Wonderful! - Wonderful! 198: Where Did My Body Odor Go?

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

Rachel’s favorite scanned codes! Griffin’s favorite seasonal bop!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Support AAPI communities and those affected by anti-Asian violence: https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/stop-aapi-hate Support the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund: https://aapifund.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 Hello, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. Check out those leaves. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Crunch leaves crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch go the brown cool breeze today that cool freaking it's like the it's like the weather and i know i know we hey gang we fucking get it all right we're basic we're around in 40 and it's just gonna happen this way where we're just really into weather and weather-based things, okay? But it's

the first day of fall and it's like the weather was like, oh, it's the first day of fall. Let me turn down the thermostat. Don't mind if I do. Where'd my body odor go? It's gone. Thanks, September 22nd. Don't mind if I do, actually. Where'd my body odor go? This is wonderful. It's a show where we talk about things that are good and things that we like and things we're into like the the departure of my body odor until well i don't know like probably april 5th or so it's probably when we're gonna be lucky march sometimes march it's really bacon in there huh yeah really cranking away but uh right now i'm fresh as a freaking daisy i feel like i just stepped out of the shower in one of those Herbal Essences commercials.

Do you think that teens watch Herbal Essences commercials today? Are they on TikTok? Probably on TikTok. I mean, if berries and cream could blow up in this way, I think Herbal Essences is next. For sure. I can't believe Justin hasn't pursued Herbal Essences. Yeah, just posting some more vintage.

Some more vintage advertisements. If you've never seen it, this was ads where women would use a special shampoo that did make them have an orgasm, basically. And America was like, this is good. I like this shampoo. And it's like, you know what? Liberation. Go for it. You know we're all for that around here.

But this was the 90s, folks. I get that your shampoo smells good but damn do you have any small wonders oh man you gave me so much time i did oh boy um applesauce yeah sure like just plain jane right over the right over the plate applesauce yeah yeah i think there are foods that as an adult you stop eating yeah and you do it because you think that is a baby's food yeah and then you sometimes you need a simpler food and that that food scratches all the itch when you say sometimes you need a simpler food, do you mean because a horrible stomach virus has ravaged your family like it has our family

these last few days? I wanted to leave some mystery for the listener. Yeah, I don't want people to think we live in like a fucking plague house, but it's been pretty much nonstop around here. And applesauce has been a real ride or die soldier for us. Yeah, yeah. I feel like we talk a lot about our distress We've been pretty much nonstop around here. And applesauce has been a real ride or die soldier for us. Yeah. Yeah.

I just I feel like we talk a lot about our distress and I want to keep the romance there between us and the listener, you know? Yeah, sure. I want them to envision us just on plush towels. Hale and Hardy. Just like reclining and drinking a green smoothie. I am. I'm in love with like apple cinnamon, applesauce.

My mom used to just buy those big ass hunts jars of apple cinnamon, applesauce. And that's my jam. Those two flavors. I'm sorry. We don't have any of that. It's okay. Yeah,

it's okay. You could add cinnamon. The problem is my fruit consumption has declined as a grownup. And that's because there are a lot fewer acceptable ways to eat fruit as a grownup, like applesauce. You know what I mean? Yeah. You can't buy those little cuppies with the little chunkums in the fruit salad. I feel like that's not acceptable as an adult.

I mean, nobody sees you. Nobody sees me anymore. We're not on tour. Yeah. I can eat fucking fruit salad if I want to. Of course. I should have thought of a small wonder, huh? I thought that was yours. Rotisserie tour. Yeah. I can eat fucking fruit salad if I want to. Of course. I should have thought of a small wonder, huh? I thought that was yours.

Rotisserie chicken. Okay. You go to the grocery store, it's there. It's hot already for some, there's not other things at the grocery store that you roll up and they're like, here's all these hot dogs. Yeah, grocery stores have that very specific warmer

for rotisserie chickens. And it's fine. It's so good. Yeah. It's just like grocery store isn't restaurant. No. But in that moment. It kind of is, huh?

