Wonderful! - Wonderful! 282: Our Favorite Summer Stuff, Live from Raleigh!

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Rachel's favorite genre films! Griffin's favorite creepy crawlies! Rachel's favorite mysterious lightening chemical! Griffin's favorite self-schooling incentive! Rachel's favorite short-lived romance show! Griffin's favorite breezy bottoms! Rachel's favorite bummer poet! Griffin's favorite seasonal music!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaEquality Florida: https://www.eqfl.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 That was so loud, you guys. Each of you was thinking if I yell, they'll think that I'm excited for the show, but you didn't think if all of us yell, what's that going to be like for them? And the answer is pretty scary, if I'm being completely honest.

Hi, I'm Rachel McElroy. Hi, I'm Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. This is a... It just feels like we're milking it a little bit. A little bit. This is a show where we talk about things we like that are good and we're into. We used to do a podcast about The Bachelor, and then it stopped fulfilling those three categories.

And so now we just talk about whatever the hell. And we've been going almost 200 episodes strong. And today we're going to... I think it's more than that. Is it really? You might be right, actually. I think it's more than that. Is it really?

You might be right, actually. So today, we're going to focus on the local season that has just started. Rachel and I are ready to get your summer kicked off right. With a show about autumn. With an autumn-based show. Summer is just autumn eve, if you think about it about it Wait can we do small wonders Of course yes Oh my god how could I

Do you have any small wonders Can I do two really quick ones Okay first of all I purposely brought my drink out on stage You have to do it right into the mic I know so I could do a thing That I've never gotten to do before Paul always does it for you.

That got absolutely all over you. Thank you, Paul. That's why we have Paul do it. Thank you. This dress, it's got pockets, I see. The dress has pockets. The dress has pockets. The dress has pockets, that's very funny. Your dress was also going to be one of my small wonders,

so I'm glad that, so I've only got the one, and it's the water pressure in our hotel shower. We talked about it backstage just now, because I didn't, it, like the experience of it because it was so fearsome but at the same time showers are meant to kind of revitalize you, right?

and I'm pretty sure this shower activated my fight or flight response which got me ready for the show. And so I do thank you for that strong shower. I don't want you at home strong shower. I don't want to use you every day. You would peel the skin off of my bones. But as a sometimes food, I like a strong shower.

Okay, so we're talking about summer. And one of the things I wanted to talk about is a particular type of movie, which is the summer camp movie. Yes. And I also included in that is summer camp television as well. Have you ever been, you've gone to like church camp, right? North Carolina's own centrifuge for good Southern Baptist. That is here, right? Yeah, yeah. North Carolina's own centrifuge for good Southern Baptist. Thank you.

That is here, right? Yeah, yeah. I can't believe it's called centrifuge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it gets all the sin out. On the last day, they put you in a big mechanical arm and they spin you till all the sin comes out. You see people drop to the bottom if it's just not possible. The number of hand job stories that I overheard just in the one session that I would go to per summer

was absolutely outrageous. Wait, from like the other campers or the counselors? The cooler campers, not the counselors. Well, I thought maybe they would show up and like, you know, try and show off to each other. Cool, cool, cool. Not like by doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure, sure, sure. So there's a couple different types of summer camp media. There's, I categorized it as the ones that are about the counselors, the ones that are about the kids, the ones that are just scary. Yeah.

And then another type that I'll get to in a minute. But, okay, so the ones about the counselors, of course, we've got Wet Hot American Summer. Sure.

Can't beat it. Which, I don't know if you all saw that when you were a young person, but I was not expecting it to take the turn that it does pretty quickly. Yeah, seeing Frasier's David Hyde Pierce be uproariously funny in a film really changed my mind about it. I would say it was formative for me in sort of my own walk with Frasier.

And then there's Meatballs. Have you watched any of the Meatballs films? No, and based on the audience's reaction to that, I think I made the right choice. Sounds like maybe it has a bit of a mixed legacy. Well, I watched the first one. I didn't realize there was one. So the first one's 79, then 84, then 87, then 92,

and then they called it. It's like 7 Up. They were doing it at regular intervals just to show you how summer camp was changing in a realistic and wholesome way. Okay, the ones that are my favorite are the ones that are about the kids. Of course.

