitch Nut Pizza going strong. That'll continue on its own. What else do you have to go for? Who, me? Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing I have to go for. No, you pretty much completed this arc.

Chicken fight. Right, right. We do have chicken fight. Can I retire after chicken fight? Sure. Susser, do you want the podcast? You can come on with Nick. I want to keep coming on too much, but not all the time.

He's smart enough to understand that that's like the sweet spot and the sort of thing. All right, let's talk about the Big Macs that have been unleashed on us in 2017. So, McDonald's is something. Can I also just quickly say, not only we're doing a little fist fight episode, but then we're also doing Big Macs, the biggest, this fully. This is not a McDonald's episode. This is not a McDonald's episode. Very clear.

Very targeted. This is not McDonald's. We are not going to talk about McDonald's. We are talking specifically about the new Big Macs that have been introduced at that restaurant, and the movie The Founder. It's the Mac Trio. We're talking about The Founder later in the episode. We'll talk about the Mac Trio right now.

But this is not a McDonald's episode. This is not the McDonald's episode. This episode, I'm dubbing Mac to Fight. I love it. What the fuck? We've got the Big Mac. We've got the fist fight guys here. We're having a Big Mac fight.

Mac Tonight was the famous character. Mac to Fight. What sort of fucking weirdo, autistic, like, which, what man on earth or woman do you think would ever get that by just reading the title? Encyclopedia Brown. Encyclopedia Brown, maybe. Is that Mac, T-O-F-I-G-H-T? I'm thinking I'll throw a hyphen in there in between the two in the fight.

Okay. I think that'll read. That's insane. Look, if you like the title Mac to Fight, use the hashtag, Wiger was right. And if you don't like the hashtag Mac to Fight, or if you don't like the title Mac to Fight, use the hashtag, that's insane, dash Mike Mitchell. Attribute the quote to him. All right.

But let's talk about the back trio. Mac to Fight is like, it's like a Zodiac killer, like, to put that together. That's insane. It's insane. It's not insane to anyone. Mac to Fight. It's not even a jumbo caliber thing. It's very simple.

It's not some crazy thing you have to decode. But no one. Okay. It's not a cipher. I think that it's confused. It's maybe a little confusing. It's made as a cipher. I think just on paper when you look at it, it looks like this has been sent by a killer.

Don't get me wrong. I like it very much. Okay. Thanks, Mitch. All right. Wait, what's going on? Okay. We're talking about the Big Mac trio.

So there's three of them. There's the Mac Jr. Well, first we got the classic Big Mac. That's the one that's kind of the existing one that's been around since the 60s. And the new variants are the Mac Jr., which is one patty, no center bun, as opposed to the Big Mac, which has two patties and a center bun. And the Grand Mac, which the difference is versus the Big Mac, is one third pound of beef total and two slices of cheese.

A lot of people may not realize that the original Big Mac only has one slice of cheese at the bottom. They may think it's two slices of cheese because you got those two patties, but they've only got one. They had a second one for the Grand Mac. And interestingly for the Grand Mac, they don't stack it up higher. They just layer both slices of cheese on top of each other at the bottom, which is a weird choice.

I think that is a weird choice. I guess it's just for efficiency's sake. But we've all had all three Big Macs at this point. Is that correct? Correct. That is correct. What do we feel? I'm trying to think of how to govern, how to steer this discussion exactly, because

we certainly have our assessment of how they will rank. But I guess we should maybe begin with how do we feel about the Big Mac as it is? Where does that rank in the... The original? The original Big Mac. Where does that rank in our hierarchy of McDonald's food items? Love it. Big fan.

Top item. I think it's great. I think that... You're number one item. You say you're top. At McDonald's? At McDonald's? Maybe.

I guess maybe the McNuggets, but I don't have McNuggets too often, but McNuggets are pretty unique to McDonald's. Right. I have Chicken Nuggets, but there's something about the McNuggets, which feels very unique to McDonald's. So maybe that's the other one. But the Big Mac too, I mean, it's like a club sandwich of a hamburger. It is...

It's great. I think the proportions and the original work wonderfully. So I'm a big fan of the original Big Mac. And I feel like if we had had the Big Mac in the original Tournament of Chompians, it could have really given everything a run for its money. Oh, right. Okay. The Tournament of Chompians.

Chicken fight. Chicken fight. Munch madness. Chicken fight. Oh, God. Brought you by fist fight and TBD. Probably me on this. So that's just my initial.

I don't know what day am I... I feel like... I assume you guys all are going to agree, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you guys don't all love the Big Mac. I love the Big Mac. The number one combo, if I was just going to say like, you can get one thing for McDonald's. I know I'm cheating a little bit by saying it's a combo, but the number one combo would be enough to carry me through to the end of my life.

And so I... Which is the Big Mac... Which would be a few months later. Yeah. The Big Mac, the fries, and a soft drink. But yeah, I think that Big Mac is great. What you spoke to about it being the Club Sandwich of Burgers, a lot of people say that is a detriment, that it's got that extra center bun, but I like the extra sponginess you

get from it. I like the... I think the extra bread actually works in its favor. Look. I talked about how the Spicy Chicken Sandwich is my favorite sandwich in all of fast food, which it is... From Wendy's. From Wendy's.

Oh, wow. Maybe that's going to be in the chicken fight for Munch Man. No spoilers. Oh, that's an interesting twist. No spoilers. Except for the fact that it's chicken fight. Brought to you by Fast Fight. Brought to you by TPD.

Oh, God. Munch Madness. I'm Squarespace. Sorry. Big Mac is right up there with the Spicy Chicken Sandwich. I love the Big Mac. It's the best fast food can be, right? I mean, what is better...

The thing about the Big Mac, too, is it just feels classic, and there's an American... I mean, we saw the movie last night, and they talk about this a little bit, but it just feels like America. The Big Mac feels like America. Right. It's fun. It's a fun sandwich. I mean, there's a sense of fun to it.

It's like, why are the extra bread? Is it necessary? Yeah, it's fun. That's why it's necessary. Why do you need the characters? They're fun. And kind of, too, also, in the sense of it being a, you know, kind of like McDonald's is this cravenly capitalist company, it was, the Big Mac was a concept that was stolen

from Bob's Big Boy. They basically, the Bob's Big Boy burger, they sort of said like, hey, let's just do that, and they did it, and they were more successful with it. They just sort of ran with it and produced it on a larger scale. Well, we found out from the founder that a lot of things were stolen. A lot of ideas were stolen. We're saving the founder talk for the end of the episode. But also, that is just the fact about Ray Kroc that people know in general.

I knew that before going into the movie, that he steals a lot of shit. He doesn't seem like the best guy. He doesn't seem like the best guy, but you know what? The Big Mac is, I wouldn't be stopping at Bob's Big Boy. I like the Big Mac better than Bob's Big Boy's fucking sandwich. It's delicious, and you can get it in 30 seconds. It's a great sandwich. It's one of my favorites of all time.

I used to, when I, it's a great hangover food, it's great for, I love it. The thing is, you don't want to eat Big Macs a lot. It's, they're terrible for you. It feels like even- Do you think they're any worse than anything else at McDonald's or any sort of- I mean, I feel like you always get comparisons where people are like, actually, a Big Mac is better for you than this. Don't you feel like you hear that a lot?

