Doughboys - Yogurtland with Van Robichaux

Episode Date: September 8, 2016

Screenwriter Van Robichaux (Fist Fight, Sonic the Hedgehog) stops by to discuss the Popeyes of his native Louisiana and review frogurt chain Yorgurtland. The resurrected Ecto Cooler is up in Drank or Stank.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1903, John Harvey Kellogg, the namesake of the Kellogg's cereal brand, who's credited with co-inventing corn flakes with his brother, opened a luxury health resort in Michigan called the Battle Creek Sanitarium. At the time, sanitarium was a new word of Kellogg's invention, not meant as a term for a prison for the mentally ill, but rather a play on the word sanitation. Kellogg's precursor to the health spa became a destination for the rich and famous, and his fanaticism for hygiene and healthy living led him to evangelize now common practices like medical circumcision and enemas, as well as the consumption of a cultured dairy product

that dates to 5000 BC. The creamy tart substance grew in popularity in the states during the 1930s, when Danin began offering it for retail sale. In the late 1970s, health conscious consumers were eager for an ice cream substitute with less fat, leading to the creation of a frozen variety of the ancient delicacy. This provoked a craze that started in the 80s and continues, with some fits and starts, to the current day. In 2006, a businessman named Philip Chang opened a self-serve store in Fullerton, California,

trumping the previous concepts with giant cups and array of flavors and dozens of dry and wet toppings, selling the treats by combined weight. Currently writing a wave of popularity, the fast-expanding chain has over 300 stores in the Americas, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East, becoming a destination for decadence, just as Kellogg's resort was a destination for health consciousness. This week on Doughboys, Yogurt Land. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're a part of ferrelaudio.com.

The best way to support ours and other shows in the network is to use the referral link on our website any time you shop at Amazon. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, I forgot to fucking pull up the camera, I forgot to pull the, I pulled a Mitch with the, with the drop, in that I didn't have, didn't prepare this in advance. Wait, hold on. I don't have my, I don't have my drop repair either. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

I got one. Hold on. Wait, hold on. I'm looking through the email. Jesus Christ. Here one. Here's one. Here's, this one's pretty good.

How about Krang's body? Mike Mitchell, the spoon Mitch. Wait, you already said that one. Did I say Krang's body? No, there's no way I said Krang's body. I didn't label it as used. All right. Here's why.

I definitely didn't do this one. Nothing but trouble character. Mike Mitchell, the spoon. That's bullshit. I refer to us as the twins from Nothing but Tr- Oh, whatever. I think that's fine. That one's from at Don Maddox. Thanks, Don.

I, uh, I checked, fuck you, Don. Uh, I checked out, uh, when you started talking about enemas, because that's fucking disgusting. You know what was crazy? The detail I admitted from this one is that there, is that apparently Kellogg's would do, Kellogg would do, uh, yogurt enemas. Ugh. Yeah. What the fuck?

Isn't that fucked up? Well, and that movie Road to Wellville. Do you remember that movie with the, that was about this guy? Yeah. It was a fictionalized version of it with Anthony Hopkins. I feel like I'd be, I'd, maybe yogurt would be nice and cold on your, uh, on your bottom. I don't think, I don't, having yogurt up your butt sounds like a pleasant experience. Anyway, here's, it's time for my new segment.

Uh, Toast Spoon Man. This one comes from, uh, at Armin Weitzman. Do you know, do you know him, Nick? Yeah, I know Armin Weitzman. Uh, do you know of, do you know of his, what his Twitter handle is? Uh, wait, let's see, Armin has a, oh god. This is a disaster. It is.

What a train wreck of an opening. Who, me? Uh, no, yeah, Armin, I think, is it just Armin Weitzman? It is, it is at Armin Weitzman. Anyways, here it is. Here's his toast to the Spoon Man. A toast to Mike Mitchell, a man who has kept a picture of me above his bed out of guilt for hurting my precious feelings.

He knows I watch over him when he slumbers, snores, or lets a little white out of his secret member. The little white that one day will make him a child? And Mark, yes, that's the one. Love you, Mike. Lakers won, but green is the color of the Celtics. Dirty green, question mark. I'd say so.

Hi, Doughboys. Oh, wait, did I do this? Hi, Weiger. I, uh, I like spicy mustard sometimes, but not like that much. It's my twin aunt's birthday. That was Armin Weitzman. If you have a toast for the Spoon Man, send it to SpoonManDrops at gmail.com. Or be one of Mitch's friends and text him.

Well, guess what? It was a new segment. Yeah, I know. You got to, you got to put your thumb on the scale a little bit. And these people offered up toasts of me. It's very nice. Um, Lakers do rule. You're right about that, Armin.

Uh, so, uh, Cool. You're wearing a dorky Lakers hat. It's a cool hat. Also, I just want to say, to Spoon Nation, and we're going to give you a little bit of a drop coming on right up in one second, baby. We should just redo this whole beginning. No, we shouldn't.

This is an insult to our loyal listeners. No, it's not. The MP3 is attached. Here we go. This is from Andy Andrew All-Adler, uh, and it's a sound cloud. It's going to be great. And away we go. Hey, how you doing?

We talking about practice. Yes. Rude and sex. Those are my two passions. The sex is about love between a man and a woman, not a man and a sandwich. Yes. Tell me what you got some sense in. Not the game.

We talking about practice, man. Everything's possible. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool.

I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. Yeah.

Fuck yeah. A fool is that special. Just, I'm losing my mind. I'm losing my mind. That's that. You know what? This is the thing. The way our podcast is conducted is we have our guests sitting in the studio.

And if you've listened to a lot of episodes, you've heard some guests remark on this before, but kind of they kind of sitting there mutely because Dustin gets the levels all set. He gets all the microphones going. So it's just easier to do that than to bring someone in from the other room and then do it at that point. It's less of an interruption. But I have never seen a more angry expression than what our guest has been doing to the entirety of that.

That's our fucking guest for God's sakes. He's been just sitting there just like glaring at us, just so mad. He's probably mad because he is who he is. That's just his nature. I know why he's mad. Because he has a fucking shitty ass writing partner. Let's introduce our guest. He's a screenwriter who's cut its include the upcoming films Fist Fight and Sonic the

Hedgehog, Van Roby Show. Hi, Van. Hey. Hi to everybody out in Spoon Nation. Hell yeah. And hi to the Burger Brigade. Oh boy. You just gave us both the words.

Dearing yourself to our listeners, right away. I also like there was a Celtics Anything Is Possible thing in there. Oh yeah. Yeah. You didn't care. I know the reference. Van, welcome, my friend. Thanks for having me here.

So, Mitch remarked on your writing partner. So, the films, if you're an avid listener and you've heard Evan Susser's name before, the films that he is credited on are films that you were credited on because the two of you are a duo. You work together. That's correct. We work together. I see Evan every week, which is, I think I'm maybe the only person forced to see Evan

more than you guys. Jesus. More so than even his wife? Yeah. She travels a lot by design. Poor Jamie. Now, are you referred to as the slim one of the duo? You know, some people call me the tall one, which is, I think we're almost the same height,

though. So, I really, I don't want to encourage a slim one, sort of a designation, but tall one, I don't find to be really particularly accurate. So, the slim one. In a manner of speaking, yeah. But it's kind of like you guys kind of have a snobs versus slobs sort of demeanor, because Susser is the ultimate slob, and I'd say you're something of a snob. Well, I think we kind of carry a classic sort of a Siskel and Ebert Laurel and Hardy tall

guy, larger man, pairing. Sure. Susser, I had my couch for, I've had my couch for seven years now. It's a beat up piece of shit. Never have spilled anything on it. Susser was over, immediately spilled like a big vat of blue cheese. I don't even know where he got it from, truly. I was like, where did that, it was blue cheese on it, we ordered something.

Yeah, you gotta watch out for spills with him. He spilled the whole fucking thing, and we turned over the couch-couch, and that's how we fixed the problem. I feel like I just like, 70% of the time when I see Susser, he just has mustard on him. Yeah, no. You know, I very early in our relationship embraced that side of Evan, and I think that it gives an unpredictability to us as a team. Sure.

Tell quick, go ahead. Do you think you've ever been in the writer's room for too long, and then he started to imagine you as a giant hot dog ever? Yeah, no. I think more along the time, you know, in Seinfeld when Kramer is imagined as the full turkey by Newman, that's basically what, I fear that every day. I liked that, oh, that's a great episode, first of all. And the second of all, I liked that, they had some Seinfeld, a little bit of Seinfeld

in there. I don't want to insult Spoon Nation or any of the people who submit the drops or the particular submitter this time, but I just want to say in general, I have noticed a trend across Doughboy's episodes, the drops have maybe, I don't want to say taken a dip in quality. Are you saying that they've worn out their welcome? No, I want to make it very clear that I do not think they've worn out their welcome. I think that they've taken a noticeable dip in quality, and I think that the onus is on the people who are putting them together or maybe on Mitch himself to kind of raise the

bar back to the high level that it used to have. Right, and I wanted to talk on this particular episode because I was unprepared going in, but I feel like you have no screening process anymore. There was a point when you would listen to a few of them and then pick your favorite and now it's just like you just pick whatever one is in your inbox. That's pretty much accurate. So as a result, it's kind of stagnated, but here's the thing. Was there a Simpson?

Okay, we got Rose Spoonman. We got Rose Spoonman. You've got Toast Spoonman. Maybe Toast Spoonman takes the place of the drops for a little while and you let the drops drop off and then you bring them back in when the fans are screaming for them. Now, I don't like that idea, but I want to share an observation about it. As I was sitting here and when I heard Mitch launch into his toast from Armin, I thought, oh, this is taking the place of the drops. But I want to say I was disappointed.

I was like, oh, no, there won't be drops in the episode that I was finally allowed to come on Doughboys and do. Because I knew there were drops back when you guys did Popeyes, which was an episode that was promised to me. This isn't like a parole hearing. It was like a big waiting list that we were gatekeepers finally letting you on. I'm thinking of kicking your ass out of here right now. I'm sorry, but I'm still a little steamed.

I'm from Louisiana. I'm from Louisiana, boy. We wanted to talk about this because previously we wanted you on the podcast for Popeyes and we had an opportunity to have Leslie Arfin on. Leslie Arfin also wanted to do Popeyes, so we were like, hey, we're going to have someone else do Popeyes. You were pretty personally hurt by this. Well, it's just that I had asked well in advance and Mitch had committed

to doing Popeyes with me and then it was also Mitch who told Leslie she could do Popeyes. If I recall, Mitch tried to for a minute kind of put it on the Doughboys collectively. Maybe hint or suggest that Nick had been behind the other book. I maybe even said Nick did it. And then I think I also at this point, at some point in this interaction, I think I said to Mitch, hey, didn't we say Van was going to come on to do Popeyes and I think your reply was fuck Van or something along those lines?