Yeah. It's like here's my meal and they already cooked it for me. I like going to a grocery store with the intention of like, I need to buy supplies for my house. But this rotisserie chicken is going to really scratch a very immediate itch for me also. And that's really exciting. This is not like this oatmeal where I know I'm going to have oatmeal every morning for the next week. This is dinner tonight. This is happening now. It's fucking thrilling. now it's fucking thrilling yeah although we always go through the dilemma of like we can't chill it they've warmed it no once you so we have to eat it as soon as possible that's it yeah you really need to slam it as soon as you get home like they did the work to keep it warm we can't ruin this betray that trying it out hey you go first this week what do you i think we were debating this because last week was a very special episode where we learned a lot about drugs, but mostly condiments. Yeah.

Hey, by the way. Yeah. My poll results are in. Yeah. Is it still pretty close? It ended up being very close. It was like 51-49. This poll was for mustard.

No, gravy. Oh, gravy. That's right. I reached out to the nation and said, is gravy a condiment? Is gravy not a condiment? And like 51% said it is not a condiment. 49% said it is a condiment. You're crazy.

I'll be straight with you. I do not remember which side of this I came down on. You thought it was for sure a condiment. Oh, okay. That's wrong. That's not true. Because if you go to a like, if you buy something, if you go to a restaurant,

you can order something called biscuits and gravy. Thus meaning that the gravy is an integral component to the thing. So I apologize. I think I was just, that episode got us

both feeling very pugnacious. Yeah. We were both scrapping for a fight throughout that whole episode. I know. And I feel like we both said a lot of things

that we regret. I know. I came down really hard against yellow mustard in a way that surprised me. But you like yellow mustard is the thing. I know you do. I know. Okay. Anyway. Anyway, my wonderful thing this week is barcodes.

Yes. Isn't it kind of fun? Yes. Like, especially those self-checkout stations where I'm like, here's the barcode, whoop, and the thing immediately knows what it is and how much it costs. There was a thing called a QCAT that was a little barcode scanner that you could plug into your computer that came out in like the 90s, early aughts, and it was supposed to be this big technological marvel, right?

It's sort of like early QR codes that you scan with your phone that can take you to a menu for a restaurant or whatever it was that thing but like at your house so you could scan the barcode on the back of like a box of lucky charms to go to the lucky charms website and it was so hyped up because it was made by some like famous developer and it you could get one for like free like through ordering ordering a magazine, which of course we did. And then nobody used like it crashed and burned so instantaneously. But it got me so fascinated by Barkas. What would be the advantage of that? I don't know.

So you don't have to type in www.luckycharms.biz.gov. You just scan the box of Lucky Charms. It would take you to somewhere. Yeah. By the way, I really hope that Biden does something about our Lucky Charms official. Yeah. I feel like he's corrupt. Yeah, for sure.

And he needs to be replaced. Gotta get him out. Drain that cereal swamp. So barcodes, I didn't realize how recent it was. I mean, it makes sense, right? Like there's a lot of technology involved that just didn't exist.

Yeah. Because the first barcode was scanned by the first grocery store cashier in 1974. That's fairly recent. Yeah. But the actual patent for the barcode idea was done in 1949. Wow. That was very early, actually. Weird.

It's weird that I thought, I guess I just assumed it fell somewhere between those two years. So it all started at Drexel Institute of Technology. There was a supermarket manager who came to the school in Philadelphia and said, we have to figure out how to get shoppers through the store. Is there anything you all can develop? And at the time, the dean was like and just can't be done didn't pursue the idea but there was a post-grad who was present and was super

fascinated by the idea uh and mentioned it to one of his colleagues and then they kind of went from there and this again this is in 1947 when they first started having conversations. And so what is funny about the article I read, so I pulled it from a couple sources. And the first source was Mental Floss. And they suggested that Woodland, who is the one who is already the inventor, and then Bob Silver is the one that overheard the conversation. Woodland decides to leave graduate school and move to Miami Beach to pursue the idea. All right. I think that's a little revisionist history.

A little bit. Because the origin story of the barcode is that he is like sitting on the beach and he like poked his fingers in the sand because he was thinking about morse code as like a way to communicate you know without using words right and then he he swept his fingers through the sand and suggested that like the thickness and narrowness of the line couldn't be used instead of dots and dashes all that to say dude wanted to move from philadelphia to the beach yeah you know and dashes. All that to say, dude wanted to move from Philadelphia to the beach. Yeah. You know? And like, what a nice place to come up with an invention.

