Wonderful! - Wonderful! 144: Inside Out LARPing

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

Rachel's favorite imaginative activity! Griffin's favorite second chances! Rachel's favorite tall circle! Griffin's favorite music video!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaFor more ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/To become a supporter of the Maximum Fun network: https://maximumfun.org/join/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hello, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Hello. Hi. This is Griffin McElroy. Look this is wonderful. Hello. Hi. This is Griffin McElroy. Look at this. This stance you have.

Which stance is it that I'm doing? Oh, you're talking about crane pose. Oh, is that what that is? That is what it is. And I'm ready to strike. And if someone comes at me with a weapon or at you with a weapon, they're going to get one of these. That will kick. One of these?

Yeah. Oh. That was three kicks all in one all in a row and a lot of people can't even kick once as fast as i can three times because i think it's important to protect my protect this house protect my love protect our child with my many kicks that i can do and i don't know maybe i shouldn't be talking about this on the podcast you know because i don't want to sound like a bad boy. But if you come to my house with a weapon, I'll do like six or seven kicks at you. Do you want to talk about the Max Fun Drive? Sure, yeah.

I mean, that's what's paid for all of my different lessons. In kicking. In kicking and fighting. And this is the final week, isn't it? Just a couple more days here on the old Max Fun Drive. isn't it just a just a couple more days here on the old max fun drive and although we've come to the end of the road please support our show it's impossible to do this show without your support oh babe i've been working on that for three years uh yeah if if you do not uh mind it would be super solid of you to go to maximumfund.org join and uh think about becoming a

a member of the network and a supporter of our show uh it is a very very direct way of supporting our show when you do become a member you choose the membership level that works for you and you get to check out all the different rewards that you can get at those levels five dollars a month you get that bonus content ten dollars you get the pin and uh twenty dollars to select all the shows but yeah you pick the shows you want to directly support a chunk of that goes to max fun for helping us out with all the things that they do but otherwise just the shows that you pick are the shows that your money is directly sent to so like it's a very very uh just democratic way of of uh choosing how to help us out last week we put up a

new bonus episode we did it was our our cruise show from the Joko Cruise, the doomed Joko Cruise, which feels like a million, brilliant, squillion years ago. You get to hear all about some of the horrifying events that happened to us and our friends on that cruise. And some of our favorite ocean-related things. Yes, there's an at length discussion of Deep Blue Sea starring LL Cool J. I talk about the Sharknado franchise. Yes, you do. It's a lot of fun.

I mean, we have a ton of bonus content on there. But really the biggest thing you get is the sense of satisfaction and feeling of good cheer for helping us us out we've been i've been doing podcasts on max fun for 10 years now and the the lives we have now the careers we have now the stuff that we make now is only possible because of the support we've gotten from folks like you so uh if you've been thinking about doing it and don't delay because again there's only a couple days left in the drive go to maximum fun.org join now now, please. I think, well, oh, Small Wonders.

Small Wonders. Hey, I can go first this week. Okay. Butter. Butter. Love butter. Realized maybe 80% of the time when I find a dish particularly good

is because there is a lot. A lot of butter in it. A lot of butter. I actually heard that Paula Deen got her whole sort of like aesthetic from you. Oh, yeah. And by that, I mean her love of butter. Uh-huh.

She saw this tiny St. Louis girl. Yeah. Just really slathering it on in a restaurant. Eating a stick of Land O'Lakes like it was a Snickers bar. And thinking, you know what? I'm going to make a whole thing just around that yes um i wanted to talk about the a show that we recently watched on netflix called love on the spectrum uh which i don't know a ton about or how it was made uh but it is a essentially a reality dating show about people on the autism spectrum uh and you

follow along with like like eight or so folks. I think it's only like four episodes. It's not a very long haul. But, you know, Rachel and I are fans of a good dating reality show of which there are very, very few these days. And I think that it like, you know, scratches all of those particular itches,

but it also offers a look at the autism spectrum in a way that is like so, oh God, it's so tangible. It's so like, by placing it through the lens of first dates, which is like one of the more sort of socially uncomfortable life events that any person can go through,

it makes it so so relatable and so then when you are you know offer these these glimpses into uh where each of these different people land on the spectrum and like how how that sort of manifests on these dates it gave me a genuine i i feel like understanding of what the spectrum is and like where what it looks like to be on different parts of it better than like literally any thing i've ever seen and i want to couch that by saying like it felt like to me it was a fairly responsibly made show like i didn't find anything about it, like particularly exploitive, which I think it would be a very, very easy thing to do,

but I don't want to like set that in. I think part of what's really successful about it, and Griffin and I commented on it right away, is that they show a lot of really successful couples. Sure. Where one or both partners are on the spectrum. And so it's not like you just see these dating shows and it's just like, oh, dating's hard. It's like, let's see what this looks like when a couple is