Yeah, they'll be like, a Big Mac has fewer calories than their spicy chicken salad or whatever, you know, or their Asian salad. And it's, I feel like those comparisons are always like, they're not, you can't just calorically say one, like go one to one in terms of just like, oh, you should have the, you know, whatever the fewest number of calories is, the healthiest thing to eat. I think our bodies are more complicated than that. I, I, I just feels like you're indulging when you eat a Big Mac.

Right. That's, that's, that's, I mean, I'm not trying to go to McDonald's. Yeah, what's wrong with indulging every now and then? There's nothing wrong with it. I, I, I mean, it's one of my favorite sandwiches. Also, I just want to make a note that when, when you, when I, when I was younger, I used to try to, you know, younger, when I was like 20, 19 to 20, I used to go to, and try to get a double quarter boundary and ask them to make it like a Big Mac.

Right. And they sometimes would do it. I've seen internet videos of people doing that of like, this is the Big Mac hack. And you go and you order like a McDouble or a double cheeseburger and you ask for a bunch of substitutions to get those pickles and that, that, that Mac sauce on there. And then you can basically have a, a Big Mac at a value price. Van, what is your assessment of the Big Mac?

Strap in boys, because I prefer the filet fish. Wow. Oh, fuck. You suck. I'm sorry. That's my favorite McDonald's sandwich. What a weird opinion. You're a weird guy.

That, that's true, or is it just contrarian? No, that slice of cheese, you go, why is that even there? But that's what's great about it. I understand why you were bullied now. Also, did I really have to buckle in? That was a controversial opinion. But what about like, in a burger sense, what's your favorite McDonald's burger? Honestly, my favorite McDonald's burger, and again, strap in fellas, is a double quarter

pounder with cheese. That is really good. A double quarter pounder with cheese is a great selection. I think it's a little too much meat. I feel like the, the meat balances better in that regular quarter pounder, but I did, there was a time when I get that quarter pounder more frequently than the Big Mac. The regular quarter pounder feels more like a ketchup burger. Yeah.

It's heavy with the ketchup and the, and the mustard. There was definitely a time in my life when I liked that, though. The double quarter pounder, that's, it's just, that's a good, that's a good sandwich right there. Come on, tiger. Well, you know what's- It is good. I think it's a little too much meat.

I know. Hey, I'm not saying you don't like it. That's why you gotta get that fish. No meat at all. Here's, here's the thing. When I ordered the Grand Mac, I thought that I was going to get, like, I thought that it was going to be similar to a double quarter pounder. I did, too.

Right. Yeah. And it's not. And for better or for worse. I mean, like, for me, I was kind of- Can I jump in and say my opinion? I think for worse. Yes.

Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Boy, it was, I mean- It's, it's weird because after, you know, we have a small text, Jane, and there were some people who really loved the Grand Mac. Like, I remember, I think Jack Allison loved the Grand Mac, but do you mind if I break it down just a little bit?

Please, go ahead. I like it. Don't get me wrong. A big, a giant Big Mac is fun, no matter what. Sure. But my issue with it was that it came off a little bready to me. Completely agree. It was, it felt like, it felt kind of bready.

Weirdly. And I agree with that. Yeah. It's just that, that, the kind of, the ratio, you know, whatever bigger bun they're using or whatever, the ratio kind of, kind of got messed up with the beef to bun. That really, honestly, that decision pissed me off. I have a picture right here I took of all three next to each other, and you can see just how, I mean, you guys don't have a good angle on this right here, but you guys have

had it. You can just see how big the bun is. The top bun, especially. Why the fuck did they make a giant bun with a Grand Mac? The whole point is to have, like, more, like, a better ratio of meat to burn. I know. I would have loved if it was, yeah, it's exactly. If it was just the same size bun as the Big Mac, but more meat.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, this is what, they decided to go higher, I mean, I'm sorry, they decided to go wider instead of going higher, and, yeah, no, I agree with you, Sus. I, you know, I almost appreciate that when they went, when they went wider, the thing of like, oh, it's going to be the ratio, and this is kind of what Jack had said, that like the ratio, we're going to try to keep it the same, it's just going to be a bigger burger,

you know what I mean? Like, but I think that they kind of got lost in the creation of it was that the bread overtook it. Like, I salute them for trying to keep it similar to the Big Mac, but it just didn't, there's too much bread. It didn't work out. Yeah. What was going on in their test kitchen where they decided, like, oh, this needs more bun,

I just don't get, because it also cost them more per food item to have a new line of bun that they're using. Like, they were embracing the novelty element of it. It was like, it's like a, you know, like a man versus food, or like giant foods, like, it looks funny. Yeah, it does look big. And I think that that was kind of what they were going for, is you see it, and you're like, oh, it's like Willy Wonka, like, big version of a Big Mac.

Yeah. So, now, those patties are very large, though. So if you went with a smaller bun, I feel like you'd have patties sticking out. Is that what you, is that how you want them? No, you can have the patty, they could redesign the patty. Yeah, thicken up that patty. It could be a double quarter pounder patty or whatever, you know, like two patties. No, but I don't think that it was intentionally to give us more bread.

What I was trying to say before is that I think they were trying to keep that Big Mac taste consistent and just give you more of it. But in doing so, they accidentally kind of made it too bready. I think that that's what happened with it. Yeah. Van, your thoughts on the Grand Mac? I'm going to, of the three, it's my least favorite. Yeah.

I thought bite for bite, it was the worst. I didn't like the sort of ratio of all of the things, and I don't know if their plan was to have it match the Big Mac's ratio, but if that was, I don't think they succeeded. Yeah. I mean, I think it, right? You guys think I'm wrong on that? No, I think we have consensus that the Grand Mac is an utter failure. Way too wide.

Here's the other point I was going to make. We talked about the bread ratio. Hold on a second. By the way, I still like it. I love it. Fantastic sandwich. I'm going to have one after this. It's awesome.

It's great. You should have one if you're a Big Mac fan. That said, here's the, we talked about the bread ratio. Here's another casualty in the situation, the pickle ratio, because there's so much surface area on those patties, there aren't enough pickles per bite, and my pickles were really sporadic. I felt like there was like an island chain of pickles that weren't contiguous at all, and I would get like a pickle in one bite, no pickle in the other bite, they were spilling

out of the sides. It was just like a real mess, and I feel like if they're going to go that big, they need to go with like a flat dill spear or something. They can't just have these little disc sized pickles and not enough. I get what you're saying, but I maybe disagree with this, like, I don't know how many pickles are on a regular Big Mac, but maybe they should have, you know, maybe they should up the number by two or three or whatever it is. I don't think I would like a big dill pickle spear over the entire burger, excuse me.