Hold on, let me think about this. One, I got to think about should I have Toast Spoo Man replace my drops? And my answer for that is no, fuck Wyger. And then for Van, did I hurt Van's feelings? Who cares fuck Van as well? Well, I expected that kind of a reaction from you, Mitch, to be honest, which is why I brought my notes for what I was going to talk about for Popeyes. Jesus Christ.

I'm going to let you guys know what the topics I was going to discuss are. I'm not going to go into the topics or discuss them because I would have to be invited on for Popeyes in order to do that, but I'm just going to give you guys a preview of what you missed out on. Oh my God. So the first part is the all you care to eat Popeyes located by my high school, which was as much as you want to eat Popeyes, there's unlimited Popeyes that you could have.

Sounds opulent. Popeyes buffet. The second topic was Popeyes founder Al Copeland's feud interview with a vampire novelist, Anne Rice. Oh yeah, I read about this a little bit. That was a barn burn. Yeah, I was there when that was going on, so I know all the details. Two very rich New Orleans residents.

That's very true. And then Al Copeland's cigarette boat racing boats. I was going to go into that. And then also the famous Popeyes, the cartoon intellectual property lawsuit with Popeyes chicken. And that came down to the there was it had something to do with the absence of the apostrophe was the argument, right? That was part of it.

But the most interesting part, which is a little teaser for if you have me back. During the lawsuit, Al Copeland, who he's since passed away, but was a sort of a notoriously loudmouthed kind of a Trump-esque figure even. An eccentric. An eccentric businessman. During the lawsuit, he started putting Popeye the cartoon on the bags. The thinking being they're already suing me. Right.

I'm going to just use Popeye recklessly with just a band. I kind of like that. But anyway, you guys were going to hear all about that. But instead, we're going to talk about Gilgerland. This is annoying to me because you've never been interesting in your life. And now you start listing off all these things that are very interesting to me. Well, I'm sorry, Mitch. This is just what you're going to miss out on.

Van, I'm being hard on you. You know, Van invited me to the first crawfish boil I've ever been to. I was at that crawfish boil. He's a real Louisiana guy. That's right. I think Gilger was there. I took a picture of Handman, Mike Hanford wearing a bib. It was a great time.

Put it on Instagram. Lots of likes. Oh, sure. That sounds like a grand old time. Van, so growing up, you experienced that real New Orleans life, huh? I did. Yeah, down in the Lazy South, as we call it. And so what are some of your favorite New Orleans treats, would you say?

Do you like Gator? Do you like hush puppies? Do you like... Maybe hush puppies are more of a Florida thing or what? Well, Gator, for example, is sort of like an exotic tourist meat, like sure. You're going to see Gator on a menu at a lot of restaurants, but for the most part, that's going to be just sort of a tourist trap item. Yes.

Now, there are some places that'll have a delicious Gator dish, and you'll know about those certain places. Well, you steered us towards a place that Mitch and I went with my lovely wife, Natalie, on your recommendation, and they had an alligator cheesecake. That was just a delight. Now, that is a delicious item there. Jocamos. Jocamos.

That was a fantastic restaurant. One of the best meals I had in New Orleans. I'd say that... Jocamos and then Mandinas was another place I just had a fantastic meal in that... Yeah, I'm surprised that you... Down in the bayou. You went up to school in the Baltimore... The Washington, D.C. area, was it?

No, it was St. Louis, right? No, that... I went to school in the St. Louis area. Oh. Evan Susser is from the Washington, D.C. area. Yes, what it is. And I did meet Evan Susser in college, and I think you sort of put those facts together. I 100% did.

You guys... In that lump inside your head. Did you go to Washington University? We went to Washington University in St. Louis. That's the confusion. So it is confusing. Yeah. It is confusing, but also, you had such a great place to go to school down there.

You went up, you had to fucking go to school with Susser. You know, if I had never gone there, I would have never met Evan. We'd have never started working together out here. Interesting. You may not know him. Yeah, I would have a much more relaxing life, I think. But you guys are about your big successes now. You're taking big meetings with Hollywood insiders all the time.

You're pitching all over town. You're selling scripts. Van is one of the creators of the What's Going On talk show, What's Going On with Mike Mitchell. I was a creator of What's Going On with Mike Mitchell. So you've caused a lot of anxiety for me in my life. I was back at FX today, and FX is the network who produced this talk show featuring Mitch. And as we were leaving, the executive we were meeting with said, do I know you guys?

Have I met you before? He said, oh, well, we worked with FX before. We did a pilot, a talk show pilot, called What's Going On. And then just a complete blank expression on her face, followed by, oh, that was before my time. Right. Was she lying? I'm not entirely sure, but it certainly did not ring a bell to her. But I'm very proud of it.

What's going on with Blake Griffin? Yes, that's the new rumor. I want to Neptune Oysterbrough. I want to talk about this before we write. Neptune, is that the one that's right near... Oh, wait, I think I'm thinking of the one in San Francisco. Yeah, I don't know a Neptune. What's the one right by the crazy party street there?

You describe about 30 oyster places in 40 different streets. Acme Oyster House is right by Bourbon Street. No, it's not Acme, but it's right near that. That's, I would say, maybe an overrated place. It was not. Or a place you'd read about in a Zagat guide, maybe. It was not Acme, but it was right around there. You're not going to know it, aren't you?

We spent, like, when we were in New Orleans at a lovely time, and we were there. Mitch, you and I were there for the same wedding, so there were a bunch of mutual friends down there. But me and Natalie walked over to Bourbon Street for one point, and I've told the story of the podcast before, but the drunkest man I've ever seen in person, just a staggeringly drunk man walking... Yeah, there's a lot of that. ...and then fell into a plate glass window with the force of a wrecking ball hitting the side of a building, but somehow didn't shatter it, just, like, just hit it so fucking hard.

It was actually truly, truly funny. Really, it was insane. Something that happens with a decent amount of regularity in New Orleans, you know, at least once a year, I would say, is someone falling down, drunk, and hitting their head and just dying. Right. They just fall down and hit their head, and that's it for them. At our old apartment, me and Natalie, our old apartment, we were right behind a blockbuster video that has been, it got closed and turned into a pet co.

We lived there long enough to watch this transition happen. But we were walking out of our apartment once, and we were walking next to this blockbuster, and, like, these four, these two couples were walking together. There's two young couples, people in their 20-somethings. They're all just sort of, like, walking, like, mid-story. Like, everyone just sort of laughing, like, ha, ha, ha. Sounds like the Friends Crew. Yeah, it was. It was like the Friends Crew having a grand old time,

and then this one guy, this bigger bald guy, just out of nowhere starts having a seizure on his feet and then falls and then hits his head into the side of the blockbuster video and collapses to the ground. And everyone's like, oh my god, it's like this huge medical emergency. They're rushing over. They're like, what the fuck is going on? They're calling 911. Anyway, right next to the blockbuster is a hospital. So I sprinted over to the ER, and I'm just like, oh, like, you know, I, like, sprint across the parking lot and go into the ER,

and I'm like, like, like, a guy just had a seizure, just hit his head over there. He was on the ground, and they just looked at me like, call 911. Like, there was no protocol for them to, like, like, I was like, he's out. Like, you can see him from here, and there was, like, nothing they could do. By the way, this guy sounds like a real Chandler. He was the Chandler of the group. He was, was he okay? It was, I honestly have no idea.

We got back there and the ambulance was arriving. I hope he was okay, but it was so bizarre how out of nowhere it was. I was like, that can happen with a seizure. It's just like, you're, like, mid-stride, and then all of a sudden you start convulsing, and then your head is smashing into a cement wall. See, this is part of the blockbuster experience that Netflix just can't replicate.

That's true. Well, this is a depressing start to the podcast. Van. Yes. It was Felix's Oyster Bar. Felix's Oyster Bar. And okay, I know Felix's. And Felix's was very good.

Neptune is in San Francisco. Yeah, it did not seem like the one to me. And I think it actually is a little overrated. There's a really long line at Neptune, but there's a pretty long line at Felix's, too. I liked Felix's a lot. Here's what I was gonna say. Okay.

You guys got them grilled oysters down there, which are delicious. I love grilled oysters. I love grilled oysters. You know, I'm a New England man, and we kind of eat those things just, you shuck them in a year. Sure, sure. And we do that, too, but we'll grill an oyster, we'll deep fry an oyster, bread it.

Hey, we'll deep fry them, too, but the grilled oysters were really, it was something that I hadn't experienced that much of until I was down there. There's that buttery garlic sauce on top of them, and you get the bread. It's my favorite version of oysters. I really liked it a lot.

It was really, really good. So, congrats. Thank you. Good job. I'll take all the credit for that. Yeah, Felix's, is Felix's a good spot? Felix's is a good spot. I had alligator there, too.

It's good, but I guess you're right that it's a touristy thing. It's a little bit of a gimmick. Also, Popeyes, Felix's are all the New Orleans institutions have their intellectual property stolen from cartoons from the 20s. Felix is maybe like the wackest cat there is. Yeah, Felix sucks. Yeah, but what does he do? Is he like a magician?

I don't know what he, he's just like a, he just, he's more known for the clock these days. I have no idea what his personality is. He's probably just generally mischievous. I'm sure it's like it has some sort of like racial connotations that are just like, it's like based on some horrific racial stereotype was the origin of Felix. You know who I hate is Heathcliff.

Heathcliff really is bad. Ah, Heathcliff is, he's fun. Heathcliff sucks. Like, read an actual Heathcliff comic. It makes no sense. They're just utterly incoherent. I've always preferred Heathcliff to Garfield. You prefer Heathcliff?

I prefer Heathcliff. Garfield makes sense. Heathcliff is just nothing. I think that's what I prefer about it. By the way, Van and Evan are probably writing all these movies. Are you writing the Heathcliff and the Felix the Cat movie? No, I'm not, but you know, I have been working on the Sonic the Hedgehog movie and I have something here.

It's got three holes in it. It's got little three-ring binder clips in it. They're called brads. Brads, yeah. And I know that Evan Susser has been very not forthcoming about certain information. Wow. So I would like to read an excerpt from this.

Please, please do. Okay, cool. Wow, this is an exclusive. This looks a little thin to be an actual draft. Or is this a full draft? Or is this a treatment? Well, I think it's going to become pretty obvious what I've got here in a second. This is, let's see here.

Artists shall not, without company's prior written consent, engage in any publicity activities including interviews with respect to the picture or artist services here under. Provided, however, the artist need not obtain company's consent to engage in personal publicity activities including interviews which do not relate primarily to the picture and in connection therewith to make only incidental non-derogatory mention of the company, the picture, artist services,

or other person's rendering services in connection with the picture. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. This is Evan Susser's signed contract for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie containing the NDA that applies to him. Wow. Do you think he's in violation of his non-disclosure agreement by virtue of even appearing on this podcast? As long, I believe he is not, judging by those terms.