successful. Right. So you feel like, oh, okay, you feel hopeful, and you feel really encouraged. And it's really heartwarming. It is heartwarming. Like you are rooting for the people on this show, like, so, so, so hardcore. The couples that are making it work uh it's just it's it's great but also as genuinely as you know i i feel fairly like with it when it comes to like the the autism spectrum and like understanding like what it is but like it really really like um i don't know it just it is very i feel like educational about sort of like what what it means to to be on different parts of the spectrum i thought it i thought it was really uh really incredible you do get the like you know it is not much like a dating show it's like not there's this

element of non-reality to it because like they are being filmed right and because like a lot of these the the folks on this show who are on the spectrum have like an aversion to sort of social um what's the word artifice like that like it there is an element of like uh discomfort there that maybe maybe should not be there or maybe it's like more uncomfortable than it needs to be but i i don't know i think in general like i i thought it was really terrific and heartwarming and genuinely sweet uh you go first this week do you want to hit it yeah i wanted to talk about for my first thing uh pretend play like with kids or like in the uh uh you mean pretend play like... Is this who you want to be?

You know what I mean? Like how we in the bedroom sometimes do like a light John Garfield play. Like sometimes you're a pharmacist and I am picking up a prescription. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or sometimes like I'm a cumulonimbus cloud and you're an airplane. Wow. Flying through me.

That was really powerful for me. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it has to be. No, I'm talking about kids. Oh, okay. That's better. I would rather talk about that. Yeah, me too. Good.

That's why I picked that. Good. This is something that I'm really proud of. For Henry, I think it's one of those things like, you know, in those early years, you have those milestones of like talking and walking and, and potty training and all that stuff. But I think the thing that has been most fun for me to watch and the thing that I really like, like, I don't know, I don't want to say brag on but i feel like this is a this is a demonstration of like how cool he is is his pretend play abilities well i think we can like couch it by saying maths he's just constantly putting up bricks yeah he's never been really good at uh the the kind of the show pieces that a lot of parents say like sing your abc song like can't do it no yeah can't do it infrequently can count to 10 uh but not like uh not the kind of thing we put on a stage and say do it henry it's more like hey take this batman and this flash and create a world for us yesterday he he uh it is exhausting for us in a way that is

like kind of difficult to understand because it's not like he is running us ragged he certainly does do that from time to time where he just wants to sprint all around the house or be pushed on his scooter or whatever all around the neighborhood. And that's exhausting in one way. But yesterday for probably about an hour and 15 minutes, he wanted to do an extended inside out role play using magnetiles so like the red triangle was anger and the yellow triangle was joy and like he wanted to do all the emotions for no joke about the runtime of the entire film inside out and i got to the end of it like i am i am creatively spent my man it's it's one of those things too like when griffin and i talked about our own childhoods we realized was a big part of like our growing up.

I mean, me particularly because I was an only child and maybe you because you were the youngest. It's like you create your own little characters in your own little world and it becomes like a big part of what you do when you play. Particularly when you're not, let's say, a specially athletic kid. particularly when you're not, let's say, a specially athletic kid. Sure. And so it was something that when I saw Henry do it, I was like, oh, I remember that.

That's me. And I feel like it's also particularly suited well for Griffin because Griffin's such a good storyteller, improviser. It has improved my improvisational skills really dramatically. We were talking to your parents yesterday about how Henry likes wrong books, where he wants us to read books, but to do every single thing in the book wrong, like say the wrong names and the wrong colors and the wrong like everything. And like, I feel like I could do I could join like a Herald team at this point because of how he's forgotten to like part of me understands it, right? He has so many books that we've read to him hundreds of times. And so for him, he knows the book now. And he's forgotten to like part of me understands it right he has so many books that we've read to him hundreds of times and so for him he knows the book now and he's excited to see

what the story would be if it were different yeah but he started doing that with new books which i think he doesn't really get like you don't even know you don't even know this is wrong really i mean i guess you could look at the pictures and determine it but you've forgotten the point of this right um and and so i you know maybe for my own like edification uh and also just out of curiosity i looked into like pretend pretend play right and all because it seems like the kind of thing that would build a lot of skills right absolutely sure like you there's obviously a lot of creativity involved but there's a lot of opportunities to kind of demonstrate and act out different things that you're not maybe personally experiencing.