That's just like a pitch off the top of my head, I'm not saying that's the solution, but I'm saying they could have done something to, it feels like there weren't enough pickles in terms of those pickle chips. You know what, maybe now that I think about it, maybe that's right, but I was okay with the number of pickles I had. The pickles didn't bother me, I have to say. But hey, that's a fair point to bring up. A little trick I did, but it got messy, was halfway through I got so frustrated I just

ditched that top bun and then used the middle bun as like the top bun. Hold on a second, that seems like the most messy solution to a messy problem is that you took the middle bun out and put it on top. That's insane. You know what, it was good. The middle bun is better than the top bun. The middle bun is kind of like fluffy. Yeah, that would have been, the cleaner solution would be lose the middle bun, but I wanted

that middle bun. Right, because that top bun has a lot of, it's got the most bread, it's the most dense and then it's also like those sesame seeds, I feel like kind of dry it out a little bit. I felt it had too many sesame seeds. Yeah. Boy, I don't know. I don't know if it was just because of the greater surface area of the bun and it was the same sesame seed to bun ratio, but it felt like it had twice as many sesame seeds

as the normal size Big Mac. Per square inch. It's true. Hey, listen, I still liked it a lot. I liked the fact that you can get a giant Big Mac and like, if I'm drunk and someone takes me to McDonald's and, I mean, if I'm not even drunk anymore, who am I joking? If I'm just going to McDonald's with Susser and Susser's taking me to McDonald's, I would maybe sometimes still get the Grand Mac.

I will say there's a thing with the Big Mac meal where, does a Big Mac alone, does that satisfy you? Because I've talked to some people who are not satisfied completely by a Big Mac. What? That's not enough of a meal for them? Not enough of a sandwich. I think, like, if that's a part of a combo, to me, that's enough food. I feel like Big Mac fries and a drink is plenty to fill me up for a lunch.

That's great. I love the Big Mac. Now, here's the thing. I think we're all going to agree on this, too. The best of the new ones is the Mac Jr. Easily. There's two options. I mean, we said this one was the worst.

There's two options. I guess I should have said of the new ones. I guess we could all agree, this coin that landed tail-side down landed head-side up. Oh, fuck off. Look, yes, the little one is good. It should stick around. I would eat two little ones over one, John. Wow.

All right, see, that was kind of what I was trying to get at. If anyone would say that it's better than the original Big Mac. But you're saying over the Grand or you're saying over the Big. I'm saying that over the Grand Mac, I would eat two Mac Juniors. I agree with that. I agree with that. I do have a problem with the Mac Jr. name. I feel like it's a little too close to the Whopper Jr.

It should be the Mini Mac. They fucked up the nomenclature. That's a big issue with this Mac line for me. So the Big Mac is the middle one. The Mac Jr., why is it a suffix instead of a prefix? It should be something, yeah, it should be Mini Mac. I was going to pitch Little Mac, which is probably a copyright infringement issue with Nintendo and Terrible, but I feel like Little Mac, Big Mac, and then instead of Grand Mac,

which Grand is an awkward word to say. It's a little clueless, Clanny. Yeah, right. What is that all about? Megamac? Megamac, or Bigger Mac, or Big Big Mac. Hold on a second. I don't think everyone thinks of Grand Wizard when they hear the word Grand.

I don't think that they think Grand. Well, one out of four people, I wonder what the difference is. Why, Jewish. Oh, my God. I'm a little more aware of the Clan, maybe. So when you pulled into the McDonald's drive-thru, there was a moment where you went, ah, you were scared of the Grand Mac? I wasn't scared, you know, I think in these times you've got to look racist and fascist

in the eye. But, you know. You serve it in that white bag, it's with a kind of a tinted top, right? Yeah, speaking of the- You know what, Susser? Yeah. You're a hero. Oh, thank you.

I mean, if you want to call me a hero, sure, I'm just a guy eating hamburg. What were you going to say, Wager? In terms of Clan iconography, look at the shape of the grimace. Doesn't he look like a Klansman wearing a hood? Sure. No. With the robes down behind him. What the fuck?

And, you know, some of the higher-up Clan guys, they don't wear white. They wear different colors. They wear red and maybe purple for grimace. Right. Leave grimace alone. He didn't- what the fuck? He didn't do it. He's not a- he doesn't look like a Clan member?

I'm just saying you could make that connection just as easily as you can with the Grand Mac. Now, this is not a McDonald's episode and we're not talking about McDonald's. Right. But I do want to mention that when I got my assortment of Big Macs, I did order from a touchscreen and received table service. Oh, wow. Okay, very nice. So that's two new McDonald's changes in one meal.

And I got to say, thumbs up to both of them. Yeah, that's an interesting experience. It's funny because when I ordered, I- so I had a Grand Mac, so, you know, there was a lot of things going on my head whether this would count because I had a Grand Mac on my way back from San Francisco. I was- I was very- I was hungover and I do think that Big Mac is one of the best hangover records I- This wasn't for the podcast either.

You just had one. This just was on my own. This was a recreational- This was a recreational Grand Mac and so I got it on the right home and it was great and so when I went on my own, I was just going to do the regular Big Mac and the Mac Jr. And I ordered from a human being and they gave me- they gave me a Grand Mac and a Big Mac. And first of all, who- I mean, who would want a Grand Mac and a Big Mac?

It seems insane. Excessive, yeah. But they were like, hey, do you want- do you want to just keep the- the Grand Mac and like a- like you can just keep the Grand Mac or whatever and I was like, no, I want- I need the Mac Jr. I need- I had to explain. I was like, I'm writing- I'm- I'm writing something up for a blog.

I lied. So that I didn't- That was cooler. That's less embarrassing than the podcast. It's less embarrassing. I mean, it just- I feel like if I said, I have a fast food podcast, I think they'd be like, what? Like they might not understand what it is.

Sure, sure, fast food blog. I feel like blog- I lied and said I was a writer. How's that? I just said that I was a- I was a fast food writer. That's not a lie. I mean, I am a writer. In the Writers Guild of America? I am in the Writers Guild of America.

I'm saying that I just lied and told them I was like a food critic was what I was trying to say. Just say it's for your boss or something. Yeah, well anyways. All right, I wanted the one I ordered. Yes, that was the bigger thing. So they took the charge off. Sir, why are you crying?

I want what I ordered! They took the charge off. And then here's the thing is, it took a very, very long time to get the Mac Jr. And when I got it, I went back, man, I also got a medium fries and maybe a medium diet Coke and when I went back, it was kind of- That's a classy move. When you were returning, you're like, yeah, you know what? Give me some more stuff.

No, I got that the first time. For my blog. For my blog. I figured it out at the window. Nothing changed. It just took like 10 minutes and everyone was mad behind me. My issue is that I got, this happens from time to time, kind of a stale-bunned Big Mac and a stale-bunned Mac Jr.

Oh boy. Yeah, bummed. Yeah, it was a bummer. Because I liked the Mac Jr. a lot and we talked about this. I feel like there's kind of consensus in that people would get that with a meal or something. You know what I mean? Like, I'm going to get like the two cheeseburger meal and maybe I'm going to toss in a Mac Jr. So, you know, like, I think it's an item that people will toss in as an add-on.

It's a plus one. It's a plus one, but my first experience with it, I understood that it was better. I liked the ratio better. I liked what was going on better, but it was still bummed. That particular preparation was just not delivering on the concept. Yeah, I like the Mac Jr. a lot. I will say I got all three in one meal and I finished both the Mac Jr. and the Grand Mac and I also ate about a half of the Big Mac and ate all of my fries.

