Wonderful! - Wonderful! 224: Call Me Griddlebone

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Rachel’s favorite celebrity-endorsed announcements! Griffin’s favorite spiky blue friend!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Transgender Law Center: https://transgenderlawcenter.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, Rachel McElroy. I'm Griffin McElroy. And this is a show we do called Wonderful. Yeah, we blew it already. I did not even mean to like do it different. I thought we were trying it. No, when you said your name, I was like, well, I don't want to be rude. So I'm going to acknowledge that.

Anyway, this is a show. You've done a lot of podcasting today. I have done a lot of podcasting this week and next week i'm already i'm already exhausted from the podcasting i'm going to be doing next week this is a show where we talk about things we like things that are good things that we're into and um i'm into this beautiful weather i'm into uh not as into the visible cloud of allergens that is sort of just like surrounding our neighborhood like pig pen dirt. You know, when I take Gus for a walk in the stroller,

the wheels now are entirely covered in pollen. It's genuinely wild, folks. It's genuinely, and like, whatever, we made the decision to live here. That was our choice and our truth. But Christ alive, I had no idea that it was just going to be just an ashy sort of light lime green coating. Just year round. Every day of our lives.

But that's not wonderful, is it? Do you have any small ones? lives. But that's not wonderful, is it? Do you have any small ones? Hi, you know what? I'm going to say your griddle bone shirt. Do you want to give the backstory on that? Yeah. So back when Griffin and I didn't have children, we used to occasionally go to different breweries around town. And there was one called Austin Beer Works. And we went there a few times. And they had a beer called Griddle Bone.

And Griffin bought the shirt. Well, I talked about how great it would be if that could become my new, because it starts with Gri, if it could become like my new cool nickname. Yeah. And so I tried to get it started. Like, hey, everyone, call me Griddle Bone. And so I bought the Griddle Bone shirt. I will say our one friend, Eric, was really bought into that. He he was but it didn't really stick with any of our friends but um yes but anytime griffin wears that shirt it reminds me of a of a simpler time me too i like the shirt

we were like yeah i have so much free mental energy that i'm gonna try and come up with the nickname do not remember the beer at all what does it even say what it's an oh it's an ip india pale lager i don't know what that means but uh i remember enjoying it uh i'm gonna say i mean there's a restaurant here in town called modern market i don't know if it's a chain or not but it's one of just a few restaurants i can think of where i can order something new every time that we go there. And it's almost always like spectacular. And that makes me, I'm getting really into, they have a, like a blueberry pesto sandwich. That is my new jam with a nice cup of tomato basil bisque.

It hits me so right now. And it's like, not what I usually order. I just like tried it and I was like, oh, well, this is my new favorite. So shout so shout outs modern market we have never actually stepped foot inside no god no no no but they bring the food to your house that's how modern they are that's how modern this market is i think you go first this week i do i'm excited about this oh me too um this is another one you know last time we recorded we did jock jams and i like gave you a little audio clue yeah sure um and so i want to do that again with this one i think you'll get it right away okay boom boom boom boom the more you know yeah okay this is good this is gonna take me down a real i'm really glad you got that because i felt like i was a little pitchy and i was gonna be embarrassed

if you were like oh no that's not no honey not. No, honey, I got you. You got there. Public service announcements are a thing that seemed like they were really blowing up when we were kids, like late 80s, early 90s. Blowing up in which I guess I don't really have much context as to. I just don't know if it's a thing. I guess I don't know if it's a thing of the now. But I know like we used to turn on television. maybe it was because we were watching more kids programming. Yeah. There would be a lot of these things.

And the more you know, when we were watching, it became this thing that was like your favorite television superstars. Yeah. And like movie actors would do them. Was it an NBC exclusive feature exclusive feature okay it was and so like it it's funny because it started as as this way of getting out information to the public that was just kind of like good to know information uh and then it kind of became a oh and by the way it's the entire cast of seinfeld yeah and they're like don't eat batteries and so it seemed a little uh a little less pure when it started to be like oh hey you know our show er well they don't want you to smoke yeah right er you know on thursdays at eight o'clock

uh so more you know has been around for over 30 years it's still in existence still do it is that the wilmer valderrama the only thing i can think of like this is well no that's what that's for like the national kidney institute or something like that yeah no that that uh wilmer valderrama thing made me think of this actually because i was watching that thinking of like you know what i remember um but if you go to the the NBC website, like you can see a lot of their more recent ones. They've done a lot lately on like diversity, equity, and inclusion. So it's a little more topical than when they started. So More You Know started as a public service announcement, and public service announcements

became a thing in the 1940s. It was a, the war advertising council and it was just kind of telling you about war efforts. Cool. You know, so like save your scrap metal or whatever. That's wild that they needed that.