Yeah, exactly. So they knew that they needed technology to do it. They filed the patent in 1949, which was granted in 1952. And the first thing they did was they took a like a super high powered incandescent bulb, a 500 watt bulb to read the code. But it was still, you know, the super bright light and the whole thing itself was like the size of a desk. And it was just like, obviously not going to be like a practical use for all grocery stores. So there was a research team

at Radio Corporation of America that was looking at investing in a new project. At the time, they were looking at the idea of an automatic bank cash machine, which they decided would not go because the customer would not buy the concept. Yeah. What does that mean, automatic bank cash machine? Like decided would not go because the customer would not buy the concept yeah what does that mean i'm not a bank cash machine like an atm okay and they were just like

no the world's not ready no uh but they started focusing on the barcode system uh the original barcodes were actually like a bullseye simple because they thought it could be read better than like a straight rectangle interesting the idea of scanning something that was a circle seemed like more intuitive to them because you wouldn't have to approach it from a particular side to get it to work. So at first it was Bullseye, which they did in the 1970s in Kroger in Cincinnati. cincinnati um and then it wasn't hugely adopted until the 80s uh by stores like kmart and walmart uh and then by 2004 80 to 90 percent of companies using the other 10 they're like no we still use stickers damn it well i was just thinking about a time before barcodes. Yeah. Because did it depend, like did cashiers have a little booklet or did they have to memorize goods? No, I mean they had the little sticker gun that they would go around.

Oh. And then they just type in the little sticker. Yeah, I guess. Okay. But then there's so much. There's a lot of typing that goes into that. There's a lot of typing and there's a lot of deception. Margin of error, right?

A lot of deception of like, I took this sticker off and I put it on this thing. You could get yard sale nasty on it, you know? I'm paying less for my pumpkin. Yeah. Yeah. I briefly knew some people, I don't know if you did, that like wanted to get the barcode tattoo. Sure. So they could be like scannable.

I didn't realize and it makes sense so the universal product codes are 12 digits and the first digits are a product category which i didn't realize so like for example three denotes a health related item okay and then the rest point to a manufacturer or a specific product is it hex is it hexadecimal right where it goes up to f or is it like strictly numbers uh what i'm reading about is just numbers okay interesting uh it's wild that that yeah all i guess 12 digits and that's a lot that goes that's like a what trillion iillion? I'm not entirely. Okay, hold on. A million is seven. A billion is 10.

So a hundred, a hundred billion or 999,999,999,999,999 options. Okay. There's probably fewer products than that. I'm glad I could figure that out. I'm still probably quite wrong. But it does it with different width of of lines like how do the lines correspond to different numbers i don't i don't i don't really know how that works honestly maybe nobody does i didn't i didn't invest in that um but but yeah did you know anyone that got a barcode tattoo

no i don't think i mean i've seen them on people sure uh no i don't i don't think because the question is like which which product what do you get the barcode for yeah i don't know that i necessarily stand any any product so much that i would get i am very recent by the way to qr codes uh yeah i had to have uh a friend explain it to me um yes it yes, it's one of those. Okay. I don't think maybe we're showing our age here a little bit, but it used to be, if you want to scan a QR code, you had to use special QR code. Yes.

Yes. Which I like, I didn't always have on my phone. That's what I thought. I was like, how does everybody have this app? But then you just scan it with any camera and it like shows you a link, whatever.

You can't play. We, we didn't get that update. We didn't get that memo. Okay. And this is us. This is me and Rachel very, very slowly losing our grip. We also didn't go to restaurants when they were first introduced.

Yes. And so by the time we showed up, nobody explained it to us. No. They're like, here's your QR code. Right. And I was like, oh, what do I do? And then they were like, put your mask back on. And we were like, our what?

Okay. Just, that was, that one was a joke. JK, JK. JK. Yeah. Barcodes. Barcodes, man. Check them out. Super cool JK, JK. JK. Yeah, barcodes. Barcodes, man. Check them out. Super cool. They're super neat.

Yeah. And they think about all the stickers that have been saved, all the trees that got turned into stickers. Yeah. I mean, now you buy a can of corn and it's already got that thing on there. And no sticker waste whatsoever. Yeah. Beautiful.