I think that disclosing the terms of the contract is actually a violation of the agreement on my behalf. However, I don't think Evan has violated it. I just want to say that for those of you wondering, yes, there is a gravy stain on Evan's contract. In fact, I think, did he sign his name in gravy? That's just a spill, but it's very close to his signature. The whole thing is printed on Papa John's napkins.

In case I needed it while I'm going through my paperwork, I brought these demographics of Quincy, Massachusetts. This is just a demographic breakdown. What the fuck, man? It's based on the 1990 and the 2010 census. How are we doing? Well, actually, this is like a true fact. The education level of Quincy did go up when you left.

It doesn't break down the cause of that. It could be a lot of factors, but you can make certain inferences from it if you want to. Mitch was just dragging the average down solo. Oh, really? Those who were counting in 1990, which I would say were some of Mitch's prime Quincy years, Quincy was 91% white. It's Boston area. What are you talking about? What else, and now what is it?

Now what is it? It is 67. Oh, boy, okay. Some diversity coming in there. For sure. That's why you bailed. What are the numbers? What's the population of Quincy? The population of Quincy. This is turning into a Quincy pod. It's just over about 100,000.

100,000. I missed that place. Anyway. Anything interesting in the breakdown for Quincy Van? You know, that one statistic about the education rate was the best I could get to something interesting about it. I can tell you, maybe you could guess, what age bracket in 2010 census is the largest of the brackets in Quincy? These are in four-year increments. Okay, and right now you're saying? Yeah, right now.

I'm going to guess like 20s. Yeah, 25 to 29. Okay. Good work, Mitch. See, you know your hometown. I know my hometown because a lot of people are moving there. Quincy is getting a little bit, not even, because Quincy is not a terrible place. Right. But it's getting a little bit of that, oh, gentrification, like moving, like, oh, it's a hip,

like more young people are moving there because it's more affordable than Boston. It's the spot. Yeah, it's the spot. Just like South Boston and Dorchester, people kind of gentrified those places a little bit. They're moving to Quincy. I guess it's more expensive to live there now. I don't know. I don't fucking know what goes on there, but a lot of young families are moving there.

It's a great city, Van and Weigar. I would love to take you guys there soon so you can get a little tour, just like I got a tour of New Orleans. But anyway, speaking of New Orleans, or, you know what, before we even get into New Orleans. I think we've gone through New Orleans and are done with it. Yeah, what are you talking about? You started with a bunch of New Orleans facts, and then... All right, then fuck New Orleans. We're going to talk through a few different restaurants.

I want to talk about this podcast just needs to be more fun, okay? I think that we should have sound effects on the podcast, and I've said this a long time ago. And you want this to turn into, like, morning zoo radio? When my dad used to drive me to school, he listened to Imus in the morning. I know that Imus... Notorious racist Don Imus. Don Imus has turned into a right wing. My dad is a dem baby.

He's a liberal man. Right. He's dead. He's passed away. But he voted Green Party a long time ago. He's a progressive guy. He did like Imus in the morning. Imus turned out to be a pretty awful guy.

But here's the deal is that he had fun sound effects. Right. I don't remember they would have a... They would mention what time it was in a duck would go, and I thought that was funny. And I think that no one's even paying... Nick, you're on your fucking phone. Wait, okay.

I have one sound effect on Dropbox on my phone. Hold on. I'm gonna announce the time first. Hold on, hold on. Yeah, what time is it, Vin? It's 1045 p.m. Look, this is a mess. This isn't playing.

You couldn't play it? No, it's not playing. Well, it's an 8-meg A file, so it's not downloading on the bad Wi-Fi in here. Well, I've got something I can play for Mr. Play. Was it Let's It Go? What was it? I have a...

I have Skeletor Laughing. Jesus Christ. Look, we're not gonna add more sound effects. This is already... This is already like a chaotic waste of everyone's time. It should be more fun. I think it's plenty fun enough. I have something fun.

It should be fun for the listeners, and it is, and that's the problem. That's why the podcast is a mess. I have something fun. It's fun for Mitch. It's fun for the listeners. Good friend of mine, a British actress. Her name is Amber Hodgkis.

She was over at my house before I came to the podcast, and then before I waited two hours to go on. And Jesus Christ. And she has met Mitch on occasion at a few events. She's famous to me for saying who's Mitch when I bring him up. Right. That's a running joke with us, though, so she does know who Mitch is. She just says who's Mitch.

She's having a laugh. She's having a laugh, but she has a little message for Mitch and for the Doughboys. I'm gonna actually walk it over by Mitch's mic because there's a video element, and I want him to be able to watch it and the audience to be able to hear it. What's going on here?

Look, he came in. He came in loaded and ready to go. Oh, God. He had a bunch of pre-planned bits. All right, here we are. Oh, no. It's silent, you fool. Oh, my Mitch.

Oh, God. What are you doing? This is the most fucked up episode of this fucking joke. Really, we joked on the previous episode that it was going to be the last, and then we just failed by not doing that. Like, we should have really just called, and then quit while we were way behind.

Mitch, Spoon Month. Have a great show and say hi and be nice to my friend Van. I've never seen a woman in my life more... She was... You can just tell in her eyes how forced she was to do that. I feel so fucking bad for her.

Man, I am being too mean to you. I'm gonna be nicer to you. Thank you, Mitch. And I want to start by saying, you and Evan, you guys do great jobs. A lot of funny things. A lot of great stuff. A lot of funny stuff.

Can you tell us the state of Sonic? What's going on? I cannot tell you guys the state of Sonic. I'm not able to comment at this time. If you guys want more excerpts from Evan's non-disclosure agreement, I am happy to discuss those, but I cannot go into any details.

Weiger is now just looking at his phone. Here's the thing. I got in my head, because I brought up Heathcliff earlier. There was some Heathcliff defense. You know, I was a big fan of the cartoon for Heathcliff as well. It was funny. He ate fish.

And he likes the trash? He loves the trash. The strip is so fucking bad. I was looking up some old Heathcliffs, because I shared a few of them on Twitter, because they're just so incoherent. But here's just a random one that I looked up. It's got Heathcliff on a dirt bike.

I like it already. And he's wearing an astronaut suit that covers his face. This is fun. Or maybe a motorcycle safety outfit like Evil Can Evil might wear. I'm saying it looks like an astronaut suit with cat ears. Like, that's how poorly it's drawn.

He's on a dirt bike. He's jumping over, I guess, a road bump in front of his house. And an old lady, I think the old lady who owns him is leaning out the window. And the caption is, he's late for church. Like, what is that trying to say? It doesn't make any sense.

I think that's actually funny. That is actually funny. He's late for church. Well, he's late for church, so he's riding a dirt bike? That's the joke behind it? That's a funny joke. Does it have a year on it when that's from?

This is from, like, last year, 2015. Here's another one. That's even funnier. A 2015 Heathcliff. All right, three youths. I'll show this to you. Three youths are playing pickup basketball on a board. By the way, the comic doesn't call them youths.

That's Old Man Weigher who's calling them fucking youths. They are youths because one of them has, like, a fucking old-timey cap with a... And one of them has a propeller beanie and one of them has a newsboy cap. They're like kids from the 20s, but they're in modern day. They're playing pickup basketball beneath a cityscape.

Heathcliff is in a blimp above their heads. A blimp, which is a recurring theme in the Heathcliff strips. The caption is, too bad he had to cut out early. So the idea is Heathcliff was playing basketball with these kids and then left in a blimp. That's the joke? Man, you should picture the Heathcliff movie.

I think he's funny. I like Heathcliff and I like his blimp. As a child, I actually rode on the Goodyear blimp. Did you really? I really did, yeah. It was fun. It flew over my school. There was a promotion going on

where if you bought a full set of tires, you got to ride on the Goodyear blimp. And my dad had always been a dream of his to ride on the Goodyear blimp. This is a real dream. And so he bought new tires for himself. He bought new tires for my mother. And then he gave away two sets of new tires

to two friends of his so that he could take his family on the Goodyear blimp. Wow. Wait, so it was like, this was not a contest. No, this was like, if you buy one set, you're guaranteed on. It was a crazy offer. That's an insane promotion. Because a set of tires, while not the cheapest thing in the world,

also is a pretty cheap ticket for a ride on the Goodyear blimp, something that has no value. It's almost an unlimited value to such an experience. Four sets of tires so you could take his immediate family on the blimp with him. That's quite something. Yeah. What's the interior of the blimp like?

What's that cabin? The interior of the blimp is, I would say it's actually about the size of this room. Okay. Yeah, so there, and you can see the like, there's not a barrier between the blimp pilot and co-pilot and you. They're just sitting there. They're just kind of sitting up there

and there's sort of rows of seats behind that you sit in. So for people who aren't in the studio, which is basically everyone who's listening, this is kind of, the interior is kind of like the size of a small RV. It's a very, it's a pretty compact narrow space. When was this, what year? This would have been, let's see, I would have been seven years old, I believe. Okay. So this is like the early 90s, 93, 92, something like that?

Too bad it wasn't 1937. No, I'm sorry, I report. All right, one more Heathcliff I looked up. Okay. We've got a genie coming out of a lamp in an alley in front of a dumpster. Heathcliff is wearing a pair of pants. The caption is, the genie is speaking and attributed to him is this sentence, there you go, a new pair of jeans.

So that was his wish. His wish was to get a pair of jeans. That's funny. Heathcliff's easy to please. It's not funny. It makes sense, which is better than most Heathcliffs. I'm smiling. I think this has been a real disaster for you, Liger.

Look, I think these have all been terrific. I'm taking my case to the Burger Brigade, I think the people out there will be on the side of Team Fuck Heathcliff. But here's what I would say, if you're talking about the Heathcliff movie, here's my pitch for you. You take all the great cats, you take Heathcliff, Garfield, Felix, who else? The cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Itchy? Yeah, you take Scratchy from The Simpsons. You do Cat Avengers.

All the great cats cram them into one movie. You're such a fucking idiot. Justify why all these different cats are going to team up to fight one bad dog. And that seems like in the age of all these mash-up movies, in the age of all these expanded universes, I think that we should do the same thing with kids' properties. Come up with a family franchise that's based on taking a bunch of different iconic characters. I got another pitch for you. You call it Pussy Posse.

And you have, all the characters are voiced by Leonardo DiCaprio. Right. Ethan Supley. You get the real Pussy Posse to voice the cats. The guy from, they played the manager in Entourage. That's right. All those lovable guys. Who else was it?

Toby McGuire? Toby McGuire. But I think he had a falling out. Anyways, anyone who's a part of the Pussy Posse is a huge piece of shit. Except I do like Leo. He's a good actor. So I do want to get to Yogurtland and talk about it with you guys. Sure. But before I do, well, before I do, I have one more thing I want to talk about.