I know, right? Do you like throw my Pepsi cans in the right, like in a big truck that drives around town that's like we need to make these into bullets and i know enjoy soldiers you're welcome we're all chipping in yeah that's crazy to think about yeah uh so when the war ended um that specific war i mean war hasn't ended as a whole unfortunately uh it became the ad council uh and it was aligned with mandates from the fcc uh to balance special interests with

objective information so in the 60s for example when they used to advertise smoking uh like cigarettes for example yeah i know i realized they weren't just like hey try smoking it was like no specific brands yeah um they would have to show a psa on the dangers of smoking for every three cigarette spots okay so and apparently that was helpful because the number of smokers did start to decline and then in 1971 the fcc banned smoking cigarette advertisements in 71 yeah i didn't realize that very progressive and i didn't realize that because you know you still saw them like in magazines yeah you know but um i definitely saw mr joe camel and some of his great works that must have just been magazine advertisements

yeah and it definitely was in like billboards and stuff. Yeah, I don't know what magazines I would be reading. I don't think they had smoking advertisements in like Nintendo Power or Disney Adventure Magazine. Okay, so the 80s PSA efforts started to focus more on like, you know, on just general health and safety advertisements. And that is when the more you know came about. NBC's vice president was approached by several nonprofit educational groups to see if the network might want to raise awareness for specifically the teacher shortage. Oh, when was this? This is in the 1980s.

I did not know there was a teacher shortage in the 1980s, but there was. Maybe because the baby boomers all had school-age kids and there were just a lot more kids. Okay. I don't know. But that was kind of how it started. So if you look online now at some of the historic ones,

it's all about teachers including one by mr scott bacula that's interesting i'm still kind of thinking about the 80s teacher show were we also paying teachers like eight buttons and a fresh green apple for every week of work like we do now okay that might have something to do it's probably seven buttons back then yeah right well when you count in inflation that's like 14 buttons. They should pay teachers more. It seems like we wouldn't have to keep getting Scott Bakula to keep doing teachers PSAs if we would pay them, I don't know, 11 buttons? A minimum?

Yeah, I mean, that's two shirts, I would think, right there. yeah i think right uh originally the idea was that it wasn't going to be like a talking head kind of thing but the network kind of focused on this like celebrity idea and it kind of ran with that uh so it's late 80s it started with like miami vice stars and tom broca stars how did you say his name tom broca stars i'm tom broca stars i like that i'm trying to imagine what that character would be oh i think he'd sound a little i don't have that uh and uh la law stars too okay which you know that time period. I guess was hot. I never watched a single one of those shows.

And then they paired the creator of those with a graphic designer who came up with the shooting star. Oh, that's good. At the end, it like fits nicely into the more, the M in the more. Oh, I've never even thought of. No, it's the W. It's the W. Okay. It fits into the W at the more. Oh, I've never even thought of it. No, it's the W. It's the W. It fits into the W at the end. That makes more sense

because it would shoot all the way. It wouldn't stop right at the M. And then the theme, the little like melody was created by the same person who did the Dateline theme. How's the Dateline theme though? I don't know that one.

I haven't watched Dateline in so long. You haven't watched it in so long that you Dateline theme, though? I don't know that one. I haven't watched Dateline in so long. You haven't watched it in so long that you don't remember the theme? I don't. Okay. I thought you were going to say it was the same person who came up with the NBC, like, boom, boom, boom. But that was from like 1901 or some shit. No, but this was a two-time Emmy Award winner.

Okay. So, I mean, they knew their... That's a good four note. They knew their bums. The bops and their bums. Little run they got there. The bops and their bums. Okay. So 1996 is kind of the year where you saw like the cast of Friends and the cast of ER.