Can I steal you away? Yes. We got a couple jumbo prawns here, and I would love to read this first one because it's for Morgan from Liv, who says, my sweet, sweet wife, I am so proud of you for getting a teaching job this year after all you have been through. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you as your wife. Drink some water.

Love, Liv. I feel like the drink some water should be a mandatory addition to all Jonatrons. Yes. Because that's not only going to help Morgan keep it just so hydrated also teachers by the way teachers they're the future applause applause applause but you can't have some dried out teacher you know what i mean some dried out you know what i mean mummy of a teacher i definitely

had some dried out teachers for sure who were not pounding that fluid, not pounding that H2O. You want to read this next one? Yes. This message is for Caitlin. It is from Katie. Caitlin, whenever this reaches you, please know that you are beyond wonderful.

Thanks for getting me addicted to the McElroy's Dimension 20 and Marauders fanfic. Nerd squad forever. You are already amazing. All my love, Sterly Stumblege stumble gear you got it sterly stemble burgages yep as the duchess aka katie and man that's a good set that's a good

that's a good rock block of nerd content there i would say say. And I mean, anybody who turns folks on to our little, this little project, this little experiment. This little family business. This little family business is okay in my book. Hey, what's your thing? My thing is a good one, a good one. It's a song that is sort of on everybody's hearts and minds this time of year. And it is Earth, Wind & Fires.

Oh. Obviously, obviously we have seen the most recent work of Demi Adjuibe, his long-running series of September the 21st video spectaculars. This one I feel like is on a whole other level. It's got big uh break into electric boogaloo energy at a certain point yeah it reminded me a little of uh there's a little like uh dancing on the ceiling yes i mean explicitly it's that yes for sure uh also uh kirk hamilton does a show called strong songs that he just did a special on this song as well

i i step away from the fact that it is fantastic that there is a song about a day of the year that we all sort of come back to on the 21st of September. I know. Step away from the novelty of that. September is still one of the all-time best slappers of fucking all time written by human beings. Yeah.

Yeah, there's something about the, this is the poetry human beings. Yeah. Yeah. Just there's something about the, this is the poetry in me. Yeah. But the 21st day of September has such a beautiful mouth. It is. It's got a good, it's the cellar door of dates for certain. Earth,

wind and fire is one of those bands that like, if you had to boil down modern music, like the impact that different artists and bands have had on modern music to like five different bands or artists i think earth wind and fire could probably be one of those because they have covered so many different genres and defined so many genres i didn't realize they are one of the most commercially successful bands ever they sold like 90 million albums uh and like but fuck that, like forget about

the commercial success of it. September, if that was all they had done, I feel like that would be enough of a contribution to like the canvas of art. Can we actually, can we play

a little bit of September just right from the very beginning because this starts off so strong. It is such a very hype introduction to a song. Like as soon as you start out with that, like you know that you're in for a fun, fun ride, right? And you get that first verse that is so lyrically iconic. Like, just hearing the words, do you remember, is enough to, like, out of context, not talking about Earth, Wind, and Fire. If I hear somebody say, do you remember?

Like, my mind is immediately like, oh, the 21st night of September. Love was changing the mind of pretenders while chasing the clouds away. Our hearts were ringing and the key that our souls were singing as we danced in the night remember how the stars stole the night away that's very good that's so it's very good and very iconic and then you hit that body ah which is also really powerful it means nothing but it sounds so perfect no other word could possibly fill that gap in the chorus no they could have said like doobie doo doobie doo sucks yeah terrible but it's so right uh the song was written by it was co-written by uh ali willis who co-wrote a lot of classics uh and maurice white who was one of the two lead singers of Earth, Wind & Fire.

There's this amazing quote from Willis who said that Maurice White wrote this lyric, this body, and she was not having it. She said, I just said, what the fuck does body mean? And he essentially said, who the fuck cares? I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove yeah oh my god that's beautiful it's so good and so powerful another powerful thing about this song is that it was first released on a best of album for earth and fire it was it was not on an album that's until it was on like the best of earth wind and fire. It was, it was not on an album until it was on like the best of earth, wind and fire volume one as a way to like Trump up sales for this best of album for earth,

wind and fire, which is such an incredible called shot. That's just like, yeah, we know this, this album is a celebration of some of our greatest hits. This one's going to be on the list though. This one's gonna be on the list, though. This one's gonna be in the pantheon for sure.

