Wonderful! - Wonderful! 200: The Lead Anniversary

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

Rachel’s favorite costumed sports character! Griffin’s favorite collaborative 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.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin, big 200 Bicentennial, Dicentennial, 200 McElroy. And this is wonderful, episode 200. We've got a lot planned for you for this very special one. First off. Come on in, TV on the radio. Come on in.

And then balloons dropping. There's, okay, there's like three balloons because we didn't have much of a budget for this one. Spent it all on TV, on the radio. Please don't steal the balloons because we will need them for our 300th episode. Balloons don't grow on trees. They come out of rubber plants.

Sound the air horn. That's good. Oh yeah, that feels, now it feels like a party. We didn't, we forgot it was episode 200 until we just sat down. You know, I kind of remembered. But I didn't know what one does for 200. Do you recall? It's I think 200 is the lead anniversary.

Yeah. So I got you this. I got you this big pipe. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Oh, it. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Oh, it tastes so sweet. Well, no, don't do that. No, it's great.

The thing is, I feel like with Rose Buddies factored in. I know. We've done many hundreds of episodes. I think we're closer to 400 than we are 200. Yeah. But it's still a special occasion yeah i love you very much i really love doing this podcast i love you too do you have any maybe small wonders i do actually i went on a walk this morning and i am excited about all of the halloween decor yes this feels like the

first year that maybe possibly they'll be trick-or-treating, because there hasn't been as much recently, and people are really going all out. I feel like that's true as well. I'll be curious if that carries over to Krimis and the Bright Twinkly Lights that you get out of that. Oh, yeah. But Krimis doesn't have a door-to-door sort of unless you go a-wassling, huh? Man, I'd love to go a-wassling. I think you'd be good at it. I think I would, too.

We had carolers come to our door a couple times since we've lived in Austin. Yeah. And it's one of those things that when I think about doing it, I think, like, that nobody wants that. Nobody wants me to come to their door and sing to them. But every time it's happened to me, it's been a magical. Hands down the most magical. It is a little awkward because you stand there and you don't know what you've committed to necessarily yes because sometimes they'll start up another song and you're like oh okay okay yeah i think when you're waffling you

should get one and done why are we talking about grimace when it's the the month of the spookies the scary times um what's your small under? Yeah, I'm going to say you and a hat. You've been wearing a hat a lot lately. I bought this like neat sort of retro style St. Louis blues cap that is too small for my board. But it looks great on you and you've been wearing it a lot lately. I just, I love it. It's like I'm married to Billy Crystal.

and you've been wearing it a lot lately. I just, I love it. It's like I'm married to Billy Crystal. I saw that one coming from like, like five seconds before I said it. I was like, who wears a hat? Who wears a hat? Billy Crystal wears a blue hat.

Oh, but I can't possibly say my wife reminds me of Billy Crystal. Oh no, I'm saying it. I'm saying it. It's happening. You know what? I am one of the few people that takes that as high praise. Sure. I, I'm okay with that. good i knew that about you that's why billy crystal can wear a hat

billy crystal fucks say what you will about billy crystal but dude can wear a hat dude is maybe one of the most prodigious hat wearers that i've ever met. Uh-huh. I've never met Billy Crystal, but I will one day, I bet. Okay. Do you want to do your big thing? I do. All right. Do you forget what your big thing is? No, I'm just trying to think if I want to frame it in any particular way.

Oh, boy. I think I will just start by saying that the bulk of my research focused on Louis, the St. Louis Blues bear mascot. Okay, okay. I've watched a lot of St. Louis Blues games. I don't know that I've seen a bear in the audience. Am I just not paying close enough attention? Not paying enough attention. I mean, here's the thing that is inherently great about a hockey mascot.

It's a relatively new phenomenon because i think mascots traditionally one they kind of serve to pump up the crowd on a potentially like a slower sport right like a baseball you gotta have it for baseball you gotta get somebody on top of the dugout doing a little dance getting everybody back in the game or you know it's like a like a football maybe where you know you're close to the field there's a lot of places to run around yeah hockey there's really no place for that mascot you slip and you fall and you took us yeah i mean the seats start right where the ice ends and those those aisles are pretty small and so usually they have to put the mascot up in this kind of like strange holding pen. Yeah, like a jail for a gritty jail for the crimes.

And this is also, as I mentioned, like a relatively new-ish thing, at least for the St. Louis Blues it is. I mean, some teams have had mascots for longer. I mean, the Huntington Blizzard had a polar bear mascot whose name I can't remember but i'm gonna say was named lizzie polar bear bears are generally pretty popular if you think about like the cold the cold ice yeah you know you want like a cold weather creature and then you have the teams that have an animal name so like the penguins i imagine it would be fucked up if they were like, and here's our mascot, an Arctic fox. That's true. I will also say I'm not here today to talk about Gritty. Yeah, and that's okay.

