Doughboys - Medieval Times with Mary Holland and Matt Newell

Episode Date: October 19, 2017

Jockdoughberfest 2017 continues as the 'boys welcome Mary Holland (Veep, Comedy Bang! Bang!) and Matt Newell (Adam Ruins Everything, Upright Citizens Brigade) for a visit to Medieval Times. Mary discusses her previous job at Medieval Times as a photography wench before the gang dives into their review, followed by a candy-related segment of Hot or Not.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead, and there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city. These words were written by Agnolo di Tura, a Tuscan chronicler who himself had buried his five children due to the scourge of the bubonic plague, the Black Death. Crude record keeping means precise totals are unknown, but the plague killed tens of millions of Europeans between 1346 and 1353. Lower estimates meaning one-third of the continent's population was extinguished, higher estimates

putting the death rate at 6 and 10. The brutal pandemic was the apex of the misery of the Middle Ages, also known as the medieval period, which went from the 5th to the 15th centuries in Europe, roughly from the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance. For 1,000 years, Europe seemed to slide backward, a downward spiral of savagery exacerbated by rampant anti-intellectualism and superstition, where the great masses lived in rags and filth and died in holy wars and childbirth, while the ruling classes hoarded resources and lived in opulence.

But as time passed, the era became idealized, the pageantry and ceremony of royalty celebrated, the nobility viewed, indeed, as noble, images of the era dominated by princesses on white horses and knights in shining armor. King Arthur is history. It was this sanitized version of a decidedly unsanitary age that inspired José Montaner, himself a relative of the Count of Parilada, to convert his barbecue restaurant in the resort town of Mallorca, Spain, into a dinner theater where knights competed in jousts and games.

The concept was a hit with tourists, and so was brought to the colonies in 1983 with its first US outpost in Kissimmee, Florida, just a short drive from Disney World. The company opened its second American castle near Anaheim's Disneyland in 1986, then seven more across North America, the brand perhaps peaking in relevance in a sequence from the 1996 Ben Stiller Jim Carrey film, The Cable Guy. The dining experience is hardly authentic. Aside from glaring in acronyms like Pepsi, frozen margaritas, and moist towelettes, there are subtler inaccuracies, like the inclusion of corn, potatoes, and tomatoes, which weren't

present in Europe before the discovery of the New World. And the chain faced a near black death of its own at the end of the 20th century when shoddy bookkeeping saddled it with a crushing tax bill, forcing its ownership to file for bankruptcy protection. But it's come back strong amid a resurgent interest in swordplay, horsemanship, and chivalry, with high fantasy becoming mainstream due to pop culture properties the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. Today, this middle-aged eatery is enjoying a renaissance, as a unique family-friendly

dinner theater visit to a distant era without the serfdom, sickness, starvation, and suffering, where the only deaths are noble ones. This week on Doughboys, Jocktoberfest 2017 continues as our month of sports-themed restaurants which welcomes a tournament from another time, Medieval Times. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants or production of Feral Audio.com. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Larry Turd, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Larry Turd, you were smiling as you read that. It tickled me.

That one was courtesy of Emily, who didn't leave a last name. If you've got an insult you'd like to use on Mitch at the top of the show, roastspoonmanatgmail.com. Another sports-themed insult, because it's Jocktoberfest. Oh, I like it. I like it. I like that there's a sports-themed insult. It fits with the vibe. You know what, Jocktoberfest, you know we did Rocktoberfest.

We did Rock Lobsterfest. Rocktoberfest might be the one that finally kills me. Why is that? Which would be fitting for a jock to finally come and kill me. Okay, let's not get it. To end my life. What do you mean? I'm saying it would be a fitting end for me and a nerd at heart to be killed by a jock.

Oh, I get what you're saying. But do you have, here's my question for you. What about this specifically would kill you? Because I don't know if the food, has the food been particularly punishing versus other months or just like when we are general eating? I will say, we'll get into it when we talk about it. But it was a tough day. Also rest in peace to Tom Petty.

I'm sad he passed away. Yeah, this will be a little dated by the time this comes out, but a fair thing to say. You want to say that? I mean, the next episode we're recording will be more, do you want to do that in the next episode? All right, sure. So we'll leave this in, but on the episode that's coming out after this, or before this, that we're recording after this, you can give your little tribute there.

Fine, all right, that's when I'll do it. Great. Hey, we had a Mike mystery today. We did have a Mike mystery, but hold on, I got to do my freak do your thing. We'll get to the bottom of this Mike mystery. The Spoon Nation. And the Spoon Man got to love me. I'm calling the famous Dave's the second hottest thing you can have because that thing's way

hotter than that. That one. I mean, we did. We couldn't plug it in because we got we got we got two guests today, which is fun, which ties into our Mike mystery that ties into our Mike mystery. God, what a what a freaking what a day. My mom texted if you heard a little buzz, yeah, that was that little that little vibration buzz was my mother texting as I was playing the drop.

That drop was from Kyle. What'd she say? Good job, Kyle. Love the show. Hashtag Spoon Nation. Kyle. Good job. Kyle.

No, you're asking too quick. What is my mom saying? Let's see here. There's some gibberish. Who knows? Okay, let's see here. Yep. Water, water, everywhere.

And then umbrellas in like a bunch of umbrellas with rain rain. So it's raining in Quincy. Is that the I guess that's what it means from that? Yes. Yep. I mean, she's not like in trouble. Is she? Oh, are you doing?

Are you doing the backstroke in your cell? And my sister moved into a new and it's flooding and it's and I it sounds it sounds like it's raining. That's what that is. All right. But yeah, a lot of texts, phones on silent now. I'll read those later. Nick, there was a mic mystery.

So here's the thing. We we normally have we have four mics. We know that for sure. And I'm not counting you. I'm not counting our three microphones plus you, Mike Mitchell. Well, thanks, Swagger. We have four. We have five mics, including you.

Yes, that are good. But today I'll clear that up. And we normally only have one guest. So we usually only usually one of those mics is idle. It's on the bench. But today we have two guests. That's right. So we needed that fourth mic nowhere to be found, nowhere to be found.

We don't know where we don't know where we scoured your apartment. No luck. It's not in the it's not in the box where we store all our recording equipment. No idea where that mic made its way out. I think it went on an adventure. It went on. Dustin is raising his hand. I'm sorry.

Dustin's Dustin's raising his hand and just apologize. Now he's going to speak. I'm sorry. I'm the I'm the producer of the podcast. People know you bought enough mics, but we only bought three stands. So I borrowed a stand and then I bought you one and then I I brought it over and then I packed it up and I took it with me. So I actually I'm the reason you I accidentally grabbed your you accidentally

grabbed our mic. That's what it was. That was the mystery. So yeah, sorry, everybody. That's it's fine. The mystery is sold. We love it. We don't leave people hanging anymore.

I love that's what that good good. You know what? No, it's the best thing about this. Uh-huh. We don't have to get too much into this mystery. Right, which isn't interesting. No one cares about like was missing. And I looked at you wager and you looked at me like it was my fault.

Right, likely. You're like, in fact, at one point, you said you might have put it in a box and thrown it away. Yeah, I put the mic in a fucking box and threw it away like a big cardboard box. What the fuck? I think I thought it was possible that you put it somewhere separate from the rest of our equipment because it's normally not in use. But now you need to apologize to me in front of everyone.

Well, I didn't even accuse you of that. I said, like, is it possible this happened? But yes, I'll I'm sorry. I'm sorry for kind of implying that maybe it was your mistake. I don't accept your apology, but I appreciate it. All right. Well, I still think it's your fault. Fuck you.

I think I think that Dustin's covering for you. I think you slipped him 50 bucks. You think that I would have cash on me ever? Oh, yeah, you're right. Hey, you know what? Our guests have already been waiting like a full hour. We've been bullshitting a ton at the top of the show. Let's introduce them.

This is a fun one. Aquafina, I'm sorry. OK, so that's what that was. That wasn't that wasn't a text from your mom and you changed your ring tone to a soda opening. The old soda opening could we not hear whatever? You know what? Jock Dobrefest is a mess already.

Yeah, I know it's our fault. This is your idea. That's the way you know it was. Jock Dobrefest was my idea. All those people out there don't think I have any ideas. I thought of Jock Dobrefest. Oh, what a mess. It rhymes with October fest.

Yes, it's funny. We've that it follows the pattern of what we've done. We have an awkward port portmanteau where we have something that rhymes with October fest, but then we also sandwich dough in there. Yes, because of the dough boys. Should we? Yes, we should. I was trying to do that.

They're better than us. They should take over. They should be talking. We were wasting their valuable time. This is this is an exciting one from Vape and Wild Horse is Mary Holland and for Madame Ruin's everything and funnier die. Matt Newell here. Hi, guys.

Hi. Thanks for joining the show. Yeah, this is great. Thank you. Wait, this has been an extra. Because the thing about producing this podcast is it's a lot to ask of our guests because, you know, sometimes you have a podcast and it's like, hey, we're going to watch this movie and then we'll talk about it.

So you got to like rent something off of Amazon and that that's like a minor financial slash time commitment, but it's something. And then there's other podcasts where you just sort of show up and gab or, you know, maybe you do a character or something like that. Our podcast, you have to go someplace and have a meal. And then you have to come in and record. And then on top of that, we were supposed to start. We're supposed to start recording at four.

It's five o'clock. We're very sorry to you guys for these technical delays today resulting from this Mike mystery. No, I was I've never been a part of a mystery before. It was. It was worth it. Yeah. I never from the beginning to the end.

But we were there at the beginning. We were there in the mystery. He started. That's right. You guys were here. I was I came home. You not only have you been waiting patiently. I came home.

You were waiting before I got here. It is. It is. I gave him a three fifty right. Four or something. Yeah. Yeah. And then Mike came rushing into his apartment.

I thought for sure he had some something something dirty in here. And then he said he just had to put his cat away. Had to put the cats away. But I thought he I forgot that he had to do that. But I thought there was something, you know, underwear all over the walls or something. You had to hide your playboys. By the way, a rest in peace.

Hugh Hefner. You know, we'll record this. You know, I've I've Tom Pettis reminds me of youth. I used to like his his music when I was younger. I got offered a ticket to his last concert. Oh, wow. And I and I and I didn't go. I had to work and I was tired.

Why are like you? I also don't like to do stuff too much. You definitely would have turned down a concert for sure. You have gone on the record is you don't like concerts. No, I don't. I mean, I don't like. Here's the thing you are. You are the most on America.

What's wrong with you? That's an un-American to not like concerts. Too much standing in too loud. Yeah, honestly, I don't like. Oh, my God. I don't like that either. I'm sorry. I get it too.

I'm not I can't like it's like too much to do. Like it's like I think the parking is like getting there and stresses me out so much. Get in there. I get that. Yeah, it's overwhelming. I mean, I'm just standing. Right. Yeah. It's too much.

I don't the only concerts I would bowl. You do not have to stand. Yeah. No, I do. Like I saw that. I think that was the last concert I went to was Simpsons Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Very, very cool. The Simpsons were playing.

Yeah, it was a. Oh, I was there. Marge was on base. No. Homer was on organ. Lisa wasn't playing the sax. No, yeah. Bizarre choice.

You guys got tricked into watching the Simpsons. Guys, we're very happy to have you. What one question I wanted to have. Where we wait, hold on, please. Did Nancy Cartwright come out and do the Bartman? Yeah, she did. She did. Bartman as Bart's voice. Yeah, it was it was a good night.

We had fun. That's the last time you went to a concert. I think so. That was like four years ago. Or that was a while ago, three years ago, at least three years ago. Yeah, it was it was a ways back. I mean, I guess I do.

I do see fish a lot, man. That's just because I like to get baked. Oh, my God. All right. Enough bullshit. How do you guys decide? How do you guys decide where to eat as a couple? Because that's something a lot of couples have a problem with.

It's something me and my wife like it rarely gets to a point where there's like actual palpable tension, but there's definitely a point where like clearly neither of us wants to make the decision about are we going to get Mexican or we're going to get Indian? Are we going to, you know, make something? Yeah, like how do you come to that decision as a unit? That happens a lot.

