Wonderful! - Wonderful! 211: Pizza Valley

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Griffin’s favorite television rocky relationship! Rachel’s favorite system of arranging things! 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. Hey, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. We're, we're happy! We're happy! We're happy. We're in a good mood for the Good Mood Show. Just even that was exhausting to me.

This is a show where we talk about things that we like and things that are good and things that we are into. And we're still going to do that, right? Yeah, of course. They're still good. They're still good. But still good but holy fucking holy oh shit oh swears shit y'all a lot of swears uh yeah we're we're doing we're we're recording our show right now uh got the got big son home uh because the because covid is uh running roughshod over our county. Yeah, the public school system, I think, has some rules in place, but the daycare system, it's Wild West out there,

and you just kind of hope for the best, but you don't really know. You hope for the best, you expect to get the worst. We've all been sick for what feels like a month with not COVID, which is like we're getting even like Wish.com brand COVID. Like we're not even getting like the real deal. We're getting Dollar Tree COVID. We're getting Five Below COVID up in here. You know what?

I won't complain, though. I won't complain. Obviously, it's dope that we haven't gotten COVID yet. For Christ's sake. Yeah. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Yeah. Notop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Yeah, not gonna lie. Shit's very difficult, I would say, right now over in the Austin-McElroy contingent.

Yeah, and I would say a lot of the world. And in the whole world. But this is a show where we talk about things that we like. Things that we're into. Things that are good. You're gonna have to go first with the small wonders this week. I need you to be the wind beneath my wings this week. Okay, okay, okay.

Have I talked about the new computer? No. So I believe I've mentioned on the show that my old computer, which was from approximately 2017? Maybe. I spilled some milk for our baby into the keys and did you purposefully not say breast milk i just i don't know i feel it feels very personal just to reference your breast yeah and the milk that comes from the life-giving if you notice when we do ads for let's say brassiere

companies i also yeah you say jugs with a z and what's say, brassiere companies, I also- You don't say brass, huh? Yeah. You say jugs with a Z. I'm what's called a prude, one might say. Anyway, the V key stopped working. And so in order to get a V, what I would do often is into the Google, I would type inured irons, knowing that Google would figure out that I meant vineyard vines. And then I would cut a V from that and paste it where I needed it.

Like you're doing a fucking ransom note every time you need to spell the word, like ever. Yeah, because sometimes, you know, you don't type the V and you still get a real word and spell check won't save you. Anyway, I have a new computer now and the V works and that is mostly what I wanted. So I'm happy for that. I'm gonna say as a grownup, this used to be a bad thing for me when I have a new computer now and the V works. And that is mostly what I wanted. So I'm happy for that.

I'm going to say as a grown up, this used to be a bad thing for me when I was a kid. But as a grown up, taking your Christmas tree down and reclaiming that space. Especially when you have a baby that needs space. Needs a wide open range to crawl around and fall. I still felt like it was kind of a bummer. I like the light that comes from a tree. I like the light that comes from a tree. I like the light that comes from a tree too. Yes, I agree with you on that.

I don't love all the ornaments or the mess. Even if you have a fake tree, you get the needles. It's like a weird, like, let's make you feel a part of things situation. I feel like, yeah, I don't know. I'm riding, despite how fucking rough stuff is here right now, I riding on a wave of of inspiration of new year's new me inspiration i think we both are and it's like it's it's dope and it feels it feels like a much bigger wave than we've had in the past forever uh and so i don't know getting that space back in our room i just see it i'm I'm like, there's so many possibilities. That's true. So much we can do here.

This is going to be kind of a shorter episode because we have a big son downstairs just like kicking it. And so we're going to probably go through. He's on the iPad, guys. Don't worry. He's on the iPad. He's on kids YouTube. He's not on weird like pregnant Elsa YouTube. So we're fine for a half hour hour which is how long we've got so i want to talk

about the internet celebration of elmo's hatred of rock oh timely timely i don't usually talk about flash in the pan stuff like this no um because it doesn't it usually doesn't have very much staying power but this brought me so much joy and we've consumed so much work from this small red monster child. Are you going to explain what this phenomenon is? Yes, I will. So earlier this week, Twitter user Che posted a clip from a 2004 episode of Sesame Street. This is not a new episode of Sesame Street. Oh, I thought it was a new app.