Originally, I was going to do just a whole segment on Salute Your Shorts. But then I thought maybe our audience trended a little bit younger than us, and I didn't know. Just show of hands, who's never heard Salute Your Shorts? Rachel's just making stuff up. That is... Hey, what's up, audience? Yeah, alright.

This is great, because half the audience just had the reaction we have a lot of the time. We need to figure out a way to, it would be wild if we could manage to just seat people based on how they answer that question. Anyway. Salute Your Shorts was only on one season from 1991 to 1992. You are kidding me. Yeah.

Well, I guess, no, technically there were two seasons, but it was only on from 91 to 92. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, because the first season is Michael, the second season is Pinsky. Right. Incredible Nickelodeon show. I don't know how you can see it if you want to,

but it's very well done. Very well done. I think so. The cinematography on Salute Your Shorts is beyond compare. It has kind of like a Freaks and Geeks quality in that it's like real kids. They're not made up. They're like people you would actually see if you were a young person, which is not something. I had a friend named Donkey Lips in school. named Donkey Lips in school.

And then, okay, Camp is Scary is Friday the 13th, of course. Sleepaway Camp as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the thing. This is not a comprehensive list, I should say. No, no, no, no. Did you see any of the Friday the 13th? Yeah. I've seen the first one, and then

the one where a child turns into bugs. No, that's Halloween 3 actually I'm thinking of. Yeah, I've seen some of them, huh? They're all the same. Yeah, from what I understand they're basically all the same. And then there's a special genre that I called

The Lead is the Story. And of course I'm talking about Ernst goes to camp the Story. And of course I'm talking about Ernst Godest Camp. Right. And I'm going to argue also that fits in that category is Troop Beverly Hills. Now, is that camp?

Troop Beverly Hills? Is that camp? Yeah. Okay, I haven't seen it in a million years. Yeah, it's Shelley Long. Right. And she's got a group of campers, and she's

trying to kind of prove herself. Sounds funny. It sounds good so far. And then there's this kind of other kind of nebulous mix where there seems to be kind of a camp element, like Dirty Dancing, for example. Yeah, sure. Adventureland kind of has

that. But again, not technically a summer camp property. I want to give a special shout out to Bug Juice. One of my all-time favorite reality shows. It was a summer camp reality show, straight up, that Disney did in like 1996.

It was something fairly early on. I had never seen it, and we watched it, as I recall, early in our courtship. It's still so good. There's a little bit of indoctrination that goes on, but it's so good. Yeah, so that is... I have never gone to a sleepaway camp.

I've done a day camp, but I've never had the full matching t-shirt. Yeah, it's fun because a whole deal you miss all you missed out on is the worst part of going to camp which is sleeping on a plastic bed in a room with 30 other people night camp is the worst part day camp is good to go you're right i'd rather sleep my own own home speaking of bug juice, my first thing, summer is the season of great bugs.

I recognize that summertime also invites mosquitoes to the equation, and they're the worst bugs, and so I guess objectively speaking, winter is the best season for bugs. But if I had to pick the season that had the best bugs in it, it would be summertime.

Because we get our, yeah, a lot of you know what I'm talking about. How about our glowing friends, the fireflies? Yeah, okay. Or lightning bug, if you grew up in certain enlightened parts of this great nation of ours. These are the best bugs, hands down.

I can't, I don't think there's another bug that lights up. Is there? I don't think so's another bug that lights up is there i don't think so is there any is there any other tech bug i don't think so probably i hear so many so so much dissent from the audience right now i think if bugs put a little bit more work into their presentation as in general we would all be we would all be bigger bug fans. Well, I mean, there's like the ladybug, you know. The ladybug's great. We love the ladybug. Dragonfly is a showy bug.

Dragonfly is great. But don't light up. But they don't light up is the only thing. Can you imagine a ladybug came out and you were like, oh, look, a ladybug. And then it was like. Yeah. That'd be so great.