I think it happens just how you described it. Yeah, well, neither of us wants to make the decision. And we just kind of refer to the other person. I'll usually defer to you, I think. Yeah, yeah. And then I don't like making the decision either, though. Yeah, this is not fair. I think we'll sometimes we'll let you know what it's like at home

or go out like that would be a thing. And then like, and then I'll throw some options out there. And then I'm just like, just pick one of these three. Right. Oh, that's true. Yes. Sometimes we'll narrow it down and be like, I will narrow it down to yeah, two or three. And then the other person. I was going to kind of Matt's defense there

because sometimes being the person that it's up to, that's a lot of pressure. Yeah, Mary, that's a lot of pressure. Oh, please. That's a lot of pressure. I used to work with this guy and he was he he drove a he drove a sob convertible and he was just like that was just kind of his vibe. He was like the kind of guy who drives a sob convertible. He's hot. Yeah, it was a honk.

It actually was. I mean, people called him this. I mean, it was a video game company, but people called him the dream boat because he was kind of like a hunky guy for a video to be working in video games. So he was covered in mucus. But but but he was like he would just lay down the law in terms of making like just saying what we were going to do for lunch. Like you just like I'm going here.

That that's where I'm going to go. If you guys want to come with me, you're welcome. If not, that's on my own. And people it was just like it was like a leader's move. And I'm like, oh, that's really bold, a bold initiative. And even if you didn't really agree with what his choice was, you kind of were like respected, like, oh, thank you for telling us where to eat. Yeah. Thank you, honk.

Yeah. Thank you so much, honk. We're just excited to be around a honk, honestly. No, but but my thing, where I get nervous about making a decision about where to eat it, particularly if I'm with my wife is like, I don't want to decide on something that she's not going to enjoy. And so I'm sometimes like, oh, shit, like I'll I'll be honest about what I want. But I don't want to just say like, OK, we're going to go get this because I don't you might not want islands right now.

You know, you might want something else and I don't want to feel like I feel like I'm trying to do mind reading sometimes to try to go exactly what someone wants. One thing we will do or I'll do to Mary, I was like, what don't you want? Oh, and then then I'll pick something. I was like, I don't feel like Ty tonight. And then I'll then then that's easier. Because then I lose that I won't be afraid of her not enjoying the experience

because I know she everything else is fine. If she doesn't want Ty, then then I will say I always have a craving for something specific, but I don't sometimes I'll bring it up. Yeah, but I feel like I can't I can't be like, well, I want sushi again because I want sushi all the time and I know that he's doesn't. So it's insane to eat sushi. I think it's so expensive. Yeah, it is.

And I can live like I really only like sugar fish as far as sushi goes. So it is always expensive. That is expensive. Yeah. Yeah, Nick, when Natalie and I get dinner, we it doesn't it's not that hard. We usually just agree upon something. What you stop this right now? You guys aren't on board either. What the fuck?

You're implying some sort of culinary cuckoldery and I won't stand for it. I mean, talking about you and talking about taking my wife out and on the town. I just ate dinner because you're too much. You can't figure out what to do. You're having a hard time. We take it does take an earned amount of time to decide sometimes. I that is it's probably largely on me. I'm not Natalie's also foodie.

She is a she is a big time foodie. That's the other thing you are too, though. You like you like your food. I like I'm a food fan. I would say I'm not necessarily like a someone who is is versed and this is ridiculous for someone who like hosts what is ostensibly a food podcast. But I'm not as knowledgeable about food as she is.

She's the person who like knows about, you know, the little taqueria in Alhambra or something like that. Hip to the scene. She's hip to the scene. She's big on the pulse. Exactly. And I don't know that stuff as much. Yeah. You know, you know, Armin is a guy who like can't waste the meal right in his mind. Like every meal has to be a good meal.

I kind of feel like that, too. OK, I feel like I almost feel like this is strange. Yeah, I mean, it's different with you, but I would say mostly I feel like meals should be a private experience. Wow. Unless it's like a big dinner party thing or if I'm going out with Matt or where you're at home or I love eating with you. I feel like you'll just eat a cheese.

I want to cheese, though, for a meal. Well, OK, OK, we just talk about what we're just going to eat. No, I guess that's true. But like, I feel like I want to focus on the food. Like if somebody's like, like, like, for example, if someone's like, I just grabbed a sandwich before the show and they're like eating it in a green room, I'm like, what are you doing? That's a wasted meal opportunity.

I get that, too. You're you're trying to socialize and eat at the same time. Like, why wouldn't you just sit in a quiet, dark room with your food? Yeah. Eat it and focus on it. I agree with that whole experience. I agree with that. I agree with that for sure.

I think eating like standing or something, that's not a meal. I feel like that, too. Oh, yeah, I can't necessarily. I mean, I can't. I will get a tummy ache if I if I try to eat while I'm like moving at all. Like I see some of those people eating and walking or something like that. It's like, there's no way I can do that. Standing I can do if I've got a standing table.

If I've got like a surface, like this kind of like a bar experience, like I'm fine with that. But yeah, my ideal is to sit and take some time with it. Have you liked to eat on the go? Hashtag movers and salt shakers. Yikes. I like it. Mary, you didn't like it.

Movers and shakers. No, I don't like it. Should have been pepper shaker. No, salt shaker. Pepper movers and salt shakers. I told you, they're better pepper, pepper movers and salt shakers, right? Oh, and you love that one, Mary. That's brilliant.

It's a punch up. It's a definite punch up. So yeah, my thing about wasting meals is where it hits me is if I'm wasting a and because I try to limit the amount of unhealthy food I eat. Yes. And your salad man, you burn a meal with a salad. Yeah, I'll have salads all the time. I'll have it like a real boring salad.

And not a hot salad. And I'll have a real boring, normal temperature salad. And so hot salad. And it's normal temperature. And so which for him is like 102 degrees. I like I like a cool, refreshing salad and any of it. But if I have an unhealthy meal and it's bad that for me, I'm like, fuck, I wasted on some like some fucking bad pizza or a terrible burger.

I just get so distressed about it. I want to low on your salad number 102 degrees is maybe not hot enough. It's like body temperature. Have it like a slight fever. Yeah, you're like 100. What? 120, 120. It's your preference.

What do you think that an oven cooks at? 425 is usually a lot of things that you bake. Oh, I like the first two numbers. 420, buddy. You don't. You can't. You literally can't smoke weed. You've tried.

No, I get it. Yeah. Have you figured it out yet? He failed to smoke weed. Are you guys are you guys weed people? I am. We're going to help produce a weed podcast. Oh, right.

That's right. So I'm a big weed person. So what is your consumption method? Because I've tried the vape. The vape doesn't work for me. I used to smoke the more traditional methods in college. This was way before vapes. You know, I don't know.

Are there bongs yet? Yeah. There were bongs back then. Supply him from another time. Before pipes. No, like I like, yeah, no, I have joints and bongs and pipes. I think we're my consumption methods, but I've tried the vape. The vape doesn't work for me.

I can't figure out how to, what to do with it. How often were you doing it back then? It was, it wasn't a common thing. It wasn't someone who was like, who like smokes out all the time. I was been an alcohol guy in terms of, in terms of drug of choice. You can tell by how cool you say alcohol. I am an alcohol man. I use everything.

I've used vase before, but they're not super potent. Right. Okay. I mean, they're concentrated, but they don't get me as high as like, smoking the flower out of a, out of a pipe or a joint or something like that. So maybe that's what that is. Yeah. You may not be inhaling enough either because Mary does the vape.

Allocationally vape. She has very low tolerance. I'm not a weird person. Well, I'm high tolerance. It's not true. I'm low tolerance. Yeah. Like one puff and you're fucking.

And I'm what? And I'm what? Insane. It's a lunatic. It's like, we doesn't make anyone else act that way. No, but I will, even when I sip on a vape, I will sometimes not get it and get anything. It takes a lot. I used to, and now I not, not much, any, I, now if I do it, I get terrible anxiety.

I used to do a lot. Yeah. That's what happens to me. I get really bad anxiety. I get bad, bad, and anxiety. I like can't do it. Yeah. It's pathetic.

I'm a shell of what I used to be in a lot of ways. I am. You're crying. I can cry and sound happy now. It's a new thing. I just, tears are coming out of my eyes. It looks like I'm sobbing, but I sound fine. Yeah.

I've dealt with it. Right? Right. So, so here's a question I wanted to ask you guys on a totally different topic, not weed related. So you're both from the south. Mary, you told us before you're from, you're from Virginia, when you're on the body guest before.

Matt, you're from North Carolina, is my understanding. I think in North Carolina, I'm thinking BBQ, but, but educate us on the food scene there. Oh, it's barbecue. Yeah. Like a whole hog, kind of like that's like the, what they're known for. Everything but the squeal. Yeah. From the root of to the tutor.

But yeah, they would just Carolina barbecue is like vinegar based. Right. On the East, it's the whole pig. And on the West, it's just the shoulder. Okay. And it's more of a tomato, tomato sauce. Right. Yeah.

So it's kind of separated even within North Carolina. Is that a thing you've had any success getting out here at all? I've ordered it from North Carolina, like, and they like overnight it and you'll get, you can get like a meal for eight people. Oh, wow. And it's relatively inexpensive. Right. The shipping is more expensive than the actual food.

So that's been in terms of, but versus finding like an actual joint out here that does it. Never found like Carolina style barbecue that. Yeah. Right. I found, I mean, places have it like Zeke's or what's the place in Santa Monica? Blue Ribbon? No. Oh, I know what you're talking about.

Yeah. I've been there. Blue something. There's blue in the name. Yeah. I'm going to find this out. And it's fine, but it's never the, I don't know. There's something about the sauce.

There's like a vinegar thing in the East North Carolina barbecue. Right. Like when we go down there, it's like apple cider vinegar and chili flakes. You would only eat it with, or no, not a lot. On a bun with coleslaw on top. Right. The bun. Just dows it in vinegar.

Let me tell you, I'm a huge vinegar nut. Yeah. I think I've admitted on here before, but I, I love vinegar. I love vinegar too. When I, when I, if I go to Subway and I get a sandwich. Yeah. I just dows it. I don't even, I, I even skip oil.

I just, I just say red wine vinegar. I just red wine vinegar. And then the guy is like, good. I'm like, keep it, keep it going. Like, and he looks weird. Not like the bread will be almost soggy. Like I really go. Do you like like sauerkraut and pickles and that kind of stuff?

I do. I'm a big man. Pickles. I don't eat sauerkraut just as much because it's just kind of like a weird one to have. But I guess when you, is that a sauerkraut on a Rubin? Right. But you, like a. You get it on like German.

Matt makes his own. Yeah. Whoa. Whoa. You make sauerkraut. Yeah. It's the easiest thing. You just take a whole cabbage, cut it up and put it in a jar with salt and then it creates

its own brine. And he has to burp it a bunch. Yeah. Like a little baby. But it takes like two weeks and you got sauerkraut. That's like healthy. Wow. That's got probiotics in it.

Yeah. That's crazy. I don't, there's some people who are, who are, who don't like pickled stuff. Right. And I don't get that. I love, I like pickled stuff a lot. I don't get the. Yeah.

I'm into it. Pickles. I mean, like you, like people are like grossed out by it or something. Yeah. People are kind of grossed out by pickles. And I, I, I pickle. I love pickled things. I feel like it's an adult taste.

Like I want. Like a lot of people have like kid like tastes. Oh, I used to love to eat a big old dill when I was a kid. I would eat a big old dill pickle. Oh, I loved it. I would, I would get hamburgers with just pickles and mustard. As a kid, like as a kid, I didn't like pickles. I had to learn to like them.

That's why I perfect match. So wait, what is it again? That's why I perfect match. We both like pickles now, but one of us didn't used to like pickles. Perfect match. That's why perfect match. That's why perfect match. We all agree.

My understanding is that in the UK. We actually, when we had some UK pickle news. Yeah. When we went to the podcast back when we did our sweet green episode, she pointed out that that she said, like in McDonald, outside McDonald's, the pickles, what she called gherkins, like people will just throw them on the ground because people, they're very pickle averse over there apparently.

Yeah. Yeah. When I was there, which is weird. I, I just slipped on your gutkin, Mike. And they start pushing each other around and break bottles over each other's heads. Pickle picky. They are pickle picky.