I think Gritty gets enough. We've spilled enough ink on Gritty. I know, I think so too. I think Gritty's fantastic. I love the idea of an amorphous horror as the mascot for a team. But we all know Gritty. We love Gritty. I want to hear about the Blues Bear. So Louie showed up on the scene in 2007. Wow, that is a fresh young mascot. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently his great debut was October 10th, 2007. He was introduced to the fans and got to play When the Blues Go March in on his saxophone huh wow saxophone didn't stick around don't see don't see him really with

a saxophone these days yeah this so the name louis was the result of a contest i found like a an original website that listed the name options back when people were voting gotta hear these so of course louie also bluey which i sometimes think is his name because i i wasn't connected to this moment in blues history yeah uh we got archie was another option brawler which i think sets a very different tone for what this could have been okay louis is louis l-o-u-i-s or l-o-u-i-e l-o-u-i-e because that would be confusing st louis if you spelled it that way you know people would be like it's confusing louis the spokesbear uh also bud e bear was an option that's not that sucks and buble hey which just would have been just delightful i think here here by the way here is a picture of the uh for you the reveal of louis with his saxophone hey in october 2007 he gives off a

certain energy that i i gotta look at some more JPEGs of this beautiful bear. I think they were maybe anticipating some kind of Blues Brother thing because he is wearing a full suit and sunglasses. Yeah. They did not stick with that. He looks non-threatening. He looks very friendly. Yeah. He's very cuddly.

I would love to give him a cuddle, which is funny because I don't think hockey is the cuddliest of the sports. That is rugby, of course. Do you want to hear his origin story per the website? I would love to hear it. Wait, is this a fictional one? Like he came through the gumdrop? Oh, fantastic. A number of years ago in a small town near the Arctic Circle,

a bouncing baby polar bear was born. But this bear was very different from all the other polar bears in the town. While all the other bears had white fur, this bear's fur was blue. Oh, man. Then one day he was told about a hockey team called the St. Louis Blues. This is not a good origin story.

This is a bad origin story. No, in the Arctic Circle, they were like, hey, you know what? You should check out. You know what else is blue? Since the blue bear loved hockey, blues music, and was blue himself, he knew he had to find this team. Why did he know about blues music?

I got to gloss over that. How did this four-legged animal from the Arctic Circle know about blues music? When he was old enough, the blue bear traveled all the way to St. Louis to meet the blues. We don't have any minor bears here. Let us know. This bear is legal. Yeah, I guess. After meeting the team, he was inspired with their high energy and great teamwork. Even though they had never met a blue bear before, all the blues players and coaches liked him so much that they invited him to be part of the team as their mascot yeah no that didn't

i'm not seeing fucking vladimir teresinko like yes this is a cool bear i like that they invited him as their mascot so there is a moment where it was like should we put this guy center ice yeah or should he be he should probably be do a. I can't do a flip. Okay. So that's the story. Okay. It's a good story. It's a fine story. There's room for a punch up, I think. I think I could give a couple of notes. Yeah.

I mean, you bring up a good point with the blues, like rather like the music. Like how did he become a fan of music or hockey for that matter? I mean, what if we went a dumbo route like what if he was like captured in the arctic circle and brought to like perform in like a circus or something like that but i like that i hated it he was miserable there but the whole but there was maybe a uh like a strong man who loved blues music and so he would hear it coming from his tent. And then he had the opportunity to secure his freedom if he entered into some kind of ice race

where he demonstrated his ability to skate. And he won, but the mean ringleader still didn't uphold his end of the bargain. And so Louie the Blues bear broke out of his cage and and ate everyone except for the strong man who was like you're cool yeah and he's like what is this great music though and he's like this is blues and also maybe the circus was in st louis at the time and so he went to a place and that strong man. And that strong man was Coach Ruby. Coach Ruby. Who was like, I'll follow you.

I'll follow you there. So Louie, pretty popular as hockey mascots go. There was a poll from Play Canada that surveyed 2,000 NHL fans, and Louie was named fourth most popular mascot. Was Gritty one? Was Gritty no? Was Gritty no? No. What?

In this survey, Gritty came in 21st. No, no, no. And then it says, but he was the fourth most popular in terms of mascots among their own team's fans. Okay. So I guess Philadelphia was like, we love Gritty. No, but there was a significant portion of Philadelphia hockey fans who were like, we don't love

Gritty. And that's why he clocked in fourth. This poll is maximum sus. I wanted to talk about some of the other very quickly. The top was Carlton the Bear from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Love him. Love him, of course.

