Wonderful! - Wonderful! 272: The Ape Man and The Babe

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Rachel's favorite force of nature and the universe! Griffin's favorite punishing party game!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaTransgender 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. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. On this show, we talk about things that are good, that we like, that we are into. And I don't know what to say now. I've said all the words that I, my brain was like, it's time to start the show. Say these words. And so I said those.

And then I was like, and then what? And my brain was like, I don't know, man. Why don't you ask one of your other ones? Why don't you ask another body part? You know? You know what? I never asked you to be the one to like get us going every week. And I think it's sweet that you kind of took that on.

Yeah. But you don't have to. Okay. Sometimes you can be like, hey, Rachel. Hey, Rachel. Why don't you get us started this week? Why don't you get us started this week

with a quick word from our sponsors and the Lord in one quick, sorry, this is how we sort of start things off before we record. We do like a quick sort of energy circle, like a prayer, like a prayer circle before a big show. Um, that's how they do it on Saturday night live.

All the big comedy greats. Yeah. Before the sports game. I know that they do that before the sports games. Gotta have hands on shoulders and just like lift it up. but if you want to go about it differently for this show, we can totally explore that. Okay. Are we starting now?

Yeah, we're in. Oh, I'm not volunteering to do it this week. Oh. But in the future. Okay. I'll be more ready, I think. So in the future, it'll be like you say your name and I say my name. And then I say, and this is wonderful.

And then i just like like kick it well i think it would be good if you acknowledge like take it away rachel now you go yeah all right you don't do that for me though after like we introduce ourselves at the beginning of each episode you're not like and here comes my man griffin with some great joke you i mean you've set kind of a precedent that you go next. I guess that's true. But going forward, let's plan to switch it up. Maybe in the next quarter, we'll reevaluate.

You know what we need? We need like a third, like a... A third host? No, not a third host, but what's the dude on Price is Right that they throw it to? And he's like,

come down, Jeb from New Orleans. Oh, okay. Like an announcer is the word I'm looking for. Oh, okay. Yeah, a herald. Okay. That can do the beginning of the show for us and be like, welcome to Wonderful.

It's going to get fucking wet, wild, and wacky in here. It's Wednesday morning. Let's get wild in the studio with the ape man and the babe and then they leave they leave our house and then you and I just start talking about whatever the fuck

I'm the babe oh I'm the ape man? I guess so it seems like weird that we got these names I didn't pick them though our announcer did yeah he'll be back though we can talk to him about it yeah did you guys want something now let's talk about it off air well yeah we don't have to do this right now okay um you go first this week do you have a small wonder though before we get into that? I will say that finally I took a ride on a knee bike for the first time. Yes. I had been very

scared and I had watched videos and read guides and I had basically waited for weeks. Well you watched Tron and you were like these are really dangerous. They make big lines and walls behind you and if you hit one of them, you explode, I guess. I don't know anything about Tron. So I'm just going to tell you up front, I can't play this game with you. That's fine. Okay. I basically told you everything you need to know about Tron.

Sometimes they have bikes that leave like light walls behind them if you hit one, you explode. And there's discs. Isn't Kurt Russell? Sure. One of them. One of those like old. That was the end of my sentence. Isn't Kurt Russell? Isn't Kurt Russell? Maybe, sure. One of them. One of those like older. That was the end of my sentence. Isn't Kurt Russell?

Isn't Kurt Russell? Isn't Kurt Russell? Yes or no? Don't touch the question. How did you like your e-bike adventure? I really liked it. I was scared of the power. I was scared that I would like, I would hit that like.

Just go shooting through our neighbor's house. Just smash through the wall. And it would knock me back. And or I'd be pulling up to a stop sign. And then I'd hit somebody or something. So far, so good. Good. Cool.

It was fun. It was nice to see a hill and be like, I'm going to be fine. I'll be okay. Yeah. To look at a hill and think anything other than, I wonder if I keep going in this direction, if I'll eventually be able to turn in that same direction, but there won't be a hill now. But that's not really how sort of like physics works. I used to like when I would ride my bike to work, when I would go on site. Yeah.