So, it's, I had a big appetite that lunch, but I really like the Mac Jr.'s amount of sauce. Like, because that Mac sauce is really good and I feel like sometimes you'll get it where you just don't have quite enough spread on that Big Mac if you get one that's not prepared just right. And the Mac Jr. is like kind of swimming is hyperbolic, but it has a lot of sauce on it. It's got a very high sauce to other component ratios. Yes, that's a good point that I don't think we brought up. There's maybe too much sauce going on. Yeah, it borders on excessive.

I love it because I love that Mac sauce. I think it's delicious, but it is like, it depends on if you're a sauce freak, go for it. If you're a sauce skeptic, maybe one of the other ones is the one for you. So, you're gonna find yourself as a sauce freak? Yeah, I'd say it's something of a sauce freak. It's too bad you missed, they were giving out free bottles of the Big Mac sauce when they were doing it as a little promotion. I thought that looked cool, but also I'm like, what am I gonna do with that? Because the Big Mac is what I want that on.

You're a sauce freak, you fucking drink it or something, I don't know. Take a bath in it. No, I have similar thoughts about the sauce. Honestly, my reaction to the Mac Jr. is I thought, less bun, more sauce, all mine. Hmm, hmm. Oh, let me think about this for a second. What, the words you said? You said it out loud, right?

Yeah, I said it out loud at the McDonald's. Less bun, more sauce, all mine. Speaking of buns, Susser, it looks like you have a man bun from the way your headphones are on. Oh boy. Maybe I should do that. Look, you look kind of bad ass, I'll say. It was good. Take a pic.

It was all, it was, they're both good. Right. They're both very good, but you know what? I gotta hand it to the classic and still king, the Big Mac. You just can't, it's a classic, you can't top it. I can't beat it. You can't beat it, I mean like, honestly until they try the beefier Big Mac, which maybe you just have to do it on your own with the double quarter pounder,

there's nothing that will beat it. It's the best. Yeah, there's no way to improve upon it. It's just, it's great. The Big Mac is great. And these other iterations are nice little variations. They're nice little variations on a theme. They're nice little, like, oh, breaks from the norm,

but it's just at the end of the day, you want to go home to your wife. You want that Big Mac. You know, those other things, like, get them out of here. That's the one I'm married to. That's the one I want to stay with. Yeah, okay, all right, I get it. Everyone else is fucking married in the screw. You want to go home to your cats, to your trash.

Yeah, I agree. All right, here we go. Hashtag Mac rankings. We could use hashtag Mac to fight. Mac to fight, hashtag Mac to fight. Yes, no, the episode is called Mac to Fight. And the hashtag is... Can't we say Mac rankings?

Less. No, we can't. You know, in Fifth Fight, the name of the movie is Fifth Fight. All right. But inside the movie, there's a hashtag, and it's hashtag Teacher Fight. And it's a huge problem. It's a huge problem.

People are confused. There's been a lot of complaints online that they see the trailers, it says hashtag Teacher Fight, but the name of the movie is Fifth Fight. I've actually had people ask me, why did they change... It seems like bad scripting. Why did they change the name of the movie from Teacher Fight to Fifth Fight,

which was never named Teacher Fight, but that's how much confusion it's caused, and I don't know that you guys want... I am not getting into another one of those situations. Yeah, you guys don't want to invite that. Why didn't you say in the script, hashtag Fifth Fight, and then call the movie hashtag Fifth Fight? The name of the movie should have had hashtag in it.

Yeah. Hey, it's fucking 2017. Oh, boy. That feels like a tour pie. That feels like a 2012 decision. Yeah, I'm gonna kick you out of the writer's kill. Well, I mean, more than anything, why did you guys put hashtag Teacher Fight in your script?

Fair question. Yeah, fair. It's fun. It's fun. You guys know hashtags. Right. This whole podcast is mostly hashtag humor. It just seems like...

It seems like your big issue with this entire thing is something that you guys put down on paper. You know, that's a perspective on it, but I don't see that. Do you see... You know what? You see Fifth Fight, and then hashtag... Hashtag Teacher Fight or Fifth Fight,

depending on what you feel we should have put in the script originally. Right. Yeah. Hmm. I'm gonna pass. If you're a Doe Boys listener and you have an opinion on that,

hashtag should have used Fifth Fight or hashtag right to use Teacher Fight. Also, be sure to tweet at us. You're rotten tomato score for Fifth Fight and include Susser and Van. Or personal one, or... Like everyone picks their own. Yeah, your personal rotten tomato score.

Come to your own consensus. Your own consensus with yourself. Your own consensus. Put a percentage on it. Tweet at Van and Susser so they can see how good or bad you liked it. Yeah, that's it. I'm gonna love it.

I'm seeing it this Friday. I already bought my ticket. Great. I'm seeing it this weekend, too. And maybe I could have fucking... Hey, you know, next movie you get, maybe you could toss me a fucking roll, huh? Right?

Mitch could have been in there. Actually, we'll tell a quick Fifth Fight Mike Mitchell story. Oh, yeah. There wasn't really a role for Mitch, unfortunately, in the movie, but we did try to put Mitch's name in the movie. There's a scene where, originally in the script, Ice Cube's character had a brief monologue about education about one of the things he was so upset with about the school,

and he talks about this student named Mike Mitchell, who made it all the way through high school, never learned to read. And we got a note back from Ice Cube that was, specifically, he was like, this Mike Mitchell thing is gotta go. And that's when he referred to it as this Mike Mitchell thing. Thanks a lot, Ice Cube. Hey, do you think Ice Cube could ever...

could ever guest on Doughboys? Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Let me just actually, I can text him now. Oh, no. He wrote right back. Right back, no. That was just his reply to any text from you guys.

Want to do another movie, sir? Alright, it seems like we're... Mr. Cube? Mr. Cube? It seems like we have a consensus on the Mac trio, Big Mac Rain Supreme, Mac Jr. is the best of the new ones, and the Grand Mac is bringing up the rear.

We'll take a quick break, or we'll be right back with more Doughboys. The remainder of the episode contains spoilers for the film, The Founder. If you don't want to hear them, maybe stop listening. Welcome back to Doughboys. We're here with Van and Evan. We're talking...

We talked about the Mac trio at McDonald's. Again, this is not the McDonald's episode. No, it is not the McDonald's episode. We want to make it clear. Not at all. But we're talking about McDonald's adjacent topics, and one of those is the new film, The Founder, starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc,

the titular founder of the McDonald's franchise, although we'll learn in the film... The titular founder? Titular, right? Titular. Ray Kroc is... Oh, because the name of the movie is The Founder. The name of the movie is The Founder.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he is the titular founder of the franchise, but as we learn in the movie, it's not quite that simple. Ray Kroc did not create McDonald's at all. No. Now, let's... Should we maybe talk about it just generally at first? Did you like the...

I dropped my fucking water bottle. Just don't get it. It didn't open. It didn't open, just let it sit on the floor. Now that's going to be in a sour mood. Yeah, now he's mad for the rest of the day. No, it's fine. He'll have a yelling fit at Natalie tonight.