Let me show you. I figure you'll want to know. Sure. Carlton is Bear from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Love him. Love him, of course. Let me show you. I just, I figure, you know, you'll want to know. Sure. Carlton is a polar bear. Yeah, no, he's a pretty much right over the plate polar bear. Yeah. And he's been around since 1995. Toronto Maple Leafs was ahead of the game here.

Yeah. Yo, I want to know about the expansion team. The Seattle Kraken is. Oh, yeah. What does that one look like? They poached some of our beautiful boys off the Blues. But, I mean, that's what you have to do as an expansion team, the Seattle Kraken is... Oh, yeah. What does that one look like? They poached some of our beautiful boys off the Blues, but I mean, that's what you have to do as an expansion team. So there is a little bit of resentment there, but that team name has the opportunity for one of the all-time best mascots ever.

If it's just another polar bear or Kodiak bear, I'm going to be so disappointed. If it's not like a mini-tentacled beast that just drops down from the rafters. They might not have it. Maybe they'll poach Louie as their expansion mascot. Yeah, I don't see him yet. I guess because they haven't really debuted him. I mean, you gotta put him

to the folks in R&D to really figure out. There are some what are possibly just estimates of what he's going to look like. Yeah. So for example, I found this, but this is not an authorized website. That's not anything.

So I don't think that's... That's a bear with tentacles for arms and hair, which is fun. There's a Splatoon vibe there that I'm into. Let me hit you with this. A not completely visible mascot, but from time to time eight enormous robotic tentacles drop down from the ceiling and just like wiggle and wave around like that

and like throw throw around like pizza hut coupons right uh-huh that's good um here is slap shot of the washington cap. It appears to be some kind of eagle. All right. That's okay. Which I guess is because of the Washington thing. Yeah. Maybe they wanted something super patriotic. There's also Howler, which is the coyotes. Just looks like a real friendly, wily coyote sort of guy.

I don't like that. Oh, you don't? No, because coyotes are nasty little scoundrels. And I feel like having a cute coyote, I don't know. God, I don't want to sidetrack this segment. But for me, the energy that hockey sort of captures, there's an intensity and a violence there that I feel like so far only Gritty has been able to really manifest. There's also kind of the anti-Slapshot. So Slapshot, as I mentioned, was a eagle.

Right. Chicago Blackhawks, obviously problematic logo. Sure, emblem, yes. Has Tommy Hawk. Okay, this is a Blackhawk. Yeah, not a great look. Yeah, so I looked to see if we talked about mascots before. And you had actually talked about Marshall's.

Yeah, Marco. Marco. You know, super jacked. Who went from being a real buffalo to a fun cartoon buffalo to a fucking jacked, very horny buffalo. Yeah. Louis, just a cuddly guy cuddly guy uh you can you can arrange for appearances of louie's uh you can get a 10 minute appearance where he takes a few pictures uh you can do a 30 minute appearance uh where he really gets the guests excited all of that is available to you on on the website should you want Louie at your next gathering. You know what I'm just putting together?

What? Do you know the mascot for the Phillies? The Philly Fanatic? He's a green monster with like a proboscis. Yeah, okay. He's a green monster with a snoot. And then they also have Gritty. Uh-huh.

Is there just one person in Philadelphia who gets to design the mascots who's like a big fuzzy weird monster with with horrifying violent eyes he's got like a mr potato headset that's just like a variety of features that he puts together i love it keep it up philadelphia yeah everybody else a bear a bird i'm ours is a wolf ours is a fucked up alien that is gonna hurt you he might hurt you yeah if you think about philadelphia flyers they really could have done a lot with that and not just weird monster yeah but i'm glad that they went around anyway this isn't a gritty podcast no it's not we're not here to talk about gritty we're here to talk about

louis which is a very sweet bear, and I love him so much. Good. I'm glad. They need to put him front and center more. I've literally never seen this bear on a television broadcast. Oh, you'll see him now. You'll see him now. Oh, yeah?

You're saying he's been in the background the whole time. I just haven't noticed this big new bear. You've been too busy watching hockey. Let me tell you. There's a bear out there. I just love the beautiful game. Hey, can I steal your way? Yes.

Oh, here come the bumble boobs. I'm excited about this first one. This first one's for Kat, and it's from a friend of David Matthews. Your boyfriend, not the band. Super good. Hi, Kat. Hi, Kat. I'm so impressed pay for David Matthews, your boyfriend, not the band. Super good. Hi, Kat. I am. Hi, Kat.