It's an old episode of Sesame Street. And the episode's called Elmo Believes He's Being Treated Unfairly. There's an old episode of Sesame Street and the episode's called Elmo Believes He's Being Treated Unfairly. And in this clip, he is sitting at a kitchen counter with his friend Zoe, who is an orange girl Muppet, and her pet Rock, Rocco, who Elmo hates. Who Elmo despises openly. Is Elmo like he's supposed to be like six or something? I feel like he's like. Perpetually. Five or six. I mean I feel like he's like. Perpetually.

Five or six. I mean, yeah, he's like. He's somewhere in there. Yeah. And in this clip, Elmo wants to eat an oatmeal raisin cookie, but they don't have any more. Rocco has the last one. So Elmo wants to trade cookies. But Zoe says he can't because Rocco wants the oatmeal raisin cookie. And then Elmo goes the fuck off.

And let's actually play the audio from that right here. That's Elmo's favorite. Oh, Gabby, can Elmo have an oatmeal raisin cookie instead, please? Aw, gee, Elmo, that was my last one. Oh, that's okay, Gabby. Elmo will just take this one. No, no, no, wait, wait, Elmo. Rocco says that he wants the oatmeal raisin cookie.

Rocco? Rocco's a rock, Zoe. Rocco won't know the difference. Yes, he will. You can't have that cookie, Elmo. Rocco wants to eat it. How? How is Rocco going to eat that cookie, Zoe? Tell Elmo. Rocco doesn't even have a mouth. Rocco's just a rock. Rocco's not alive. Thank you, Editor Rachel, for sourcing that audio. There's so much. If you understand the history of Elmo and Rocco's tense relationship, you will understand the amount of catharsis behind this moment.

Because Elmo's disdain for this fucking rock is the thing of legends. Zoe has also always kicked it with this rock. They introduced Rocco in 1999. Oh my gosh. So for five years. Oh my gosh. Elmo has had to put up with this rock and pretend to exchange pleasantries with this stone. What an audience surrogate Elmo is.

surrogate Elmo is. Because I think typically on a children's program there's this sense that you have to kind of buy in and everything's magical and everybody is treated fairly and everything is fun at all times.

And Elmo's a reminder that people have real emotions. He breaks character almost. Yeah. The extent to which his anger almost breaks the character, specifically the line where he says, how is Rocco going to eat the cookie?

Huh? Tell Elmo. Tell Elmo. Tell Elmo. So, so like, whoa. That's the bit where I was like, oh, fuck, Elmo, calm down. Calm down just a little. Calm down a little bit where i was like oh fuck elmo calm down just a little calm down a little bit but i don't want him to calm down because yeah yeah that's outrageous

of course you want to eat that and it's such a like i don't know it's such a good example i feel like you know because like there are going to be times when you encounter something and you can't keep it together no and yeah i mean that I mean, that's it too, right? Like Elmo, we have consumed a lot of Elmo content in the last five years. And also Gus, who just turned nine months, has started to enjoy Sesame Street whenever we put it on. So that means like we're about to start this Elmo train

right back from the station, right? Like we're about to start consuming Elmo again. And so it's nice to be reminded that Elmo, like this humanizes him in a way. Yeah, of course. Because he's not just this constantly curious, pleasant, delightful little child. Like he gets frustrated too.

And especially, I mean, especially right now when we are all very frustrated with things that are completely unreasonable. Yeah, we are having to accommodate people who are maybe doing things that we think are not appropriate. Yeah. It is, I don't know, it is refreshing to see Elmo plumb those particular depths. It is refreshing to see Elmo plumb those particular depths. The real good stuff, though, and I would encourage you to look up this Twitter thread because it absolutely exploded, are the responses. Because it's one of those wonderful things that is just kind of, it's completely benign and Twitter just has a fucking party with it like just people commenting on how he just how he just puts zoe in the ground with his by saying rocco's not alive just he gets he gets so wild and then people like put together a timeline of that five-year span of him having to like there's one clip where they're doing

exercises and he was like that was fun and then so he's like yeah thanks Rocco came up with it and then you see Elmo just like go stone-faced as he like is fighting so hard not to point out the obvious biological contradiction that that like poses I was telling Griffin that I like the scenario where this is like Breaking Bad where they like had a vision of five years for now elmo is going to lose it and we have to build towards that yes every chance we get and then the day they put this show together like everybody had been anticipating it and everyone's standing around like okay today is the day this is it this is what we've been working towards it's there's a clip

where zoe shows up late to play with elmo and some friends and she's like oh i'm sorry i'm sorry we're late rocco had to use the potty and elmo just goes what and that's bullshit that's not like oh yeah he came up with this fun idea for a game it's like i'm blame i'm late because i'm like i was just fucking around and i got here late because i don't respect you or your time. But I'll blame it on my rock, saying that my rock had to pee and poop. Like your what had to, huh?