You know, you guys introduced me as a screenwriter, and it is true that I do write with Evan. Right. But I do a lot of other things. I produce, I direct, I design and develop apps. You wear a lot of hats. I wear a lot of hats and something I'm working on, which is, it's sort of a startup. And I want to just talk about it for a minute. It does relate to you guys.

And it's called Mitch.Pizza. Fuck this shit. What Mitch.Pizza is, is it's a way... This is why you weren't asked on for so fucking long. It's a way to communicate with Mitch. Right. You know, Mitch is notoriously hard to get in touch with. He doesn't answer emails.

No. And... I don't do it. Not only does he not answer them, you know, it can be hard to even figure out Mitch's email. Right. He has an AOL email address that is almost indecipherable. So if you email, and this will be live when the, when the podcast airs, if you email Mike at Mitch.Pizza, that email is going to go directly to Mike Mitchell.

And we've got a lot of features planned in the future. If he doesn't respond to an email in a certain amount of time, it'll send a notice to his phone and things like that. But if you guys want to just please start emailing anything you want to email to Mitch, you can send it to Mike at Mitch.Pizza and it's going to go right to him. Okay, there'll be a lawsuit shortly. Have you fucked with my phone? Anyway, these get forwarded to me.

I'm blocking all of them just so people know. Mitch, not because I like pizza. Is that what it is? Well, I wanted it to be easy to remember. Right. Easy to remember because the biggest problem with emailing Mitch is it's very difficult to remember his email address. For sure.

Which is, I believe, M-M-I-C, then a four instead of an eight. And it's shut up. Don't say my email. And a series of numbers that I couldn't say if I wanted to because they aren't his birth date, his favorite football player. They're no discernible numbers at all. They're just random digits. That's the way I like it.

He's like the powerball numbers. Don't email me as my real answer. Also, Van, if I didn't have these headphones on, I'd stun ya. Stone cold Steve Austin stun ya. And I just want to say you're working with the man himself right now. I am. That is true. I'm working with Steve Austin, a former professional wrestler, current good friend of Van's.

You think that's how he self-identified? I think so, yeah. Any good anecdotes you can tell us about Stone Cold? Because I got to say, I think that Stone Cold is one of the top 20 fictional characters of all time. You made this case to me in a text message once. Like, just out of nowhere, you just texted a group text like, Stone Cold Steve Austin is one of the best fictional characters ever.

He truly is. And in college, I used to like to stun people. It was fun. Wu Tang stuns people every so often. The stunner is one of the best wrestling moves that any local can do. It's a great wrestling move. You know, Steve has told me lots of great stories. He told me the story about the time he did the stunner on Donald Trump.

Oh, really? Yeah, he told me just plenty of great stories. But what I'm going to give you is a story of something that happened today with Steve Austin and Evan Susser. Oh, that ends up with Susser getting stunned from the Olympics. Susser did not get stunned, but he came very close. We were in a meeting with Steve, and it came up that Steve has a ranch that he goes to in San Antonio, I believe, Texas.

Right. And Evan mentions this, and he referred to it as Steve's farm, to which Steve responded, I ain't got a farm. I've got a ranch. I don't have chickens and shit. I've got cool stuff like horses and tractors. You dumbass, Susser. Did Evan, in response, drop his sandwich?

Yeah, he dropped his jaw and the sandwich fell out. He was eating at the time. Did Evan then set up a match between Stone Cold and his client, the Undertaker? I'm trying to say that Susser is the modern-day Paul Bearer. Right. Anyways, Van, we should talk about Yogurtland. Okay, yeah, let's do it. What the hell does this place mean to you?

I don't say this much. I don't even know if it means anything to you, but there was a special promotion going on. There are all the Nintendo characters here. You got three Mario fanatics in the room right now. All three of us were raised on Super Mario. I think it bonds us in a lot of ways. Yeah, I think that's true. So Yogurtland right now, as Mitch was alluding to, each week through August and September,

they've got a different Mario character's flavor that they're featuring. Some of them seem a little bit more connected to what the character is known for. I had some issues with that, yeah. Others of them seem a little bit more arbitrary. And the flavor that I had in this particular week was the... Yeah, Mitch was asking if you could take a water. Yes, you could take a water. Thank you.

I had the Koopa Troopas Lemon Cupcake. Did you guys sample the Koopa Troopa flavors? I did. That was what was available. I sampled it. I did not get it. But before we get into that, can I just ask Van a quick question? Of course.

Van, what does Yogurtland mean to you? What do desserts mean to you in general? What are your favorite type of desserts? Well, I like a lot of desserts, but I think actually if you're asking what Yogurtland means to me, I can tell you a little bit about a personal experience I have with Yogurtland. That's true. It involves my wife. I'm a married man.

Yeah. And there's a Yogurtland just up the street for me. One Laurel Canyon. And if you go just up the street, you hit an area of Los Angeles called the Valley. And right there, when you right get to the Valley, there's a Yogurtland. And sometimes, you know, if my wife's at home and I'm in the area, what I'll do is I'll go to that Yogurtland and I will video call her on my cell phone. And I'll take the camera and I'll show all the flavors of Yogurtland one by one.

And then she'll get to pick which flavor she would like me to bring home to her. And it's just a nice couple of moment for the two of us and it involves that Yogurtland. And that frozen treat survives that, what, ten minute drive? How far are you going? You know, if it's a nighttime drive and it's after the traffic has died down, I can get back from Yogurtland in seven, eight minutes. Oh boy, okay. So if you're doing that, that's usually something for her, or are you getting a little sweet

treat for yourself as well? I'll pick up something for myself too, but you know, it's about the entire experience. Right. Would you say you have a sweet tooth? Are you like a dessert fan? You know, I'm more of a savory guy. Like if I had a choice between, you know, just a terrific, delicious dessert, but also maybe a tasty, juicy hamburger, I think I'd go with that tasty, juicy hamburger.

Van, you know, we're bonding a little bit here because I feel the same way. There you go. I don't, I like dessert, obviously. Who doesn't like dessert? Dessert is just weird for me because it's a thing that I feel like I shouldn't be eating almost always. So I don't usually eat dessert. I know that some people, like when people eat dessert every, like a couple of times

a week even, which like that to me seems excessive. I've mentioned before growing up, we had dessert every night that was just like a family ritual. That's surprising to me. It was insane in hindsight that we were doing that. Yeah. And we, I definitely did not do that in my family. I like dessert, but I am kind of more of a savory guy. And does that translate over into my, even my desserts?

I mean, there's not a ton of savory desserts, but what I'm saying is like, what am I kind of craving in a dessert? And it would usually be like, like something chocolatey or some sort of, some sort of maybe cake. You know, out there, let us know if you prefer sweet or savory. If you love your sweet guy, hashtag sweetheart. And if you like it, savory, hashtag savory, flavory, some solid hashtags. Now I, I'm not sure if you guys have this information because I've seen the sort of

preparation that can go into a dough boys. Right. I have a list. I have the list of flavors of Super Mario. I have the flavors, the list of Mario themed flavors. All of the flavors that were offered during this promotion. And I think we can maybe go through them real quickly. Yeah.

Which ones that we think feel on theme or like there's any meaningful connection to Mario and which ones feel completely arbitrary might be stretched and added a Mario promotion to preexisting frozen yogurt flavors. Let me just say this. It is hard. I think that I think it is, I think it's genuinely hard to do a one to one. How are you? You know what I mean?

He's, he's got green color. You make, we have a green mint flavor or something. Mario is red, but they didn't even really do that. So let's, let's, let's talk about it as, as three superfans. Also before we do that even, let's break it down quickly. Favorite Mario games in order. Hmm. And you know what?

We'll give a cut off at, where do you want to, I guess maybe we could just overall. Yeah. Up to, but are you saying like, give us your, give us your, give us your top three. I can give my top three if we're talking core Mario series games. That's what I want to know. We're not doing the sports games or Mario card. That is what we're doing. Good.

Yeah. We're doing, we're doing, we're doing core Mario. Okay. Okay. Then I would say, uh, Super Mario Brothers three, uh, followed by Mario 64 followed by Super Mario World. Very solid list. Solid list.

I like it. I would, I'll let you go, I'll let you go in pole position, Mitch. Um, I'm going, or whatever, I'll let you go after me. That's what I'm trying to say. Um, uh, I would go Super Mario World number one. Yeah. Super Mario 3D World number two. Wow.

Very, very high up for me. Controversial. Um, and then number three, I think I'd put Super Mario 64, but I'm, but like it's very close for Super Mario Brothers three with you, but I think 64 is just a little bit more polished and revolutionary. Wow. Uh, you know, I was having a conversation with, uh, the two of you about Mario at a recent time and, uh, someone mentioned, uh, a theory that the Mario for Mario 64 is the

grandson of the original Mario. Yeah. So this is an interesting idea. Bullshit. No, it's not interesting. I would like, I want to, Mitch, I want to hear your top three and then we'll discuss this, this lineage theory, but I think there's some merit to it. My top three are number one, Super Mario 64.

Very good choice. Number two, Super Mario World. Those are, those are by far my two favorites. Both games, I hundred percented. I actually liked that they weren't that hard. So number three is Super Mario 3D World slash Super Mario Brothers three, because those two are, are, are, are, are, are, are close and both actually very, very challenging towards the end.

Yeah. They get really hard and also too, like very, um, similar in terms of like the way they use the world map and the way they kind of have this, the way they kind of use imagination for lack of a better, like they just, they both have a very imaginative moment, like the cat suit or, uh, is it Kuribo's shoe, what, what, what's that shoe called in Super Mario World? Oh yes. It's only present in one level.

I don't care what the name of it. Someone will correct me. I'm sure. Were you starting to turn into the stone statue? Oh yeah, in the Tanuki suit. Oh, I'm sorry. The Tanuki suit. That's a different thing, but there's just like so much imagination in the, in both of

those games and, uh, yeah, what a, what a fantastic franchise. Um, but okay. Give us your, yeah. Just sweeten out us your top three and give them a hashtag for this. I don't know. Oh, it's going to be, uh, top three Mario. All right. Top three Mario.

That's exceptional. Um, makes sense. Unlike our normal hashtags. Um, so here's the Mario Brothers theory. So we already know that Cranky Kong is the original Donkey Kong from the Donkey Kong game. So the guy who, who kidnapped Pauline and was, uh, hiding him from the, like who he perceived as the villainous jump man. So that like informs the possibility that jump a man from Donkey Kong is not the Mario

from Super Mario Brothers or the subsequent entries in the series. Reddit, the, the gaming subreddit tracked down that there's an old tin, uh, from Super Mario Brothers from Japan that has a picture of an older man in a jump man suit on the wall of Mario's home or what seems to be Mario's home. And there's some speculation that this is Mario's dad. And so just as Cranky Kong is the current Donkey Kong's grandfather, Donkey Kong, Junior's Cranky Kong son, the current Donkey Kong is Donkey Kong, Junior's son, perhaps the original jump man is Mario's father.