We have crickets on the ones and twos generating natural white noise for us. For all the campers and open window sleepers out there, thank you so much. That's so cool of you crickets. I'll give half credit on this point to cicadas, the sort of overzealous cousin of crickets who go a little bit too hard on the ones and twos

and then they leave their desiccated corpses around all hither and yon. Can I just say, I love when you come at a segment like you're a trial lawyer. And then we get June bugs, which can be a garden pest from what I understand. Again, a lot of dissent and groans coming from the audience right now. But I don't keep a garden pest from what I understand. Again, a lot of dissent and groans coming from the audience right now. But I don't keep a garden. So whenever I see one of these just iridescent emerald beauties scuttling my way, I get so excited. More bugs should look like precious gemstones. Next topic. Okay, I wanted to talk about something. It is a product that I associate with summer,

and that is the product that is called Sun In. Sun In? Mm-hmm. Okay. Sun In? Yes. Not Sun In? Well, I don't know.

I mean, I guess if you're more casual. Okay. I don't know Sun In like that. Do if you're more casual. Okay. I don't know sun in like that. Do you know what I'm talking about, though? I have no idea what you're talking about. Okay. It is a spray that you would put in your hair, and it would encourage the natural lightening of your hair if you were outside.

Okay. None of this is familiar to you? Not at all. Interesting. No, it may surprise you to learn I don't put a lot of thought into what my hair does or looks like or how it goes. You say that, but I know that you have

a highlighting experience. Yeah. Y'all aren't ready for that story. No. I'm telling y'all, you're not ready for that story. It was when he was a child. Yeah, this was not... And by child, you mean probably 16

years old. It was involuntary. I will say that. You make it sound like a prank, like you woke up and your brother said... It may have been. Okay. So, Sun Inn first became

popular in the 70s, and here was the catchphrase that I enjoyed. Just spray Sun Inn first became popular in the 70s. And here was the catchphrase that I enjoyed. Just spray Sun Inn under the sun and see what happens. That sucks. I'm going to need a little... If I'm walking down the grocery store through the sprays aisle, and I see that, I'm going to need a little bit more information. Thank you. Well,

see, and that was the thing. So sun in, it was basically hydrogen peroxide. Cool. And I can't say that under inference. See what happens. It's hydrogen peroxide.

It's going to burn a bit. Hydrogen peroxide and lemon juice. So let's hope you don't have any cuts i guess on your scalp um you how how on god's green earth would you know if you had cuts on your scalp i guess sun in i guess you spray sun in so hydrogen peroxide, I mean, it acts similar to bleach in that it strips the pigment from your hair. But it really only was effective in the way it was intended on people that were already blonde. Because what would happen is if you had darker hair is that your hair would turn orange. So that makes the catchphrase of just see what happens. No, it is a roll of the dice, it sounds like.

of just see what happens. No, it is a roll of the dice, it sounds like. And also, if you had already dyed your hair, again, you couldn't really predict how the chemical was going to interact with the dye in your hair. So fun. I love not knowing how chemicals interact on my body. And so this still exists today.

Now they add things like botanical extracts, like aloe. That's not doing the work though. We all know who's carrying the load on that one. I'm going to say it's probably 99% hydrogen peroxide doing the work and then lemon juice comes in at the end just for the smell of it. Again, so my connection to it, I did

try using it and it did turn my hair orange. That can be a cool look though. Vitamin C? One. Paramore? Did it for a bit, I think. So. I'm going to talk about local library

summer reading programs. There you go. Now you've got them. Now they're hooked. This group hates bugs, loves books. Summer is like unschool, and I love that about it, and I would never take that away from summer. But as it turns out, if you're a young person,

and then you just chill on reading or learning for three months, there is a little bit of retention issues. Yeah, it's literally called summer learning loss. It is a thing. And that is why 95% of libraries across the country offer some kind of summer reading program, both for kids and adults. And historically, it takes the sort of otherwise arduous process

of getting a book and opening it and making the information in it go inside your brain and gamifying it, baby. I could not care less about reading for most of my youth because it was always in a sort of quiet competition with my Super Nintendo. And the odds never favored books. And in some ways still is, I think. And in some ways still is. That's a great point. But the Cabell County Public Library, where I grew up,

hell yeah! They had a summer reading program when I was younger where there was like a little folding game board and every time you finished a book, you got entered into a raffle for like huge prizes. And then you would roll a dice and move around the game board. And if you landed on special prize spaces, you would get even more prizes. This is unreal.