And I would head back i would just get off my bike close to our house and just walk it the rest of the way because like i was tired and there was a hill and it was like that's all the riding for me yeah but now i don't have to do that yeah i'm gonna say easter candy specifically reese's eggs oh god they're so good i they're too good i can't think of too many foods that like you can just kind of have. You can have them around the house when you're a grown-up adult. You can have them around the house whenever. And you can just have them and see them and pick one up and eat them

and not immediately be like, well, I'm going to do that again. I know. Because it tasted really, really good. And then you have four and you got bellyache. I turned down, can I tell you, when I was shopping for Easter candy, there were packages that were larger of those eggs. And I said, no, thank you. No.

I'm getting the smallest package I can. Yeah. Because I will want to eat all of them. Yeah, I can't. They're very rich. Very sweet. Very sweet. But God dang.

Mm-hmm. Really, really does it for me. You go first this week for real though. Okay. My first thing this week is luck. That's cool. Yeah, you think so? I feel a little unsure about it.

Do you feel like you are a particularly lucky person? It depends on my perspective. Wow, that's cool. Talk on that. Just a little bit of what the research says. Yeah, well, yeah. When I step back like a thousand feet. Yeah.

And I'm like, am I lucky? Yes. Yeah, sure. Got a great husband. Cool. Two beautiful kids. Love them. Nice house.

Yeah. Everything seems to be going pretty well. Strong husband. them. Nice house. Yeah. Everything seems to be going pretty well. Strong husband. Strong. Strong husband. Yeah. Tall husband. But if I'm like going to sit down at a game of chance and somebody's going to be like,

how do you think you're going to do? I'm going to say probably not well. Yeah. So, yeah. That's kind of where I stand. What about you? Are we talking about, I mean, what is a game of just like Candyland or it's just like, or shoots and ladders.

It was like, it's just whatever the dice. Yeah. Or gambling. Let's say. Yeah. Okay. I mean, there's some level of skill to that. Yeah.

Sometimes. Well, let's say I'm in front of a slot machine. Okay. Um. What about you? Do I feel like I'm unlucky i do i do like close up and far away yeah i think that there is a certain type of person and i'm one of them who feels like you know to keep to use gambling as like a to keep using that example. Like if I walk into a casino or some other sort of gambling arena,

I will usually have the thought of like, time to get it done. Time to go make the big bucks. I'm about to fleece these suckers for all their, and then I've never made money. Yeah. I will say, and again, I don't know if this is really a product of parenting,

but I will say you and your brothers all have a fair amount of confidence when you walk into like a game of any kind. Yeah, that's true. I mean, partially because you spent so much time doing it, but I think also because you were raised to be confident young men. I think that's true. Yeah. I think that that's a fair, I think that's a fair assessment. I like that about you. Sure. Yeah, I think that that's a fair assessment. I like that about you. Sure. I think that it's weird.

Game and luck are two kind of like different terms because I've played enough games that I feel very like proficient in the vocabulary of most types of games. But luck is like not always a factor in that. That's a more abstract, like, you know, fantasy thing, I feel like. But I do feel like I am imbued with some sort of incredible powers. Before I get to the research, there was a movie quote that was in my head.

And I wanted to Google it right away because I was anticipating that you might bring it to the table. And I thought, okay, I want to make sure I know what this quote is from. Okay. Luck is – can I – I'll just say it then. Okay. Luck doesn't make the man. You're close. Luck makes the man.

Luck does make the man. A real man makes his own luck. The Joker. No. Batman. I thought for sure you would know this. A real man makes his own luck. The Joker. No. Batman. I thought for sure you would know this. A real man makes his own luck. Danny Ocean.

No. Fucking Batman. Fucking the Joker. Billy Zane from Titanic. Oh, yeah. Who quoted that? There's some character. Is it Dwight from The Office, I think?