And then Mario and Luigi are his sons. And then the next generation, Mario and Luigi are their sons, meaning current Mario and Luigi are actually cousins. Jesus Christ. This is the, definitely the most aspergary episode of this podcast we've ever done. Look, I think the theory has to merit. You know, this would explain, um, why Mario and Luigi used to be twins and now no longer are.

Right, yeah, as the genetics have splintered off, they have gotten more diverse in terms of their, their appearance. I think there was one Mario and then Donkey Kong tried to do something cute, but there's only one Mario. So you think Mario has been just like the same age this whole time and then just like the, that apes age a little bit more rapidly and that accounts for Cranky Kong? You don't even have to think about age, it's a fixed and old character, who cares? All right.

Well, thanks for indicting my entire career. I think like the, but like the, the franchises somewhat line up, right? Like Donkey Kong in the current Mario Kart, you've got Donkey Kong who is Donkey, who's Cranky Kong's grandson with the tie. Like that's the guy who's racing against Mario and Mario Kart, who's battling Mario in Super Smash Brothers. Are we saying that over that amount of time Mario's appearance has basically stayed the same while Cranky Kong has given birth to two subsequent generations.

Apes die. You know, you tweet about fucking Harambe all the time. You get it. Look, I think the Harambe thing is, the Harambe meme is starting to fade at this point. But I mean like, like, yes, apes, apes are starting, apes do die. They have shorter life expectancies, but I don't think they have that much shorter of a life expectancy than a man. They do have your Harambe.

All right. So, so Van, let's get through this list of places. So, listen, well, obviously you can tell from all that that we're insane Mario losers, so we're going to care about these flavors. So the first flavor was Mario's chocolate gelato. Right. And while I do appreciate giving a prestige flavor like chocolate to Mario as the protagonist of the games, it felt a little nonspecific.

Like, what does Mario have to do with chocolate? I'm going to say that gelato is the Italian element. Yes, I appreciated that. And I can, yes, the gelato, one, two. But why chocolate? He's a plumber. Oh, God. He plums, there's a lot of fucking shit that Mario has to deal with.

I think I'm going to accept that and move on to the next one. All right, so check this out. I'll give you an answer, bro. It's disgusting. Oh, yeah. It's so disgusting. Shut up. Who gives a shit?

I don't think I'm going to have a Mario. Like, I don't even want to think about Mario the character ever unclogging a toilet and then to think of just like the sheer volume of like brown shit that he's plunging out. It's just disgusting. Well, it's happened. Yeah, I guess it's happened. In the universe of the Mario movie, it's happened. Yeah, that's true.

Do you know, like, do you think of Mario, like, on the toilet, either? No, he doesn't. I never thought about it until you just said that now. I'm sure there's a lot of deviant art which draws that exact thing, but- I hope there is. So the next flavor is- Tweet it at us. Don't tweet it.

Don't tweet us pictures of Mario on the toilet. If you want to send a picture of Mario on the toilet to Mitch, you can send it to Mike and Mitch.Pizza. No. Jesus Christ. Or you can visit Mitch.Pizza on the web for more information. All right. What's the next one, for God's sake?

The next one is a Bowser-themed flavor and it's Bowser's Dragonberry Tart. And would you guys say Bowser is a dragon? Um, no, but he does breathe fire like a dragon and he has dragon-like characteristics. Wait, hold on. What is he? Just a lizard? He's like a dinosaur. I would say he's a Koopa.

Yeah, he's a Koopa, but he resembles a dinosaur with his turtley shell. I don't know. I think he has more in common with a dinosaur than a dragon. But that one's fine. That one's fine, but that brings us to Toad's Rocky Road, which rhymes, which is nice. But I don't see much of a connection between Toad and the flavor. If we're being charitable, we can maybe say that Toad has a high acceleration. And then, uh, Cart and Mario Cart that maybe isn't the most stable on the road.

Ooh, that's a good one. So maybe he's got a Rocky Road as you're riding with Toad. Toad's Rocky Road is okay. I'm gonna also just quickly say, give it to us quick, and also hashtag, uh, your, uh, fuck, cart, uh, cart, cart, cart. I don't even know what you're trying to say. I think Mitch may be having an aneurysm in the studio. Like hashtag, uh, heart of, uh, cart, uh, shit.

What is going on? Hashtag, hashtag, hashtag, cart of my heart. Who is your favorite Super Mario Cart character that you like to play? Cart of my heart? That's what you landed on? Yeah. All right, great. And you know what?

Mine is Toad, and I just wanted to get that out of the way. My favorite is our next flavor, Yoshi. Oh, okay. My next flavor is Yoshi's Honeydew. He likes melons. Yeah, he likes melons. That's fair. I think that one's pretty good.

That one's pretty good. I think that's a close one. That may be the best one so far. Because what else is your favorite cart player? See, here's the thing. You, like, it's a pause. You can't just think of your favorite cart player. No, like, I found myself in the original Mario Kart doing a lot of Koopa Troopa.

Koopa Troopa was my favorite. So I have a lot of loyalty to Koopa Troopa, and that might be my answer. But I don't know, I kind of like the Koopa Lings and the new Mario Kart. The Koopa Lings are pretty good, and the new ones, the Shy Guy is pretty good, and also the Koopa Troopa is pretty good. Koopa Troopa was originally my Super Mario Kart, but I was thinking 64, which is the best version of the game. Is it?

Koopa Troopa's not in 64, right? Or is he? No, he's not. Toad took over for me then. Yeah, and you've got, like, and Wario was not in the first Super Mario Kart, but he's in Mario 64. Mario 64? You know what, here's the thing, I like Wario's, I like what Wario says.

He's not my favorite to race with, but I think he's got the most character. So in N64 Mario, N64 Super Mario Kart, I would take Wario a lot. Interesting. Alright, fam, what's the next one? He's a Wario, he's a Wario. The next flavor is Goomba's iced coffee. Give me a fucking break. That's nothing.

That's nothing. They're brown? I was, I wonder if they were afraid to do a mushroom flavor. Yeah, I mean, they should have had the balls to do a mushroom flavor, but they didn't. That's followed by Princess Peach Tart, which I think is, it's maybe one of the closest that they got. Maybe that's the best one. She is Princess Peach, you gotta use Peach.

She is Princess Peach, and it is a peach flavored yogurt. Yeah, it's on the nose, but it's fine. A cake flavor for her. Oh yeah. Because she always talks about bacon Mario cake. That is true. You get a little, you finish Mario 64 spoiler alert, you get yourself a nice cake. That's right.

It's a pretty sweet reward. So the next is Donkey Kong banana cream, which, hey, Donkey Kong bananas, I think that's, that one's actually pretty good. Yeah, that goes together, hand in hand. The following though, Shy Guy's pineapple lime coconut sorbet. God. No, like no effort went into that. No effort whatsoever.

It's really bad. Donkey Kong's is just, I think by default is the best now. Donkey Kong's and Peach's are both just like, okay, they already have some food affiliation that's super duper transparent. So they nailed those, but also it wasn't that much of a challenge. And the next flavor is the one that I sampled when I was at the yogurt land this week, and it's Koopa Troopa's lemon cupcake. Again, a one that I'm just like, what does this have to do with anything?

Yeah. Finally, the last flavor, which is going to maybe be the only flavor that a few listeners will have a chance to sample by the time this airs. Starting August 25th, Luigi's white chocolate pistachio. That could be okay. The idea there is the pistachio, the green character, the pistachio matches his green uniform, and then the white, I guess, matches his white skin. No, the white is when he has a flower.

I think it may be in contrast to Mario's sort of regular chocolate that people want. Okay. And Luigi's sort of white chocolate, which everyone hates. So Mario is all the shit that he plunges out of toilets, and Luigi is all the cum he fishes out of shower drains. You know what? That's not exactly what I was saying, but I think it might be close enough. Right.

Oh, man, I never thought of that. There probably is a lot of that. So I was disappointed by... It's best you have Palmerston. This is going to be the episode where my... Someone just mentioned that my sister listens to this, but any friends from home and my sister, they're going to think I'm a fucking loser. Yeah, this is going to be the one where we get an F from the AV club.

I think it's going to be your highest downloaded podcast. I hope so. I don't know, Van. I don't appreciate that, Mitch. I think it's going to be because I think Van has something planned in advance of the release. I think he's finally going to execute a plan A. Ever since I've met Van, I wondered if he was the escaped Dylan Klebold, and they found some other sort of body in his place.

Right. Okay. Beyond Columbine, let's talk about the Coupa Troopa birthday, the lemon cupcake flavor. Can you... Hold on, hold on. Has there ever been a more fitting segue on this podcast than Beyond Columbine? Let's talk about the Coupa Troopa yogurt flavor. Before we get to Coupa Troopa, at the parking structure for where my offices, the Van brand

offices are, I drive by the car that was used in the Columbine massacre. This is insane. Do you want to give some background of why this is the case? All I'll say is, because I don't want to... Can I just also say that it's because it's your car? No, it is not my car. I do not own this car. I do not park it in the parking structure near my office.

However, someone does own that car who has an office near mine, and they do park it regularly. It's on the second floor, I believe, of the parking structure, and so I drive by it on the way to work and on the way back from work. I'll talk in vague terms of why this is the case, but basically that the Dillon Klebold had used his dad's car, I believe, and it was a classic car, like a rare classic car. The personalized license plate on this car now reads, I think I can give that away, First Generation M, First Gen M, which I guess is some sort of reference to what BMW it is. I'm not like a BMW guy.

Yeah, okay, so he's got this classic BMW and so that it was still worth a lot of money even though it was associated with this horrific crime, and some capitalist who didn't give a shit about the moral implications of it just paid a bunch of money for an auction and still drives it to this day. What a world. It's very crazy. I find it shocking and a little depressing every time I drive by it. For sure, I understand that completely.

I was there today. I drove by that on the way here to talk about Yogurtland, so this is a great way to segue from Columbine back to Yogurtland. Into Yogurtland, and you know what? It's on par depressing for how depressing this city is, anyways. Let's go on. Yogurtlands, the Coupa Troopa lemon cupcake. Did anyone actually get that answer?

I did get it. I did get it. Actually, I want to say I liked it. It was sufficiently cupcake-y, which I did not expect it to be. I thought this was going to be just sort of like a lemon flavor that they claimed was cupcake-flavored, but actually had a cupcake-y consistency almost to it. A little bit of that character to it. Yeah.

But also, to me, it feels so artificial when they try to do something like that. It didn't have pieces of cake in it. It was just trying to capture that character to it. It was the most artificial tasting one that I had. Yeah. I don't know. It was a fine lemon flavor. Certainly didn't deliver on the Mario theme at all.