I'm so. No, no. Hi, Kat. I'm so incredibly proud of you for beginning your grad school journey in Seattle. You inspire me every day, though. I miss you dearly. I'm so thankful for this year we've been able to spend together. I got to spend 2020 falling in love with you, and I can't wait to keep doing so. You are my biggest wonder.

I'll see you again soon. Love, David. Matthews. Cheers to David. Cheers to David. Cheers to David and Kat. It's a good love. I bet David had a hard time.

Mm-hmm. You know, just like differentiating from the famous Matthews. Every time David Matthews

goes to a party, they're like, did you hear who's coming? And then David Matthews, who seems amazing, shows up to the party and there's a lot of people there. A lot of crunchy wastoids who are like, that's not. Play Crash. Yeah. And it's like, I do know how to play.

I do know how to play. Of course, it would be wild if I didn't learn how to play some Dave Matthews band songs, but no. You want to do this next one? Yeah. This message is for Erica. It is from your nemesis. Whoa. Erica, even though we are fight on sight, you are wonderful.

I'm so glad we recognized each other's gremlin energy 10 years ago, and maybe in another 10 years, you will finally watch the things I recommend to you. Thank you for enabling my kittens, creating artisanal means for the group chat, and being the bright spot of my year. Wisen crones and crime forever. That was a fun message. That was difficult for me to get through. It was a real hedge maze of words for you. And I'm so glad you found a good nemesis who can challenge you. There is an assumption here that Erica only has one nemesis. And maybe Erica is hearing this message and thinking, which of the nemeses is this from?

Oh, yeah. God, I wish I only had one nemesis. Holy shit. To be able to focus my energies on one nemesis? Uh-huh. Oh, that would be great. Hey, excuse me, everybody. I just wanted to say a few words about the beautiful couple. I've known you two for a long time, and you get along like peanut butter and chocolate

or, you know, like, like, uh, comedy and culture, like a maximum fun podcast. Actually, they're having a block party from October 11th to October 22nd. And that's kind of like your party, right? You have a community of friends and family, and MaxFun has a community of shows and audiences that support them. You're having a new start with your life together, and MaxFun will be putting out new episodes that are especially welcoming to new audiences. So it's a great time to introduce your friends to your favorite show or jump into one you haven't tried before.

Is he still talking about podcasts? And they're setting up a volunteer event where we can help out our local communities plus maximum fun is going to have games prizes episode wrecks so much other fun stuff what's wrong with kyle is he okay oh anyways anyways sorry for getting carried away there. If it's all right with everybody here, let's all raise our glasses for a toast to the Max Fun Block Party, which you can learn more about at MaximumFun.org slash block party. And don't forget to join in on October 11th. Actually, that sounds pretty cool. over 11th. Actually, that sounds pretty cool.

What is your thing that you are going to talk about today? I have to get all of these many, many JPEGs of the Phillies fanatic and gritty off my cell phone. Yeah, you're really doing a deep dive over there. Yeah, I just, yeah. I am bringing a song. I rarely, I feel like, bring just one song, but this is a new track just dropped hot off the presses. I found it for the first time yesterday and I've listened to bring just one song, but this is a new track just dropped hot off the presses. I found it for the first time yesterday and I've listened to it, no joke, probably 30 times since then.

I'm obsessed with it because it's a collaboration from two artists that I have been listening to nonstop this year. It's a song called Rom-Com 2021. And it is a collab between Soccer Mommy and Caro Caro Bonito. Do you think they got together and they were like, you know, let's make a song for Griffin. I have this in my notes. So we talked about Soccer Mommy on this on this show. I think you brought Soccer Mommy. Really very solid, like lo-fi, sort of classical indie rock vibe that is so so chill and so good yeah um in the vein of like

the same way that snail mail was just like good like classic indie rock stuff uh and then caro caro bonito i don't know if i've ever like actually brought them to the show uh wild connection uh augustus uh for the use for a theme song with bowen, Money Won't Pay, is in Caracara Bonito. Jamie and Gus are the two sort of backing music producers and a woman named Sarah Bonito. It's just her stage name is the singer for Caracara Bonito. Anyway, I think I've maybe talked about them a glancing shot at least before. Yeah, for sure. One of my favorite bands, seen them live a couple times.