Yes. That there's a lot of value in that. A lot of research talks about how you have the opportunity to express both positive and negative feelings and kind of integrate emotion with cognition. And I've seen that with Henry, too. Sometimes all the characters are playing and one isn't doesn't have a friend and he'll like bring a friend in and talk about how it feels and it's just like it's cool to see him kind of test out emotions and problem solving in this little made up world that he's created yeah you know and there's a lot of value in that especially in a

time where he's not really getting to be around a lot of other kids. I will say, though, yesterday during our extended Inside Out LARPing that we were doing, he got really angry that I wouldn't make the sadness emotion become happy. And I was like, I don't think you understood the entire thesis of that film, my three-year-old dog. They also talk about how it gives the opportunity to work through kind of reduced aggression and delay of gratification uh empathy this idea especially if you're playing with other kids and you can't control the narrative as much i will say with henry as you just mentioned he kind of tells us where the story can go i imagine if you were playing with other kids they would be less

accommodating yeah he'll he'll steamroll right over us but he has a deference for older children that i think you know nullifies that somewhat um i mentioned the increase of creativity there's also a suggestion like when they look at like nobel prize and macarthur winners that those early childhood games were kind of more make-believe and creative sure you know kind of expanding your later capacity to kind of imagine these worlds yeah you know and do things that aren't possible currently um and and just building curiosity too that for me like if anybody were to ask kind of the skill that i think is most valuable uh just in your entire lifespan i feel like curiosity like number one yeah right it's one of the things that i like always respected and whistling about older people yeah whistling

is first and their whistling yeah their whistling ability i mean when you look at a person that can whistle yeah sure like what isn't possible yeah what else what else that mouth do is what rachel likes to say rachel likes to say that rachel loves to say that yeah on the street like you see like somebody like a little skip in their step like and you're like uh what else do you don't say well no i mean i have shouted it across the street before you have you did do that once or twice yeah and you were um spoken to sternly by an officer of the law. Excuse me, miss.

Yeah. We don't do that. We don't do that here. I will say like there was a researcher that looked at kind of the stages of play, which I thought was interesting. This is Dr. Sarah Smolanski. was interesting this is dr uh sarah smolansky uh and she talks about kind of you know initially kids when they are learning to play um there's doing something called functional play which is just like uh here is a teddy bear and i am giving it a drink of water and that's kind of the first stage of like i'm pushing a shopping cart to put things in and then constructive play where they're

like building a house out of blocks, like this idea of like, they're doing a little bit more creativity, but it's still like, I'm gonna make this thing that I know it really exists and it's gonna look like the thing that exists. And then dramatic play is what happens from like H3 and on,

which is like, you're cooperating, you're using something to represent something else from its original purpose um and you're kind of imitating familiar scenarios yeah in your play you're writing an entire fucking tennessee williams play but starring the avengers which is our usual emo around this household um yeah he has started to understand i think a little bit that that the avengers universe is different than the batman universe i've noticed oh yeah yeah they still interact but he gets they're not like coexisting traditionally yeah um the fourth stage of play often is just like where you learn how to play games like when you learn how to do i know this griffin is really

anxious for this one really pushing that really pushing that come on bud when you learn how to do I know Griffin is really anxious for this one really pushing that really pushing that come on bud when you figure out that there are rules and there are ways to play certain games and that it is important to stick to those rules yeah I get out the chess set every once in a while and he'll like roundhouse kick all the pieces off of it I'll be like that's that's progress

we've gotten to he kind of understands hide and seek yeah which is I mean there are rules associated with that sure we're getting there yeah um but that's yeah that's that's my my thing pretend play that's very good i have weirdly my first thing is kind of the exact polar opposite of that and it's real work no uh my first thing okay this is gonna sound really really out there so i need everybody to kind of like stick with me and grant me like five or six minutes of just kind of like clemency while i lay it lay it all out okay my first thing is nightmares we've talked about dreams on the show before

rachel specifically has talked about dreams on the show i don't think nightmares themselves are great obviously i think they're scary and they can contribute to sleep deprivation uh which i've never really, I don't think I've talked about on this show or any other, but it's like a thing I really struggle with. Particularly since we've been in quarantine, I have had bouts of insomnia that have lasted for very, very,

very long stretches of time where I only get like a few hours of sleep a night and it sucks shit and it's bad. And I've definitely seen my nightmares count tick up during that time and when i say nightmares like i'm not talking about just like bad dreams i'm talking about like long extended like vivid disturbing dreams that like why are these wonderful oh i'm gonna get there okay uh they are common among children but they are less so among adults i didn't realize this uh but i found a couple places that corroborated this about only half of adults actually have like occasional nightmares really that seems so it seems wild uh only two to eight percent of adults have them like very frequently and i would count myself uh among that number because i have them really quite

frequently i never talked to anybody and have them be like, oh yeah, I don't know that I've had a nightmare in a few years. Nightmares take place in REM sleep, much like dreams, Beth, that good sleep, the deep stuff.