No. And to get into what I got a little bit more specifically, so Yogurtland, if you haven't been there, they give you a giant, like Ben and Jerry's pint-sized cup, and it's the only size available because they're just trying to incentivize you to fill it up with yogurt. So, since you're paying by the ounce, they want you to take as much as possible so they make the most profit. They have these sugar cookie dividers, which you can get now. They're just like a divider. They have it in sugar cookie.

They have it in chocolate. Oh, sure. I didn't take advantage of this. Yeah, they may not have them at all locations. I went to the Santa Monica location. You can slide it as an insert into the middle of the cup, and then it gives you room to have two different flavors that aren't going to intermingle. If you're like Mitch and like to keep the colors separated.

And so, I got a little bit of the Coupa Choupa's Lemon Cupcake on one side, and then on the other side, I got the New York Cheesecake. And, you know, it actually worked pretty well. The system worked pretty well in terms of keeping these divided. And then on the Coupa Choupa side, I put some Nutter Butters and some Peanut Butter Sauce, trying a little Peanut Butter Lemon concept, which I know is maybe a little bit off-beat, but I want to see how it works. And on the Cheesecake side, I threw on some Cookie Dough Bites and some fresh strawberries.

What did you guys get in terms of your flavor composition before I get into my thoughts? Well, before I get into my flavor composition, first I want to reveal sort of a kind of a small surprise, which is that I went to two different Yogurt Lands. Wow. Whoa. And there was a major difference between the two, and I want to talk about that right now. And that major difference was the flavor pairings. At Yogurt Land, the yogurt machines are a traditional kind of a yogurt machine

where there's a left slot, a right slot. In the middle, you get a twist. Right. The yogurt land, the first yogurt land I went to, which was on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles here, had maybe the worst set of flavor combinations I've ever seen at any frozen yogurt shop. We're talking like sorbet with chocolate, things where they physically can't even mix together and have the proper consistency. Yeah, it was like an arbitrary assignment of each lever with no thought into what the swirl would be.

No thought whatsoever. In fact, many of the swirls, I tried every swirl at that yogurt land, and only one would I would say even pass as edible. Wow. And that one was chocolate mixed with an Oreo-type cookie flavor. But the issue there was it's basically chocolate mixed with chocolate. Yeah. So you're hardly getting anything for your mix.

You're just doubling down. Yeah. That's a bummer. That's really weird. I'm surprised they allow that at the franchise level to make those decisions. I was concerned that there's something about, I don't know if they're not following the proper directions there or what the sort of how this fell apart, but I later went to the yogurt land in Westwood, which may be near the one you went to or a similar one.

And that one had fantastically paired flavors. And I think that there's maybe a proper way to pair them that comes from the yogurt land officials, and they just weren't paying attention to it. Yeah, I wonder if that might be because they've expanded so hecticly and so quickly, and I wonder if they've maybe lost some control of individual franchises in the process. Well, I heard this is a real room where I heard say about yogurt land, and I don't know if this is true, but there used to be a yogurt land on the Sony Pictures studio lot. Okay.

If I was there for a meeting, I went to many meetings about Sonic the Hedgehog there. Sony was the studio on that who's been working on it. And that closed down after the Sony hack. And I heard today, I was told today by a guy I was at lunch with, that it closed because of the Sony hack. Wow. Sony felt it could no longer have a yogurt land open on the Sony a lot. That's such bullshit.

Post-Sony hack. Why is that? My understanding is there was something about the computer system at yogurt land, the cash registers that had to go through their network, and everyone outside of Sony was not allowed on it, and it shut down. Wow. And I'm not sure if it's reopened or not. Sony's an employer of mine sometimes, so I say good for them.

Van, what did you get? I got Toad's cupcake. Whoa! Wait, To- No, Koopa Troopa. Koopa Troopa, yes. Koopa Troopa, my bad. Koopa Troopa's cupcake, and I got Captain Crunch on it,

which was my choice topping because when I go to a yogurt land, I try to stick to the third row of toppings. Okay. These are the toppings that are out of reach of small children's hands. Yeah, that's true. The first two are, you can just reach right in there, and you often see a lot of reaching right in there happen. You know, one of the things that I find most disquieting about yogurt lands

is they all have a giant dispenser of sort of antibacterial hand washing stuff. Oh, yeah. At them, and you just know that's there for the eventual norovirus lawsuit. And to say, well, actually we provided hand sanitizer. See, to me it's pretty easy. You don't go with gummy worms or sour worms, and you don't go with gummy bears. Even though gummy bears are some of my favorite candy,

I just don't go with those because I know little kids are reaching into the gummy bears. Interesting. My issue with the yogurt land, I love making the yogurt myself. I love putting the toppings on myself, but I wish that no one else were allowed to do this. I wish this were just a special privilege for only me. I get you. I hate having to do it.

I feel like I'm doing work. I feel like someone else should be doing it for me. Yeah, I feel like I make a shitty version of what I'm trying to do. I don't know how to swirl it properly. I don't know the right ratio of toppings to yogurt. I don't know how much of everything to put in there. I just want someone else to take care of it. There's my criticism of Pinkberry.

We went to Pinkberry a few months back. They've gone from a place where they would do everything for you to a place itself. I think that's insane. I think ripping off yogurt land because yogurt land's been so successful. Yogurt land, you have to do it all yourself. It's a fucking free for all in there. It's like a grocery store salad bar. It's just like every man for himself.

It's just really sloppy. It feels very unsanitary. I hate having to do all that work. I hate how chaotic it is. So you got the Captain Crunch from the back row. What else did you get? Then I got some fruity pebbles on it as well. Okay, going all cereal.

I went all cereal and that was it. I called it that. With those two toppings, I think a mistake a lot of people will make at something like a yogurt land with a toppings bar is they'll over topping. Right. Well, here's what happens. This is what drives me crazy about this. Because you don't know how to do it.

You don't know how to do it and you see something good. You see some white chocolate chips. Those look good and you put them on there and then you also see like, oh fuck, they got some honeydew melon. Oh, I want some of that too. And then now you've got two things that are incongruent and don't go together. But you just pick the one because you had the opportunity there. It's the paralysis of having too much choice.

You have too many options. They don't have like, hey, here's some suggestions for you. Try this combo, this combo, and this combo. They don't even have that. Hold my hand a little. I like, you're very upset. But I like when someone makes the thing for me. I like when they have, this is our Sunday and this is what comes on.

I like these pre-made packaged things that people are going to make for you. However, my yogurt land was not chaotic. There was not a lot of traffic in there. It was actually calm and the topping selection was great. And all of them were filled up. There was no hot fudge, but that was okay. And the vanilla yogurt was not working, which I did want. And that kind of annoyed me.

So I saw maybe just hints of the chaoticness, the chaos that can happen there. But I went with a pro, this guy, Toby Jones, who I'm working with. He's a great guy, very funny. And he's a bit of a yogurt land expert. So he kind of walked me through some of the things that I should do. And I ended up going, I didn't really listen to him. I messed up a few times. Right.

I went with a plain tart and I got three different flavors. So I got that Mario cup that has Mario and Luigi and Toad. A fantastic cup. I have to give a high compliments to the cup, the spoon, and also the, I don't know if you guys noticed the Nintendo themed uniforms that yogurt land employees were wearing. They were dressed up as Mario when I was there. There was a Mario spoon, a red Mario spoon.

Now, here's my criticism of the whole thing. Right. Why not have more of those flavors available? Why just the Koopa Troopa lemon cupcake flavor, especially because I thought that was artificial and not good. I also didn't like the cheesecake I thought was just okay. It's also like Koopa Troopa, like I like Koopa Troopa, but that's not the character that engages people in the Mario.

It's a little rough to have the only available Mario option be Koopa Troopa. Have like four at once. I'm not sure if they should have spaced the characters out differently or how they should have done it, but it didn't feel satisfying to go there and have your only option be Koopa Troopa. Why not at least pair them and have like, okay, we've got Mario and we've got a good guy and a bad guy. We've got Mario and we've got Dry Bones.

Dry Bones. We've got them together and if you want, you can swirl them. That seems like a natural thing to do. And Bullet Bill, do you want to have that? Yeah, we've got Waluigi and Bullet Bill. There was no Waluigi. He should be in there. Anyways, I'd never even been to a yogurt land, so Toby was a great guy.

He kind of showed me what to do, so I went with the plan. Is this English actor Toby Jones or just a guy with the same name? No, it's a guy with the same name. He works in animation and he's great. And so Toby kind of, he showed me the ropes. I got the plane tart with strawberries, strawberry popping boba, which he advised me against, but I liked okay, and Captain Crunch.

So that was one third of my ice cream on my yogurt. Then I got cookies and cream and then Dutch chocolate and the toppings that I kind of put on both of those were crushed Oreos, cookie dough bites, NSA dark chocolate chips, which I'm not sure if it's the same NSA, and mochi. So those were all the toppings I put on those. Now here's what happened.

My favorite, and I may be a changed man here, I loved the plane tart with strawberries, strawberry popping boba, and the Captain Crunch. Also what happened was that some of those NSA dark chocolate chips, which is the National Security Association, is that what it is? I believe it's no sugar added. No sugar added.

Maybe no strings attached? No strings attached. Those fell into the plane tart, they kind of crossed over into the plane tart with the strawberries and the strawberry popping boba and the Captain Crunch. It formed quite a dessert. I really, really liked it a lot. Now when you're describing your thirds of yogurt and them falling,

you're describing three complete full yogurts. Is that the right image? No, you fucking asshole. They were all in the same Mario cup. I like crushed Oreos, it goes good with cookies and cream. I liked the Dutch chocolate, and I liked the cookies and cream, the ice cream itself. The cookie dough bites, I loved.

The NSA dark chocolate chips, I loved. The mochi was an idea from Toby, and I didn't love the mochi. It didn't match well with what I had. Sorry, Toby. But yeah, I actually really enjoyed what I was eating. I had a nice little meal there, and I will say that I don't love yogurt. I like ice cream more, like a sorbet. Like yogurt is maybe on my bottom of cold cream desserts.

I agree. It maybe comes in last place. I'd rather take ice cream 10 times out of 10. Yeah, and again, like I said, I would rather do like a chocolate souffle, a chocolate lava cake, bread pudding. Well, in New Orleans, we have what are called snowballs, which a Hawaiian shave ice is maybe the closest equivalent, but a snowball is actually a little finer shaved,

but it's similarly flavored with a syrup that you pour on top. There are just dozens and dozens of these snowball stands in New Orleans, and that is our preferred sort of summertime cool treat. And it's a lot lighter than an ice cream because it's just crushed ice as a base as opposed to like a milk-based, yogurt-based base. And so, you know, yogurt is something I've, as I've lived out here in Southern California for a few years, I've started to have more and more of, but traditionally I'm a snowball man.