There was like a Razor scooter up for raffle one year. And like a Tamagotchi. It was so great. And so, yeah, that got me into it. Because all of a sudden, reading wasn't just some extracurricular hobby through which I could enrich myself. It was something that could be won. Do you remember any of the prizes you got? I never won any of the big raffle ones because there were a lot of overachievers

in my neighborhood. But I definitely got a few consolation prizes. They would give out old books, which was always sort of a grab bag. Congratulations for finishing this book.

Your prize is another book. It was just like really outdated, really problematic encyclopedias. Oh my gosh, hi, it's me, Dave Holmes, host of the pop culture game show Troubled Waters. On Troubled Waters, we play a whole host of games, like one where I describe a show using a limerick and our guests have to figure out what it is. Let's do one right now. What show am I talking about? This podcast has game after game and brilliant guests who come play him. The host is named Dave. It could be your

fave, so try it. Life won't be the same. Uh, Big Business starring Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin. Close, but no. Oh, is it Troubled Waters, the pop culture quiz show with all your favorite comedians? Yes, Troubled Waters is the answer. To this question and all of my life's problems. Now, legally, we actually can't guarantee that. But you can find it on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Jay Keith, do you know what I love more than the trivia, comedy, and celebrity guests on our podcast, Go Fact Yourself? No, what, Ellen?

Sharing all of those things with an actual audience. A live audience. Woo-hoo! Well, lucky for you listeners, Go Fact Yourself has brand new episodes featuring live audiences cheering on guests every month. And we still have all of our Zoom episodes with contestants and experts from around the world. We can truly have it all. Yay! You can hear it all twice a month, every month,

on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. Yeah, no excuses. So if you're not listening... You can go fact yourself. What do you got next? Okay, so you mentioned Rose Buddies, and I wanted to do a little return to form and talk about the

short-lived television program Bachelor Pad. Oh, Bachelor Pad. I'm scared to ask, but can you raise your hand if you watch Bachelor Pad oh there's like seven people here but the hands are high

the hands are high and proud actually that's not true I saw a lot of neck height so we watched Bachelor Pad it only lasted three seasons and was canceled in 2012. The thing that was unique about it, I mean, there were a lot of things, but the biggest thing was that instead of a show to find love,

it was a show to win $250,000. Fantastic. And the idea was, I mean, it was kind of like a road rules, real world challenge kind of thing in that they would bring back previous contestants from The Bachelor and Bachelorette and then have them compete in games together. Yeah. And then at the end of like each week, which, you know, is probably like three days if I understand the reality television. Yeah, probably like 19 hours of shooting. Each cast member would go into a voting room

and drop a headshot of a person they wanted to go home in a wooden box. So the thing I wanted to talk about specifically was season three. Because when I was looking into this show and trying to figure out why did it end, because Griffin and I preferred it to... Bachelor in Paradise.

Bachelor in Paradise. The inferior product in so many ways. Season three, there is a week where there is a new rule where instead of voting out one man and one woman, the entire cast would vote out a woman, and then that woman could pick whoever they wanted to leave. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Didn't they get Michael, what's-his-face?

Yeah, well, spoiler. Sorry, sorry. So I was reading an article in a reputable publication called Life and Style Magazine, and they talked about how they think that this broke the show. Some might say it was a decrease in ratings but others would say it is because what happened was they were all pretty sure they were going to vote out this one woman named erica rose who had been in season two and they were going to try and make it seem like chris bukowski who is like a franchise legend.

They were going to make it seem like he was leading the charge, so when she got voted out, she would take him. No. And so what he did is he took her into the voting room and said, look, I'm not voting for you. And he put somebody else's headshot in the box and walked out. So she ends up taking Michael Stagliano, who had led the whole charge and was like the most popular. The star of the season.