Hey, that's a great hashtag, Mary. Thanks. If you're, if you don't like pickles, hashtag pickle, picky, pickle, picky. If you do like pickles, hashtag, pick, I was gonna say pickle, pick him, but. What's your pitch going to say? The perfect, what's your pickle?

It. Your. Pickle, I was just gonna say the perfect match to to go back perfect match. That's great. Perfect. That's great. That's why perfect.

That's why perfect match. They, they, so pick so, so. London blokes don't like pickles apparently. I'm not sure. I'm wondering if our UK listeners have any feedback. A new mystery. State. Maybe the four of us will be a mystery solving team.

Let's do it. Gumshoes. One of us will get shot. Immediately. Right. The like comedy people were trying to help their fucking. They got in the way. Is that guy using binoculars backwards?

Why are you looking at me when you said that? We're about to in, were you near Chapel Hill? I was in Chapel Hill. There we go. Yeah. For, I think go to high school there, but I lived there for a few years after high school. The triangle there, right?

You got the triangle. That's right. And then there's a lot of good food places near, like doesn't each end of the triangle have their own little foodie type of deal or what? They're basically the three major colleges and cities in that area. I don't know if they have different food though.

It's pretty much the same. The same stuff. Like Chapel Hill is a more of a college town than any than the other two than Durham or Raleigh. But so there's probably more. Options for food, I think in a smaller area, but other than that, I don't know that I can remember that it was, I feel like everyone who went to USC, UNC, Joe Saunders included

always raves about the food. It was great. Yeah. Yeah. It was good in the. Yeah. Just Southern food, you know, in general is great. And you can't, you can't, you kind of can't replicate it out

on the West Coast, huh? Not. I mean, you can't like that. We've like cooked Southern food before, but not. Yeah. There's no places that have, you know, I feel like there's some like soul food places that I've heard of that I haven't been to that are like kind of outside of Los Angeles.

Right. But I haven't been to any of them. Yeah. I feel like that's like a lot of the case. So there's like a lot of good food on the kind of the exerbs of LA, like if you go into like Monterey Park area, there's a ton of great Chinese food. Exactly.

Yeah. If you go a little more East, a little more South, there's there's some really, there's some really great, you know, of Mexican food and other, other specific ethnic cuisines that you can't get in the city proper. I mean, you can get Mexican food here. That was a bad example. But yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot of.

Like pockets of. Yeah. Yeah. Outside the city. Right. Exactly. But wait, so what is the barbecue scene in Virginia, Mary? Well, where I grew up, I would say not.

Not much of one. Right. I think there was like one barbecue joint or two or something. It was really mostly just fast food chain restaurants. There were, there was like the county line cafe and, and the West Galax diner served just, yeah, country cooking. Okay. Like biscuits and gravy style.

Right. But barbecue wasn't too much of a thing, but, but my family, we would, every summer we'd go to Holden Beach in North Carolina. And we would always, when we drove through North Carolina, we'd pick up two big old buckets of Parker's barbecue, which was that East North Carolina style barbecue. Like literal buckets. Literal buckets.

Wow. And they just set it down in front of me and I just go to town. Just drop it to your head. Just drop it to my head and they could just leave me alone for a week. No, we would be my whole extended family. So we'd have, we'd always have like a Parker's barbecue night at the beach.

You know what? A bucket in, with your meal is always fun. It is fun. I got, I got to say it. Yeah. I'm into buckets. Fried chicken when you get a bucket, that's fun. Right.

Lobster. Lobster. Yeah. Interacting with food. Like I love, I love crab legs. I love fricking. What else is there? I, what?

Pistachios. No, I don't like those. But I do like, I like like having to work for the food. Right. Korean barbecue. I like fondue. I like, I like to engage. Nellie and I went out last night and we got a whole red snapper.

And that was like, it was like a, you know, pick around the bones and stuff. Yeah. Pick around like just like, just like a whole fish. And that's like a lot of work. But man, it, it was a great time. And it's also just like a great, like you're just sort of just eating the entire time, which I feel like a lot of times when you're having

a meal, there's like, like, there, there's not just like, there, there's not just a half hour of continuous eating. You know what I mean? Cause there's just like so much work involved. It's just an interesting experience. Did you guys split? Like was that one snapper per two people? Yeah.

It was one, one big old snapper for like a party of two or three. It worked out well. And we're big eaters. Do you know what? When I have a bone in fish, I don't, I wish I had my own little personal Heathcliff with me because I want that thing to be deep wound. Yeah. I want him to put it in his mouth.

Fish bones are scary. Fish bones are scary. You can choke on them. I don't like them. You just got to be careful. But yeah, I get what you're saying. You still, I had a couple of close calls. Really?

Last night. Oh, wow. Did you turn blue at one point? No. I mean, just like you get, you're like, you're starting to bite. It's like, oh, there's a bone right there. I got to pull that out. It's just like, nothing like was getting ledged in my throat.

Yeah. Lodged in my throat. Lodged. Or legged. Or legged. It wasn't riding in there. By the way, never speak positively of Heathcliff on the podcast. I'm just like, you beat, you beat, you beat, you could beat deep owner.

Terrible, terrible cartoon. No, the cartoon is terrible comic strip. It's bad. You're not going to, you're just saying it's good to agitate me. I think it would be cool if, if you had a little Heathcliff and he could, he could debone your fish for you. No one, no one should. He could, he could.

No one should. Terrorize your neighborhood. Oh, there you go. Yeah. That's the Heathcliff. How can he dislike the Heathcliff theme? What was the gang called? What was the whole gang?

They were like Heathcliff and the, they didn't have a lost boys. Something like that. It was something like that. He had a crew. Yeah. He had, he did have a crew. They had like a blimp. Did they?

One guy had like a, like a derby hat and like a scarf. Yeah. He was kind of, he was like almost more interesting. I kind of like, it was like a mafia guy or something. Yeah. Right. Or like a tough, like, He would break like, yeah, he would break the cat's paws.

They didn't pay their fish bones on time. All right. I looked up Heathcliff crew. Here we go. Series production management. Oh no. Oh my God. Series art department, Gordon Kent and June and John Bruno.

So yeah. Hey Cliff, you're as good as Heathcliff. I'm the thinking man's Heathcliff. Sure. Do you like Heathcliff? He's the thinking man's Heathcliff. It's so tough. Yeah.

I don't know what that crew is called. Oh, by the way, that, that, I think that barbecue mystery we had earlier, I think it's baby blues. Oh, baby blues. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one.

So we solved another mystery. They're not bad gang. Yeah. Two for two. Two for three. Two for. What was the other mystery? Two for three.

Yeah. We had another one. The Gherkin one. The Gherkin one. 102. Right. We'll figure it out. All right.

So let's shift to our topic. The specific topic of this specific episode, which is medieval times and Mary, you used to work there. Yes. And I have, I have questions about that. Okay.

I'm also curious about before we get, we get into that madam curious, like what was your perception of, of medieval times knowing that Mary had worked there. I know you'd never been there before, which is one reason we wanted to have you on here to hear your perspective. But what,

what, like, what did you kind of think of it at an arms length all these years? It was bigger than I thought. I thought it was just going to be dinner. I didn't know there was going to be that, that whole, I should have assumed that there's going to be gifts.

Yeah. Gift shop. So Mary outside was going to be there. Right. I just thought you just walked in, sat down, and the show started more like a, like just like a dinner, dinner,

a show. What was that? Like theater, dinner theater? Dinner theater. That's exactly what I'm thinking. Dinner theater. But I had, my only experience with it before I even met Mary was

through cable guy. Right. And I didn't even know it was real. I thought it was made up for that movie. Oh, that's interesting. Until I met Mary. And I made all of his fantasy come true. Then she told,

and then that was the first time I found out there was multiple ones too. Cause she said she worked in the one in Chicago. Yeah. But it was great. I had so much fun. Yeah. It was,

I was super high the whole time. And it was the best. I kept turning to Mary. I was like, this is the best. Cause we had had a bad experience tonight before at the Hayride. Oh, that's right. It was such a bomber.

In those feelers. Yeah. Oh no, what happened? Too scary. No, not like, we've been every year. It's not scary anymore. I mean, like cut down on, there used to be people walking around

on stilts and like other costume people. Like stuff to look at. It just kind of felt like. They were phoned it in. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little disappointing. But let me just say,

medieval times will never disappoint. You're guaranteed a great time. You seem to be, you do seem to be for the company. You seem very much. Oh, I love it. Pro medieval times. I love it.

I love them. I love the smell of the arena as you walk in. It feels great. I loved it. There is a weird smell when you walk in. It feels like they are like, it's, it's, it's, it almost smelled like burning rubber to me.

Like if there was a weird. Yeah. Smell that I couldn't play. It's kind of like, it's like that super air condition. You know, once the horses do the show, they're cooked.

The, but the smell of like, distantly cooking chicken and like. Oh, right. The dim lights of the candles and the, you know, the, the fog machine. It all comes together. It's very straight.

It's like a big arena too. It is such, the setup is so weird. It is so weird. It's so, when I walked down, I was like, Holy shit, this thing is huge. Yeah.

It's a giant capacity. The circus, it's a mixture of the circus too, a little bit because you're watching these like stunts. Right. Yeah. It is kind of like, I'm like,

how do they fill this venue so many times a week? Cause they have shows pretty much every night. And I think they have two shows every night. Yeah. Yeah. I was also going to say that like we were like, Oh, this is really pushing it for jock doberfest.

But then, but those guys were fucking bad. Those guys are real. Yeah. Those guys are badass one for sure. And when it starts off, they're like, like they'll entertain you with sport. They said sport.

It's 100. I cheered. Yeah. I cheered. But, but that's what it all drives them. A little bit WWE. It's kind of a.

It is very WWE. Yeah. Yeah. There's some story going through it. There's a ton of story going through it. There's a little hint of the story. I didn't hear some of it though. I didn't know what he was.

I was just eating and then I was like, Yeah. The king and queen were talking or whatever. The story is about a half an hour too long. Yes. Yes. Yeah. His daughter.

But James, what he went with went to go smoke and he said he met a guy outside while smoking who had been to 52, he'd been here 52 times. Wow. And he was like, so it comes a lot. And then he's told James goes,

the chicken is straight fire. Wow. My God. I mean, what a review. Straight fire. Straight fire. That is a very good review for that chicken.

Right. Can I quickly say. Oh yeah. Well, I, I, I, we'll get into the food. It is better than I thought it was.

Yes. But this I want to say. Medieval times didn't have corn or potato. God. Potatoes. Potatoes. You said it right. Potatoes.

Potatoes. Tomatoes. Tomatoes or corn or, or poor potatoes. Like what, like what are you, do you say poor potatoes? I was joking.

Cause porgs. But, but they didn't have some sort of dish made from the porch from episode eight, but they didn't have any, like, it's all new world, right? It's all new world. That's fucked up. That's crazy to think about, right?

Food was totally different. Potato. I know the potato surprises me the most corn I could see coming from. And also tomatoes are weird because Italian food, you think of the old world has tomatoes, but it was a new world. They used to think it was poisonous too. Oh, it's fascinating.

Yeah. Yeah. That stuff didn't come about till later. And so like a lot of what people think of as that, you know, traditional rustic cuisine is from the past 500 years. It's not from, you know, past 2000 years.

So what do they have just like bread and stew basically? Yeah. You'd have like, you'd take like a goose and you'd like fill it with cinnamon and cloves. It was like, it was like a really things. It was alive? Yeah.

You'd feed it that, just that for like its entire life. And then you'd slaughter it and you'd eat it. No, it was, it was just like weird, like, you know, I think a lot of meat, a lot of bread and like a lot of stews. Yeah. A lot of herbs.

Yeah. Things apparently food was actually pretty heavily spiced back then. I think a lot to cover the rot, to cover our rotten it was. Yeah. The horrible time to be alive. Yeah. That sucks.

But plus no, no iPhones. Do you? Just androids? Yeah. Only androids back then. That sucks. Really was the dark ages.

So Mary, I'm curious, how did you get your start working there? I, so I went to medieval times when my, when the band that I was in, the, the Gaelax High School Maroon Tide Band,

we took a field trip to Toronto. What instrument were you playing? Flute. Hell yeah. And piccolo. Okay. So, which is a tiny flute.