Interesting. So none of us really love yogurt. Yeah, I mean like, and too, I think that kind of tracks with my experience, which is the lemon cupcake was, you know, we talked about it tastes a little artificial. I probably miscalculated with the nutter butters and peanut butter sauce, but you know, like it wasn't a crazy notion. It just didn't really work together.

They have a lot of like just pre-packaged, like pre-existing cookies and cereals and stuff, which is kind of fun, but it's also like, I don't know, there's just so much of it there, and I'm kind of like, I feel like the, not all of those work well. So I feel like I wish they'd present us with fewer options and I wish they'd narrow down to the options that they know are really good. Yeah, I'm going to agree that there were too many topping options.

Because just taking an entire cookie, because it was just like basically an entire mini nutter butter cookie that you're putting on there, and it wasn't like a nutter butter bite or anything like that. And it just, it doesn't really work as well as a topping. The sauces seem particularly unsanitary, and I was just like kind of hesitant to try them because they're just like... There's a sort of a dried chocolate and caramel ooze on the outside of the dispensers, and they're sort of, they kind of remind me of...

7-Eleven Chili? Yeah, or a stadium ketchup dispenser. Exactly, the same sort of thing. They weren't particularly appetizing. You also have too much toppings, you know what I mean? Right. You go through this topping line, you top it off, then am I supposed to put chocolate all over this shit, too?

You didn't do that, though, didn't you? I did not put chocolate on mine. I put no caramel, no chocolate, nothing like that. I could have sworn you mentioned some sort of a liquid topping. Yes, Toby actually got the hardening chocolate. Oh, okay. And then he said that when he tasted it full, it tasted kind of like metallic or something, or it's words for it.

Go ahead, Weigher. Sorry. And then the New York Cheesecake... I agree with you, Mitch. The cookie dough bites were quite tasty. Fresh strawberries were remarkably fresh. They were actually pretty good, and there was a good produce. I feel like if I'd just gotten cheesecake and strawberries

and gotten a third the size of the dessert I'd gotten, I would have been a more satisfying thing than the giant Frankenstein concoction I put together. The sugar cookie divider worked out pretty well. It was very functional, and then it was a pretty tasty bite to have at the end that it had a little bit of the traces of yogurt on both sides of it that you could kind of nibble on. But overall, just an overwhelming amount of food

and then just so many options, and all pretty good, but also, too, just kind of like... I don't know, it just gave me so much... The whole experience just gives me so much anxiety that I don't want to deal with. Final thoughts? So, let's get to our final thoughts. So, we'll all go around, we'll make our closing argument

and then give a rating on the order of one to five forks. Van, we'll start with you. Alright, well, I... Like I said, I have a lot of, you know, bonding experiences with my wife that involve yogurt land, and it has a nice spot in my heart, but I was just too disappointed by the inconsistency between franchise locations. Right.

And some of the smaller issues like the Mario theming and too many toppings. So, I'm gonna go pretty low with this, I think. Ooh. And I'm gonna go one and a half forks. Whoa! Van, what the fuck? It's on a low end. Mitch, your thoughts?

Alright, well, I'm surprised by that. Here's the deal. I thought yogurt land was fun. I had a more fun time at yogurt land than I did at Pinkberry. I enjoyed it more. I liked the topping selections. Even though they kind of failed with this Mario promo,

I liked that it was happening. I wish I got to try the Mario gelato. I wish I just kind of had that as a constant. Mario was always there. His chocolate gelato was always there. Yeah, give Mario a few flavors. He's earned it. He's earned it.

You know, go through the generations. Give an 8-bit flavor, a 16-bit flavor, There were also plenty of chocolates being offered that should have just been Mario chocolate. Right, right, right. Yeah, because I had the Dutch chocolate, like I said. And yeah, why wasn't that just fucking Mario chocolate? Anyways, I had fun with it.

I enjoyed it. It was a fun time. I liked the experience. But I think that desserts to me, I think like the yogurt thing, it's just I'm confused by it. I don't understand why the world became obsessed with yogurt, frozen yogurt.

And in my mind, I think of, Spain, you brought up Quincy earlier. I'm going back to it right now. Brigham's was an ice cream spot in Boston. And I've talked about it plenty of times. And it was a great small kind of northeastern chain, New England chain. And you used to be able to go there and you could get

mocha fraps, mocha ice cream floats, which were scoops of ice cream in soda water and stuff. And you know, raspberry lime rickies, Sundays, cones, great desserts, so much better than a stupid yogurt land or a pink berry. Like, in any sort of toppings you wanted, they did everything. Just so much better, such a better experience. Now it's become this place called the Ice Cream Parlor

Brigham's one out of business. No one really goes to it as much anymore. I still love it. And I'm like, oh, is that time over? People's tastes have just changed, I guess. People don't enjoy these kind of... I'm saying they don't... Like, out here in LA, it's like,

if you own a successful ice cream place, it's usually like Salt and Straw or Jenny's, kind of these fancy ice cream places. It's a hip-er place. It's not like an old-school parlor. Yeah, and I love the old-school parlors. They were some of my favorite experiences growing up. I don't get the frozen yogurt thing as much.

That being said, I liked it more than pink berry, and I really did enjoy all the toppings and all the frozen yogurt that I had, and the Mario thing was fun, just not executed properly. Yeah. I almost feel weird giving it forks, because it's hard to compare it. Well, you're the Spoon Man.

I'm the Spoon Man, so I kind of want to give this three and a half spoons as kind of a dessert place. Right. Yeah, it's a three and a half spoon spot. Very fair. Yogurtland feels like a party that everyone is enjoying, but I'm just not feeling it, and I want to get out of there.

It's a sensation. Lots of people love it. People want to get their yogurtland fix. They're going crazy over it. I think it's just... I just don't get it. I don't understand the appeal of wanting to fill your own cup and add your own toppings.

It's all this sort of work, all this added labor that I just don't want to have to deal with. I think it's intentionally deceptive. They give you a giant bucket to fill your yogurt with, and even if you've put it halfway full, it's way too much food. I was intentionally not trying to get a lot of stuff. I got a little bit more than I normally would to sample some more for the purposes of evaluating for this podcast.

I spent $8.01. It was like I spent a lot of fucking money on this goddamn yogurt dessert, and that's a lot more than I would spend if I just went to an ice cream parlor and got a scoop or two. Mine was $8.00 total for me and Toby's. Yeah, I must have went... I don't know if the sugar cookie divider had a lot of weight or what,

but I got a lot of fucking yogurt, and I didn't feel like I was doing what I was supposed to do, and I just ended up with this gigantic pile. It's just the process is broken, and it doesn't make any sense. It's a poor business. It's poorly administered. The whole idea of self-service and then just like the chaos of having

just an avalanche of toppings options is absurd. It's bad. That aspect of it doesn't make sense, but also frozen yogurt will forever be the Luigi to Ice Cream's Mario. Yeah, fuck yeah. I love Luigi. He's cool, but Mario is the king,

and Mario's what it's all about. And because it's a frozen yogurt place, it has a three-fork ceiling maximum. There's no way I could get more than that. Because it's a frozen yogurt place that drives me insane, I'll give it... I can't go any higher than two forks. Which is probably the equivalent of my three and a half spoons,

probably equals two forks. Anyways, not that the spoon is the greatest utensil. Anyways, I just want to say that you can make that comparison too with... it's like comparing Bob Hoskins to John Leguizama. Right. You're gonna choose Bob Hoskins. Of course.

Yeah. John Leguizama's a fine actor. He's a fine actor, but he's no Bob Hoskins. But Bob Hoskins is a legend. Who framed Roger Rabbit's an esteemed career. Rest in peace. Maybe he's haunting Luigi's mansion.

His ghost. Jesus Christ. It's time for a regular segment. We've got a beverage, and we're gonna decide if it's worth pouring down your throat. It's drank or stank. Now, we want me to go get this? Oh yeah, we've got something we...

I just talked about ghosts, and I think we've got something ghost themed. We've got a ghost theme run. Guess what, folks? The Nostalgia Train is running here on Drank or Stank, and you'll find out in just a second. All right, Mitch is stepping out of the studio. Van, you and I will just stare intensely at each other

for about 40 seconds. I thought you guys were best at it. Why don't you tell some sort of stone cold story again or something? I don't know. Mitch just yelled off, Mike, for you to tell some sort of stone cold story. I'm not sure if I got picked up.

Not stone cold screamery, stone cold wrestler. Do you have an opinion on cold stone creamery? I'm not a fan of cold stone creamery. I don't want stuff getting mixed into my ice cream like that. I had a cold stone incident once where I got a... I ordered one of their prefab things that was peanut butter based.

It had some like peanut butter cups and like their sweet cream ice cream and some other peanut butter shit. And something got fucked up in the process. And she accidentally threw in like something like some peppermints. And so I accidentally got peppermints and peanuts and peanut butter like mixed together.

Like hard peppermints? Yeah, like some of that, like peppermint. It was just like a few of them, but I think they were just like on the operating table or whatever and they actually got mixed in. And it was putrid. It was disgusting. It ruined my dessert.

But yeah, I feel like cold stone just always makes my tummy hurt and I just don't want to deal with it for that reason. All right, Mitch, you've returned to the studio. Wow, this is very exciting. You brought us some retro Ghostbusters Hi-C Ecto Cooler. That's right.

Now, some time has passed. Ecto Cooler, baby. Ghostbusters. What's the answer to the call? It's coming gone. It's been in theaters for a little bit now. Slimer has driven the Ghostbusters mobile into the abyss and they ignited the nuclear thing

and the day was saved. But we still get to try the Ecto Cooler. So the nostalgia train is going. This is a drink you may remember from, for your childhood. Also, Weigar, I was, when you two were alone in here, I took a look at the live ratings and they were going way down.

Now, here's my thing. There's slime on this. Like, there's the slime being like Ecto Cooler, but then they sell the kind of the citrus drink and they show the oranges or whatever these things are. And I think they're oranges, right? They look like them. Tangerines?

Oranges and tangerines. Now, my thing is, why not put fucking Slimer on there? For God's sakes, put them on the box. They had Slimer on there when it was a, when I was a kid, I remember. Yes. And it's just, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, it says Ghostbusters only in theaters.

There's the exact same thing you were about to say. Yes. Which is weird. You can't even tell which one, these are newer ones. Right. So, but like, yeah, it had the, it had the, the Slimer from the real Ghostbusters, the cartoon version.

And I guess here they would probably include the contemporary Slimer, but maybe there was a rights issue or something. I don't know why they wouldn't include it. That was the coolest part about it. This was a daily like drink for me as a kid. I had this in my lunch like every day for like two years. I fucking loved this as a kid.