I don't yell at my wife. Before we get into the movie, I want to talk about the spoiler warning for a second. Right. This is kind of an issue for me. I don't believe that the movie The Founder contains any spoilers. It's a historical record. Yeah, I don't... I think...

I'll disagree with you, Van. Okay, I'll disagree with you, but I also... You know that I also, when Weiger was yelling at me for this, I think that a lot of it is just common knowledge for people who know about McDonald's history. Right, a lot of people in the world know about McDonald's history, right? For me, spoilers refer to a small fact from a film that if you were to know that fact going into the viewing of the movie, that would change your experience of watching the movie. Right.

And I don't know if there's a single fact in The Founder that if you knew it, going in would really even change your viewing of the film. He quits the country club. Yeah. I feel like you could be like, the movie ends with him talking into the mirror. You know, like... And that's a spoiler? I mean, not really, but...

Yeah, you won't even understand the context, right? But if you said the movie ends with him talking into the mirror because he's about to give a speech and he feels like he... It's hard for him to say that he founded McDonald's. Right. Then I guess that to me would be like, oh, you kind of spoiled it for me. Like, I would be kind of... I would kind of be bummed out by that.

Mitch is right because I think there are... And there I go. I just said it. Yeah. But I mean, like, there's... I'm not concerned... I'm a lot less concerned about spoilers than most people. In fact, I sometimes like things getting spoiled.

You spoiled the arrival for me. I didn't directly spoil the arrival for you. That was a little vindictive. I apologize for that. That's an example of a film that has a potential spoiler. Right. I just... This idea that all films have spoilers and require spoiler alerts to discuss, I disagree with.

Yes. But there is the idea of like, okay, yes, the information in this Ray Crock biopic is factual. This is stuff that you would just learn via history. But they're also, to Mitch's point, there are dramatic beats within it that are couched in the narrative of the film, the language of film, that knowing those going in can alter your experience. I mean, look, sometimes we have to look at scripts and read scripts or whatever. And we hear from...

You've got to talk to people about stuff so it can get spoiled. But I usually like to go in without knowing too much. So, I'm fine with the spoiler. But we're also spending too much time on the fucking spoiler. Right. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. We didn't watch the spoiler.

We saw the foundry. I wanted to say this. I thought it was... Because I had heard mixed things going into it. I thought it was actually pretty good. I kind of enjoyed myself. I liked it, too. Yeah.

I liked it. Tonally, it's just this kind of a wonky movie. Tonally, it kind of feels like an indie movie. It kind of has this light sensibility about it. I specifically... So, I went last night on Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day... It's Valentine's Eve.

Oh, I'm sorry. I guess it's Valentine's Day. No, it's Valentine's Day. It's Valentine's Day. Valentine's Night. Yeah. Eve would be the night before, right? Yes.

Valentine's Night. I went to this movie by myself and I... At ArcLife for this stupid fucking podcast, I went in and sat alone. And Paul Rust and Leslie are from Friends of the Podcast and married or sitting in the theater. How about that? And I ignored them till the end of the movie because I didn't want to ruin their Valentine's Night date and I felt very embarrassed.

Did you say something at the end? Yeah. I said hello. I thought you ruined it at the end. It was a whole night. Like, is it okay? He's not talking to us. Is there anyone we can set him up with?

They didn't see me until the movie was over. But we all agreed on certain aspects of the movie and I think they seem to kind of like it too. But for me, the music is so weird and bad in the first hour of it. I feel like it's a guy trying to make like a P.T. Anderson movie and like a man trying to make kind of like this thing that you guys are all shrugging as I say this. It's the story of this man and we see him become kind of a monster but a lot of those beats are missing.

How he becomes what he is and why he becomes what he is and there's like so much kind of like this weird music that plays and it seems very kind of like light and almost like a comedy and then towards the end you're like, oh, this guy is a fucked up guy and it's kind of like a darker movie. I just wish the tone was kind of dark throughout. Yeah. It didn't have a consistency of tone and it really didn't. Michael Keaton's character and he's a good performance but Ray Kroc himself, I feel like

doesn't have anything you can latch onto of like, oh, I get who this guy is. To speak to one thing you mentioned real quick, the score is by Carter Burwell who does most of the music for, I think for every Cone Brothers film he's composed, there might be somewhere he hasn't, but like the score for Fargo is a legendarily amazing score. He's a great composer but yeah, maybe- Weird, that's, I didn't realize that, that's crazy. It could, those choices could always come from the director, you know what I mean? It could always be him driving towards like, hey, make this sort of light and bouncy and fun here.

And we talked about this too, that sort of thing of like, oh, McDonald's is kind of like a light, fun, bouncy story but there was some sort of disconnect with somebody in the making of that movie, right, because like there were a lot of elements that I loved about it and I do, I enjoyed it a lot but there were a lot of elements that I liked but then when it came together it was, it was just kind of wonky. It's hard to describe. Paul Rust said that it was like, if you think of, like you can compare it to There Will Be Blood or something and it's like- Yeah, I would agree it's not as good as There

Will Be Blood. Of course, but I'm saying like, if you compare it to There Will Be Blood, like a movie which has a dark tone from the beginning to the very end and is just highly dramatic and like maybe something like that for the founder would have been a much better movie. I don't know about that though. I don't know if it needed to be darker. I think it just needed, I do think, I enjoyed it a lot and I had fun, I'm a little bit, I feel like a little kid, you know, if little kids like, they like movies if they're about

subject matters that they like, you know, like they like a baseball movie just because it has baseball in it. So I like the topic and I like the history of McDonald's so I liked it for that reason. I do think, and I thought the performances were good, specifically I thought Nick Offerman and I can't remember. John Carroll Lynch. I thought they were great. That was actually, them as the McDonald's brothers made me want to see the movie where

they're the McDonald's brothers because they're the most interesting part of the film. Yeah, but that basically is that, I mean like they are such a huge part of the movie. Yeah, they're a huge part of it so I liked it, but I thought that the morality was a little black and white, that Ray Kroc was just completely bad, the McDonald's brothers there was a little more nuance with them, but I thought that it was kind of, as much as I'm on board for Ray Kroc, you know, it's kind of, he stole this thing and he's not really the founder. Yeah.

I do think you have to give him credit for having the vision about what McDonald's can be. I just think it was just a little too black and white that he was so much of a villain. The idea of taking it nationwide and finding a way to scale it to that degree, whereas the McDonald's brothers had tried that, had been in the film, they had tried to do that in the past and they'd failed and the fact that he was able to expand this so wildly and create a model for other fast food chains is, it's impressive, an impressive achievement. And I think his ambition and perseverance are things to be admired in the film kind

of portrays them as like laughable. See, I actually don't, I kind of disagree with you on that, cuz I feel like he takes his bad guy turn kind of halfway through the movie in a scene that Nick probably, and basically all the cuckings, there's a lot of cucking going on in the movie, but I feel like when he like first notices. Not a lot of it. There's like one key instance. But there's, but I mean like it is, you know, a good 30, from, you know, whenever it starts

till the end. It's a plot point, yeah, for sure. But when he looks at her, the wife of that man, whoever his name is, like that, I feel like that's kind of when he takes the worst turn and he kind of is like, and then from there on out, that's when he like yells at the McDonald's brothers and says that if my competitors were drowning, I'd put a hose in their mouth and stuff like that. Like you almost feel bad for the guy in the beginning when he's the struggling salesman and then when he goes into the room trying to sell McDonald's and people are like, I

know you from somewhere, like you almost feel for Kroc. And then for me in the last, you know, 35, 40 minutes, you're like, oh, he is like such a villain, which is good because we all like seeing Michael Keaton play a villain. It was fun to watch him be the kind of embrace it. Well, let's contrast this real quick with another unauthorized biopic because I was surprised because I thought originally the contrasting tone where it sort of seems sort of this glossy pro McDonald's thing, but also sort of like saying negative things about Ray Kroc, but not really connecting them too well.