And poop? This actually leads me to a question. Did you, when you were a kid, and I'm guessing this is not true because you had two older brothers. Right. Did you ever have like an invisible friend? I thought i did sometimes

but even that like yeah i would i would like imagine up my invisible friend and imagine like playing with them but then i would think like i don't really believe this yeah so it's like so it's it hits this like completely bonkers level that no child should be operating on of just like, am I being authentic in saying I have an invisible friend or do I just think that that would be a cool thing to actually believe? But then it's like there's no barrier to entry of having an invisible friend. You can have one or not. Yeah. I'm getting real deja vu i feel like we've talked about this before i don't know um but i will say that i had something similar and that

i had created this kind of like saved by the bell story that happened every time i played in the backyard where like i had like an imaginary boyfriend but i knew the imaginary boyfriend wasn't real and i didn't talk about the imaginary boyfriend with anybody. Yeah. So that is, I think, what is really relatable about this Rocco situation. It's like, it's fine for you to have a pet rock. But once it starts inconveniencing me, making you late for shit, and I can't eat the cookies I want to eat. Yeah, exactly.

Come on, Zoe. It's just so funny and so good. And like, I don't know, I feel like stuff like this is getting rarer on the internet. Just like good. an an opposite ever present thing that is that we just have to live with and so when you get any kind of break from that holy shit it's it is i think it is worth acknowledging and celebrating yeah wow this segues really well into my wonderful thing well can, can I hold just a second? Because we do have to steal each other away. Okay, let's do that. Got a few rumple-rons here,

and I would love to read this first one because it is for Sarah and Lauren, and it's from Leslie, who says, Sarah and Lauren, it's me, who says Sarah and Lauren it's me Leslie remember from Joko cruise 2019 I know it's been forever but I think of you often and hope you are well much has changed in life but I miss you both and still love you I can't wait till things get better and we can have another great mackerel weekend and live our best lives together for a couple days also bud says hi oh man oh cruising cruising cruising let's see

let's see we were on 2019 right well 2020 we were on that 2020 experience we were also on that 2019 experience just oh yeah you're right yeah looking for love in all the wrong places yeah uh fighting a kraken at some point uh just sitting in the sun, drinking a boat drink. Oh, yeah. So that was 2019. That was approximately 65 years ago, right? Yeah, it feels like it. Okay, cool.

Can I read you another personal message? This is for Bingo. It is from Laura. Hi, Bingo. I'm so happy to have you in my life. Your insightful, whimsical brain inspires me to dream for our future. Hopefully when you hear this, we're snuggled up on our big red couch with our kitty and some pumpkin muffins. I'll even put walnuts on half for you.

Do you think it's a big, comfy red couch? Oh, is that like a reference to that kid's show? Big comfy couch? Yeah. Where they pull things out of the couch and they are little people and they explore a big couch and they go on adventures? Just like Bingo and Laura going on adventures right now? Did you watch his show? No.

I'm not super familiar. I just knew there were puppets, which I like. Which I like it too. Beautiful premise for a show. It's about furniture. This is a great love. Can I read the next one? Yes.

This one is for Will,ris philly and sean it's from shin who says can't think of anything more wonderful than my dnd group big thanks to the dan clan for humoring me and letting me dm for you in a time of isolation you guys have allowed me to a form of escapism that keeps me going and i can't tell you how grateful i am for that plus nothing brings me more joy than your reaction to those good, good dad jokes. If the Dan clan is the name of their in-world party, I like that so much. That's super great.

Even as a real world name for a group of friends, that's powerful. But I'm imagining like a paladin and a ranger and a wizard and a cleric and they're just like we ride for Dan. Hi, I'm Annabelle Gurrich.