Yeah, I loved it. I really, really liked it. What do you guys think now? I'm enjoying this. Yeah. I think it's refreshing. I had this as a kid and I can't say I have the best sense memory of it. As someone, Nick, who said you had this a lot,

would you say this is the same? Yes. This is, this is nostalgia through a skinny straw for me. I'm just like going back to my childhood. Real, real exactly what I remember. I was always a fan of this sort of, because this kind of is just a generic fake citrus flavor. Right.

That they slapped the Ghostbusters branding on to back then. What is it made with like 70% real juice or something? 10% juice. Yeah. The first ingredient after water is high-fructose corn syrup. Weigar has gone back to his childhood. He's now put on his favorite spinny cap again. Uh-oh, uh-oh.

We've moved forward in his childhood. He's loading the weapons. No, he's deciding not to go through with it. We're all making the little high-sea box noises. The high-sea box noise is a pretty fun noise. I'm hearing it through my ears. There they go. It's a lot of fun.

I've already sucked this whole sucker down. I mean, it's only six fluid ounces, but... 80 calories, though, for six fluid ounces. It's tiny and that packs, that's quite a few calories. Yeah, it's loaded with sugar. You're definitely getting a day's worth of carbohydrates from this thing. But I gotta tell you, this is... Ectocooler is great.

If it's available for a limited time and you remember it from when you were a kid, grab a six-pack, treat yourself, maybe share it with your kids, tell them this is what your childhood was all about. This is a definite drink for me. Ben? That's a drink. Drink. That's what I said.

You said drink. Did I? Oh, goodness. I apologize. That's a drink. Yeah, baby. I agree. As an adult, I'm like, this could be watered down a little bit,

but it's a drink. Yeah. Drink through and through. It's great. Ghostbusters is a good movie. The original Ghostbusters 2 is good. And I saw the new Ghostbusters and we all had fun at the new Ghostbusters. A fun time.

A fun time. A real fun time in the theater. A fun time. A fun time. And also, you know what? I like the Ghostbusters cartoon. Let me just tell you, Ghostbusters, I think, from the film franchises to the television cartoons to the odd video game to the snacks

that are associated with it, it seems to win all around. I just want to say this. Can you know, because there are a lot of people being mean about the new movie that was coming out. And then people were getting defensive of it, which is fair. Right. The issue was that they were getting defensive by putting down, they were like, well, I can't ruin it because Ghostbusters 2 sucks.

Right, right, right. I love Ghostbusters 2. I like Ghostbusters 2 more than Ghostbusters 1. I'm going to say, I saw that argument devolve into, Ghostbusters wasn't even very good. Yeah, that was a point that that argument really lost. That argument, when it said that Ghostbusters was not good, that was getting me upset.

Do we just like everything? You know, I like all things Ghostbusters, except for some of Mitch's problematic opinions about it. The rest of Ghostbusters and the rest of things related to it, I do like. I smoked Winston cigarettes for a while because I liked Winston so much, just to have you know. My wife Natalie, when she was playing Nintendo,

on her Nintendo DS, she named her Corgi Winston, after Winston from the Ghostbusters. Yeah, that's right. I want to say that, yeah, do you remember a time, do you remember the time when the opinionated guy was looked at as an asshole? Right. When people were like, shut up, we don't want to hear what you have to say. The whole world is the opinionated thing, people now,

and no one is, like people should be shamed for that. Shut the fuck up. That's what this whole podcast is. I know, but we made a podcast, who gives a shit? You can listen to it if you want to, you don't have to. It's not like I tweet out my fucking dumb opinions. Keep your, I mean. We tweet out a link to the episode, which has.

We tweet out, fine, but you can listen, you can listen to it if you want to. Yeah. I'm just saying that so much of like tweets and bullshit and stuff you read every day. Listen, my dad was a man who kept a lot of his opinions to himself. I'm more of a blowhard, I understand that, I hate myself. But it's like, every single person has to express their opinions on everything. That used to be the annoying guy. As a country, we should look at that and say, that's annoying.

Shut up. Everyone shut up. Just shut up. It's because it's not helping us. It's making people more angry at each other. And so that to me is kind of what annoys me about it. It's an unending lava flow of hot takes. It's just so much volume of opinions are just coming out

and people are reacting to them and saying that people's opinions are problematic and getting mad at each other. Yeah, I think I agree with Mitch. They think probably your dad had it right that maybe some things we should keep to ourselves to be a little bit more reserved and dignified. That said, Heathcliff is really a bad comic strip. Jesus. And I stand by that.

I will take that to the grave. Just like a restaurant, value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Jenna Gustafson, Jenna writes, Inspired by Burger Boy's inexplicable, naïve, whorent preference for nips over its. I think she's referring to cheez-its and cheez-nips. Which is insane. I started thinking about what...

Also as insane as Ghostbusters 2 being better than the original, which is, that's dumb. I think it's better. I think it's cool that Slimer's their friend. Inspired by Burger Boy's inexplicable, naïve, whorent preference for nips over its. I started thinking about what off-brand snacks I prefer over popular choices. Growing up, I preferred boxed mac and cheese from the local grocery chain, price chopper, over the craft brand. I also love Wegmans frozen pizza and the store-brand flavored potato chips.

Potato chips. Cost aside, are there any snacks food, snacks slash food, of which you prefer the store-brand or off-brand varieties? What do you guys think? Anything where you prefer a generic or an off-brand over the gold standard? You know, nothing specific is coming to mind, but there's a quality to the store-brands, sort of a simplicity and a plainness. Right.

They often have, especially a store-brand pizza, that I actually kind of can enjoy. Yeah. I think there's sort of a neutralizing effect that they have where sometimes, you know, especially with something like a frozen pizza, there's a lot of frozen pizzas that aren't very good. Yes. That's interesting. And I think if you get a store-bought pizza, you're going to get something pretty standard

that's not going to be particularly offensive. Right. I do sometimes like kind of the baseline in terms of, for me, I'm thinking of the Tina's frozen burrito of just like, it's just like the cheapest frozen burrito. For a time, it was the cheapest. You could get like four for a dollar, and it's not doing anything fancy. It's got like just beans and cheese or just potatoes and beans, just like very, very basic, but it just absolutely will accomplish the job of being a burrito that you can heat in

a microwave that's very edible. And I kind of like something like that versus something that's maybe a little bit fancier for the same reason that you're saying. But how about you, Mitch? Did anything come to mind? I can't. You know what? I feel like I used to, I don't cook as much as anyone, which I should.

But like when I was in college and stuff, there would be some store brand like Mac and Cheese that I would really like, and it would be like, ooh, these noodles taste like weirdly different, and I like their texture for whatever reason. I like a CVS. I don't know what van is doing. He's up. I like a CVS. Their CVS has a...

Van is pulling out a gun. Yeah, he's digging through his bag. Very unnerving. CVS has a sparkling strawberry water that I really like. And then there's like, I know that there's like a bunch of like Wegmans or whatever, Stop and Shop brand sort of like Mac and Cheeses or whatever that I do enjoy. But I can't think of one in particular at the moment. I was definitely...

I liked Van's answer a lot of like, oh yeah, sometimes I like those store bought pizzas. I agree. Yeah. I was thinking honestly, the thing that I had for a long time, I was drinking exclusively was Ralph's brand milk, and it was just like super duper, just absolutely accomplished the job of being milk. You drink a lot of milk? He drinks...

First of all, yes, he drinks a lot of milk. Not anymore. I don't drink as much milk anymore. But also like, yeah, no shit you get Ralph's brand milk. That doesn't work in this scenario. You don't think that's a fair answer? No. The grocery store brand milk is very common for people to only store brand milk.

That's maybe not as common with some of these other items. I got you. Well, then I mean like, I guess that and then I'd also say... Do you get Ralph's brand water? No, I don't get Ralph's brand water, but it was for a time that this is the other answer I was going to give. There was a period where I was drinking a lot of private select soda, which is basically there, you know, the store brand soda and it was very close in flavor to RC Cola,

which was something that I really liked and also just like super duper cheap. So I had a lot of success with the private select soda. Also too, Costco used to have a store brand soda machine in their stores. They don't... I don't think they have it anymore, but that would be a thing. You get like a soda for a quarter, a cold soda for a quarter and it would totally get the job done. Also, I want to say that like, this is what Trader Joe's is based on.

You're getting all the Trader Joe's pizza, the Trader Jose's burritos. It's funny, they change who Trader Joe is by region or whatever. Yeah, they change his race a lot, which I find to be sort of an interesting choice. Yeah, it's really strange. Well, I don't think it's ever quite... I mean, I guess Trader Jose's is on the border of being problematic, but it's always seemed like kind of okay. Yeah, but you're right.

It is kind of like a generic stuff that they've kind of dressed up in some packaging that's a little bit more appealing. But that's like all you get at Trader Joe's. Right. You know what, it made me think of an old question that we had of the nostalgic factor of this, which was any food that's gone like that isn't available anymore. Right. And I remembered one that I've never said is Doritos Jumping Jack cheese.

Those are really good. Those are really great. They were like a Monterey Jack sort of concept. Yeah, bring them back. Those are fantastic. I think they came in a black bag. They were really, really, they were really good. Yeah, those were a winner.

And then Cool Ranch. I think those were my favorite when I was a kid and then Cool Ranch took over and I love Cool Ranch to this day. Cool Ranch is to the test of time. If you have a question or comment about the World Chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspod, guess at gmail.com. Check out our Facebook page, Do Boys. Follow us on Twitter at doboyspod.

Please subscribe and rate us on iTunes. Fan Robo Show. Thank you very much for joining us on the show. Do you have anything you would like to plug at this time? I do have some quick plugs real quick right here at the end. And of course, always a plug for Mike at Mitch.Pizza, the best way to communicate with Mike Mitchell. But I also want to plug my personal brand, Van Brand, and the at Van the Brand Twitter account.

And any Doughboy listeners who follow me on Twitter and any who go to my website, http colon slash slash van dot media and request a free sticker. I'm actually doing a promotion just this month only during the airing of this Do Boys. If you tweet at me with the hashtag Do Boys, you're going to be entered to win this $50 Outback Steakhouse gift card. Wow! Wow, that's quite a prize. That's quite a prize.

$50 at Outback Steakhouse. That's going to get you a steak for yourself and for your lady or for your guy or whoever you're bringing with you. Maybe even a non-alcoholic drink. Yeah. So just tweet at me at Van the Brand with hashtag Do Boys. No purchase necessary to enter this contest. Foydware prohibited.

Wow! Guys, get yourself a free sticker. I also want to say Van, you know I'm tough on you. I thought this episode was going to feel like pulling teeth, but it just really only felt like a toothache. Thank you, Mitch. As a man with surely many toothaches, I consider that a high praise. They'll do it for this episode of Do Boys until next time.

For The Spoon Man, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya. What was my name there? I tried to say Mike Mitchell. You fail.