Henry really likes them, which is great because it's one of the few bands that I can also get into. Anyway, for some reason, these two got together, despite the fact that they occupy very different spaces in music, music to put together what is maybe my top bop of 2021. I don't see it being supplanted, called Rom-Com 2021. And let's play a little bit of it right now. So this song was actually released as a series of singles from Adult Swim, who I guess does this every year. They do a string of releases from artists that are cool and put them together in this huge playlist. of releases from artists that are cool and put them together in this huge playlist. So this is actually the 23rd installment in their 2021 singles release. And it's an easy way to keep track of what compilation it's on because the year is right there in the title of the song.

I didn't realize this. Soccer Mommy actually released a track back in July called Rom-Com 2004. Did you hear that or see that? No. It was a wild one. It was, you know, the music that we've played of Soccer Mommies here on the show is, like I said, just this very sort of clean indie rock. But this song was like this weird, glitchy kind of poppy song with like guitars that have been distorted to like this hell dimension. But the chorus is more or less the same as it is in, in rom-com 2021.

And it ruled, it was way different from anything else she had done, but it was very, very good. But with rom-com 2021, like that, the chorus of that song and the vibe of that song has just been remixed into this just hyper pop masterpiece.

It heavily focuses on vocal chops of the like chorus from Soccer Mommy from, uh, Rom-Com 2004, which is like one of my favorite things I think in electronic music or pop music where they just take somebody singing and then, you know, put it in a sampler and turn it into its own instrument. Uh, that happens so much here. here uh and the lyrics that are added by caracaro bonito uh are just this wild stream of consciousness run-on sentence about rom-coms one of the one of the verses just goes a country escape fine young things isolophobia two-timed. I don't want to know. Well, actually, I do. Soul reawakening. Love is all we have. Wow. That's very good and very evocative. Isolophobia is the fear of being alone, which I didn't know. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Which I just assume is a thing most people

have, so I'm surprised there's a word for it. In a statement accompanying the song's release, Cara Carabonido said, our contributions were inspired by bridget jones's diary late summer and uk garage vocal manipulation wow yeah like yeah absolutely you got all of that all those things right in there uh i no joke i've listened to this song non-stop since i found it yesterday and i just i cannot believe these two artists artists got together to make a track that is so completely up my alley. It actually, it's funny because I think I brought up, I think it was this year, I did a segment on churches

who got together to do a collab with Wednesday Campanella, the Japanese electronic group that I had also brought to the show, which was another just like, what is this Scottish electro pop duo doing with this like Japanese sort of electro rap yeah outfit uh but once again like these two incredibly great tastes have come together to make something that is it's so exciting and we've talked about this this may be one of the first things we ever talked about on the show is finding a song that you know

is going to be a song that you're going to listen to a lot for the rest of your life i think that this has joined that sort of pantheon because it's like man it's so perfect the key art for this single like the album art uh and like the animated background on the adult swim site when you go to listen to it is inspired by uh tomodachi life and like Mii's, like Nintendo Mii's. Oh, yeah. Which is like so choice. There's nothing about this that doesn't align with my shit perfectly. So yeah, I don't have a lot more notes like on this.

I don't have a lot more to say about it. But I couldn't not bring it because it's top bop 2021. This is when I reveal to you that you are the star of a reality show called The Griffin Show. Oh, man. In which all of us are actors. You all got together to make this happen. Yeah, and we thought, how do we add some spice to 2021 for Griffin? You've done it.

Yeah. You've done it. Thank you. You're welcome. To the producers. Yeah. Thank you to the Academy, obviously. Ed Harris.

Ed Harris, clutch. Hey, 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 Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Yeah, Maximum Fun's got a lot of cool stuff planned with this uh this block party maybe you heard of it coming up a little little cool stuff associated with that keep keeping an ear and an eye out for that you get to see all your favorite people together doing fun stuff sure that was very check it yeah it would be a terrible mtvb well you're being clandestine

because i don't think either of us know how much is public knowledge. I know. But it'll be fun. I think that's it. I don't know that we have much more else to say to you. We have a bunch of merch at macroymerch.com. Yeah. There's a new Adventure Zone live show.

If you enjoyed my Bim Bam Virtual, get ready. Yes, we're doing Three Tin Annie, the third installment in the Hootin' Nanny series. Now the dad's there. Now the dad's there. That's the tagline for Adventure Zone. That's it. That's it. Now the dad's there. That's the tagline for it. That's it. That's it. We're going to go.

Keep it real. Keep it chilly. Keep it chilly. Keep it chilly. You know, crisp. There's a crispness in the air. And I just want you all to just like savor that. Go outside.

Eat the crispness. Touch a leaf. Everyone's talking about pumpkins, but you know what I'm going to say? Pears. Pears. Grab a pear. Smush it between your hands Strong Now you've got pear juice Smash that pear

Like the Hulk? Goodbye Bye. Hey!