Don't look at me. I, Mitch, if you don't know, it's a tiny flute. It's not a pickle. It's a piccolo. I did.

Can I be fair? I didn't know. I didn't know what a piccolo was. Thank you for being fair. I thought it was a pickle. I did think it was a pickle that you played. Disappointed. I mean,

can you imagine if you went and saw a concert and they're, everyone's holding an instrument. So for one girl, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like,

it's like, everyone's holding an instrument. So for one girl, it's trying to play a pickle. She like, it'd be the craziest thing. She like forgot her flute, but her,

her parents were in the audience. They're like, go out there anyway. They gave her a piccolo. I guess I'll play this pickle. Um, yes. That could be a short.

I think we can make a short out of that. Right. Well, look, I want to make a short someday. Okay. What? Like for the festival circuit? Yeah.

You want to go to Sundance? You're crying again. I want to get into Sundance with a short. All right, make, make pickle, piccolo. Yeah. Make piccolo.

I will. And all three of you will be a part of it. I better be. Good. Good. You're in. Um, yes.

So we took a trip to Toronto and then part of the field trip was one night, we had dinner at medieval times and it was life changing. Wow. I was 13 years old and I was, I was head over heels. I was like, this is the coolest place. I came running back home, um,

back to Virginia and I told my parents, I was like, you guys made it look, there's this place. Was it literally, you literally ran back home from Canada? No. Come on. I'm just trying to have fun.

Go on with your story. I'm sorry. Um, and we, but like I said, my, my family goes to, Mitch is literally has his head in his hands.

He's collapsing. Yes I did. I literally ran. Thank you. It took weeks. Thank you. That's fun to me. Oh God.

You like it when you, like when you needle me in, you get a rise out of me, like you love it. But then when this, like when a guest gives you guff, you like retreat and you get so scared. Yeah,

because they're good. I don't like you as much. They're good. Um, but so my family would go to North Carolina, Holden Beach in North Carolina every summer and Myrtle Beach is just a quick 45 minute drive from there. And there is a Myrtle Beach medieval time.

So I was like, we got to go. So that became a kind of, I tried to make it an annual thing, but nobody liked it and I did. Um, but we went like two or three years in a row and I was like, this is amazing. And then I went to college,

um, just outside Chicago. And one summer I was doing some, I was like getting some credits out of the way, doing summer school. And I, you know, there's a medieval times in Schomburg, Illinois,

which was, it was 50 miles from where I went to college. So I was like, no problem. I'm going to apply. Wait, hold on. 50 miles? Yes. One way.

And I went there and I, I had no employment history. This was, so I, I like went in and was like, are you hiring? And they're like, Oh, I think the photography department is hiring.

And so I did, I got a job. It was my first ever job and I would drive 100 miles. Was your title? I was a photography winch. You would drive 50 miles, 100 miles round trip. Would you listen to it the whole way?

Baby, thanks for the prompts. Um, I listened to, look the drive through rural Illinois is quite beautiful. And I took these like sort of back roads. I wasn't really on the freeway much. And it was, it was so picturesque.

And I listened to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. And then later I bought the original soundtrack. Beautiful. And I would listen to that. Beautiful story. Thanks, Mitch. That is beautiful. So you were actually listening to the medieval times score as

you're driving in there. Yes. Once I bought it. Your job to work. You're listening to your work. Yeah. And then I go and I like you, you have to get there a certain amount.

And I can't speak to what the routine was for the other, um, departments like the gift shop department had their own routine. And then, um, the servers had their own routine, but everybody went. Sure.

What's a, what's a male winch? Is that a winch too? No. Oh God. What were they called? Surf's. Oh, okay.

I think, but I don't think they were ever called that. It was, yeah. Um, well, the winch thing is when I got there, I was like,

you told me you were a photography winch. And then I was like, Oh, weird. Is that like, is that like a winch? Did they say that? And then Susser overheard me say photography, when she was like, Oh, easy. He was like,

when can you say that? And I was like, no, I just, she just told me. Yeah. And then Jordan, uh, Morris, we had,

we had quite a few people come with us overheard me explain that to Susser. And he was like, can they say winch? So every single, like it was like a domino, a fan weird. Our server didn't say,

like it used to be that the server, when she does her little intro speech, if she was a woman, she would say, so I am going to be your winch for this evening. You can call me my winch. You could call me, you know,

Jessica, which is my name, but you cannot don't just call me winch. Yeah. And so I remember that being a common, like opening speech, but they must have just totally nixed the winch title because I,

I, she didn't say anything about that. And I didn't hear that from anybody else, but that was like what we were, but there seemed to be a couple of changes. Yeah. Um, so there's a big long story.

Should we explain the story? Cause I want to, I'm still curious, I want to dig in on this employment history a little bit. Oh, sure. So wait, so you're working as a photography, right?

Winch. Um, and then is that, is that your one job there? Do you ever move on to a different field? No, that was my only job. And what you do is you get there a certain amount of time

for the show. You come into the employee entrance and, and they always, you never, I think there was like certain items of your uniform that you kept, or maybe I just stole them cause I wanted them, but there was like a little corset type thing. And,

um, I think the shoes you could, as long as, you know, they were whatever period appropriate, you can kind of wear your own shoes and they had a little, like headband that you could wear. And I think I took that stuff home with me, but then the,

the skirt and the, the like, um, peasants blouse that we wore that every night we'd turn those in to like, we'd go into this like laundry room, basically where we'd get handed a new uniform every time we showed up to work and they would clean them all, um,

every night. So you get, you get dressed, everybody getting the uniform and then you go up to your departments. And what we did is for the photography stuff, we would like, he'd assign us who's going to be at the entrance taking pictures. And then,

um, everyone, I can't remember what we did if we weren't doing that. And then, yeah. And then as the show is going on, we would develop the pictures we took at the entrance and then package them and try to sell them throughout the show.

And that, and you'd make commission on that. It seems like there's so many people who work there. Yeah. There's a lot of employees. There's a lot of employees in that. So like the, you saying that they would go bankrupt.

I'm like, Oh my head, it makes sense. But then I'm like, Oh, there was enough. There were enough people there. There's so many people, but there were enough customers there that I'm like, Oh, this is enough to make money for all these employees.

But then I just wondered, did it get slow ever? Like I'm like, even thinking of Anna, I've been a couple of different times and each time it has been completely sold out. So I don't know what the deal is. I mean, I only worked because of school.

I only worked Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So I was there when it would probably be the busiest. And it was always busy. Yeah. And if, and I, and never in my life could I imagine it not being busy.

Yeah. It's heaven. But, but our, our photographer, our waitress, her server was, she went out onto the field.

The servers do that. Yeah. They like, they have like multiple parts, just the servers. Well, it's just, and they acknowledge them as your servers.

They're like, but it's just kind of a fun little chance for them to like be applauded and be okay. For you to see like, Oh, there's a, Hey, there's our server. I like that actually.

Yeah. I didn't realize that, that our server had gone down. No, I saw her down there and I got excited. Yeah, but we did too. Yeah.

Yeah. It's our server. Yeah. So I have questions too, but maybe we should get into more of what goes on there before. Cause you, cause Mary, you actually knew someone there.

I did. Yeah. Well, wait, the workers there. Yeah. The Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chancellor.

Oh my God. Why are you just lit up? Cause never seen them. First of all, let me also say this and, and perfect. This aligns with your interest.

It was, he is the hunk of the show. You could say he's, he's the hunky one. I think the knights are the real hunks, but he was, I mean, what the fuck?

He was, he's a good look. He's a very good looking man. He's, he's a very handsome man. He's like, he's the master of ceremony. He's the master of presence.

He kind of runs the whole show. Great voice. Great voice. Great voice. Great pipes. Jamie, Jamie Susser was next to me, Evan's wife.

And at the end, he's like, thank you for coming to medieval. And like, he does it like a while like times. Like let's get ready to rumble, basically. And,

uh, Jamie was like, he must get laid after all these shows. And I was like, I was like, yeah, he seems like a, he seems like a cool,

right hunk man. But that, that's what I was like when I was in the, in the, in the, in Chicago, right? Yeah. So he worked,

he was the Lord Chancellor at the Schoenberg location. And I would see, I mean, I was a lowly photography one. So I, I used to work kind of this, you know, and there's so many employees,

but I became aware over the time that I worked there, that he was also very involved in the casting of the show. And he, you know, um, and so I, I was like trying to make myself visible to him because I got to be that princess.

And, yeah. So you're working, I mean, it's kind of a waste of your talents. You're, you're a very talented, successful actor and you're working,

there's a photography lunch. And you'd think that you would have a, a part in the show. Well, he didn't think so. Um, no, no,

we didn't, we didn't really interact at all actually during that time. And, um, there was already someone cast in that role. So I wasn't just going to, you know, I,

he wasn't just going to see me and be like, her, um, like in my fantasies, but, um, but eventually I had to stop working there cause, uh,

full-time school started again. So, um, so yeah, I just worked there for that one summer. Then I moved to LA, uh, shortly after I moved here,

a friend and I went to the, the Anaheim location. And he was there. And after the show, I was like, I went up to him. And I was like, I worked in Schomburg with you.

And that's so crazy that you're here. And we kind of connected. We became friends on Facebook. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And he, he's been very, um,

lovely over the years. Like always like, you know, writing like supportive comments and stuff. If I post something about a job or something like that. Does he stay in character? He does. He says,

well done. Well done, my lady. Um, he's really, he was really great. And then, um,

and then, yeah. I got off Facebook and then I haven't been into, I wasn't even sure if he still worked there. So that was a happy moment to realize. Oh my God. Yay. He's still,

he's here and we can talk. It's, it's so great. I mean, the detail to me, cause I, I'm fascinated by the fact that you work there and that, that you still are such an evangelist for it.

Cause a lot of times when people leave a job, they're like kind of like, yeah, whatever, but that you still like, I was, I was such a passion for it. But the detail for me that I,

I'm not going to work. It's crazy. It's so crazy. Cause like to me, like I feel like if I, It's the last thing you want to hear. It's the last thing you want to. If I was listening to an episode of dough boys while I was driving

to Mitch's place, I would turn around and go home. I was, I was gonna, I was going to, you don't, you don't, you don't listen to anything in the car.

Maybe that's why. Right. But I was going to ask, do you just put on the dough boys theme over? I'm just looping that. That's that. I mean, that's the best part of the podcast.

That's it. I'm going to listen to my voice or something on the way to the podcast. Hey, I got, I got to ask a question. Yeah. Cause it comes off the hunk night.

Now look, this is a dirty question, but are any of those nights in them getting it on backstage or what? Boy, I wish I could tell you, I don't know because I wasn't really involved. No,

that wasn't, Hey, that was not what I was saying, but, but God, what were you saying, Mitch? I'm saying,

Oh boy. No, I mean, you would kind of see, I mean, it's sort of part of the experience is like after the show, you know, the people will come up and get pictures with their nights and the

nights are sort of flirtatious and that's like part of the experience. Right. Um, as far as what I'll, I never saw the nights off duty except for like when they walked their cars. So I,

there was no like backstage kind of, and also I didn't have any friends there. I was really, I was really a lone wolf who showed up. Hell yeah. Would work. And then would just be, you know,

did you listen to the soundtrack on the way back? Of course. I really off work too. Yeah, I loved it. I loved it all. I really couldn't get enough. I like that.

Also the roar of the rings thing is great. And that's a great soundtrack. So into it. Um, the, so we had the red and yellow night. I won't go into the story for a minute here, but we met him after the show.

Yes. We took a picture, which you know, we'll see it for the episode picture. Uh, and we talked to him and he was a chiller. It turned out he was a, a SoCal chiller.

It was a classic, a classic OC bro. Like a, like a, he was like a chiller, like a surfer. Surfer dude. Yeah.

Surfer dude. A regular wiger type. Yeah. It was so funny that I was like, we were rooting for this guy the whole time. And we were like, Hey man, like great job.