Oh, yeah, you're right. I think they're 100%. Yeah. white from the office i think oh yeah you're right i think 100 yeah that's definitely why only a shadow of that uh line was lodged in my brain somehow that came to me as i was like getting ready for this topic and i was like i better look it up one of the all-time best performances for what you needed to accomplish billy zane and titanic which is to say be the opposite of the love story of Jack and Rose. You need to be, that's a tricky

fucking needle to thread. I mean, it is a cartoonish villain. Yeah. It has to be. He's the mean husband on the Titanic who steals lifeboats from women and children. Like he's, the dude sucks. Yeah. Billy Zane fucking annihilated it.

Is your topic on Billy Zane? No, but it could be luck. Yeah. Billy Zane fucking annihilated it. Is your topic on Billy Zane? No, but it could be Luck. Yeah. I don't know how much more I have to say about him, though, honestly. He's fucking great in Zoolander. Zoolander. Extremely, extremely, extremely funny in Zoolander. I'll have to watch that again.

One of the better executed jokes, I would say, in Zoolander. of the better executed jokes i would say in zoolander um so there have been a lot of studies around luck uh which i thought was really interesting um one that a couple articles cited was this 2010 study where golfers were told they were using a lucky ball this is a mic are you about to give me a real life Michael Secret stuff situation? Sort of, yeah. That's amazing.

I mean, basically the whole thing they're testing, which ended up being true, is that if people thought they had some kind of advantage, they did better.

Who are these golfers? Somebody comes up to me and is like, hey, this is a lucky ball. Who is like, oh, cool, I'm going to do better.

You mean I'll do better? Why don't i always play with this ball how many can i have like a how many how much do you want do you have more lucky balls yeah i don't know how they selected people who would be like predisposed to like buying into this yeah but it did turn out that the people that used a lucky ball performed better than those that were told uh their ball was, quote, the same ball everyone else has used so far. You extrapolate that out, though, to like hockey players have like weird superstitions about lucky, you know, equipment pieces. I feel like that's uniform in every sport.

So there's got to be something to that. Like if I'm wearing my special cup then i don't then i win every game yeah so i have talked about superstitions on the show before right like way back before like episode 200 and i wanted to be careful to not fall into that but but it is it is like that ultimately like you identify something as lucky and then you're more likely to do well because you have that like boost uh and then you just keep doing it until the wheels fall off i guess there have been a lot of other studies that i thought was really interesting um there was a 2021 study that looked at children like just kind of figured out their attitudes on luck and how they felt about luck.

And between the ages of four and eight, they are exposed to the concept of luck through sources like family school books and the internet. By age 10, however, they start to get skeptical. They begin to notice like, oh, if I wish for something, it doesn't necessarily happen. Or that if I- Is that luck though?

Making what our firstborn refers to as a star wish. Is that, I guess, a lucky star? I think if, well, yeah. And I think if you're a lucky person, you think, like, I'll just get what I want, maybe. Oh, okay. So privilege is another great word for luck. Yeah. Oh, okay. So privilege is another great word for luck.

Yeah. And that is a big thing about the research is that obviously like how lucky you think you are depends a lot on what you have come from. Sure. I imagine that people have always had like a lot of challenges in front of them, don't necessarily think of themselves as lucky. But it is somewhat a perspective thing. Like if something, if you're a more optimistic person, if something bad happens to you, but then it turns into something good, you know, and you're able to see that, then you could think of it as more of a lucky event. That's nice. I like that. One thing I thought was really interesting. So they talk about how obviously, yes, some people are more optimistic, they're more likely to think of themselves as lucky. There was a study at the University of Hertfordshire in England, and people were asked to read a newspaper. On one half page of the newspaper, the researcher wrote in large

letters, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win 250 pounds. And the people who said they were lucky were more likely to see that. And the unlucky people seem to, quote, demonstrate more anxiety, which detracted from their powers of observation. Wow, interesting. I think I think it does kind of speak to this, like, if you are out there kind of looking for it, you will see it. Sure. But if you are, like, trying not to fail or, like, very focused on your, like, destination, you may not see it. Hmm. Okay.

