Wonderful! - Wonderful! 289: I Need Strong

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Rachel's favorite toilet paper mascot! Griffin's favorite tasty college experiment!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaEarthjustice: https://earthjustice.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 Rachel Mc... Whoa. Uh-oh. Is this a funny episode we're doing? No, I was just, can I say something? I'm so worried about you. And so I was thinking about you. No, honestly, I was thinking, Rachel, my wife, hi, this is wonderful. A show where we talk about things that's good. Oh,

sorry, you say the name of the show. This is wonderful. A show where we talk about things that are good, that we like, that we're into. You still haven't introduced yourself. I'm Griffin McElroy. I'm so worried about my wife. so i was thinking about you and so i said your name instead of my own name that's real folks that wasn't a skit or a sketch i do i thought you were gonna do like a goof no not a goof i'm so worried my wife is sick yeah she's got a cold or something it's the it's probably what everyone else at great wolf lodge uh has um because we were there last weekend and it was just elbow to elbow with a lot of tired parents and just sugar jacked kids yeah it's the end of summer uh for a lot of people and i think everyone wanted to close things out with a bang at the old Great Wolf Lodge.

And there are pros and cons, obviously. A pro is that there is an arcade and our two-year-old doesn't really need money in the arcade to enjoy it. So he will go up and he will enjoy a game without ever having actually played it yeah but he will touch every button yeah in that arcade and then he will touch me and then we will both be sick and then big son will get sick too i try really hard in any kind of arcade environment be at a great wolf lodge or a david and busters to david and to use the hand sanitizer stations as liberally as is as is possible you're fighting you are fighting against nature at that point yeah um but great time thank you for having us new one up in perryville maryland beautiful great facility is great facility the

magic quest uh plot line is uh the production values through the roof. Yeah. Had ourselves a great time. Just a hop, skip, and a jump away from our nation's capital, too, which is great for us. We are not sponsored by Great Wolf Lodge. We would, though. Great Wolf Lodge, get at us. I will do.

I'll say anything. I will say whatever. Do you have any small wonders, my love? Hmm. I will say whatever. Do you have any small wonders, my love? Hmm. I'm going to say there is a kind of lollipop that is designed for sick children.

Yes, throat ease. I don't know if it really has any benefit. I think there's honey in there. Who knows, man? know if it really has any benefit i think there's honey in there who knows man i don't i don't think there's a lot of sugar because big son complains that they do not taste good yeah but it does make me feel good as a parent to be like here's a lollipop and i think that it does i think there is something about like the salivary kind of activation that happens there that like is, is good for a sore throat. Um,

but I mean, then it could be any, it could be anything. Right. But the fact that it says that it is for sore throats makes me feel like I'm doing something. Absolutely. And I like that.

Yeah. Um, I'm going to say, uh, I mean, it's pretty nerdy one, but, uh,

Baldur's Gate three is a game that is out that I've been playing a lot of it's the one I told you about that's basically like Dungeons and Dragons but a video game and man it's good as hell and it's fun cause like everyone it's like a full zeitgeist situation like everyone's playing it and talking about it and it's like the biggest game

like surprise out of nowhere like smash hit millions of people playing it and it's cool anytime that happens and you can kind of surf the surf the surf the vibe a little bit yeah you've been getting a lot of that lately with the zelda too yeah it's been great i mean it's been a pretty good ass year for games man it's been uh i mean just between zelda and balder's gate it's been hot shit and that's that's what i've been saying yeah rachel's like really big you need a new game honey you do stardew valley i think i fell off well honey you played for you played a lot of it

it's not that you fell off you reached the end a healthy you know what's sad is that i chose a partner and i had a child and then you abandoned the game yeah you get i mean i was like well that's everything i guess I did all the stuff. I think maybe it's that you already have that. Yeah, right. IRL. I can't escape anymore. Well, but I'm pretty sure there's like a statue you can give like 10,000 gold to and then your spouse and child go away.

And all of a sudden you're a single farmer again, sort of just like you and the land and the adventures therein without having to worry about, you know, packing school lunches and stuff like that. Because like that's real life, you know, I love it. But the land is the land. I don't tend to the land in real life. That's what I do in Stardew Valley. You got to keep them separated, I guess, is what I'm saying. You go first this week. I do.

When you come up with a topic, do you think like, how is this going to be described in the episode description? I think about that sometimes, yeah. But that's not our problem anymore. I know. That's true. That's true. We have editor Rachel to help us with that. But this one's a tricky one.