I assume that was because of McDonald's corporate involvement. Apparently McDonald's was not involved, did not authorize this at all, and they used all the signage and the logos via fair use provisions. And so compare it to the social network. And I think what the social network achieved that this film didn't is that we really got the Mark Zuckerberg, the fictionalized Mark Zuckerberg character. We really understood what that character was at its essence. Like we really understood him.

And here I feel like Ray Kroc is kind of, he's got a speech impediment, but beyond that, it's like, what's really going on with this guy? What is the connection between the struggling, traveling salesman, this megalomaiacal, you know, sort of dictator in corporate raider sort? Like what connects them? I kind of would have liked to see early on, like maybe he is like just this hyper competitive man and he's like super competitive, just something, some sort of nugget that informs why he makes this transition.

Yeah, because he, yeah, he, no, you're right. That's, I mean, that's, he does kind of, he almost seems like a, he makes fun of the McDonald's brothers for being like kind of yokels or whatever at one point. It's like, he seems like kind of like a dumb salesman. And that's almost why I feel bad for him is in the beginning of the movie, he seems kind of like just like this dummy who stumbles upon stuff or whatever. But you're right. I mean, he was obviously a cutthroat man and it, and it's funny seeing the real footage

of Ray Kroc and being like, I never would trust that. If you were the McDonald's brother, he seems like the least trust. He's like, hey, like he's like, he's like an evil version of like the Colonel from Kentucky Fried Chicken or something. He does not seem like a trustworthy man. But it's hard, it's hard for me to say because like, there were moments in the beginning where like in the, in the first, you know, 40 minutes or something where I was like, is this movie kind of like a comedy?

Is it trying to be a comedy? It was kind of like in this weird zone of what I didn't know was going on. But ultimately, like Susser said, just that story is enjoyable. Like I didn't want to go to the bathroom because I was like, like I had to, I had to use the bathroom at one point. I had to pee. I'm a human being. You shit your pants.

I shit my pants. Movie theater alone on Valentine's Day. Alone on Valentine's Day. Oh, Mike Mitchell's doing just fine. But because this, because the story is interesting and it was interesting seeing it play out on the, on the screen. Like it was fun seeing the beats of like the milkshake machine and the, and the fries being the right temperature.

That was great. There was a lot of stuff that was like, that was really great about it. You know what the thing, the, the talking about the milkshakes because a big plot point is involves that the them switching to a powdered milkshake from a real ice cream shake. And it's really strange. I feel like that isn't played quite right because it feels like the McDonald's brothers are in the right. And everyone would say in from 2017 perspective, like, yeah, you want to use real ice cream

in a fucking shake. Like what are you doing? But they kind of push it where Ray Kroc using the powdered milkshake that he's the guy who's the visionary. Like he's the guy who's making the smart move in these stayed McDonald's brothers. They're stuck in the past. They're not seeing the future. I guess in a corporate sense he was right, but it's kind of like weird to lionize the

idea of you're taking something and scaling it and taking the quality out of it for the sake of more profit and to sort of say like, oh yes, that was the, the correct thing to do. Then you've been quiet. Yeah. No, I, you know, the, I enjoyed the movie, especially like Michael Keaton's performance. I think I actually would echo some of your concerns about the first half of the movie being a little too almost like at times almost seemed like there was like a wacky tone to

it. Right. It's very weird. It feels like an indie movie. It's very strange. Like the, you know, I remember early on he's, he's, is that one of the visiting one of the drive-ins and he's trying to, he's maybe going to drive to the McDonald's location and he kind of takes out the map and there's a thing where he like unfolds the map even more and

it's like, well, boy, it's going to be a far trip. Right. And that like, it was, that kind of felt at tonally at odds with the rest of the movie, the like a really long map joke. No, I, I, I, there were like moments where like Kroc shows up to like McDonald's again and he's outside the window and it's like supposed to play for laughs, but then like it, they, they don't like do the hard reveal. Like, you know what I mean?

Like they don't step on the joke, which is fine. It's fine. But like there's moments where I'm like, oh, I could have laughed at this moment, but then it just wasn't pulled off. It wasn't executed for whatever reason. Right. And, and, and it's, it's, it's, listen, the, the movie kind of got mixed reviews and my, my feeling about it was like, this is like for the movie, for the films that came out

last year, I'm like, I liked this almost as much as every other movie I saw last year. Maybe, maybe I wouldn't even put it up close to the top. You know what I mean? I really enjoyed it. I liked it more than I thought, but, but there is, there, there, it has, it has his issues. It's definitely good with some flaws, much like the Grand Mac. It is a lot, it is a lot like the Grand Mac. It's like it's good and you're enjoying it.

You're like, oh, this is good, but there's a few changes that could be made to really elevate this to. I would say that I would rank the founder below the Mac Jr., but above the Grand Mac. I agree with that. I agree with that. I'd say I'd put that. Probably better. I mean, not really.

I think I would rather just eat a sandwich. What, what are you talking about? Like, just, just to say one more positive thing. I thought the sequence where the McDonald brothers like explain their story to Ray Croc, that was the best sequence on specifically the training and like the tennis court with all of the waiters that I was like, oh, this is, I love this. And I wish the movie was a little bit more like that, even with the later Ray Croc, you know, innovations and stuff like that.

But, but, but it wasn't like, I mean, like there was like so much exposition, like it was like, I felt there was a little, I felt there was a little too much on the tennis court. Oh, not at all. I just, I felt like they revised the tennis court layout maybe one, too many times on it. Well, you could also, they could have revised it four or five more times, but I loved it. You could also tell that like, like, like Offerman was like improvising a lot of like,

like mustard, you know what I mean? Like there was a lot of improvis, like improvisation during that scene. You didn't, you didn't think that? I don't know. I don't think necessarily. I didn't, I didn't really. Classic actor minimizing a writer, giving all the credit to an actor. Listen, I love Nick Offerman.

The guy's the man. Yeah. And I do think both of those guys, I mean, their performances were great and I'm sure they did. Let's not short change John Carroll Lynch. Yeah. Great actor. John Carroll Lynch is great.

No. You know what? It kind of, it kind of reminds me, because he was also in Fargo. He's in Fargo. He's also in Zodiac. We were talking about serial killers. Oh, that's right. Great role in Zodiac.

Um, the movie kind of reminds me of Fargo, the TV show now that I think about it. Like, like, like, kind of straight, like, Do I need another disclaimer for Fargo spoilers? I won't, I won't even get into as fuckers. Let's not talk about Fargo, the TV show. But, but like, kind of like a little, like how that show is kind of wonky in a lot of ways, too. I, like, I enjoy, not that I don't enjoy the show.