And I'm Laura House. We're the hosts of Tiny Victories. My tiny victory is that I sewed that button back on the day after it broke. We talk about that little thing that you did that's a big deal to you, but nobody else cares. Did you get that Guggenheim Genius Award? We don't want to hear from you.

We want little bitty tiny victories. My tiny victory is a tattoo that I added onto this past weekend. Let's talk about it. My victory is that I'm one year cancer free. But my tiny victory is that I took all of the cushions off the couch, pounded them out, put them back, and it looks so great. So if you're like us and you want to celebrate the tiny achievements of ordinary people, listen to Tiny Victories. It's on every Monday on Maximum Fun. What you got, Tex?, one thing that is bringing,

uh, me a lot of comfort in this time is the things that I can control. Good. And one of the things that has become a hobby of mine, uh, I would say in the past six to eight months maybe is organizing. Oh, sure.

Organizing things. I am finding it to be very wonderful for my mental health. And I have become a repeat buyer at a store that specializes in containers. I did not know a store like this existed. I didn't ever really understand the appeal of this store before I started trying to organize things. Yeah. And now I totally get it because I come in with like, you know, I have this like measuring tape.

It's not the tape measure, but it's like the little stringy one. Yeah. And I know the size of the drawer that I would like to organize. And then I'm just go in there like a math problem and find the right size container to organize that drawer and then when i come home and i put those containers in the drawer and they fit exactly as i was expecting them to and then i can put all of the fruit snacks in one and all of the z bars in one and then you pull that drawer out and everything is where it should be yes and then when you buy more of those things they have where it should be yes and then when you buy

more of those things they have a place to go yes you know when you run out of things because you see there's only one left and i should purchase more oh it's so good and i get i benefit from this hobby tremendously yeah which is my favorite kind of hobby yeah Yeah. So I try to do some research. Like why? Obviously, there's the thing I talked about, right? The control. Like the fact that I can take a situation where there's a lot of things I can't control and I can inflict my power on something to make it more pleasing to me and easier to look at. Yes.

And so I tried to do some research on that. What I found was a lot of like cleaning and organizing. Now I'm going to say here, I don't like cleaning. No. I don't find, while I recognize, I appreciate the impact of cleaning, but the entire time I'm doing it, I am not enjoying it. Okay. A lot of people I think find comfort in cleaning because it is a process.

It is a repetitive motion. It is something that you do, you know how to do, you know how to have the right products, all this accoutrement. I don't enjoy it. Yeah. If anything, organizing is like a pathway to needing to do less cleaning. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think that's why a lot of the articles I found paired them together. Because you are still cleaning in a way, but you're not actually scrubbing or using chemicals. Right. So what I found was a lot of this like reducing feelings of helplessness, which is kind of what I was speaking to. I don't know why anyone would have that these days. The other thing besides like, you know, getting in that control is the kind of the mindfulness that can come with it. It's this thing you hear a lot about of like when you go on a walk,

when you do something else, it like gives your brain the ability to get some perspective. So when you're anxious and you're sitting and you're just stewing and you're not feeling productive or like you're active, a lot of times it's difficult to get control over that feeling. But the idea of organizing, for example, like there's physical activity involved with it. There's like concentration. I'm able to kind of get some perspective on my anxiety.

And then finally, this idea of like tackling a project and completing it kind of gives you the ability of like, oh, I can accomplish this. Maybe there are other things I can do. Right. Like, oh, I can accomplish this. Maybe there are other things I can do. This, I think, is also why shows like Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. There's apparently a show called The Home Edit. Yeah. But it's all about just kind of like organizing and minimizing.

And apparently TikTok cleaning videos are really popular. i'm not on the tiktok oh it's great lots of dancing so many so much dancing but but for tiktok like these videos are like the transformation right like oh here's a messy room now here's it super organized i started following this cleaning organizing service here in austin and they do the like the picture of like, here's what the pantry looked like before. Here's the pantry now. Yeah. Very soothing. That's like me with the pool guy videos.

It's like, look at the gross ass water in this pool. Now you can swim in it. And there's something kind of like aspirational about that. You know, like this idea like on tiktok there's like cleaning my depression room which apparently has become like a popular topic oh shit but just this idea is this my depression room that we're in right now if it's not this room i don't know what the fuck room it is well i think i mean i think the thing is is that you're in charge of this room oh yeah and i feel like kind of it's difficult sometimes.