And because REM cycles get longer as time goes on, most nightmares that you have happen closer to the morning. They happen in like the early morning hours instead of like, typically you don't wake up in a cold sweat and it's like, you know, 1130 at night and you've just had a very, very quick nightmare. I didn't realize that's the distinction between nightmares and night terrors.

Night terrors typically happen like pretty soon after you fall asleep and they are more based in, they feel like feelings rather than dreams. So it's like a completely sort of different thing. And that is not what I'm talking about night night terrors are uh horrifying and and and uh scary uh nightmares are sometimes spontaneous but they also have a lot of attributable causes um eating before bed like you uh i think you hear that in like a christmas carol like you're just a blob of mustard

uh but eating right before bed can increase your metabolism and brain activity, which can contribute to having more nightmares. There are medications, specifically ones that act on the brain, like antidepressants and narcotics are associated with nightmares, as are some like non-psychological medications,

things like a lot of blood pressure medication has been attributed to uh nightmares uh sleep deprivation can be a trigger which is a vicious cycle because it can also lead to sleep deprivation if you i have had nightmares that are so rough and rumbled that when i uh you know wake up i am so you know, jacked that I just cannot fall asleep, which then makes me more sleep deprived, which then makes it more. That is still something I hold on to today that started happening as I was a kid.

You know, the idea that you wake up from a nightmare and sometimes if you fall back asleep right away, you will like be in it again. Yes. I feel like that happened a lot as a kid and I like would teach myself to try and stay awake for a while. And I still do that as an adult

not great it's not a great behavior uh and then also just like anxiety and depression and uh of course ptsd can also like lend themselves to chronic nightmares uh as can sleep disorders like uh sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome uh and yeah nightmares are fucking brutal and they are bad uh the good news is that they do have a lot of you know attributable causes and so there is there are things that you can do to limit them if you do end up having them like chronically before they can have like a detrimental effect on your health so nightmares are not wonderful uh i have them a lot and frequently like wake up literally covered in sweat i showed you the like griffin

sized sweat mark in our bed from the other day when i woke up in the middle of one uh and right it's rough what is wonderful is that sense of relief when you wake up from a nightmare and you realize that it wasn't real this was a long walk griffin i told you i needed like five to six minutes to get there but now we're here. I genuinely, in the same way that when I have the dream that I have that I'm like always the most pumped about is like the telekinesis dream, which is like, oh shit, it's real. I'm moving stuff with my mind. Yeah. Oh, I probably won't remember how to do it.

Oh, I can't remember how to do it. I just have this superpower. And then I wake up and I'm like, ah, fuck. Let me at least try and turn the lamp on with my mind. No. Ah, fuck. It was a dream. Damn it.

This is the inversion of that where I have some horrible dream. And my nightmares are never like I'm being chased by a killer through the woods. It is typically like either way more apocalyptic than that or something like a person that I know has like passed away and now I'm sad. Or like, uh, I very frequently have the,

uh, the actor's nightmare of just being on stage and not knowing any of the words of the show and being like humiliated about that. And much like Christmas Carol, which I referenced earlier, when you wake up from one of those nightmares and it's like, boy, what day is it today?

It wasn't real. Like that is incredible. That is the good stuff for me. And it also sometimes has like a very tangible effect on my life. I remember when I was living in Chicago, I was having nightmares like literally every night, just constantly I was having nightmares

because I wasn't like leaving the house and I was like super depressed and not really doing anything about it. I was eating like garbage and just like not taking care of myself. So my nightmares were just like constant. And I had one where a friend of mine had died and I was just like, it was so real. It was like I had woken up and my friend was gone. And I was like, so, so, so heartbroken about it. And so when I woke up the next morning and realized that it wasn't real, I was so over the moon and I got back in touch with that friend and like stayed in better touch with them because I felt this like incredible relief

that they were still there. And it made me feel more sort of like grateful. That is the like best case scenario of it. But even just like a dream where, you know, the world is ending or whatever, and the anxiety that that brings about and having that just be nullified is kind of like a superpower. That is nice. I will have dreams a lot of times where I am in some kind of argument with somebody. And it is nice to wake up and be like, oh, good, that didn't happen.

Yes. Yeah, it is. I wake up and be like, oh good, that didn't happen. Yes. Yeah, it is. I don't really have anything else to say. I couldn't find a lot of like research on this. There's a lot of research on what causes nightmares. And I am not, please do not walk away from this segment thinking that I'm saying like,

nightmares kick ass. They're not. But that like second chance, it feels like a second chance that you get sometimes after like a really really vivid really realistic nightmare that makes you feel grateful that it wasn't real when you wake up in the morning like there's not a lot of research on that but it is uh i had a terrible dream last night uh and this morning i woke up and it wasn't real. And I was very, very, I had a little spring in my step. It was really nice.