And they would come in and they'd have to deliver something in like 25 seconds. And then the five, last five seconds were for the star graphic. You gotta save. You gotta save time for the star graphic. Sure, you could use it for more life-saving information, but that star graphic is so good. There's an IMDb just about the more you know, and you can see everybody that's ever done it.

Who's the wildest one on there? I was trying to find one that seemed especially wild to me, but it's kind of all the usual. The usual suspects. I guess they wouldn't just throw those around to to any old sitcom bit player yeah i mean i will say the the one with um there's a couple that are really kind of stand out there's a julie louis dreyfus one where she talks about how you shouldn't let kids drop out because if you do they'll start stealing cars

and that one's that one's a little intense is that delivered in a sort of jokey a joke no no it's like why should you be concerned about kids dropping out of high school well because when they're out on the street you know they'll steal your fucking car right out from under your nose that's fun and wild and not it doesn't sound right to me no it doesn't uh and then there's one with sean hayes where he puts a cigarette in his ear and he's like looks pretty stupid right i remember this one i remember this one and he puts in his mouth he's like this is even stupider but then he lights it up and he takes a big long drag and he's like, sure, it looks and feels so cool, but it's so stupid. There was also, and I didn't remember this until I was reading about it, but there was also one specifically for kids called One to Grow On.

Yeah, I remember that. And there's a video you can see of like a young Jason Bateman in 1987. Damn, he would be a young Jason Bateman. Doing a One to Grow On. Well, it was back in his Silver Spoons? I don't know. Family.

What was it? I don't know much about Jason Bateman pre-arrested development, but I do know that we've mentioned two of the hosts of smartless in the last two minutes and if you do say the third that they we will conjure them sort of beetlejuice style yeah he was on silver spoons sorry i just had to check that okay um and so yeah those were specific to kids so it was like mr t and michael j fox talking about like finishing

your homework and jason Bateman's was like, don't play your music too loud on public transportation. That's, that's actually great for me, Jason. I do actually appreciate that. Um, I thought it would be like really fun to share like one of these on the show,

but I will say a lot of them, particularly in the nineties were pretty intense. Yeah. There were a lot focused on on sexual assault and domestic violence. And I was like, well, that's not really something I want to share on the show. No, that just made me think of Jennifer Love Hewitt's

anti-drug spot where she talked about like, this is your brain on drugs. This is your family on drugs and this is your dog on drugs. And, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is your family on drugs. And this is your dog on drugs. And she, like, fucks up her whole kitchen. I don't think she says, this is your dog on drugs. That would be great, though.

It's a real problem. Yeah. So, and it's hard to say if these are, like... Effective at all? Yeah. But I will say, so when I was reading about this, Yeah. So, and it's hard to say if these are like- Effective at all? Yeah. But I will say, so when I was reading about this, it said in 1995, after a series of the more you know spots on domestic violence, calls to the domestic violence hotline went from 228 calls daily to quadruple that amount.

Wow. So you have to think it's related. Oh, yeah, sure. You can't 100% say for sure. The network earned a public and community service emmy which is not anything i knew existed sure that's the emmy that i uh that i want and for for peace on the playground um and by i i mean mostly chuck minsker yeah a little kid-sized emmy a little tiny emmy yeah a little emmy i got some tokens i

think to billy bob's wonderland for my part in peace on the playground uh and this has also been parodied a lot i don't know if you remember when the office was doing this just to kind of basically promote the show the office yeah they had like they had actors in character from the office just talking about nonsense just did like like okay we got accused of this with seinfeld and friends so let's just do it and yeah i i don't know i i was watching a lot of these uh i was watching one with like a little cool j uh it's just it's incredible how many people have done this um and how many of them you can find on YouTube. Yeah, I don't doubt that.

So I would encourage you all to check it out. I mean, it's everybody from like Farrah Fawcett to like Zach Braff. Zach Braff got in there, huh? Uh-huh. Christina Applegate, Tatiana Ali,

Lisa Gibbons. Yeah, man. Kelsey Grammer. Kelsey Grammer is one. Tony Danza did one, too, just about like, talk to your kids. Tony Danza was like, in the car, turn the radio down. Talk to your kids. Talk to your kids. Or else they'll drop out of school and steal that car that you're driving right now you're supposed to be talking to them in. Hey, can I steal you away?