The most popular guy on the show. The audience surrogate for the entire show. The other thing that happened that season is that the prisoner's dilemma. Oh boy, howdy. So at the very end there is a man and woman,

and they have the option to say they're going to keep the money or they're going to split the money. With each other. Yes, with each other. Season one and two, both winners said, we'll split it. I love you so much. I would never do this to you. You're the love of my life.

I would never take the money from you. There's like this gentleman's agreement of like, oh, we don't know. I would never burn myself down on national television like that. That bad. No way. Let's split it, babe. And so the other twist is that if both contestants choose keep,

then the remaining eliminated contestants get to split the money among all of them. This is great. This is a lot of fun. It's horrible. It's great. So mean. So fun. So it came down to Nick and then this woman named Rachel Trueheart. Which, like, you can't make that up. That's

unreal. If you're playing a Prisoners to Live a game, and you find out that your opponent is named Rachel Trueheart, you're like a prisoners to live a game and you find out that your opponent is named Rachel Trueheart, you're like, well, I think I know which answer to pick. So she, of course, voted to, or she said she was going to split the money

and Nick said he was going to keep it and he left with the whole pot and people were outraged. So angry. All the eliminated contestants on stage like, what? Here's the thing,

those two... And then she was like, I carried you. You wouldn't have gotten here without me. Those two were kind of the remainders from when all the other couples

coupled up. And so he was like, we don't owe each other anything. This is a game and I won. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you can't do it again after that though. Exactly. That was the problem. Yeah. Yeah, so. Yeah, you can't do it again after that, though. Exactly. Yeah, so the show

no longer exists. They've always kind of teased that it might come back, but never as pure and beautiful as that third season. Yeah. Real quick, shorts. These are the small pants that you can wear in the hot weather. Keeps the bottom part of your

legs cool and the upper part of your legs sort of ventilated. This is a sad confession. I used to never really like shorts. I would really look forward to when summer would end and fall would come because then all of a sudden I could get back into my friend jeans. Why didn't you like shorts?

Well, it was because they looked bad on me, but then I realized only a few years ago that I needed to use a much, much, much, much higher inseam than what I was doing. Like, much higher inseam than I was doing. I don't wear any kind of outrageously high inseam. It's just that they were so low before.

Well, you were part of the great cargo reckoning outrageously high inseam. It's just that they were so low before. Well, you were part of the great cargo reckoning of like 20... What? 12? Feels right? I'll tell you this. It was pretty quickly after we started dating. So, I would

say late 2011 is when a lot of people started to look at me and my cargo pants, wearing friends, cargo shorts, wearing friends and say, you still wearing those, huh?

I can't stand long pants now that I've just got. I hate, I hate this. Um, I think that shorts tell a story to the world when you wear them in public. Because if you see someone in shorts, if you see me in shorts on the street, you know I'm not going to the

White House. Whereas otherwise, you would think, maybe. Okay, if you saw someone who you didn't know was a clown man professionally, I'm not going to choir practice at church in my shorts. Yes.

I'm down to party, and I hope that you are as well. In high school, I did experiment with the legs that could zip off of them. Oh, man. Which was offensive to see, the transformation process. It also introduced unsightly, unnecessary seams at different points in your legs that no one really liked. Neither in long pant form nor in shorts form did these look good,

but I like having options available to me. I like being able to adjust to my climate because I'm cold-blooded like a lizard man. Uh-huh. So I have an option here. Okay. Long pants or shorts? No.

First, I would like to take you to the poetry corner. Oh, I'd love to. Baby, I hear the poetry calling, tossed salad and scrambled poems. It's so confusing. Hey, baby, I seem the poetry calling, tossed salad and scrambled poems. That's so confusing. Hey, baby, I seem a bit confused. But baby, I've got some poems. But I don't know what to do

about those tossed salad and scrambled poems. They're calling again. Scrambled poems all over my face. That's gross. Whenever you do that, I always like thinking about the people in the audience that have never listened to our show before and are just super confused right now.