That was a weird segment. Yeah, it was a real glasses half full kind of moment for you. Yeah, thank you. Well, that's the whole thing here in the show. Speaking of glasses half full, you know what else is more than half empty? In fact, it's three quarters empty and change is the MaxFunDrive. We're almost out of time, folks. You want to talk some about the the the gifts you can get for uh giving it so griffin mentioned uh if you give five dollars a month which i'm just gonna do

the math for you on that that's 60 bucks a year for a year yeah yeah well some people hear five dollars a month and they think i have no idea what that would be that's sixty dollars friends rachel can multiply literally any number times 12 like give it like 12 12 times 12 144 there it is baby bazinga 10 uh what 12 times 10 120 like it's nothing yeah let's stop there let Let's please. Yeah, because if I said like seven. Let's please immediately stop there. Okay. And that's bonus content, right? Yeah.

And that's a lot of bonus content. And I know some of you are reaching the end of your podcast feed because you've had a lot more time to sit around and listen. Yes. This would just dump a whole bunch of new podcasts right in your lap from your favorite MaxFun hosts. So $5 a month. That's a,

that's a win-win for everybody. Sure. What about a 10 at 10? So, um, a lot of folks are looking for ways to, to show their support and their love for particular podcasts. $10 a month.

You get to pick a pin associated with your favorite podcast. You put that pin on a backpack, you put it on a purse, you put it on a jacket, and it on a jacket uh and you've then you've got that pin you got that pin it's designed by megan lincott uh who makes new designs every year and they are these just really nice enamel pins and you're gonna love it you also get a little max fun membership card and you also get the the bonus content that you get for the five dollar tier. What about at $20 a month? At $20 a month. So it is not a surprise to a lot of you, but many of our MaxFun listeners, kind of gamers.

Oh, yeah. A little bit of a gamer type out there. And you will get playing cards. Yes. You'll get dice. Yes. All like specifically related to and in tribute to the maximum fun shows and family yes uh and i think you know twenty dollars a month might be a little steep for some of you um but

if you've if you've got that that's a nice little benefit um for you if you're able to give it that level yeah it we it really does not matter what level you give at and straight up like we know it is a terrible time out here and that a lot of you are not in a position to to become members at all and that's totally fine we we fully fully fully understand that uh we also hear from some folks like hey sorry five bucks a month is all i can do right now like that's that's incredible. You are literally, you know, putting energy into something that you like and you are allowing us to do the exact same thing. And like, it doesn't matter what, you know, how much you are able to do that. The fact that you have chosen to do that at all is a really, really remarkable thing.

And it means the absolute world to us um so yeah go to go to maximumfund.org join look at the different levels that you're able to give if you're already a member you've been but you've been like listening to a lot more of our shows maybe during quarantine you've been holed up and you know you've been consuming more max fun shows and you want to you know up your donation you can jump up to a new level or you can uh boost by just like kicking up your your donation level a couple bucks maybe not up to the next you know tier if you don't want to go from five to ten you could do seven or whatever uh that's that's an option that's available to you now you can also gift memberships to other uh folks if they are not able to you know become but they really want to, or they want some of the pledge gifts,

you can do that as well. But yeah, please think about supporting us. Your support has allowed us to make these shows what they are. And we can't thank you enough. It's maximumfun.org slash join. And hey, can I, well, can I, hey, what, hey. Hey. Can I steal your weight? Yes. Okay. org slash join and hey can i while can i hey what hey hey can i steal you wait yes okay hey we have a couple of grombo prawns here and i would love to read one of them if you wouldn't

mind me doing that please do okay here's one and it's for and i didn't say this like i didn't make this name up because it's gonna sound rude but it is. Stinky. Like, I would never. Like, to a person I don't know very well, I would never. Not even to a person you know very well. You're very polite. Thank you. It is from Allison, a.k.a. Stinkus,

and I wouldn't do that either, and you know me. Anyway, Stinkus says to Stinky, Dearest Stinky, I am so glad you enjoyed this good, good podcast that brings me light even in the darkest of times. I think that qualifies for now. And you have a fine tushy.