This room looks great right now. This room looks really good right now. But yeah, this transformation, this idea that you have let things get out of control and now you are reclaiming your authority and you are fixing it and you conquered it. And I, watching you do that, am inspired to maybe do the same thing. Okay. So, yeah. So I have found myself thinking about things that I can organize that I have not yet organized.

One of the things I've been thinking a lot about is the freezer and how I organize that. Oh, our freezer is so fucked up. We just have stuff that falls to the bottom that we never eat because we forget it's there. There's an Omaha steak down there that looked at me. Like it moved like a fucking claymation Pee Wee's Playhouse character. And also this is because I'm spending a lot of time at home.

You know, I used to go out into the world. Live. 40 hours a week. And I would come home at the end of the day, eat dinner, watch some TV, go to bed. Have a beer. A Bud Light. Watch your game. Yeah.

Uh-huh. Unbuckle my belt. Unbuckle your belt. Recline. Yell. In the recliner. Just start yelling. yell in the recliner just start yelling um but now that i'm here all the time it's like i would like to enter a room and feel like things are where they should be yeah uh so yeah so organizing

that's my that's my wonderful thing it's a simple a simple thing uh and it can be kind of a daunting task also at the same time yeah and i like it i do too i do too i will say one thing i've noticed is your little um your little game your little game shelf over there i did that months ago i know i didn't i did that when once the after delta started to go down and things were looking pretty chill for a bit um but but you know it demonstrates that this is an interest of yours yeah yeah i'm sure i'll get back into it once the fucking that's the covid data chart stops turning into a fucking skate park that i could do a fucking vert trick off of for like a minute hey thank you for listening uh sorry sorry about the vibe uh but i don't feel particularly uh like we need to curb that necessarily yeah i mean perhaps for some people this is an escapist

show and they're like hey guys stop talking about the thing that i came here to avoid it is that for us too though but it's it's yeah, I mean, there's peaks and valleys and we're in a pretty big valley right now. So I thought you said pizza for a second. And it's a pizza. Welcome to Pizza Valley. It's a shot of adrenaline. Fuck, that would be good.

That would be good. If there was like a podcast called Pizza Valley, that Pizza Valley should be something. It does sound a little bit like like the sequel to um what's the archie show oh riverdale riverdale you think pizza valley is the next thing after riverdale uh-huh spin-off okay anyway thank you to bowen and gus for our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description thank you to maximum fun for having us on the network um And there's a- Friday.

Friday. Oh, yeah, shit. Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday. We are streaming a live episode of Wonderful. You can purchase a ticket for $5 or more should you be able to give more. All proceeds will benefit Austin Batcave, which is a creative writing organization in Austin

that has programs for youth. It's a bit.ly slash wonderful ABC 2021. Exactly. Didn't think so much about that URL. And if you are, let's say, a cool kid and you have plans Friday night, I will say that the video on demand will be available for two weeks after. So, you know, let's say you go and you have your cool kid plans

and then you return and you can watch our show. It's going to be a New Year's Day or New Year's Week spectacular and we're going to decide what the best year was in the history of human civilization. Wow, you showed the whole cut. I think it's fun. I want people to start thinking about what the best year was. Yeah, okay.

Stretching back to antiquity. it's going to be comprehensive this episode's going to be a week it's going to be uh some kim burns shit so brace yourself yeah we decided that everyone's talking about how this hasn't been a good year and when i say this year i mean the one that started five days ago um and so we thought well when is the good year yeah and so we'll figure that out hopefully

I'm feeling alright about 2022 so far really yeah what what what's what's been good

Elmo got really angry yeah there you go bye Elmo got really angry. Yeah, there you go. Bye. My mom's crazy Fucking awesome My mom's crazy My mom's crazy Maximumfun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

Audience supported. Are you feeling elevated levels of anxiety? Do you quake uncontrollably, even thinking about watching cable news? Do you have disturbing nightmares, only to realize it's two in the afternoon and you're up? If you've experienced one or more of these symptoms, you may have FNO, F*** News Overload. Fortunately, there's treatment. Hi, I'm Dave Holmes, host of Troubled Waters. Troubled Waters helps fight FNO. That's because Troubled Waters stimulates your joy zone. On Troubled Waters, two comedians will battle one another for pop culture supremacy.

So join me, Dave Holmes, for two to two doses of Troubled Waters a month. The cure for your news overload. Available on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.