Yes. Got a couple of Grandpa Rons here for you. And this first one is for Tiana, and it's from Husband, who says, Lover Nin, Lover Nin, Lover Nin, you're wonderful to me. I've loved working from home together for the last year, and I'm so lucky that you're my wife.

I love you. P.S. Tiana, in case you couldn't tell, this is for you. We do say the names of the people at the top of the message. And I will also say that the copy made clear that my wife was supposed to be said that way. Oh, I didn't even need the copy to tell me my wife was supposed to be said that way oh i didn't even need the copy that was not a griffin choice i didn't even need the copy to tell me that it was spelled phonetically in the borat so i guess in the future if people are doing jumbotrons and they don't want you to say my wife that's what you should put they should put a note

like griffin don't do the voice please please please. Do you want me to read the next one? This message is for Chloe, Meg, Ben, Leah, and Ken, and it is from Lucas. To my dear TTRPG friends who introduced me to the McElroys and Taz, I love you all. You're so wonderful. And my darling husband, Ken, you're the best thing to ever happen to me. And I'm so happy you found your NB truth. Try to find the wonderful things in this crumbling world. Love to you and our perfect cat boys, Kravitz and Taco. So you see TTRPG. I know you're probably.

Tabletop role playing game. It stands for totally, totally, really perfect Griffin.in so are you saying that lucas has totally totally really perfect griffin friends yeah and it's obviously some sort of grammatical error that they they have made in the message because that is what that stands for and i don't appreciate you saying i'm lying i just wanted to be recognized you were right and i read for my ability to put that acronym together i recognize it thank you that's the sound of me recognizing max fun drive is just around the corner.

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Subscribe to Details. Look, it's a rough world out there, especially lately. I get it. So let's take care of our minds as best we can. I'm John Moe, host of Depressed Mode with John Moe. Every week, I talk with comedians, actors, writers, musicians, doctors, therapists, and everyday folks about the obstacles that our world and our brains throw in front of us. Depression, anxiety, traumatic stress, all those mental health challenges that are way more common and more treatable than you might think. The first time I went to therapy, I was so ashamed. And I was like, I can't believe I got to go into therapy.

Like, I thought I could be a man. And Humphrey Bogart was never in therapy. And then my dad said, yeah, but he smoked a carton of cigarettes a day. Give your mind a break. Give yourself a break. And join me for Depress Mode with John Moe. I had you in mind when I chose my subject. Because I think you're going to get excited about it.

Okay. I'm going to talk about a little friend with pointy blue stuff on called Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh, yay. We went and saw Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Me and Henry did. And aside from, I would call it, an unpleasant Alamo Drafthouse dining experience. Ooh, put them on blast. Get it fucking together, Alamo Drafthouse.

This is like the second or third time that they've just lost. Specifically, the order for our child. Yeah. So like it sucks when you take the whole thing with Draft House as you go and they have food and drinks. It's like I think I can think of three times that they've just like not brought the food, which is like I'm not a particularly fussy customer. But when it's like, oh, that's like the lunch I had planned for our five year old. And he's like complaining about how hungry he is. Not great.

The film, a lot of fun. Had a good time with it. And it just made me feel very grateful. You know I'm a Mario man myself. Yeah, so you didn't really explain to the listener why I would be excited about Sonic. Rachel does what Nintendon't is essentially my point. We were a Sega Genesis family.

Yeah. And I love the reason why, because it's very like, it really identifies your father. We've talked about this on the show before, but my family does a lot of like review reading and comparison shopping. Yeah. And the suggestion, and it was true at the time, was that Sega had better graphics than Nintendo. And so if we were going to invest in a game system yeah we should do the one that had eight games

that came out on it yeah i agree it was a solid choice i think all around hey you know those eight games they were pretty okay yeah beautiful who needs all of the hit jrpgs of the super nintendo era i will say though i would go over to my friends' houses and my skills were completely useless. Oh, sure. Like, not only totally different game, totally different controller. Yeah.

It was very confusing to me. Yeah. The Genesis controller was weird. It looked like a croissant with, like, three too many buttons on it. Anyway, Sonic the Hedgehog, though, I, like, I am glad he exists. I'm very glad on it. Anyway, Sonic the Hedgehog though, I like, I'm glad he exists. I'm very glad for it.