And I'm glad to have spent three years with you and ideally many more on my love, Stinkus. I've never seen the word tushy spelled out like this. It's T-O-O-S-H-I-E. And I would love for Miriam and webster to just follow in this grand example and update the book because i know they do that a lot these days tushy you want to push the button we have to indicate to miriam webster that we have a suggestion i want them to change it actually if i have power over here i will make them change it to say tucci uh like mr stanley but uh referring to a buttock can i read you the next one please do this is a message for spike it is from justine hi honey bun marrying you is the best

thing i ever did aside from when i asked you to walk me to my car and closer by nine inch nails played at top volume when i started it you're my best friend and an authentic fart and the best person I know. Hope this message makes your day. Do you think when people write in the Jumbotrons they understand your aversion to like scatological gastrointestinal sort of... I hope not. And now that you've brought it up

I'm even more concerned. I mean I had just called two people stink adjacent. So we all have our crosses to bear today. I really enjoy the Closer by Nine Inch Nails reference. Really brings me back. Number two. I can tell you about my second thing. Who does number two work for?

Who does number two... Who does number two work for? Who does number two work for? It is number two work for. You got to find a new host. To do the show with you? Yeah, I got to find a new. I got to find someone who not only does not do Austin Powers, but has never seen an Austin Powers film.

Whoa. I'm going to put an ad out. Hmm. Our babysitter's pretty young. Do you want me to go tag out? She maybe hasn't seen him. Hey, what's your second thing? My second thing is the Ferris wheel.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. I feel like everything I know about the Ferris wheel came from Devil in the White City. Oh yeah. I mean, that would be appropriate, right? It would be appropriate.

Have you read that book? I have not. Oh man, it kicks ass. I may be actually restating some of the information that is in there oh you almost certainly are it's a book that is largely about the ferris wheel at one point yeah yeah um i uh i love the ferris wheel sure when i was a kid and i was a little terrified of roller coasters uh ferris wheel was my go-to yeah like i want to get up there i want to see i want to see the. I want to see the park. I want to see the sights. Particularly scared of the upside downs. And you can't do that with a Ferris wheel.

No. At least not on most of them. I want to know which games have the best like stuffed animal. Like where's the big sponges, Bob's? Where's the big sponges, Bob's at? Because those are the games I'm going to make a beeline to. You can see it from up high. I'm not going to waste my fucking money on the frog hammer launch game.

I'm not gonna do the ping pong balls into the fish bowls. No way. Also Ferris wheel, good for cuddling. Good for smooching. Oh, it's no one can see. When you're at the zenith of it, you're the highest in the park. No one's gonna see you necking.

But you do have a limited arc there to neck before your youth pastor can see you again. A lot of the rides are restrictive. You know, you're really buckled in. You can't do the arm around the shoulder, but you can with the Ferris wheel. Also, Tunnel of Love is not a thing that actually exists anywhere in the actual world. Well, I mean, the dark rides. Dark rides.

What are you going to do? Are you going to kiss on the haunted house ride? Are you going to ask the ride attendant exactly how long the ride is so you know how much time you have to work with no way man uh ferris wheel so uh was not the actual like first of its kind um the big the big ferris wheel we know about designed by ge Washington Gale Ferris was after there had been such a creation by William Summers who built a 50-foot wooden wheel at Asbury Park, Atlantic City, and Coney Island. Whoa, okay.

He called it a roundabout. Okay. But the Ferris wheel was designed as kind of the answer to the Eiffel Tower. The World's Columbian Exposition was happening in Chicago. This is in the 1890s. And Eiffel Tower had just come out and everybody's like, what are we going to do? And it was kind of the big task. There was a man named Daniel Burnham in late 1890 that was tasked with kind of turning this little square mile of chicago into a world showcase and he approached a bunch of

designers and said we've got to figure something out uh it's got to be as good as the eiffel tower but is is not just the eiffel tower uh this is explicitly you have to read devil in the white that is explicitly about daniel burnham and the like incredible infrastructural challenge of creating this this this world's fair uh yeah uh so george washington gail ferris who at the time was 33 years old and from pittsburgh uh said like all right i've got an idea uh and he was initially in charge with inspecting the steel used by the fair and thought oh, let's do a huge revolving steel wheel. And everybody was like, that'll never work. And he spent a lot of his own money making sure that it could happen. So he spent $25,000 on safety studies and hiring more engineers and

recruiting investors all to make this happen. And it ultimately measured 250 feet in diameter. What's up? How's your shitty 50-foot wheel? It had 36 cars, which made it capable of holding 60 people. That's, that is, I forgot how, that's so fucking big. To get on something like that in the 19th century let me just hop

aboard this 250 foot tall man-made object in the 19th century get like way higher than i have ever been in my life yeah you know um over the next 19 weeks more than 1.4 million people paid 50 cents for a 20 minute ride ride during that time period. And I will say the most notable part of this wheel was an 89,000-pound axle that had to be hoisted onto two towers 140 feet in the air. Just the construction of this thing. I mean, it's incredible. I think, I mean, obviously the Eiffel Tower gets a lot of credit for even inspiring somebody to think this big well the eiffel tower was a creation of what was essentially like a parisian world's fair like it was its own sort of like it was everything like that made in that era was just an engineering

flex of just like yep now we've made the greatest object currently extant in the world and so that's that's what this was a swing at um the ferris wheel that was created for this uh colombian exposition did not um did not survive it uh it actually made its way to st louis um it was sold for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and then two years later, dynamited. That's the only way to kill this big bastard. Ferris also became immersed in a lot of lawsuits about debts that he owed suppliers and that the fair owned him. It did not end well for him.