I'm going to say the evolution of the Charmin bear. The evolution of the Charmin bear. Rachel's favorite toilet paper bear. Rachel's favorite toilet paper bear. That's easy. I guess that's a good name for it. Yeah. You know these bears?

I do. I don't need, I don't like them. I think it's a little gross. I think it's a little bit gross. Um, you want to tell me more about that? Why? I think it's a little bit gross.

Uh-huh. It's, I don't need, um, these bears to describe the texture and feeling of this um toilet tissue on my butthole nerves or whatever quite in the level of like scientific anatomical in-depth detail that they do uh-huh i don't enjoy the go as a rule i get in and i do what needs done in there and i don't like make a big production out of it yeah um it's work it's health uh-huh and i don't need a cartoon bear to be like it's time that you do something for yourself this toilet paper is going to feel so soft and gentle on your bung hole go um you owe it to yourself to like i have so many other things in my life that bring me joy do you do not need a cartoon bear to describe this to me i mean one might argue you don't typically need a mascot

to detail the purpose of the product but it makes it more fun, doesn't it? Yeah, no, because again, these cartoons have gotten so raw in the advertising space. I feel like I've seen a bear wipe its own ass with toilet paper, and I'm just over here trying to watch my stories. Uh-huh. Can I tell you more about the bears?

I can't say the name of any television shows because they're all struck or whatever. Uh-huh. No, typically you would have lots of stories to talk about. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Is the Charmin Bear commercials a struck project? Let me get in touch with my local SAG after. You know, I did. I was curious about that. I mean, there are here's the thing there are characters so somebody's writing that someone's

writing the sherman bear commercials um but i don't know that there's any new projects okay so sherman sherman before the bears it was mr whipple i do remember him yeah he was coy in a way i appreciate it oh yeah i guess that's true he wasn't like this feels good on my butt my butthole feels great my butt my raw chapped butthole is being healed in real time by this incredible paper now watch me use it um yeah so mr Whipple was kind of the previous spokesperson. And then in 2000, the Charmin bear replaced Mr. Whipple. This was a illustrated bear. There was a Procter & Gamble had an agency they worked with.

And they had an actual illustrator named joanna quinn hand draw these bears okay as the evolution of the bear continued uh this turned into a 3d animation uh so we we do not get the hand-drawn bear anymore now we get the graphic sort of VeggieTales-esque depictions of bear hygiene. So there are different kinds of bear, and this is when I got kind of into it. I didn't actually, I did know that. I did know that there were different bears. There are blue bears for Charmin Ultra Soft family and red ones for Charmin Ultra Strong family. Oh, that's interesting interesting i don't like that

sharman makes me choose yeah who who walks down the aisle and says i need strong yeah i go really really really crazy soft may work for some people i mean strong i it's like i'm sanding down a a two by four down there and i need something that can keep up with the friction um i cannot believe this is this the topic you have brought to the table today i so when i my parents always tell the story of when i was a kid how much I loved the snuggle bear. Yeah, different. Way better, you know,

sort of mascot on a sort of ethical, moral level. I don't see, I think I am kind of the ideal audience for these cartoon bears because for me,

I'm like, oh, what a cute bear. But you don't think about the actions that the bear is doing. No. Okay. No. And I think most people are probably like that not me i've seen the way that these bears sort of gyrate on a tree

and in a in a way that is like incredibly vulgar yeah no i mean they do seem to get kind of graphic yes uh there is a point later in the evolution where they show like little pieces of toilet paper stuck to the bear's butt yeah hey let's talk about that why do you why hey fucking don draper why did you decide that that's gonna move paper why did you decide that because it's not anything i think i want to see on my television set they have done a lot of things to endear these bears to our population. Several years ago, the bear originally appeared in broadcast sports, and then they started bringing it to state fairs and festivals. Hold on.

Back up. And then they started bringing it to state fairs and festivals. Hold on. Back up. The bear started to appear in broadcast, like the cartoon bear. Sorry, broadcast spots. Okay. I'm so glad you've clarified that. Because I was just imagining on my Thursday night football. Yeah, I misspoke.

That the toilet paper bear charges the field and everyone's like, we got to get the fuck out of here. No, this broadcast spots. Okay. Apparently at festivals, they would bring a large like mobile port-a-potty situation. Terrible.