Well, maybe I'm not lucky because I'm definitely not the most observant young man. Yeah. I mean, I do think you're an optimistic person, though. Sure. Most of the time. Yeah, pretty easy going. So like these articles, you know, like whenever I read these articles, like one I read was Popular Science 2015, Is Luck Real? Which I kept waiting for them to say yes or no, but it wasn't that kind of article.

I mean, no, though, right? Yeah. Is there some sort of unseen characteristic that makes people succeed where others might fail? Yes. It's not luck. It's not some, it's not, I mean, that's destiny is kind of what you're talking about at that point. Shit, man, this episode's getting deep. Yeah, I know, it's getting deep. There is a suggestion,

like if you want to kind of make yourself change your mindset a little bit of like shaking up your routines a little bit, taking different routes when walking. How does that make you lucky? It kind of breaks your pattern. And so you're able to connect these new experiences with these like new outcomes. So like, for example, like when I think about us and how we got together.

Sure. Like you kind of took a chance on Austin. Yeah. And came to visit and go to this music festival. Yeah. And when I moved to Austin, it was kind of similar of like, well, I don't have any reason not to. Like, let's see how it pans out, you know?

I see. And then like, now I feel like that was really lucky. Would you then say that fortune favors the bold? Did Billy Zane say that? Because that's all I, I only. Billy Zane said that. I only follow Billy Zane.

The Runaways. See the Runaways? It feels like he was, huh? that because that's all i i only billy zane said i only follow billy zane the runaways see the runaways it feels like he was huh i don't even know what that is that you're referencing runaways nothing gold can stay pony boy that's the outsiders dude what's the runaways i don't know sounds cool it's got billy Zane in it, whatever. So, yeah, so that's luck. I mean, you know, I don't necessarily, well, one, I don't know a lot about gambling. No. I read a lot that kind of suggested people that have poor outcomes in gambling often will step back their betting and thus have like worse results. Interesting.

So there's a suggestion of like, oh, I've been losing a bunch. I should step back. And then ultimately it looks like they were less lucky. But like if they had stuck it out, they probably would have been just as successful as the people that were having better results. Yeah. Probably.

But I guess it's just how you look at it. Right. And that's my segment this week. Stay. Stay frosty, golden. Stay frosty, golden boy. The Runaways. Can I say away?

Yes. Can I run away with you? Yes. Are you tired of being picked on for only wanting to talk about your cat at parties? Do you feel as though your friends don't understand the depth of love you have for your guinea pig? When you look around a room of people, do you wonder if they know sloths only have to eat one leaf a month? Have you ever dumped someone for saying they're just not an animal person? Us too. She's Alexis B. Preston. She's Ella McLeod. And we host Comfort Creatures, the show where you can't talk about your pets too much, animal trivia is our love language, and dragons are just as real as

dinosaurs. Tune in to Comfort Creatures every Thursday on Maximum Fun. Tune in to Comfort Creatures every Thursday on Maximum Fun. becoming butterflies. Martha Stewart flying around in a private jet full of trees. Yes, you heard me right. Trees. Neighbors becoming enemies. Just kidding. Whatever messed up stuff we can find on Wikipedia. Our impeccable taste in everything from dogs to TV shows to bodily functions. And horses. Lots and lots of horses. Come for our horned up rants about the world. Stay for the catchy theme songs. You might not learn anything, but we're a good hang. Baby Geniuses. Every other week on MaximumFun.org. Baby Geniuses, tell us something we don't know.

Speaking of luck. Okay. It's Mario Week here at McElroy. Wow. So you are bringing this to every show you're making this week, huh? I can't stop thinking about it. Have you even had the besties recording yet? No, it's tomorrow.

Wow. I've got a lot of pent up Mario. I'm not here to talk about the Mario movie. I was thinking about talking about the original Mario Brothers movie in 1993, Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, just because it's such a wild ride. You've seen that film. Of course. Okay. I have not. We should watch it sometime.