Which, I mean, you invest a lot of your own money into something there's always some risks associated with that yeah uh there is a big ferris wheel in chicago today sure uh do you ever go up in that navy pier ferris wheel i never really went to navy pier there's not a lot there well yeah and also i didn't really know anybody in chicago so that's a weird solo excursion i feel like so let me just go to the navy pier ferris wheel by myself um the navy pier ferris wheel was added to pier park in 1995 was 150 feet tall and 40 gondolas um in 2016 they updated it up to 200 feet and had climate-controlled gondolas. Ooh. The biggest Ferris wheel currently 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Oh, really?

Mm-hmm. 550 feet tall. That's quite large. It's a big one. Big one, guys. That's so big. Yeah, you can learn a lot. There's a lot. I mean, it becomes kind of a showpiece for a lot of cities because it looks great on a big one. Big one, guys. That's so big. Yeah, you can learn a lot. There's a lot.

I mean, it becomes kind of a showpiece for a lot of cities because it looks great on a skyline. I love it in a skyline. I was just about to say like London has it there. I forget what the... I feel like I know its name. It's on the tip of my tongue. Hong Kong has like a great one, I remember. Love it.

I love the Apple TV does this incredible screensaver essentially which is just like these panoramic sweeping shots of either different sort of like beautiful environments or city skylines and i feel like i can identify most cities by the ferris wheel that they have the london one's called the london eye yes by the way uh yeah i i just i don't know it seems kind of ridiculous in a lot of ways um because it's uh it takes up a lot of space you know not a lot of people can be on it at once yeah um you know it's not exactly a thrilling thing for a lot of people now that if they've been on a bunch of roller coasters but i. I love it. There's something kind of romantic and beautiful about it. It's great.

It's a good shape. It's a great, it's the simplicity of it is what makes it so, so perfect. Plus it's always fun to think about it, you know, coming off of its stand. Sure. And you roll for a while. For a while. You'd probably be terribly injured. Yeah.

But what a way to go, right? You're like, how did your uncle mike uh pass away oh heart failure that's too bad how did your uncle mike pass away oh well okay he was on this ferris wheel and it came off the ferris wheel went down the highway it was radical uh hey can i tell you my second thing yes so excited for this one it is my favorite music video of all time hands down no competition uh for also an exceptional song it is the music video for scenario by a tribe called quest featuring leaders of the new school uh which i finally kind of looked into the the origins of this collaboration uh and and learned a whole lot but scenario is like scenario is one of the all-time best like hip-hop bangers in the like history of recorded music it is widely regarded as the tribe's best like song and also one of the best posse cut which is just

like yeah it's like essentially just like a a pseudo competitive round robin of mcs just like each doing yeah i feel like anybody like that can very like strongly remember their introduction to hip-hop and and kind of as they explore the genre will have a a tribe called quest yes well they were yes they were known for they did a lot of collaborations a lot of posse cuts and this is uh you know it's their best known song so it is of course their best known uh collaboration with uh leaders of the new school who were this like young upstart quartet uh from long island and they were like young as hell and making this huge name for themselves they started uh opening for public enemy and chuck d was like this like father to them gave two of their members their names those two members were charlie brown and a young busta rhymes uh was the standout member of leaders of

the new school and in fact like after this collaboration after a scenario where a tribe called quest was like these guys are fucking incredible let's let's you know get them on a track uh buster rhymes was like this was the launch pad for his career and while i think charlie brown also like everybody is incredible in this song uh buster rhymes is the only one that kind of just had this meteoric rise yeah thatoric rise that his bandmates did not necessarily follow that same trajectory, which led to a bit of hostility between them, some of which was actually sort of aired out during a kind of infamous episode of Yo! MTV Raps. is fucking amazing Busta Rhymes comes in with the very last verse and it is like so

memorable there's so many like memorable like single like pairings of lines in this song that listening to hear sampled all the time here sampled all the time who's that brown is like in so many fucking songs and it's three words

is so like hearing it and and knowing like a little bit about like who has sampled what and hearing it all in the same fucking track is like a staggering history lesson contained in one single just absolute bop uh i'm going to play a little bit of it now because i know that it's you know it was uh recorded in 1991 so there's probably a lot of our listeners who have maybe never even heard it. So here is Busta Rhymes' verse at the end of Scenario. well-earned his his career launch off this song was well-earned because that verse is so fucking good uh when i hear this song i don't just want to listen to it though i absolutely have to watch the music video because it's it is i was not familiar with the video like i'd heard the song you know hundreds of times and then i watched the video and i was like i don't think

i have ever seen this before you you're on this level with me now though right that it is like all-time fucking amazing it's very nostalgic for a lot of reasons. It is 1991 sort of like boiled down into this beautiful prismatic crystal. It was directed by Jim Swofield who did a lot of work with the Tribe Called Quest and directed like a few music videos back in that day. Most famously the music video for Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