It was like, thanks bro. And then we were like, how do you get the job? It was like my, my buddy like, yeah, I was so,

cause there's so much, there's so much stunt training involved. Like, like you have to ride a horse. You have to know how to use a mace. You have to be able to like throw a lance. It's like crazy. The amount of skills you have to be so like,

okay, this must, this must have been a guy who like grew up around horses or something like that. Which is like, this new, this guy in Fullerton, he hooked me up.

This is crazy that this dude who's clearly like, this is an amazing athletic feat. We just watched him pull off and he's just so casual about it. Yeah. He was, he was such a surfer dude. Yeah.

It's funny. They are very, they're super talented. I was thinking of this. The funniest thing, the funniest thing I ever saw at UCB. Yeah. Was on my way to UCB.

I saw two raccoons having sex and they were, they were doing it like doggy style. Hightened that besser. And I was standing there. I said, this is the funniest thing I've ever said, saw my entire life.

And I was telling people, I was like, you said that raccoons were doing it doggy style. They were. That's how animals do it. But it was, it was the funniest thing I've ever seen an old, more so than any.

I mean, there was a lot of funny things I've seen at UCB, but I was like, that was the funniest thing I'd ever seen in my entire life. How does that connect to? Oh, I was just saying that at this show, you can,

you can see something that's, that's like, like I'm like, that's a skill that I don't know anyone who, that's the equivalent of two raccoons fucking in the street. I was like, I'm not going to see something more impressive

than that on the way in. It is. It is. The athleticism is remarkable. You know what? Let's take a quick break. You don't want to hear more about my raccoon story. All right,

but finish up the record. There's not more to it. There was, they were doing that. I was just trying to tell people to watch it. And when they walked by, which I think weirded people out, you know what?

Maybe I shouldn't have told this story, but I thought it was good. Yeah. Go to the commercial. It was a great story. I hate this podcast. It was funny. Welcome back to Doe Boys, Mary Holland, Matt Newell,

talking medieval times, Mitch talking raccoons, fucking. It was funny. I believe you that it was funny to see. You know what? For those who didn't see it, I feel bad for you.

It was me and a few other people who I gave the pleasure to see it. Who you gave the pleasure. I said, come check this out. I said this to a couple of people. Yeah. They were having sex long enough for you to go get people.

They were having sex for a while. It was very fun. I was standing there. I was saying, check this out. This is crazy. Like where exactly in relation to the UCB was, it was, it was, it was a head in a sewer. Look at these raccoons.

Come here. These were not sewer raccoons. These were street raccoons. And it was, I think it was Bronson. What is that? The Oak School raise on Bronson, right? It was like within that first big block. Okay.

They were on a wall. They were standing up on a wall. It was so funny. So you went around. You went over to where the theater is. You found some people you knew and then brought them back. No, no, they were random people. Just like passersby.

Passers people were walking by. I said, check this out. This is funny. So just like a random family there, getting groceries from gels. I told like three different groups of people to check this out. This is very funny. And like, I think like one group laughed.

And then I think the other two didn't really like it and kept moving. It was funny. He keeps repeating that. I feel like if I didn't know you and you just came up to me and said, and how did you say where you just like come over here? There's something very funny. I was just like, like, I would like it.

Look, I was on the sidewalk and people were walking by me on the sidewalk. You could see it from. But if you weren't paying attention, you couldn't see it. I see. So you're just like, look at this. And I was like, look at this. I said it to a few people because it was so funny.

I wanted to give them the pleasure of seeing something so funny. I had never seen something so funny before. So I pointed it out to these people. And then, you know what, at least one group did laugh. They were like, there was like two. I feel like it was like two couples and then like a group of like three or four people. Right.

Yeah. And they thought it was funny too. Yeah. Yeah. I forget. I don't remember the specifics of who laughs, but it was multiple people. I stand there for a good.

I think I maybe recorded it, but I'll look and see if I record it. All right. If you recorded it uploaded it to the Doughboy social media. Whether it's funny or not. There's probably 2000 and like seven. Oh, okay. Before I had like an iPhone. So you're just recording on your old like.

So you went on a camcorder. Yeah. I wore out that video tape. It was funny. Look. I don't look like a weirdo, but it was. It was funny. I believe you.

Mary. No, it's funny. I agree. No, it is funny. It's my fault. We could have left this on the other side of the break. I brought it back up again. It was funny.

I believe you. So medieval times, you get a bill of fare when you sit down. So we were sitting at a long day. We had a large, we had a large group and we had basically an entire row to ourselves. So we're sitting down in that row. So in kind of a way where it's kind of difficult to maybe talk to more than four or five people.

They sit in a bar. Yeah. It's like sitting in a bar. So you're kind of restricted in your frame of socialization, but I mean, it is still like just like, it does feel like a very fun group communal thing because you're all kind of like cheering for the same stuff and, and, and eating at the same time, you get a bill of fare in front of you, which is the

napkin with the menu written on it that lists all the courses you're going to get. And then your server comes by to introduce themselves. Ours was Alma and she did a great job and she was, she was super friendly. And like we mentioned earlier, she went out there for the procession of the tall flags when they bring everyone out, but it's kind of crazy how they, they get into the plot and

then the show is just kind of like very immersive and just kind of ongoing the entire time. Even the points where you're eating, they're still like doing the show. They're just kind of always giving you something to look at. There's no bread. There's no left at all. And you know, they do, they do such a great job of like the

most boring parts of the show are when you have the big right as part of the meal in front of you. Yeah. Like the chicken, which they call, what do they call it? A dragon? Baby dragon. Well, they call it a baby dragon. That's kind of fucked up.

And then they'd say baby dragon tastes just like chicken and give you a little wink. Well, also, that's also funny because in medieval times, there weren't dragons. Right. Right. Depends on who you talk to. So it's that funny thing of like, like, because even in the

show, they don't try to be like, there's dragons. It's not like a. Right. It's not a plot point. Yeah. It's just kind of a funny little one. Yeah. And then is, wait, is the tomato soup also dragon based?

Yeah. They said dragon something too for that. They're like dragon. Dragon's blood. Oh yeah. Maybe that's what it is. Yeah. Jesus.

Why are they killing so many dragons for this meal? It's a glass of milk and they're like, it's dragon come. Fuck man. Why'd you get a glass of milk with your. I thought the dragon stuff was going to be spicy needs something to cool it down. They said that's dragon. That's yeah.

They said the sea of come and then you had chugged it down. I said, wait a minute. This is this is milk. Yeah. You meant you were outraged. Yeah. There's a lot of dragon, a lot of dragon, the dragon soup. Oh, Nick, you're gonna you're about to say what they are.

I was starting to talk through the dishes as we talked through the story that you know what this is reminding me of real quick. I remember because I never went to medieval times as a kid. I'm like, like Matt, this was my first time. But I remember wanting to go because I'd see the commercials and I hit there's this kid at school whose name also might have been Matt, but the just total coincidence. But he the thing he told me about and I don't know if this

was ever a part of the show or if he was just lying, but he said he went to medieval times and that the Merlin, there was a Merlin and he had flat blow torches and he was shooting fire out of his hand. Part of the show. I remember there being a wizard. Wow. Awesome.

That's that's cool. I was waiting for the Merlin the whole time. There's no Merlin. So he was like a foot. He would like tell that he would like basically bring an omen to the king and be like someone dark is, you know, how many storylines were there? A soothsayer.

I I know more than one, obviously. No. Yes. But I think it was like across the board. Everybody followed the same storyline and it would subtly shift. It's pretty much the same. Which is there's a king. There's a princess.

Yeah. He's nice. He's having a tournament. It's like a happy thing at first. And then suddenly becomes real. And so one of the knights has to defend that. Yeah. What I read is that it would like every five years or so,

they just update the story. That was kind of the reason. Yeah. This makes sense now with the dragon stuff because it was more fantastical at one point and it's become less fantastic. There was a Merlin running around. Yeah. I don't know.

Just running around. Somebody catch that fucking Merlin. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember dragons ever being a part of it, but beyond just calling the food dragon something. Right. But yeah, Merlin was a part of it.

So you get a Merlin type. So you get assigned to, everyone gets assigned a knight. Yes. You're seated in a section. Yeah. And there's six sections. Is that right? Yes.

And we got the red and yellow knight, like I said, which we were in a big section. I was like, we might win. I think we're going to go a long way because I also think that maybe if there's a lot of parties in a section, they make, I don't know if this is real, but the last time I went, I was, I had the blue knight. We won.

And also, Mary, when I went, what I remembered, and you kind of backed this up, was that one of the knights turns evil. Yes. That used to be a storyline is that, and that's what I think this is right. The Merlin type would be like, there's someone is going to betray you or someone, you know, is someone you trust is not

so trustworthy. So that last part of the story would just be a knight turning on. Yeah. Became like the knight was the bad guy. Oh, instead of the herald of the north. Yes. Yeah.

Well, let's talk through what the story currently is right now. So the very first thing that, like we mentioned, the plot is very dense. I would say probably 40% of the show is you're watching like a guy standing at, because the knight or the king rather, the Lord Chancellor and the princess are all on this elevated platform that's like at the top of the audience.

And then there's like the floor level where the show goes on. I'd say most of it, like a lot of it, you're watching someone from the floor like looking up at the king and then having a conversation with them. Yeah. And a lot of that is the herald of the north. So it starts with a horse just sort of running around the Lord Chancellor who made the announcements out in the lobby

earlier comes out, introduces the knights, the procession comes out. We meet King Don Carlos and Princess Catalina. So like a little, a little Spanish. Spanish, right? Yeah. Because it was the chain started in Spain. We get some horse master tricks.

We get the Falconer. I think all the kingdoms are also Spanish like Navarre. Oh, interesting. Which is funny because it seems so much like old England. Yeah. I think if you look at the names of the kingdoms that the knights are from, they're all Spanish. Interesting.

The Falconer was cool. I forgot about that. It's amazing. The Falconery stuff was awesome. Were you guys mad that I jumped up and swallowed the Falconer? No. I just, you were amazed. You swallowed the Falconhole.

Right. The Falconer, that's, that was very, very cool. And I remember that. You got to catch that sparrow you swallowed. They do warn you when that, when the Falconer was up there, like, like that's the only part where they're like, okay, like no one do anything so crazy. He's one of us with a baby stood up.

They stood up and that Falcon came so close to him. They just said don't stand up and you have a baby with you. And even when I worked there, they, they would be like, okay, when the Falcon comes, just stand still, like stand against the wall. Don't be walking around back there. Yeah. Like just wait for the defendant.

He gets close. He not only gets close, he, he goes like behind the poles. Yeah. He's going every, because there's like poles at the back of the seats or whatever. And he was going behind the pole. He was going all over the place. You would think of this litigious age.

That would be too risky. Yeah. Bird flying around. Really? I know. I was, I'm kind of shocked that that's still a part of the, it's so cool. Yeah.

I hope that people don't ruin that part of the show. Right. Because it's awesome. So then. By swallowing them. Right. So I did not swallow the Falcon. I wish I did.

He looked good. You have one wish. That was it. That was your one wish? That's it. I wish I swallowed the Falcon whole. As you wish that a thing had happened in the past. You could tell that story.

Did that go on with the story? So then the next thing is that then we have a super long, I would say like a very lengthy point where they're making announcements of people's birthdays and anniversaries and honeymoon. The Lord Chancellor is just reading this announcements as is the princess. But we're also around here.

I think we're getting our food. And the first thing is the tomato bisque we mentioned. It was the dragon's blood that you get with a little toasted garlic bread utensil list. There's no utensils here is the big thing in terms of how you're actually eating it. So you're getting like a little, what do you call that? A little crock, right?

Like a little bowl with a little handle on it. And then you get that bread you can dip in. I thought that soup was pretty good. I thought it was so good. I think also one thing that I'd like to say. Yeah. As it pertains to the food experience is so much, it's so much of, I think the food being delicious is because

you're getting food while you're watching a show. Like it's almost like I can't evaluate the food on its own merits. Cause I'm like, oh, and now here comes this food. Like I'm just so, it's so wrapped up in the whole atmosphere to me. Yeah. I agree with that.

But yeah, I thought the soup was so delicious. Yeah. And then that bread, it was like Texas toast. It was. In a good way. Oh yeah. The garlic bread was, it was really nostalgic. You know, those kinds you put in the oven and the frozen one.