Yeah, it was the only real game series that I really played a lot. So Sonic the Hedgehog the character was designed by a Japanese artist named Naoto Oshima and the first games were headed up by a programmer named Yuji Naka who has gone on to

sort of develop a lot of sort of big big games he was the i think president of sonic team which was sort of the organization within sega that was responsible for sonic the hedgehog uh i think for just a little bit though so basically in the early 90s if you're not familiar with like the console wars uh sega just could not break into like the home console market particularly in america um because they had like a bunch of arcade games that were huge especially in japan right and so for the genesis the that console was strong enough for them to port those arcade games to the Genesis and so like that was most

of the heat that they had which was not enough to compete with. I never knew that. It was not enough to compete with like Mario and Zelda and Metroid and like all these huge things and not only that it was also if you were like a third party developer who had

you know the budget to develop a game you weren't going to develop it for the sega genesis which had like a microscopic market share of the home console audience you would just sort of by default make it for super nintendo so in order to change that like sega had to take a take a chunk out of nintendo's like stronghold on on the market uh their first attempt to do that was with sports so they like actually teamed up with like major sports organizations and athletes to like have the defining sports games for like different sports right so in the nh hockey specifically like that was we had nhl 96 nhl 96 was a fucking great game i think that's

the one that they play on uh swingers the one where they yeah uh it was so great it was so i didn't give a shit about hockey and i played so much nhl 96 um but it didn't change the fact that like it wasn't enough for sega to like have a decent share of the market. So what Sega basically did was hold open tryouts for their in-house and other outside developers to come up with something that would be hot enough, something that used the power of the Sega Genesis, the raw graphical power, to become a big hit, become what they call in the games industry a killer app, right? That you just have to get the console so you can play that one game, right? Yeah, yeah. And so this very small team got together and showed a proof of concept demo of a little character who was originally a rabbit with prehensile ears who could turn into a ball

and roll through tubes. And they were like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. That's it, let's do it. The rabbit with prehensile ears who can roll through tubes, let's do it. So was the idea that the rabbit would pick up stuff with the ears? Or it would swing in the air, right?

Makes more sense. But for whatever reason, all I could find is that that mechanic of a rabbit with prehensile ears was difficult to accomplish on the Sega Genesis. So I don't know what that means necessarily. So instead they focused

on the rolling in a ball and then they're like, well, what animals can turn into balls? And that is where the hedgehog came out of. His original name was Mr. Needlemouse, which is very powerful. It has big Yoshiti, which is very powerful. It has big Yoshi T. Munchakupas. What is it?

Munchakupas? Yoshisaur T. Munchakupas is Yoshi's first name. I very much enjoy that. So do you know why Sonic is blue? No. Literally just because the Sega logo was blue. It's the same cobalt blue of the Sega logo. Just because the Sega logo was blue.

It's the same cobalt blue of the Sega logo. The red and white shoes later, Oshima would attribute that to the cover of Bad, the Michael Jackson 1986 album. And like, he's not wearing red and white shoes. It's just like, that was the color palette. It was like a white album with MJ on it. And then in red spray paint it says bad and he was like i saw that there's all kinds of wild connections between

michael jackson and the sonic like franchise which all kind of originates from uh sega made a michael jackson game i think called moonwalker anyway i'm spiraling right now. And then like there was a lot of sort of 90s inspiration here. I found a few things that were attributed to an interview that I couldn't actually find with Oshima. That apparently there was like, you know, this attempt to capture this cool American vibe. That's where you get the Michael Jackson and just sort of the general attitude, which was apparently inspired by Bill Clinton's can-do attitude. This is weird. Apparently in like... It feels like a weird Mad Lib. It does kind of. In his like 1992 presidential bid, it was like, let's do it. Let's get it done. And that inspired sort of his i don't know it seems

like a stretch to me but apparently it it has been authenticated um so that's how they came up with like sonic the hedgehog and and uh you know the game based around this very simple like rolling thing and then they're like let's make it go really fucking fast to make it stand apart from mario uh who who's you know I would say a normal speeded man. And they still weren't sure how the game was going to be received by like young American gamers. So the CEO of Sega of America arranged for the game to be packed in with the Genesis, right? So then it wasn't like, oh, I have this sega genesis so i can buy sonic it was like oh everybody's playing sonic and i can get it too when i buy this model of the sega genesis so like when we got a sega genesis it was with the sonic the hedgehog pack in and

you play it and you're like oh shit this does actually look really good and feels totally different and that was enough to literally skyrocket sega's market share that one move it it like changed the face because then nintendo changed pretty dramatically too to like counter that and then nintendo had its own weird like attitude era uh that yeah wasn't all good but like that the competition between the two of them is like the stuff of legends. They've written so many books and movies and TV shows about Sega versus Nintendo in the 90s. Well, it's just interesting. Like it's kind of the way movie studios I feel like still work where it's like, oh, you've got this kind of disaster movie.