Or watched Frasier is another possibility. People might be in the audience, never watched Frasier, be like, that was good. Did he come up with that? That sounded good. You act as if you and your brothers don't reference

Frasier every single episode. Okay, so I have two different poets here, because I feel like we only really have time for one. I have a poet that's kind of funny. Okay. And a poet that is pretty, but kind of a downer. All right.

Let's raise our hands for funny. Just raise your hands for funny, please. Yeah, that's how I thought you'd go. Raise your hands for downer. So we're going down. You're going to regret that. Well, so, okay, so a poem about summer, like, I think what you're picturing

is like a very, like, sensual experience, right? Absolutely. The funny poem doesn't really have that. Okay. So I wanted a spare. A sad, sensual poem. Great, let's go. So the poet is Lucia Perillo,

and she grew up in the suburbs of New York. She earned a BS in wildlife management from McGill and then got her MA in English at Syracuse. She was diagnosed with MS when she was in her 30s and wrote a collection of essays called I've Heard the Vultures Singing, which is like a real examination into her life as a person with disabilities.

She's won a MacArthur Genius Grant, and she lived in Washington State until she passed away in 2016. The poem I wanted to read is Early Cascade. I couldn't have waited. By the time you return, it would have rotted on the vine. So I cut the first tomato into eighths, salted the pieces in the dusk, and found the flesh not mealy like last year's, or bitter, even when I swallowed the green crown of the stem that made my throat feel dusty and warm. I could have gagged on the sweetness, the miser accused by her red sums.

Better had I eaten the dirt itself on this first night in my life when I have not been too busy for my loneliness. At last it comes. Lovely. That was really good. I didn't think it was that big of a downer. It's a little bit of a downer. It made me hungry for tomatoes. Which is the power of poetry.

There's like, for me, there's nothing more summer than a tomato. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe a watermelon. Yeah. But yeah, no, it's a beautiful poem. I mean, first of all, I love, I love the, just the experience, the idea of swallowing the stem, which I thought maybe would appeal to you as somebody who's... Rachel McElroy! I have never been so betrayed on stage before?

But yeah, I mean, the reason I thought it was kind of bummer is that it's somebody who like finally has this moment of this like kind of beautiful time to herself and then she realizes like how lonely she is

in that moment. I found that very like, you know, relatable and also sad. Yeah, how we feeling, audience? Woo! That was lovely. Thank you. To close things out here,

we're going to go a little bit long, but I worked really hard on this next part, so I have created a definitive ranking of songs with the word summer in the title of them. This is a very scientific thing, and so because it's science, you can't argue against it. I'm not talking about summer hits. That's a different thing. I'm talking specifically about where summer is in the title of the thing. So integral to the DNA of the song, they had to put it on the tin.

I haven't ranked all of them, obviously. I've got the top five with a tie, but again, unimpeachably correct. However, I do have a song that I have placed in infinitieth place, and that song

is, of course, Summer Nights from Grease. On the self of the night This entire musical And by the way, we're pretty sure our kids are watching downstairs So we're not cussing a whole lot here But know that I would otherwise This whole musical This show is the musical equivalent of like a nostalgic boomer Facebook post

at this point. And this song is the worst offender of the bunch. And obviously there's a lot of these and the discussion about consent has surely come a long way since this musical was first released 100 years ago. But surely someone was in the room when they played this one, and they heard the line, Did she put up a fight?

And they went, I actually maybe don't do that. That actually sucks. Let's get into it. Fifth place. We have a tie for fifth place. The first song that is tied for fifth place is The Boys of Summer by Don Henley.

I don't think this is for me. Very little of Don Henley's music is. This is an interesting one. And by this, I mean Don Henley is interesting to me. Because he wrote like three good songs and like 200 really bad ones. And I don't know how someone with that bad of a hit rate

writes a certified banger like the Boys of Summer. But it's a sad look back at a sad man's life which featured many summers and many babes. And with that description, that song should not go so hard, but it really does. And with that description, that song should not go so hard,

but it really does. And so thank you for that, Mr. Henley. Tied for fifth place, I'm going to give it to Summertime by Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jazz. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We can fade that. Here's the thing.