It's unbelievable. Maybe not. It's wild. And there's so much like historical data about that film that like the actors said about making it afterwards. Yeah. I saw a pull quote from like Bob hoskins being like i i used to be a stage actor right i've done hamlet right uh instead i want to talk about one of the plumbers other great endeavors uh which is the comically unfair multiplayer blood sport known as mario

party yes i talked about mario kart on the show before this is a this is a different enterprise multiplayer blood sport known as Mario Party. Yes. I talked about Mario Kart on this show before. This is a different enterprise. Speaking of your ability to navigate games, this kind of thing really favors you. I think so. I have tried to play this with you, and by the time I get close to figuring out what I'm supposed to do, we have moved on.

Game's done. So Mario Party first launched on the Nintendo 64 in 1998. They've made, by my count, 11 mainline entries in this series. And then they've made some for Nintendo's handhelds. The basic premise is that Mario and his friends are on a huge board game that they roll dice to move around.

And then between each round, they play a mini game to earn coins. And then when you reach certain spots in the map you can spend those coins to buy stars or power-ups or whatever and at the end of the game whoever has the most stars wins um that all sounds great on paper uh and honestly like this mario party one two and three i think all came out on nintendo 64 they were a hoot when they came out, mostly because there wasn't a lot to play back then, but also because some of those mini games were so fun. There's one called Bumper Balls that I have a bit of like a post-nasal drip situation, and it made the way I just said bumper balls sound really intense. the way I just said bumper ball sounds really like intense where you would like you were standing on a big ball and you had to just run into other players try to knock them off this platform really fun I probably played it a thousand times with my buddies um but where this franchise I

think earns its notoriety is the like severe element of randomness that it is built upon. And the just cruel twists of fate that any player can be subjected to at any time, regardless of what place they're in, how far in the game it is. There's really, really, if you're ever wanting to watch people have their hopes and dreams crushed, there's a lot of videos on YouTube of people, 50th round of a 50 round game of mario party who just land on a space on the board that makes you switch uh stars and coins with another player and then all of a sudden you went from commanding first place lead to last place for no reason at all um this doesn't exist in other games that uh were designed by human like in monopoly you don't usually have like instant switcheroo first to last place button yeah there's something very childlike about it

like when you would play games as a kid and you'd be like okay now uh the person that's winning has to do this and oh they're losing now like you know like the kind of the arbitrariness of it of like the randomness it feels very like like kids on a playground it is but as a kid i could say it was also infuriating oh i'm sure to you i think i can remember i think the last time i played mario party 3 with justin and travis where like somebody lost all their stars at the end of a long fucking game that we've been playing. That game takes forever to play. You play like a long enough, like a 30 round game

is going to take you like a couple hours to churn through and then you just lose it at the end. Also at the end of pretty much every game of Mario Party, you are awarded bonus stars. And the like metrics that they use to determine like which stars they're

giving out are usually randomly decided so sometimes it's like okay the player who found the most coins gets a bonus star the player who lost the most coins gets a bonus yeah the player who landed on the most bowser spaces gets a bonus star and so for that reason alone you can see a game where somebody is in last place wins all the bonus stars that were just randomly selected and then is in first and wins it's incredible to me that nintendo who makes the is known for being the company that makes the accessible games and the games that like are family friendly for everyone also created the most cruel sort of psychological experiment that exists. I can't think of another game franchise like in the whole industry that has this level of notoriety.

Like there are people who despise Mario Party for this very reason because it makes it not a very good game. What I really, really enjoy is that the early games weren't just mentally and emotionally demanding they were also pretty physically punishing also in mario party one there were a lot of mini games where you had to rotate the controller's analog stick as fast as you could oh yeah and if you did one of these one time you would realize it's way faster for you to spin that stick with your palm going like that than with your thumb trying to move your thumb in a circle it's way easier to move your palm in a circle right

but then if you do that again just once you're usually going to hurt your hand you're going to get a blister or some sort of, but that's like, if you're playing, if that kind of game shows up once in a game, you're going to be like, ow, that's smart.