So what does the date mean? I know, you're probably wondering. Maurice White says it doesn't mean anything. It just sounds very good. Yeah, I figured it was like Bada Yow. This may be apocryphal. Ali Willis says that Maurice White's wife, Marilyn White, said it was going to be the due date of their son

uh cabran so well they wouldn't really dance the night away yeah i get no they would not there'll be a lot of things in that song that i think uh would not be true anymore uh you know having a kid is a beautiful magical experience but it is not a party necessarily yeah physically uh usually the parties involved are not able to dance per se yes but i like that logic i mean it's like you want part of me wishes that you and i met on the 21st of september absolutely just like to have that beautiful song attached to a very important memory. Yeah. I think that would be very special.

I think it would be, I'm almost done with my notes. This is a very short segment. It's a celebration of this song. It's very good. Well, you know, okay. So as we're recording this yesterday, it was the 21st. Yes. We both lied on the couch a lot.

Yeah. You said you didn't want to get into this but we all were celebrating pretty horrific gastrointestinal distress so we could what i'm saying is we could write our own parody this song sure around the 21st of september uh it's it's i think it would be easy to have a song that we all dial into once a year ironically like oh it's the oh it's the time for the march you know 11th song here we go and this is the day we listen to 311 on march 11th like that would be easy enough but i think everyone has that moment every september 21st when they're like oh shit it's the day of the earth wind and fire song better tune in And then you get about four seconds into the song and you're like, actually, this is so

good. You know what you just made me think of is that first of the month Bone Thugs-N-Harmony song. Yeah. Which you get, you know, 12 times out of the year. Yeah, absolutely. Which is a fun song. Which is good.

You could get into that. I mean, there's also the Green Day, Wake Me Up When September Ends. Oh, yeah. And then it's Been a Long december long december and then there's it's gonna be may i mean there's a lot of days but but like okay but all of those a lot of fun are any of them as fucking iconic no they're not no not bops like this one not bops like this one they put it on a best of album before it came out. I'm trying to get my head around that. It's incredible.

Because did they make it for like a film or television? No. Like they had to have created, I assume that they created it. Yes. In advance. Yes. Why didn't they release it as like a single? I mean, it was a single release it as like a single?

I mean, it was a single, but it was a single off the back of a best of album, which doesn't happen. It's so wild. It's like we do, you know, sometimes when schedule fuck ups happen, like we do a like my bim bam best of bits. The thought that we would also record some fresh,

this next bit is going to be one of our best ofs. I just know it. It is such a profound culture this is a more common practice decades ago that people would release a best of and they'd like sprinkle in some other stuff i don't know maybe that's true or not maybe there was some concern like we gotta have something to get them to come to the door yeah i mean that that is the reason why September was included on this album. But thank God it was because this is a good one.

Yeah. Hey, thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song When He Won't Pay. Speaking of all-time slappers, you can find a link to that in the episode description.

And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. You can go to MaximumFun.org and check out all the great shows there. Shows like Story Break and shows like Mission to Zix. All waiting for you at MaximumFun.org

ready to take your ears on a wild voyage through time and space. Yeah, do you want to do one last shout out for this upcoming live show you got? Yeah, we got a live show coming up here in just a couple days this Friday from a Bim Bam, September 24th it's at 9pm Eastern Time. I'm not sure the the exact link but if you go to mackroy.family you can still grab tickets sawbones is going to be opening it's going to be a fun time please come

out and show your support i mean a lot um but i think that's gonna do it well until next time uh do you think we can make it till next wednesday... God, I don't even want to say that. I don't. I also don't want to say it. It would be cool, though, if we were like next week, like starting in on the intro, like, hey, I'm Griffin, I'm Rachel, and this is wonderful. And then we're both like, what do we talk about? Because we can't talk about diarrhea.

You know what I mean? Because we didn't have diarrhea. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, maybe a more fun game would be to guess which illness we're going to get next. you know what i mean because we didn't have diarrhea you know what i mean yeah i mean maybe a more fun game would be to guess which illness we're going to get next oh that's could be that could be good sure i mean i'll probably sprain my ankle playing kickball oh yeah you're so into that huge into it yeah got a golden toe yeah what if we get boogie fever oh that's fine babe with the giggles Bye. MaximumFun.org

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