Yeah. In a good way. Like it was really, I enjoyed it. Ideal for dipping. It was great for dipping. Yeah. You know what's funny is that the bowl gets so hot from the soup that I was waiting so long.

And then the soup was kind of like not that hot. It was like the bowl got hotter than the actual soup got. But the soup is good. I thought the soup was perfectly warm. Oh my goodness. Okay. No, I did. It wasn't too hot.

It was like warm. It was like comforting. I wish I just put a napkin around the bowl when it first started. So I would just eat it quicker because I think my handle got hot. My handle got very hot. Oh, interesting. I think there was like a weird transference because I think I got like the first of a new batch of soup.

And I think it was like the bowl was very hot for a little bit. But the soup was good. The bread was good. Here's the issue. Yeah. I was so fucking sick from ESPN zone. Nick, we went down to ESPN zone. Right.

Which we reviewed last episode. Yeah. And we ate down there and I was just like sweating. I could barely eat. We had kind of a late afternoon meal there. And we had a very heavy meal. I mean, we've said our thoughts at this point on ESPN zone. But a pretty heavy gross meal.

Yeah. And then our show we were seeing was at five. So about three hours, maybe two and a half hours before we were eating. Which we've done before. We've done before. Yeah. I was pretty full throughout. And that did affect my dining experience.

Unrelated to Medieval Times is fair. I was mad at ESPN zone for kind of... Because I think... Right. Because the chicken's good. It's not too dry. You can get a little bit of dryness. But the chicken that they gave you is pretty good.

Medieval Times? Yeah. Yeah. Straight fire. Straight fire. Straight fire, man. I did actually like that. I mean, it comes...

I would say it's very lightly seasoned. Which I think intentionally. I think it's just meant to be palatable for a wide range of tastes. And... But I think it's like well-prepared. It's not particularly... Sometimes you get that roasted chicken or that rotisserie chicken. And it's like a little dry.

But this I feel like had a good amount of moisture to it. And I mean, it was clearly like... To me, it was just like these were the most factory farmed chickens I've ever had. Totally. These were totally just like... Like chemical. Right. Right.

So, you know, that's not great. But I mean, like the actual preparation I thought was pretty good. And you got a half chicken. Oh, yeah. You get a half chicken. I will say this about the chicken, which I have found also with rotisserie chickens, is if they, and I thought this chicken was delicious, but there's this thing I notice where when the chicken is just cooked so much or for so long, or it's left like steaming

under a big blanket of aluminum foil for so long, that the bones like fall apart. Oh, sure. Like they don't even... They don't even hold up in their bone-ness. Right. They just kind of like crumble. And that to me is a little... It's too much.

It's just a little gross. Yeah. When it gets really hot in LA, that will happen to Weiger and I. Your bones are crumbled up? Yeah. I don't know. I think that's gross, guys. I think that's really gross.

Again, I think that's disgusting. No, but it just makes it a little like, ugh, and now, so I guess I'll have to use my fingers to make the meat around the bone. Sure. I just remember this guy fell down. Oh, yeah. Oh, this was... I was on the very end where the stairs were, and this kid was walking up.

I don't know if he had like... He didn't really have anything in his hands, Susan, but he kind of like put his hand on my shoulder. And I look over and he's like limping a little bit, like trying to stand up. And I'm like, are you okay? I'm like, yes. No. Wow.

Have a seat. And I was like, sit down. And then some servers were like, he like tripped on the stairs and hit his knee on the stairs. Oh my God. It was fine, guys. He wanted a little break. Well, and the servers came over and they were like, do you want us to get someone? And he was like, yeah.

And then he just sat next to me for about three or four minutes and just kind of sat there, not winting in pain or anything. And I just went back to eating my chicken and he was just sitting there looking at his nails and he just got up and left. Just a kid? He was like... 17. 17.

Oh, yeah. He worked there. Oh, he was an employee. Yes. Oh, yeah. He was a server. Oh, no good team. It was so bizarre, but he just wanted...

He just grabbed his shoulder. He just faked an injury for like a five minute break. That's so bizarre. I told you guys before this, I don't know if I had to go into it, but I had a server mishap as well. And so it's close quarters there. And I feel like you can... I could see that.

Right. What? We're not going into it. It's close quarters there and bad stuff can happen. Yeah. What? It's close quarters there. And bad stuff can happen.

We're agreeing with you. You want to say what it is? No, I don't care. Okay. Look, I have my arm around Evan Susser's wife. Weird. I asked her beforehand. I said, can I put my arm...

It doesn't make it any less weird. Here's my one complaint. It is kind of close quarters. It's tight. Yeah. I have my arm on Evan Susser's wife's seat, not around her like shoulders. So I put my arm around on her seat. I said, is this cool?

She said, it's cool. She was... Hey, we're having fun. We're applauding these... Red and yellow. The red and yellow knight who, by the way, fell third... He was basically the third knight to... He made it halfway through.

He wasn't the final two knights. I thought he was doing well. He had one win, which was nice. He had one win and then he was like, oh, he's going to be like... And then the black and white knight, which was the other biggest section, like the main section, beat him and it was... Man, he pulled some stuff that wasn't fair. I feel like the black and white knight.

But then the green knight ended up winning, which was still our... The three knights team up. He was one of our allies. He avenged him. It was kind of one of those... Because I honestly felt a little bit personally invested in it. Our buddy, Dick Maddenak, said the watching our knight killed was traumatizing.

It was sad. I felt like you watch him get... It was just like, oh my God. And then the other guy kind of cheated and you're just like, no, you cheated and you fucking... You fought dirty and then you killed our guy. And then the crowd's cheering for him. Yeah, the bad crowd is cheering for him.

So then when the green knight killed him, it was like... I was like, ah, we got vengeance. You were starting shit with black and white knight fans in the crowd afterwards. When you went outside, you were like... Pushing them around. Knocking their crowns off their heads. Those little kids. I was ready to start shit in the parking lot.

I had my wife around. I haven't talked to Susser's wife's chair. And then I reached up. My hand went up. No, see, I shouldn't have told this story. You were getting up to leave. It's tiered. The tables are tiered.

So they're way tiered. The servers behind us are higher than us. Yes. Basically, their ankles are at our shoulder level. I was getting up to leave and my hand kind of went up. Not very far up, but I could feel the skirt of the server. And I was mortified and I immediately apologized. And I was like, listen, let me make this up to you.

I got a story to tell you about this time I saw two raccoons fucking. It was really funny. It was funny. It was very funny. This was not as fun. But I want to bring it up just because it was the experience. And it is close court. It's very close court.

The seats, I think the seats are... I mean, I'm a big guy. But it could be more comfortable. I think it's not very big guy friendly. I mean, I felt a little, you know, I'm 6'1". But I felt a little cramped in there. Your feet are kind of like up towards the leg. Yes.

So I think if you're a guy, a man of generous proportions, I think you might feel a little cramped in there. Yeah. Yeah, just be advised. But I mean, you know, again, maybe that's just part of the experience is that you're just kind of cramped in there. That's how it was in Medieval times. That's true.

No one was comfortable. Right. There were tables, though. Some people had tables. Oh, interesting. Like kids in, I don't know, when I went through. Really? I saw like a car table near the corner of...

I think that's for maybe a handicap. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Because also like the back two rows are not at like the tieredness of it is not true of the back two rows in the arena. I feel like it's just in the front, like first three rows. It's like this very steep sort of, they're like right. I could be wrong about that.

But yeah, it is very close quarters. Also, can I make one other criticism? Are we going on to the meal? Yeah, we can keep talking about it. Well, I didn't like the potato. Yeah. So we also get with the roasted chicken. You nibble on that chicken for a little bit and then they come by

with a sweet buttered corn and a herb-based potato. What was your criticism of the potato? It was very dry. It was very dry. I agree. Butter or something. Yeah, I just ate the top of mine. Wouldn't it be better if it was like two...

I would almost want it to be too soggy instead of two dry. It was just so hard to eat. Well, it has a good crispness to it. It's kind of like one big half potato sized French fry. Like it's like... I feel like that's what they're doing. It's a huge potato wedge. Yeah, you're right.

But to me, it feels almost like you're eating more like a raw potato. Like the... I agree. It's so starchy that it doesn't really have that same... It needs a little something. Some dipping sauce would go along with that. I think the sides are the weakest of the... Yes.

The corn and the potatoes. Yeah, that corn was just like... So I'll give you... Cafeteria corn. It was nothing very... Nothing exciting. I liked it all right, though. I think it was like buttery enough that I was fine with it.

But I think it was no garlic bread, though. No garlic bread, though. That was the... I think garlic bread and the soup were the winners. Garlic bread and soup were good. It's a lot of food. Yeah, it's a lot of food. It is.

You'll be satisfied. They used to give you a rib or like two... Like instead of the corn, I think they served just like two little ribs or something like that. Maybe had ribs when I went the first time. Wow. That was really good. It was not that long ago,

like maybe seven years or something. Yeah. They served ribs for corn? That's a big down day. That's a big down day. Maybe you got corn, too. I forget. No, I don't remember corn.

No, okay. I think corn was in place of ribs. Was the potato always the same? Mm-hmm. I think potato was always the same. I think they got to tweak that potato a little bit. And the pastry at the castle was different, too. Yeah, so we had like a lemon pound cake, it seemed like.

Yeah. But I imagine that just changes with some regularity. It's whatever they have. It used to be like an apple turnover. Okay. Yes, I remember something more like that. But yeah, do they change it maybe? I don't know.

I don't know. Did you also... What did people have... Because it is funny, and our friend Jordan Morris mentioned this online today when he talked about how they ask you not to vape. Right. And they...

And then also they're like, you have a choice of like Pepsi Sierra Miss? That's like funny to be like. Yeah. These big mugs filled with Pepsi, which I got some Pepsi. And you can only have two rounds of it. Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know they cut you off. Oh, I didn't know that. I got two rounds. They do. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes the anachronisms are just like front and center. But I think that's kind of the fun of it, you know,

when that's happening. But yeah, I actually did... You know what? I like Pepsi at medieval times is funny because Pepsi like seems like the sludger worst cola that exists back in medieval times. Right. It makes sense. Sludger.

Pepsi is kind of... It's sweeter. Yeah. It's gross. It's grosser. I like Pepsi. Do you really? I prefer Coke.

But that's okay. North Carolina is where the... It's taste of Carolinas. That's where I grew up just drinking Pepsi. But over Coke? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

I don't drink either anymore. Yeah. But honestly, they tasted... I wasn't like that hardcore for Pepsi that I wouldn't drink Coke either. Yeah. But if they were both there, I would just pick Pepsi. That's interesting. We've always talked about this on the podcast.

Someone who would choose Pepsi over Coke. And we found them. A good man. We wanted to... Thank you. We were ready to tear the head off of whoever, because Nick and I are Coke guys, right, Nick? Yeah, I like Coke.

I mean, I actually grew up a Pepsi family, but I'm a Coke guy now. A Pepsi family? Yeah, we had Pepsi at home. We had Pepsi for the kids and Diet Pepsi for mom and dad. All right. Well, Ray Charles had the famous... He introduced Diet Pepsi.

You got the right one, baby. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Anyway. Uh-huh. Look, enough of this Pepsi beef. Nick, are you trying to say something? What's going on over there?

No, I was going to say that, like, enough of this Pepsi beef. Let's talk about the beef and the show. We're having these nights fighting each other. And as part of it, they're competing in horseback and all these different events. And when that happens, whoever wins the event goes over to Princess Catalina.

Princess Catalina will throw flowers to them. They're catching... These nights are catching roses, and then they will turn and they will fling those roses into their section of the audience. Carnations. Carnations, I'm sorry. So at one point, the red and yellow night,

I don't remember which event it was. Do you guys remember? Was it flag passing? Was it javelin tossing? At some event, he wins. They don't remember. He's one of the winners. Yeah, he's one of the winners.

The javelin toss is when I left. Okay. So that was the one. And I missed that one because... Yeah. Let's just say our night chose me to be one of the recipients of a carnation. You waited for me to leave.

I was also waving both my hands and screaming very loud. So you kept flashing them? Yeah, I did. I was also waving at them and flashing them. And I was like, at one point it was like, I was waving at the night. Do they ever give it to a guy? Or is that a rule?