What's our disaster movie going to be? It's like you've got a man in overalls. What's our man in overalls? But this is this is i would argue even bigger than that right because this is like uh you know apple this is like apple showing up to challenge like microsoft's like death grip on the pc usage and then as a result everybody going like oh shit like this is a thing everybody has like more consoles were in more homes and there were more homes that had multiple game consoles and so people got very used to the idea of this being a thing that you had in your house and then all of a sudden like sony rolls up and it's like yep ours has a disc check us like and then yeah i guess the idea that we had to choose between a nintendo and a sega maybe wasn't

like it wasn't a true like uh it wasn't a true binary. I mean, these things were fucking expensive. Those consoles cost about as much as consoles cost today, not counting inflation. Like when you count inflation, the consoles and the games were profoundly expensive. So like I get it. I think we got our Sega pretty long after the Genesis came out from our Nani one Christmas. It was totally dope. Like we weren't even expecting it. And then like the last present we opened up

on some Christmas, like 1997 or something like that, was just like, oh shit, thanks Nani, damn. But you know, it just, Sonic took off from there. It was Sonic 2, Sonic and Knuckles, which was like a weird Game Genie-esque pass through that you had to plug the Sonic 2 cartridge into. Oh, yeah. No, I never went that far.

I just had 1 and 2. Then you had, of course, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Sonic Pinball, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic CD, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Sonic Advance, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 Reboot, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Boom, Sonic Mania, and like a bunch of,

he goes to the Olympics against Mario and a bunch of them. And all those games are equally great. And all of them did really good and worked very good games. I wanted to ask you about Shadow, because I don't really know, what is the story with Shadow? Shadow the Hedgehog has black and red fur, and he's very angry. I know what is what is the story with shadow in shadow the hedgehog has black and red fur and he's very angry i know what he looks like yeah what's his story he has two guns and so in his game you go around with and it's like uh sonic the hedgehog if he had two guns are you being 100

serious yeah he had two guns uh one for each of his hands. So he would run very fast and he would shoot his guns to, you know, hurt the robots or whatever. The look you're giving me is the look that everybody gave Sega. Just the first game was like you roll up in a ball and you get rings and then you have to bounce on things. You bonk on a piranha to make like a good fish come out. And this one's Shadow the Hedgehog. Or to like free. Oh, there was things if you like bounce on a robot, it would like a good fish come out and this one's shadow the head or to like free oh there was things if you like bounce on a robot it would like free a real animal in it yeah yeah exactly for sure this one is you he has done he shoots the guns at him and maybe the animals

inside make it maybe they don't he lets god decide um most of the later game i would say around after sonic adventure 2 which was on the dreamcast which which was Sega's last home console, which is like a very tight bookend on the Sega. Sega was the wildest creator of home consoles ever. The wildest thing they ever did was the follow up to the Genesis was called the Sega Saturn. And that was there like, oh, we have a fancy one that runs discs too what they did was at e3 some year i don't remember they did their press conference and they announced this is our new shit the sega saturn and it's on sale today and everyone's like what and then they sold like 17 of them uh so wild uh but like okay you think they expected people to run out of the room yeah right uh despite like how sort of lousy sonic games got

and they've bounced back they've they've been making some it's been way more consistent even though they still had them yeah sure uh the one i was playing with Henry the other day, Sonic Mania, is like, I think the most recent one, but they're making like an open world Sonic 3D platformer, which could be fun. The Kirby one's fun. But also, I mean, they went on to make several cartoons. There have been about, let me check, infinity comics of Sonic the Hedgehog,

including one written by the McElroy family. Henry still asks about that all the time. He's like, so why did Sonic need to learn how to drive? And I'm like, it was a joke. It's not part of lore. You don't have to. But there's something like, I don't know, Henry loves this dude and all of his colorful buddies.