I'm just saying, like, there's, there's moments where I'm like, this is played for a laugh, but it feels like weirdly shot or stiff or, you know what I mean? Like, there's, there's, there are like weird moments throughout the founder, even though I, I, I really much enjoyed it. And also, I want to let you know that I bought the land below the Doe Boyz studio. And the space above it, Weiger. And if you want to continue to do Doe Boyz, you have to rent it out. Maybe I can get some of the, the revenue that, that Van is getting from Mitch.Pizza since

it is derivative from the podcast. It is a derivative work. Do you think I am your Red Croft, or do you think we're both the McDonald's brothers? And, and, well, I mean, we don't have, we don't have a product. That's the issue. Just pretend that we have a McDonald's with Doe Boyz, which we don't. Okay. So I would say that we're, I'd say that you're Mac McDonald.

Yeah, no shit. John Carroll Lynch. I'd say I'm more the, and also this tracks because both our names are Nick in real life. I'd say I'm the, the Dick McDonald, the Nick, Nick Offerman character. And I'd like to announce that the Doe Boyz iMessage sticker app is entering beta next week. I thought you were going to say I, I want to announce that I am the Red Croft, but you did. I think you are. Yeah.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Who am I? Susser, you're. You're the wife. Laura Dern or the new cool wife. You can be the new cool wife. Laura Dern wasn't a bad wife. No, she wasn't.

I felt bad. And I felt like that hole was handled. Like she was just kind of like... She didn't have a lot to do. Well, she didn't have a lot to do. Yeah, that was the thing we talked about outside of the theater too is that she, Laura Dern is so, so good. Great actor. She's, she's so good and, and she doesn't have a lot to do, but like you feel like, you know,

at one point when Ray Croft, Croft is like, I want a divorce at the dinner table. Like that is an interesting scene. And you like, you're like, okay, here's going to be her moment where she tells this guy, this is kind of like the, there should have been this moment. Yeah, right. Where she's like, like, what the fuck or whatever and what's wrong with you. But it doesn't do that. And you know what, maybe, I think Leslie said this, maybe this was the way she was in real life.

Maybe she kind of was just, she went along with it and that was it. But it's, it's like, it is the kind of thing of like Ray Croft is kind of treating his wife like shit throughout. And it feels like if he's, I don't know, it feels like they didn't, it was, at the same time, she was facilitating him so much. Like she was making so many efforts to help his business succeed. Then for him to just kind of dump her in the same sort of way he dumps the McDonald's brothers. I don't know. I feel like there was, there was maybe a way to make that payoff stronger and or also too,

if he was just that cruel and that nonchalant about it and was just sort of like, I'm done with you. I'm ready to move on. Like almost just hammering that home even further, you know. Yeah. Did it make anyone else uncomfortable about watching a man steal a woman's, a man steal another man's wife? I mean, they both made that choice obviously. Right.

But like to see, to see Michael Keaton like, it made me uncomfortable. Like it's kind of a weird, an uncomfortable thing to watch in a movie. Yeah. It happens in slow motion. It happens over so many scenes and you sort of see hints of it early on. Yeah. I kind of liked that actually. I mean, like it made me uncomfortable.

But I liked how they did that. But it's weird because that doesn't necessarily resolve either. It's just sort of like they go on and like, oh, and they lived happily ever after. Yeah. And then as soon as the truth started, I can't forget her name, his new wife. And it's like, and she gave like all of their fortune to MBR. And it's like, well, whoa, that's like a good, that's like a nice thing. Like we didn't, like it's very, from watching the movie, you wouldn't expect that to happen.

Yeah. And obviously that shows a complexity of character and that they're not like a villain family. Yeah. They did this really nice, you know, sustained NPR for years. But meanwhile, while ripping the McDonald's brothers out of their revenue to the tune of $100,000 a year. Right. Exactly.

So again, that's what's kind of like shades of gray. Like I would have liked a little more. Yeah, I agree with that. And those McDonald's brothers, they were insane. So I'm sure of it. I mean, that is the other, and also like they get, they get, I mean, of course they get, they get screwed bad. Yeah.

But they get like a million, $300,000 each or whatever. And back then that was a, that was a substantial amount of money. It was. They got a cash payout, but they were still screwed over time. They were screwed up for sure. And he should have given them 1% of the company. That is, that is the most fucked up part of the movie, the handshake part when you're like, oh, he's still going for it.

But also it's like, and I like the way they play it. Like it feels like in that moment, they know. Right. It's not like they think this handshake deal is going to matter. Yeah. I like that. Yeah, it's good. I also too, like, I don't know if this was, this was intended to be implied, but did you

guys get a confirmed bachelor vibe from the McDonald brothers? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. These guys are, you know, this isn't a time where it's acceptable to be out, but these, that's maybe what's going on with these guys. I'm not implying anything incestuous. Let's not get nuts.

I didn't think you were. Nope. Nobody thought that. Yeah. Doesn't Dick McDonald take umbrage to the fact that he's like, he's like, can I take you out or actually he does, he does enough. He's not upset by it, but he's like, he's like, I'm not that type of guy or whatever. Right.

Oh that's interesting. Maybe he's being defensive. Maybe he's being defensive. Who knows? Yeah. No, I think there's definitely a queer reading you could do of this whole movie. Interesting. Of every, of every character.

Yeah, that's how queer readings work. I've never heard of the term queer reading before, but interesting. Basically, it's an academic term. You can make any work of art be about gay people, essentially. Oh. And a lot of them, first of all, are intended to be, but then there's a subtext to a lot of things. Okay.

Interesting, Van. I didn't thank you for the film school lesson. I got a question for both of you. Is fist fight better than the founder? Good question. I think it is maybe more fun than the founder. Right. Not maybe.

It is. It's more fun than the founder. I think it has a spoiler in it, which is who wins the fight at the end. Oh, well, also, I'm not going to spoil it, but so in that sense, I think it's better. And I think fist fight, I think the ending of fist fight, it really builds in an exciting way. Whereas the founder, you know, just he gives a speech at the end, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I think that, I think that we're aiming for different audiences, I think,

the founder of fist fight. I haven't seen fist fight, but I did read the script at one point. It was funny. I'm going to say fist fight better than the founder. Weiger is going on the record. And with that, I need to leave because I need to go to work. Mitch, I'm going to text you. I'll text all you guys.

Mitch and Evan, I'm going to text you guys the email for this week that you can answer without me. But that was a lot of fun. I'm glad we discussed the founder until next time. Thank you, Nick, for having us. I know it was a huge, stressful to do with all of our schedules. Oh, it's no problem. And we really appreciate it.

It's no problem. And on that note, have you guys. Weiger, Van and Evan, you guys can just figure this out. Yeah, no, that's great. I'll take over. All right. Bye, guys. Until next time, happy eating.

See you, Weiger. Okay. So, guys, is there anything you would like to plug besides, obviously? I think we've covered the movie fist fight, which you've been plugging the entire time. Also, now that Weiger's gone, let's relax, guys. The room got cooler. He was overheating. Yeah, no, it really did.