I don't know. I don't know if they do or they don't. I feel like it was... I mean, it's very clear that the nights will usually throw it to like, if there's a little girl or something. Right. Which is very cute.

At the end of the show, I think the night picked a little girl to be... To be the queen of love and beauty. It's a little strange as well, but also very cute. It's very strange. But yeah, kind of the story that goes on. So the Herald of the North, who turns out to be a bad guy,

has offered to... wants the Princess Catalina to marry his lord, Lord Ulrich. They don't want that to happen. So the climax is that there's a fight to the death with between the champion, who is the Green Knight, and the Herald of the North to see who's going to get Princess Catalina's hand. The Green Knight wins,

but the Herald of the North is spared death and he's sent to the dungeon. And so that's kind of like where our story arc concludes. Which he gets whipped and sent to the dungeon. It's kind of bad. Yeah. It used to be Lord Ulrich would come. That's what I wanted to see.

I wanted to see him. Yeah. I thought him and the Chancellor would fight. I thought it would be like the... Yeah. I feel like one of the storylines was that the Green Knight was a traitor and then... Oh, wow.

And then also Lord Ulrich himself would come and he was like much more of a bad, like a knight all in black and you know. Right. Yeah. Hmm. Anyway. I want to see King Don Carlos throw down.

The old man. I feel like that would have been like a cool, like climax. Yeah, that would have been cool. And he could fight. If he just vaulted over the... Right. I will say because the one thing we haven't gotten into

is the actual athletic events and the feats that they're pulling off. I mean, there's so much horse riding involved. The horsemanship seems like incredible. The way they're able to maneuver these horses. There's one part where they bring out a guy to just sort of do some... It's akin to dressage.

It's just like he just does a whole horse dancing exhibition. He just is like sort of moving this horse around, this solo horse and it's like amazing to see what he can do. But it's also kind of hard to gauge. I don't know how hard that is. I assume that's insanely hard. Mary's mom does dressage. Oh, okay.

Yes. Like right? Yeah. I mean, not those fancier tricks. Right. But the other thing that's interesting is, and I don't know how accurate this is, but they'll, when they're like,

the Lord Chancellor will be like, and this is a move that horses would do when they're doing a victory march after a successful battle. Right. And so these are like actual things that horses were trained to do. Or like in battle, they would jump up to defend against enemies in the rear.

They'd jump up and just kick with their hind legs while they're around. It's all war. It's all meant for war. Yeah. That's crazy. Like jumping over, like stepping over landmines and stuff like that.

Yeah. Even dressage or not landmines, but... Yeah. What war was this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don't we have... Why are we fighting the... They still use horses in war, right?

In World War I, they used them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But to like step over bodies and stuff like that. Right. That's crazy. Yeah.

And also I will say that just like, I felt like such like an excited little boy watching the, watching the guys just like fight with weapons. Yeah. I think it's just so cool to see like, because there's this part, so they joust.

The jousting is very cool. A guy gets knocked off the horse. When he flies off the horse, to me that looks like, oh my God, I would hurt myself so badly. Yeah. And these guys just like, pull off this awesome stuff

and then just pop right back up. They go right into hand-to-hand combat. And so they get, they pick a weapon and then it varies up. Somewhat times a guy's got a mason, the guy's got a morning star, a guy has got a poleaxe. Yeah.

Or they've got like a, like a sword and shield and then they're just sort of fighting. Sparks fly. Sparks, literal sparks fly. And there's a net up so that I guess, I guess nothing flies in the audience.

In case the weapon breaks. Yeah. Or they lose the weapon. Or the joust. I mean, there's like splinters going everywhere to land. But it's so cool. Like,

I just thought it's so fucking cool to see. I was like, this is amazing. This is an amazing show. It was like, like the best stunt show I'd ever seen. Wow. Right?

No, I agree. Like, I was like one little miss and that, that's a broken arm or like, And that's why perfect match. Yeah.

No, it's a great show. It's so, it's so great, right? I, I very much enjoy the show. I feel like it's like 15 to 20 minutes too long. Yeah.

There's a little bit of padding. And, and I like the old version a little bit. I would say. Yeah. I like the old version too. The, the wizard was a very cool.

I just don't care about the North guy. I didn't care about the, the North guy as much. It's a little game of thronesy. Yeah. I noticed that guy afterwards was in the lobby and was just sort of hanging out. I know.

No one, no one was like, I want to take my picture with you. No one's like on his team. Yeah. He's like, he's like the bad guy. Like good job.

It was a good performance. If our night turned evil, I would have been so excited. Right. For the red and yellow night to be evil. I would have, it would have been great. You're not really invested

in the Herald of the North at all. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was me. That was maybe a weak point. Well, let's get to our final thoughts

in medieval times. There, here's how this will work. We'll all go around. We'll give our summation, our closing argument, if you will, on this chain.

And then we will give it a scribe at a rating. It's Jocktoberfest. So we've got a sports themed thing instead of forks. Gatorade jugs. That's right. So from a scale of zero to five, Gatorade jugs.

Matt, it was your first time. Right. We'll start with you. So, I, I think it's great. I had a lot of fun.

I'm going to just give a rating. That's up. What else? Yeah. Any other thoughts you want to say? Yeah. I was like, get there early and walk around.

I wish I would have looked around a little bit more. Right. There's a dungeon that costs two dollars you can go into. Two extra dollars. I know they were upselling you on the dungeon.

That's the kind of stuff I want more of. Right. The experience beforehand, I want to like get some foam swords and fight with people or, I don't know. So I'd give it three and a half out

of five jugs. Wow. Three and a half. Wow. Four. Four. Four. Is that high?

What's hot? Matt, they're your jugs. I wanted to say four. Four forks. Four forks. Four jugs. Four jugs.

Nick. Four jugs. I'll go next. It was my first time as well. Oh, okay. I had the time of my life. Oh, my God. I thought it was fantastic.

I thought it was just like, because I love high fantasy and many, this is not quite fantasy. It's like, you know, this, this false history medieval times version of medieval history, but it is still like, it doesn't have like actual magic or

or creatures or anything, but it is like just that, that sort of sword play, horse riding, all that shit that I just like love and I just absorbed in with it. Whenever it's in a book or a TV show or a movie or a video game, like that's just, I just want more of that.

And it was so cool. The stunts were amazing. The fighting was great. Like just hearing those, watching those swords just clink off of each other, that the fact that there were different weapons was, I just like loved all the weapons.

I wanted more weapons. It was just so cool to see guys using different weapons. Like there's an arsenal was going out there. It was great. So I thought the food was all good enough.

From the bar, I agree with Matt that it would be nice if there was maybe a little bit more to that. That's that holding pen before you go in there. But the beer was fine. And I thought the food absolutely got the job done for

that being part of the dinner and the show experience. I mean, for what it offers, because this is the thesis of the podcast, right, is like, how does this succeed at what it's trying to do? I feel like this is a home run. I feel like they fucking destroy

what they're trying to do. I think they do it perfectly. Five, five Gatorade. I change my. I love it. I change my answer. I agree. I guess I was put it on like,

would this be a restaurant I would go to a lot. So I think it does exactly what it yeah, I changed mine to five. Wow. That's that's perfectly OK. OK, cool. I'll do that.

Matt, they're your jugs. Once again. Thanks. Shall I go? Go ahead, Mitch. I shall review it. Medieval times. All right, Mary, you go.

OK, so here's what I think. Now go ahead, Mitch. Besides the mishap I had, which brought a damper to the night, I had a very good time. Now is it as good as two raccoons getting it on on a wall? No, it is not.

I declare what I do declare. The food is tastiest. And the games are fun. And fun was had by all. Oh, what a time we all had. This is so tough. Your idea of medieval, like, language is that you add F to random words.

And then you also throw in you throw an I do declare like Foghorn, Lakehorn. Southern Colonel. The chairs are cramped. Oh, not as wide as my castle thrown. Oh, no. Oh, no. But like I said, fun was had by all.

I do declare. The food is great. It's a lot of fun. It's fun show a little too long. They could turn this into a Disney-y type place, but they don't need to do that because it sells out every night. So here we go.

Four wooden Gatorade jugs. Right. You made it period appropriate. Four and a half wooden Gatorade. Okay. All right. With no ice because it doesn't exist. Right.

Right. But still it's very cold to Gatorade. So it's still good. We. Okay. Okay. Bye. He's just backing out of the room.

Oh, boy. All right, Mary. Okay. Get us out of this ditch. I'll try. Well, obviously I have. Can you please do it in the old? An accent, please.

Well, well, obviously. I can't. I'll do it. I'll do it in the accent I used to do when I worked there. Okay. Well, obviously it was a great show. It was a good tournament. And I enjoyed it with all the lords and ladies and they've got such a soft spot

in my heart for medieval times and everything that goes on there and the smells of it and the taste of it. And I just think it's absolute heaven. I think you'll love it if you go. You can have a great time and the show's extraordinary and, you know, oh, obviously for me, five Gatorade jugs. Wow. Wow.

That means both of our accents equally as good. That means medieval times is in the Golden Plate Club. Congratulations. Oh, no, I could have gotten to the hand holding. I messed up the ratings, huh? Well, we're ballpark buds. We're on the same project. Almost platinum plate.

Almost platinum plate. Yeah, maybe we'll get there. It is great. It is great. It's a great experience. I think especially if you have a family or a big group of friends. So fun. Go there and have a ball.

I sure did. All right. That was our review of medieval times. It's time for a regular segment. We've got a couple of foodstuffs and we're going to decide if they are hot or not. Oh, this is what we're doing. Hey.

Me mouth on fire. Oh, my God. Me tongue on fire, feeling hot or not. Jesus. They see us tasting. They mind is racing. Is it hot or not? Jesus fucking Christ.

All right. Mitch, you got us some spicy skittles. That was the lie. That was the lie. You got some spicy skittles and some sweet heat Starbucks. I wasn't sure how star bucks. What did I say? You said Starbucks.

Starburst. Starburst. You got it. Okay. Sweet heat starburst. Sweet heat skittles. These are fruity flavors with a spicy kick. We got these.

Well, these we also should rank these snack or whack. I got these in New York. Rank these snack or whack. I got these in New York when we meant to have these a long time ago. People were tweeting at us. People were tweeting at us. Let's see how they are. I wonder if they're spicy at all.

Kind of seems like a gross concept, if you ask me. Are you guys spicy folk at all? I am. Yeah, I like spicy folk. The skittles are a different color than they normally are. These also have labels of what they are, too. Oh, yeah. Like this fiery watermelon.

Starburst. Flame and orange. Strawberry mango. And piping pineapple. Strawberry mango doesn't have a fun thing in front of it. No adjective. Sting and strawberry mango. Great.

Should I do this? Yeah, yeah. Open them on. Okay. All right. So Mitch is opening the skittles. We might not all get a starburst. I was just looking to see if there was a different color.

I think I got, we're going to try to take one of every color. Okay. That was my plan. Right. We could try to do that, too, with a starburst. I don't know if there'll be enough starbursts. Yeah. Two packs.

Matt and I can share. Yeah, we can split a starburst. Splitting a starburst seems, I guess you could bite one and a half. I'm trying to think of how you'd do that logistically. I fucked up. If you had a very sharp knife. Mitch is dropping starbursts onto the floor. I'm just getting them all out, Nick.

Relax. No, I know. It's fine. Thank you for doing that. Someone's got to do it. Do these have names? One, two, three. Okay.

All right. So Mitch is distributing these. So here we go. Oh, there's, there's, there's apparently five different flavors. Oh, wow. Oh, interesting. Oh, you guys might have to split starbursts. How many are there over there?

Are there five different starbursts? There are. Okay. Cause I see red, yellow, orange and purple. I'm sorry. Pink rather, not purple. Red. Here we go.

Is there another one on top? It's all divided up now. Wait. What's the fifth flavor? Is it just these four? Oh, wait. And then there's, there's five skittle flavors. There's five skittles.

Four starburst. There you go. Everyone, everyone has one. Mary, Matt, you got to split starbursts. Or Nick, we should have split starburst. No, it's okay. All right. I'm digging into these skittles.