Oh my gosh. Which is another great, great music video for summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, which is another, which is another, uh, great, great music video. Uh, but scenario plays out like, and I would encourage you to just watch it now before I talk about it,

because it will be impossible to, for me to describe the, uh, rampant charm of this video. It is shown as an interactive computer desktop, uh, where windows appear like featuring like low res videos of you know the members of a tribe called quest and leaders just like going at it or clips from like

you know uh concerts uh and particular video games being referenced like no okay because i i saw some of some of the like little interactive elements reminded me of these game player creation. Well, what it is reminiscent of is just some Windows 3.0 ass interfaces that run the game from like, they're present in the entire video. It is shown as these overlapping windows that are popping up of non-extant applications.

At one point, Fife Dog is doing a verse and he appears in this like salon app where a menu toggles him through like various haircuts. That's a trick that they really like to go through. I think at one point Buster Rhymes is doing a verse, but he's wearing a green screen shirt. And so the app is like switching the shirt between different patterns.

They really, really like that trick. There's like fake camera control editing interfaces that is like switching between like dutch angles and uh all kinds of different things uh at one point there is like there are inscrutable like cameos of just like a window will pop up and there's red man or a window will pop up and it's just like there's spike lee for some fucking reason i couldn't like i did a double take when i saw that i was like whoa wait why is spike lee spike he's just like he appears in a window he's just kind of like bopping his head along with the music it's like okay i guess uh it like it it is so much of it is like kind of like nonsensical but it is also like extremely fresh and like playful and again like just some microsoft

incarta ass interfaces that feel so so so wildly nostalgic yeah i think for sure it was based on some actual existing game because it seems so precise no i mean there were okay so there were um uh certain games like uh mtv music generator or there was a sega cd game called make my video and it make my video which would have come out uh maybe mid 90s i want to say there was uh i think it came with just like two songs i think one of them was jump jump and you could like press different buttons on the controller to switch between different like video feeds so you would like edit together essentially a very bare bones music video essentially just using three different feeds of music and then at the end a director or producer would be like hey that was pretty good you got 90 so maybe it's like I don't know it feels like this video informed that game or that game informed this video uh but it is just so uh it is so 90s but it is also so fucking fun and the song is so

fucking good and uh i get like obsessed with it i will like think about it uh and i will be like oh i haven't watched that in a while and i will watch it and then it will be like, oh, I haven't watched that in a while. And I will watch it. And then it will be all I can think about for like a solid week. I've watched it like eight times today. It's so beautiful and incredible and good. And you should watch it again. If you've heard the song and you know the song rips, but you've never seen the music video, you owe it to yourself to go on this journey. And you also owe it to yourself to go on the journey of going to maximumfund.org join and for the last time we will ask you to

consider becoming a supporter of the network shows like ours shows like jordan jesse go stop podcasting yourself uh the other shows that the mackroy family does mbim bam adventure zone all of those shows exist and have become what they are now because of the support that we've gotten from our our members uh through the max fun drive thank you maximum fun thank you maximum fun for having us and for everything you do and thank you to you one last time maximumfund.org join thank you to bowen and augustus for these for our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description and um thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Griffin.

Thank you to Rachel. We're a good team. That's funny because like 10 minutes ago, you said you wanted to replace me. It's just Mike Myers has consistently driven a wedge between us. Sure. Not but not you love So I Married an Axe Murderer. That's like your shit. I haven't watched it in a very long long time i don't even know if i feel comfortable saying that anymore i think my hostility towards mr myers has grown such that i might not appreciate it as much well yeah i will

admit that you are not a fan of mr powers or mr shrek or mr borat which like he didn't do but i also think you could lay some of the you could lay some of the blame there would be no borat without without mr myers yeah it's interesting you can read rachel's entire sort of capstone uh paper that she wrote in college about is borat mike myers uh it goes off the rails but i mean it's 60 pages of like well well researched well documented and well cited information so um what was the conclusion that you arrived at for that paper uh no okay yeah this is a short short end long long long road to get their body of research less surveys a lot of focus groups ultimately no the answer was it was a different actor. MaximumFun.org

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