It got dropped a few degrees. Well, there were two robots in the room for this episode, Van and Weiger. We both work with robots. I know. How about that? Oh, I feel like I'm getting teamed up on here. But you both were the late ones. You see, it's different.

You know, before, me and Weiger were kind of commiserating. So, anyway. Well, it's both of your faults that this is at 9 in the morning. It is true. We have busy schedules. I guess specifically your fault for this one. It's specifically my fault. We were supposed to do it tonight, but I forgot that there was a screening of fist fight that

I was going to. Where's that screening at? It's at Chapman University. Oh, that's wonderful. Which I think there's some Doughboyz fans who are going to be there because they listened to the podcast. Hell yeah. And I'm just, I want to say thank you.

We've been getting a lot of tweets from Doughboyz fans who are excited about fist fight. And that's just great. It's exciting that Doughboyz fans are going to come out to fist fight. You know, I love to see the Doughboyz, Robachow and Susser synergy at work. Hold on a second. What? That's when the... No, I know what the word synergy is for God's sake.

You're just shocked that I like it? I just, I just, I think you're overestimating that there's synergy between anything. You haven't been following on social. Oh, God. Well, any final thoughts on the founder? I think we covered the founder. Shall we move on to this question? No, actually, you know what?

Oh, okay. Oh, you... Oh, it seems like Susser really wants to go now that Nick's gone. Did you guys have any... Did you have any snacks at the movie theater? For the premiere? Yeah. I had some popcorn.

I meant at the founder, but sure. Oh, at the founder, no. And I watched a screener of the founder at home. Hmm. As I said, I'm a big shot. I think you probably should have given her the theater experience. So you think Susser? Yeah, I think you should have.

Look, I didn't have time. We were on a... We have a tight schedule, Evan and I. Did Ice Cube have any snacks at the screening of fist fight? He was sitting sort of a little bit to the front of me and to the left. I did not see him touch that popcorn. Yeah, I didn't see him touch the popcorn. Wow, he didn't have any popcorn.

Maybe he's like... And I didn't see him snacking at the after party either. No. I don't... I've never seen Ice Cube eat, actually. Hmm. When we were on set, I didn't see it. Well, his name, Ice Cube, is...

It comes from the only thing he eats. Yeah. I have more of a beverage man. All right. Let's move on because everyone's done with the podcast, it seems like. Here's the email for this week's feedback. This is from Nick. Today's email comes to us from Danny Boyko.

Danny writes, My question is not related so much to food as it is to the dining experience itself. Specifically, seating. Where the group is placed in a restaurant is a huge part of the experience, in my opinion. There's no sound sweeter than when you walk into an eatery and the host asks you if you'd like to grab a booth. A bad spot like a center table in a crowded, cramped restaurant has the capability of really ruining and outing, in my opinion.

How do you guys feel? Do you mind if the table is a little tight or if your only option is the bar? How far will you go to get that perfect seat? Danny Boyko. I love to sit in a big old booth just by myself. I'll put my backpack on the other side. I'll put a jacket next to me. I'll just spread out, throw my keys and just trash from my pockets.

This is while there's a line for people to sit down, right? Yeah, no. So, I'm a real booth man, through and through. Now, something I don't like at a restaurant is when they do the tables where there's one, there's sort of like a half booth situation where one side of the table has like a food style seating. I don't like a bit of a half booth. The other side of the table is a chair.

First of all, it becomes a big sort of who gets to have the, you know, everyone's going to want the booth style, so you don't want the chair. So, who gets what side? It's a whole negotiation. I mean, I agree a regular booth, but here's my ranking. Regular booth, half booth, at the bar, table in the middle. Interesting. Here's the thing.

I maybe agree with you, but a table in the middle is annoying, but my thing with the booth is you can sometimes, Suss, you're a bigger guy, we're big guys. Can you be annoyed with booth, like cramped booths, smaller booths? Yeah, a bad booth, there's no booth at all. I feel like there's a lot of, I agree with that. A bad booth is no booth at all. But don't you think there are a lot of bad booths out there? You know, in New York, I notice a lot of bad booths.

In LA or other, you know, cities, I feel like usually... The problem you'll see in LA is the U-shaped booth, and then if you got stuck in that middle seat in the booth, where you got a kind of shimmy all the way in the middle, and then the tables kind of push it into you. Yeah, that's bad. There's the... Yeah, like a booth for like eight people, that can get tough. Yeah, that's no good.

I feel like that's not... A good old booth for four? Oh, yeah. Nothing like it. My booth for four is great. We're all having fun now. I feel like I agree with you. I think, Van, I think I like the four-person booths.

Two and two on each side. It's when you make that U-shape, I feel like, where you run into a lot of problems. I specifically like to have the table a certain length from where I am when I eat. So, with those U-shaped booths, especially if it's a table that is stuck into the... That is not nailed, but screwed into the ground or whatever, then I especially don't like that. I'm thinking about Cafe 101 as a couple of... There's a couple of bad booths, but... Are these LA specifics for the podcast?

But, for the most part, a big comfy booth is... It's great. You can't beat it. But also, who cares? A middle of the restaurant thing? Unless it's extremely crowded, I feel like that doesn't bother me much either. Yeah, I don't have a problem with necessarily being in the middle. I feel like I'm usually sitting in the middle if it is extremely crowded,

because I'm always trying to get that booth. So, more than... You just don't like being in a chair, is the bigger... No, no, no. It's being in the crowd, like the waiter is coming by. So, you don't like the middle. No, I don't like the middle. I don't like, you know, feeling like people are coming at me at all ends.

Do you guys... Either of you stand-eaters? You ever stand and eat? Like at home, but like at a restaurant? No, yeah, I'm saying... I'm saying at home. Yeah, sometimes like for breakfast, like something like quick. At my office, I have a seated desk and a standing desk,

and sometimes I'll eat at the standing desk. I was gonna say eating while standing feels like the most unnatural thing to me. It doesn't feel... Sometimes what I'll do is when I'm in New York City, I'll kind of be strutting. I'll grab a slice of pizza, fold it over, just keep eating it and walking. Where the fuck are you strutting to? Disco tech. Oh, interesting.

Have you been to the New York City since the 1970s? Nope. All right, well, thank you for the question to... What was that guy's name again? Oh, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Who cares? I think that will do it for...

It was Danny Boyko. Thank you, Danny Boyko. That will do it for this week's Doe Boys. You guys have anything else you want to say? Go see Fist Fight? I have one thing. Yeah, no, go see Fist Fight if you can. Go see it this weekend, opening weekend.

And enjoy it. Yeah, that's us. Yeah, go see Fist Fight. That's it. Enjoy it. Love it. And tweet us pictures of your tickets at the theater wearing your Doe Boy shirts to Fist Fight.

Oh, yeah, all right. Everybody wear your Doe Boy shirts to Fist Fight. You guys don't have to do that. No, you have to. Well, thank you. They're two great guys, and congrats to you guys. It's a great moment in your lives. It may be the best moment for you guys, huh?

We're both married men, I would say. No, I'd say this is the best moment you guys have ever had. For Doe Boys, that'll be it. Happy eating. See ya.