I mean, the yellow one. I mean, it feels like we could have just gotten more than one pack thing of each candy, right? Shoot. Where did we get these? New York. We got the, do they have the, are they just in New York? Do they have them out here?

No, they have them here. So wait, so what are we, why did you get them in New York? I don't know, we fucked up. We were talking about it today. So wait, so you got them in New York just to try them? I saw them in the airport and I said, these would be good for snack or what? Okay.

So you just grabbed a couple. All right. We should just make a mental note. We'll grab more than like one. We're going to do some of that. What the fuck? No, I'm saying like it might be good to just have enough so that everyone can have some.

All right. I'm going to have. Yeah. No shit. We didn't know that we're going to have two guests on this episode. I just bought them as a nice man. Right.

I'm going to have this. I'm going to taste this orange one. How are you, what are you guys tasting so far? Talk us through what your reaction is. Spittles or spittles. It's a little spicy, but not too bad. The skittles. Definitely tolerable on the spice level.

It's really good actually. I kind of, I like the flavors of the skittles. Weird. Some of them are a little bit, I feel like some of them have like a more of a spice than others. Yeah. I just had the orange one. It feels like it has just a little tinge of heat to it, but very good

orange flavor. Kind of like a kind of tangerine. Almost like a take back. I like the starburst or. I'm having the starburst. Yeah. I'm starting in starburst country. Mitch, what are you eating over there?

I just made through all the skittles. They're good. They're kind of like tropical leaf flavors that are spicy. Yeah. Tropical. Yeah. I like them. Are you getting any real heat from any of them?

No. Not strong heat. Okay. It's just strawberry mango starburst. That's why I just put it in my mouth. They're not bad. It's just kind of funny. Yeah.

It's like, it's like my only. Back to throw a little bit. Yeah. Right. I'm not sure what the strawberry mango one tastes like. I'm just having the strawberry mango starburst right now. Yeah, me too. It tastes a little like just weird.

Yeah. I don't know. That's for me. Let's do the fiery. What's that? It's almost bubble gummy. It's got like just like a very strange flavor to it. Did you have that strawberry mango starburst yet, Mitch?

You're still waiting on it. I'm doing the yellow starburst right now. I think the starbursts are spicier than the skittles. The mango one wasn't. Yeah. That pink one's not spicy at all. I don't feel. The yellow one to me is spicy.

I've got the flame in orange in my mouth. Me too. You know that watermelon kind of tastes like a cocktail. I feel like I would get like a spicy watermelon cocktail at like a semi obnoxious brunch place, but really enjoy it. And that's the pink one? Yeah, that's the... The orange one's got a little bit more spice.

The red one. The yellow one I thought was the spiciest thing I've had so far. The yellow starburst. Yeah, the orange does have... I'm gonna dig into this yellow one. The orange, yeah, it takes a second, but... Yeah, it's got a... I'd say the orange is the spiciest.

Let me try this other citrus one. By the way, this is like maybe one of the most difficult things to be like eating and talking because I'm getting so much stuff like stuck in my teeth. Well, yeah, the orange one is spicy. Yeah, wow. So is the yellow. The yellow one is. What's the name of the yellow one?

I wonder if there's something about this. Pipe in pineapple, I think. Oh, yeah, okay. It's a pineapple flavor. Oh, yeah. That's spicier to me than the orange one. I like this one. I like the pipe in pineapple.

Yeah. Yeah, this was a winner. Fiery watermelon chew. It's the only one that says chew in the name. All right, great. I'm moving over to Skittles Country. Talk us through what Skittles did you guys have? Remind me?

I had every flavor. You had every flavor? They're on the back. They're, yeah. I think I had every... There's five flavors, though. The sourness is way spicier than any of the Skittles. I couldn't figure out what...

The flavors are blaze and mango, lemon spark, sizzling, strawberry, fiery watermelon. Flamin' orange. Wait a minute. There's a pattern. Oh, wow. Yeah, none of these have any real heat to them. I've had three of them so far. I'm having the final two.

I love the fiery watermelon chew. I think my favorite's the yellow or the orange on the Starburst. I think, yeah, I do like the heat. I actually really like the heat from the yellow and the orange, but I think I actually really like that watermelon one in terms of flavor. The strawberry and mango one has the most heat off the bat. It was like instantly spicy to me. You think so?

I didn't really get anything from that. I didn't get... Yeah. Oh, I got spice right away. Hmm. I don't know if it only works on some people because that one I was just like, I didn't even know what this is supposed to taste like. I didn't really get strawberry from it.

Yeah, kind of a vague flavor. I think the Starburst are actually kind of... I'm surprised by how spicy the Starburst are. Yeah, I agree. I expected there to be no heat at all from any of these. The Skittles are pretty about where I expected them to be, but the Starburst have a little bit of heat to them. I mean, they're not going to make anyone's tongue sizzle unless you're like really,

really averse to spicy foods. Mm-hmm. But... So you either rank it not, not, not, not, not, not, or hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. Yeah, it's a six point scale. Six point scale. From the least hot to most hot. I guess I have to say that like the Skittles do have like a little bit of spice.

Yeah. So it can't be a not, right? Like it's like, got to be like, or are they just a not? They might be a, they might be a not or a hot. Like a half hot. Like they're like a half, yeah, they're like a half hot. They're not like exactly hot. I think, I think, you know...

That's good. They're not hot. They're not, yeah, they're not hot. Yeah. They're not hot. They're one below hot. Yeah. A low hot, but one above not.

That helps. So we'll add another point to the scale in between not and hot is not hot. Not hot. I like that. And I think that's where, that's about where these go. Or should we say hot not? Hot not, hot not is like up just above that. Yeah.

And then the starburst, I want to call them hot hot. Hot. Hot. Just like, they're, yeah, they're hot. Base level hot, right? Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah.

Because there were some of them that was like, this kind of, this is like a little spicy. I think of these, I would, even though I like spicy foods and I would like that these, these starburst ones were more aggressively had some more heat to them. I think I'd be more likely returned to the Skittles because they just think as a snack, they make, they kind of make more sense. I agree with that. I think the chewy spiciness is just kind of weird. I don't know.

What'd you guys think? Yeah. My favorite, I'm not a huge candy person, but I would say the pineapple starburst was my favorite. Yeah. Those are kind of good ones. The one with the starburst was my favorite too as a general category, but also the fiery watermelon chew I really liked.

Right. Ooh, heat seekers over here, Weiger. How would you, so how would you rank these as, as from not not not to hot hot hot? I would say that whatever the base level of hot is, that's what the starburst star and the one below that is the Skittles. They're just enough to, you could tell that they're supposed to be spicy almost. Yeah. I think the starbursts are hot and then Skittles are hot.

So we all came to, we kind of came to a group consensus there is what happened. Yeah. I thought that was just me and you deciding what we want. Oh no, he agreed. Matt agreed it. So we all agree. I don't know what Mary, I think Mary is on board. I prefer to keep my opinion to myself.

Come on, Mary, let us know what you think. Never. Also, what do you call these snacks or wax? I think these are snacks. Yeah. I'd say light snack. Yeah, they're light snacks. Yeah.

More of a lighter snack for the starburst, like a less of a snack for the starburst and the Skittles. Yeah. I wouldn't go out of my way to get them, but I think they get the job done. I would serve these at a Halloween party. I think that'd be fun. Oh, that would be a great use of them. Ooh, that'd be fun to put it in like a little spicy corner.

Yeah. Right. Spicy corner. A little spicy corner. Every Halloween party has a little spicy corner. It's been the bottle is. All right. That was hot or not.

Just like a restaurant value feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Mike Maloney. Mike writes, my lovely wife and I recently had a discussion about our sweet breakfast entree rankings and found out we had completely different opinions. We ruled out things like Danish and donuts as they seem more like breakfast sides than an entree. Hers, one waffles, two pancakes, three French toast.

That's right. Mine, one French toast, two waffles, three pancakes. We'd like you to weigh in with your own rankings as well as any that you might have that we might have missed didn't rank high enough. Matt and Mary, this is so we've had this discussion. Mitch, you and I have had this discussion. We've talked about this before. I was just thinking about this just recently again, because I think it's a very interesting.

It's a very interesting thing to me is the ranking of waffle, pancake and French toast. What do you guys follow on that? I think mine. They're almost interchangeable to me. Wow. Almost like I would if a place didn't have one and they offer the other two, I wouldn't be like, oh, I don't want anything. I mean, I but I mean, I prefer eggs over all of us.

Yes. I am too. Like I would always go eggs and yeah, I'm a savory breakfast guy. But I mean, if I am going to get a sweet, sweet breakfast, I feel like I'd go. I feel like I'm going. I'm putting French toast first if they can put in pancakes last. That's insane. I put pancakes last.

I put waffles first. I put waffles first. Waffles are good as hell. French toast first. As like an individual dish. Yeah. I really like French toast. It's really good.

French toast is good, but as good as a Belgian waffle. I mean, yeah. It just depends. It depends on what you're feeling. Why are you staying up for Nick so much? I don't want to get into it. I think French toast is great. I like French toast.

Yeah. What's the but what's your version to it? I mean, I like it, but just when it comes to the big three, would you put it after pancakes? Yes. French toast comes last for me. Man. Pancakes absorb so much syrup. Yeah.

Pancakes are a delicious blueberry pancake. Oh my God. Yeah. I like to share one that like I can never. I'm like, I'll get one stack for everyone to like take a bite out of. Yeah. That's a great thing though. He wants a piece of French toast to split.

French toast is the worst of the big three. We're not evaluating split ability. We're saying what do you want for yourself? French toast is the Ray Allen. I would say French toast though is what we most commonly would have in our home. Like if we made these things at home, right? It would be easier to make French toast. You just need an egg.

You need a piece of bread and a frying pan. That's right. Yeah. Look, if we're talking on Lakers Celtics big threes, I'm saying pancakes are the Glen rice of the big three. I still like French toast. Okay. It's not my favorite.

Right. It's the Ray Allen and then, but I like Paul Pierce more than Garnett. But see Ray Allen still good. Yeah. I mean, Glen Rice is still good. It didn't have as great of a pro career as a college career, but very good player. My nose is running from those, from the spicy. Wow.

I didn't hear that spicy. Oh, I'm gross. Jesus. It's happening here. Mitch, you're crying. That's what this is. Oh, I didn't realize. You know what?

You know what? I forgot to say that at medieval times, they were like, is it anyone's birthday? I told the guy it was my birthday. Yeah. He didn't say anything. He knew. And we didn't get a first time shout out either. Oh, right.

Do you have to, I guess, request the first time? I honestly think it's a thing you have to pay for. Did you tell the guy not to say it was my birthday? You pay the guy. Why you pay the guy to say it's not my birthday? To ruin this. And it is not this guy's birthday. He said it was not.

Yeah. They were selling swords in there too. I forgot. They were. I got to hold a couple of swords. They're heavy. It's very cool. I could very easily slide into being a sword guy.

I mean, that could just happen at any time. So back to the rankings of French toast and waffles and pancakes. Yeah. I was just going to say to everyone listening out there, let us know your rankings are hashtag big three. Big three breakfast. Yeah. Hashtag big three breakfast.

I like that. Yeah. If you have a question or comment over the world of chain restaurants, you can email to get the dough boys double or weekly bonus episode. Subscribe at patreon.com slash dough boys. Mary Holland. Matt Newell. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time.

Yes. Going to medieval times, staying here today with a delay. So much time to us. Thank you. You guys are so funny and great. Thank you so much. Above and beyond. It was a joy.

Thank you. Do you guys have anything you would like to plug? Sure. You can follow me on Twitter at mholon85. I'm doing shows at ECB all the time and that's great fun. And also wild horses at Largo. And you know what? You and Matt, two people funnier than the raccoons.

Yeah. My highest mark. Oh my God. Mitch. I'm sorry. It was so hard on you this episode and every other episode. It is your birthday. You could see me at the ECB sunset every Tuesday at 10 30 with outside dog gets one star.

And I'm yeah, I'm two F and high found the podcast in once a month. The first second Friday of every month. We have a live show at Franklin. Awesome. Check it out. Check it out. And then I'll do it for this episode of Dough Boys until next time for the spoon lord. Mike Mitchell.

See you. Happy eating. See ya. What happened? Happy eating. See ya. What happened?