If you play a long game, you're going to do a few of those. And then by the end of it, you will have like full blown stigmata. This is a thing that has happened. An actual thing. Oh yeah. This happened to, I think anybody who played the original Mario party for a long enough period of time had this happen.

I remember reading about it in like Nintendo Power of like somebody writing in like, hey, my hand fucking hurts. And the person answering the mail like, yeah, we've heard that actually from a lot of people. Nintendo was never there was no like class action lawsuit or anything like that. But the New York attorney general's office fielded 90 complaints about these injuries. But the New York Attorney General's office fielded 90 complaints about these injuries. And Nintendo actually settled and agreed to send gloves to injured players and pay $75,000 in state legal fees. Like power gloves? I would hope it's just like Mario white, like big white Mario gloves.

Yeah. Lots of palm padding. God, I wonder if you can find that on eBay. I wonder. I don't know if they actually ever sent out the gloves or not. I feel like, I don't know. I feel like you would have heard about it if this was the thing they actually had to do. I don't know if they ever.

Yeah, it would take a lot for a person to be like, well, I'm going to do that. I'm going to fill out the paperwork. I fucking definitely would have done that if I knew it was an option back in 1999. So as a result of this, they didn't re-release Mario Party for a long time. Like Nintendo has done like virtual console and all these different things to like re-release their old games so you buy them again and play them on the new hardware. that for Mario Party for a long long long time until I think last year they re-released Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch through their like online uh emulation platform but when you load up

the game through the Nintendo Switch it pops up a warning before you can start playing it's like hey don't use your palms to spin the analog stick you will hurt yourself i love it for a lot of reasons one if i'm if toads on the next space with a star waiting for me and i'm eight coins short i'm gonna spin the stick with my palm to beat my brothers you know what i mean like that's what the situation calls for you can't tell me to hinder myself in that way but also um when they when you make a video game you have to play it a lot before you can sell it to people yeah how the fuck did nobody was there not one qa tester who was like you know i think it'd actually be faster if i did this with my palm hey guys we have a problem a real serious problem why are all of our qa testers hands

bleeding profusely? Do you think there's something wrong with the game? Nah, nah, nah. It's a coincidence. They're all unlucky. It's got to be what it is. Yeah, I'm trying to think. Like, it wouldn't occur to me to use my palm, I don't think.

Really? Like, no, I don't think I wouldn't get that far. I think I would be like, oh, this is really hard, and I wouldn't think of an easier way to do it. Just move your thumb in a circle like that. Now move your hand in a circle. Yeah. It's so much faster. Yeah, but you'd have to have the instinct to be like,

there's got to be a better way, and I don't always have that. I make my own luck. I know. A real man does that. I know that about you. A real man does it that way. I've heard from movies and film. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus

for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You'll find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFun.org. Check out all the great shows that they have there. You're going to find one that you really enjoy and that you can really sink your teeth into. We got some stuff coming up.

Hey, we're going to be performing in Austin tomorrow with my brother and my brother and me. Thursday, April 13th. 13th. And again, when Griffin says we, he means him and his brothers. And the brothers. You'll be hooked on the brothers. I really

need to think about other stuff than Mario. Who's Mario? That's going to do it for us this week, though, I think. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here with us. Hey, come on in. Hey, come on in. Wait, we're just inviting them in now?

Yeah. Where have they been this whole time? Standing outside of the front door. This is like when we have people over and i forget to offer them something to drink and i realized the whole time they were here they were probably waiting oh god i was thinking about the other day we had people over and the whole time i never offered them anything oh my god you're right they're just standing there the whole time like please probably so i'm thirsty okay uh listener can i interest you in some shasta because we have it Money won't pay Work it off Money won't pay Work it off

Money won't pay Work it off Money won't pay MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.