He's just like, he's super fast. He's very fast and he's edgy in a way that you can talk about in front of your parents and they won't get worried about you. It's fair. They won't get worried that you're going to steal their car in the middle of the night. And it's not like he's a big, muscly, intimidating thing, you know? Yeah. Like anybody could be Sonic.

And what's really fascinating about sonic is that the character had a much bigger impact on like games and pop culture than the games did themselves right because they didn't make a bunch of like hyperactive platformers like those sonic they had go back and play sonic one two or three they're they're really fucking fast like they're so fast and kind of hard to play because they're very fast yeah no i never like i never like beat yeah right and so like there weren't other companies making games like that it wasn't until like indie developers became became kind of like empowered to to make the kinds of games that they wanted to make that you started to see more sort of like sonic

like games but the character itself, like, I would say, had a huge impact on 90s pop culture in a manner that sort of like outgrew the games themselves, which I find just, I don't know, I find it really fascinating. Like how? Like how? Yeah.

I mean, how many kids was Sonic the Hedgehog like backpacks and shit like that? Like in the same way that like Space Jam informed pop culture, right? Yeah, okay. I see what you're saying. I was like, it's not like everybody went out and tried to get like a Sonic haircut. Well, no, honey, because that would be quite a bold decision. But the 90s had this like, you know, the prevailing pop culture attitude was one of sort of like benign rebellion for the most part yeah i can see which which was sort of typified by just like being fucking cool uh and that is such a broad thing

and the way that it was defined was through these like zeitgeist things like a like a space jam like a michael jordan and the you know 96 chicago bulls in general like sonic the hedgehog like bart simpson yeah and all of that shit like really typified that very very very specific era yeah uh which you know then the way that pop culture works like went on to inform the next thing and the next thing and the next thing um and i don't know i think it's neat that this like Mr. Needlemouse rabbit with prehensile ears went on to like

change the world and make the two of the only good video game movies that have ever existed thank you very much yeah I'm excited

to see the second one it's a lot of fun I liked the first one it's a hoot Tails is great they have a great there's a great relationship

Idris Elba's Knuckles is a breakout performance, I would say. Very, very good. Jim Carrey's a little much, I'll say it. I said it the first time around. This time he did not turn

that knob downwards at all. But, uh... Are you saying that this movie is really going to put Idris Elba on the map? I'm saying that you hear Idris Elba is going to be playing Knuckles in the Sonic

movie. And there's probably a lot of people who think like, that's going to be weird when they should have thought that's going to be fucking delightful because he's going to do such a good job. And it's really going to bring the character to life. I don't give a shit about Knuckles in general, right? Yeah. Now I do though. I feel like Knuckles showed up to complicate things, but everyone was like, we didn't need that. We didn't need that. We just needed a third buddy for Sonic and Tails to pal around with.

And that is eventually, you know, that is the direction that Knuckles follows eventually. But I don't know a whole lot more about Sonic lore beyond my beloved contributions to it. I want to thank Bowen and Augustus, though, for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And I want to thank you for listening to the show.

And I hope you'll come out and see us in St. Louis next week. Yes. When we're on tour, we're going to be opening up from a Bim Bam on Wednesday, April 20th in St. Louis. And if you can't come to the St. Louis show, you should still go to the Minneapolis show or the Kansas City show. Yep.

Yep. Because those will also be good. And those are the next, the following three days. So you can get tickets to all that at macroy.family. You can find a handy article at the top of the page with links to all of our tours. We're going to be in, I don't know, Salt Lake City, Portland. Why are those the only two at San Diego? Now all the cities that I'm not going to, Boston, Mashantucket, a bunch of places.

Go to McElroy.family, check that all out. Do we thank Maximum Fun? Thank you, Maximum Fun, for having us on the network. We're having the maximum amount of fun around these parts, talking about Sonic the Hedgehog and looking at each other lovingly. I think that's going gonna do it for us until next time now do your tom brokaw star impression please i just want to hear what you think tom brokaw sounds like yesterday yeah yesterday on that's so I don't even need anymore that was so good babe

that was so good thank you money won't pay work and all pay money won't pay work and all pay money won't pay work and all pay Bye. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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