I didn't let you hear Will Smith there because I think, and this is controversial, I think this is one of Will Smith's okayest performances. But it is, without a doubt, DJ Jazzy Jeff's crowning achievement. Will wrote this song in a flight. He was flying and he

wrote it. He came home. He recorded it with a sore throat, which made him come in at a much lower register than he usually does, which couldn't have waited. But the real hero of this is DJ Jazzy Jeff whose contributions are just next level that rising synth arpeggio

is iconic it is paradigm shifting and more notably it's a sample from Cool and the Gang's Summer Madness so technically it's two summer songs in one. Wow, okay. Thank you very much Mr. Jazzy Jack.

Okay. Fourth place, we're going to give it to Summertime by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Oh, your daddy's rich And your ma is good looking Really classing up the joint right now. This is the song everyone knows from the musical Poor Dan Best by Gershwin.

And this is probably the version that everyone knows the best because it has two musical titans just blowing out the limiters and just letting her rip. I like to think about if any other person had been in the room with Ella Fitzgerald and she was like, all right, I'm going to sing.

And then the other person, any other person other than Louis Armstrong was like, okay, go for it. Zop, zop, zop, zop. You're singing, right? Go for it. Don't let me get in the way. Zop, zop, zop, zop, zop. But it works.

It has a different song vibe than any other song on this list, which I will grant it, but it also has different song vibe than any other song on this list, which I will grant it, but it also has a different vibe than most other songs because I can't think of one off the top of my head that I would describe as a sultry lullaby. Yeah, okay. But here we are, third place,

Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts. Blowing through the jasmine of my mind. Yeah, took me a second. Here it comes. Summer breeze makes me feel fine going through the jasmine in my mind

Can I say this is what it is like riding in the car with Griffin. I genuinely think if it was the early 70s and you were on some sort of sailing vessel and you put this song on, it would power the boat. Yes.

Yes. I harbor a great fondness for the yacht rock era, and this one checks all the boxes. It's got smooth riffs. It's got gentle falsetto lyrics. It's got absolute garbage nonsense lyrics You tell me what flowing through the jasmine

In my mind means I don't know but I do know that the drums Are so crisp and those falsettos Are so high And I could just rest my head upon this song Like a soft pillow Second place we're going to give it to Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly and the Family

Stone. I don't have much to say about this one. It's just a complete bop start to finish. It's just this funky little three, four time little celebration of summer. It really does talk about a lot of summer things, which I appreciate. It's like this episode, if it were a musical, and very, very good. Sly and the Family Stone didn't use strings in their songs, like hardly at all, which makes this song also kind of special. The orchestration of this is just like out of sight. It's got those rising horns and those little constant little playful staccato

piano hits. That bass that just goes on a voyage. I love this song, but it's not number one. Number one is going to have to go to Summer Girls by LFO. Thank you. I feel so betrayed by you right now. Now you know how I feel. Sometimes, when songwriters give into their every creative impulse, the weight of hubris can pull the resulting work down

into a kind of music hell. And this is exactly what happened with Summer Girls by LFO. But the vision of this song, the guiding force of, let's write the best summertime song ever, including

references to every conceivable, not just summer stuff, but just stuff from the writer's whole childhood is very powerful. So many songs try to capture something bigger than themselves,

and I think it's notable that this is a song that teaches you not only what makes the writer horny, but also what makes him very sick. And also for some reason, some quick IMDB credits for Macaulay Culkin and Michael J. Fox.

It also has the tremendous, tremendous, I don't know if I would even call it a rhyme, but I believe it goes, when she drinks, she'll buzz like a hornet. Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets. Okay, you know what? I forgot about that. That's good.

That's really good, because it means you've either got to say the word hornet like sonnet or sonnet like hornet, and he'd split between them and made them both into words that don't really exist in the real physical space that's summer girls by LFO a bad song with a truly pioneering vision for summer music that I appreciate that's it for us today thank you all so much That's it for us today. Thank you all so much.

Thank you all so much for being here. We'll be back later. Bye. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. MaximumFun.org

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