Aren't all port-a-potties, it's the large there that i'm confused about it was a it was a 32 foot truck with 12 restrooms that's okay and they would have somebody dress as the shaman bear and dance around to entertain the crowd i i want to spend it i want to spend a few minutes inside the mind of the person in that suit i think the mascot arts are a what are the gestures a dying art form and a person has to do exactly i think that you have to get inside the mind of a cartoon character is it is a challenge and i respect the craft of it except this one i'm allowed to say that this one is bad and anyone who's like because you can't touch your butt there might be people like

children watching you can't like take the toilet paper and go like like dip on down there and go like this feels so good right right my children or, do you pretend like you have to go to the bathroom? And is that the thing? I don't want to think about that because you could be in distress inside the suit. That is always, as a former mascot myself, I'm always looking for signs of distress from the person inside the suit. And if I see them, you know, crossing their arms over their crotch or holding onto their butt cheeks together together i will think like that person needs to be relieved in more ways than one uh in 2003 the guardian did a story uh sharman created a children's storybook featuring the bears uh called the adventures of sharman the bear uh which was four stories focused on the bear

being soft, comfortable, and strong. And Proctor and Gamble said, the production of the book helps to really bring our Charmin the Bear character to life and into the family arena, whilst providing a positive benefit of encouraging parents to read with their children. Huh.

See, really what we're trying to do is improve literacy here at our toilet paper company. This has all been run up, though, to what I really want to talk about, which is that there are names and personality traits for each bear in the family. And you can find out all about this on their website. Okay. It's set up kind of like contestants on Bachelor in Paradise. It does look a lot like that. They have a picture of each bear,

the bear's name, nickname, likes, dislikes, fun fact, and best feature. And it's the whole family. So there is a patriarch leonard whose nickname is lenny uh his fun fact is that he holds the world record for longest bathroom break that's rough that's right and also probably not true uh his partner molly her nickname mom that sucks her fun fact my self-care is stealing a little me time on the toilet it's all they have then isn't that so grim it's really grim all of this is so far uh there is a bill nicknamed billy uh his likes include making tiktoks from the can banned you're off the platform you can't do that what and they have like little little poop emojis next to him like he is he's what the teens want

you know with with the tiktoks and the you know billy's an icon for the teens uh and then he has a younger sister amy her Her nickname is Favorite Child. That's kind of an interesting dynamic. Yeah. The Bear family. Well, okay. If you had two kids and one of them exclusively, just the only thing they were known for was making TikToks on the toilet, I think the other one by default would be the Favorite Child.

And then there's the young little guy. This is the Griffin McElroy of the bunch. And I say that because he is wearing glasses. Yeah, that's only fair. His name is dylan uh and his best feature is his squeaky clean keister gross i don't want to know that about dylan or anyone those are the sherman bears why did you bring them uh i mean one they're cute bears great two i love when a company goes really hard on their mascots. I mean, you talked about Grimace the other week. Right.

It's like when they create a backstory and likes and dislikes, and they really try and turn them into something that the public wants. Seems like Charmin did that in the span of about two and a half minutes with their bears. Like, what are they like? Shitting. And cleaning up after shitting. Okay, but what do they do? Bathroom. Right, but what else are they all about clean butt clean butt yes good yeah it's i mean i i don't typically like you know bathroom focused humor right uh but this isn't humor this

is this is humor and i like bears right sure, sure. You do like bears, though. Can I steal you away? Yes. Hey, when you listen to podcasts, it really just comes down to whether or not you like the sound of everyone's voices. My voice is one of the sounds you'll hear on the podcast Dr. Game Show, and this is the voice of co-host and fearless leader Joe Firestone. This is a podcast where we play games submitted by listeners, and we play them with callers over Zoom we've never spoken to in our lives. So that is basically the concept of this show. Pretty chill. So take it or leave it, bucko. And here's what some of the listeners have to say.

It's funny, wholesome, and it never fails to make me smile. I just started listening and I'm already binging it. I haven't laughed this hard in ages. I wish I discovered it sooner. You can find Dr. Game Show on MaximumFun.org. I got kind of nervous earlier when you were like, there's this type of lollipop, because I thought you were about to chop my flavor. Oh. What a flavor it is, because today I would love to talk about chupa chups. Chupa chups.

Okay, so I noticed you started saying chups. Chups, yes. I feel like the other day you were saying something different. I've said so many different, in the UK, they call them chupa chups. Oh, they do. I believe that's correct. I believe I didn't just make that up. Sometimes I call them chupa chips, but they are chupa chups is the name of the product. It is a Spanish product, which I did not realize, but it is of the verb chupar, which is Spanish for to suck. So that tracks. That makes sense.

Okay. When I was in college, I went through a big Chupa Chups phase, as everyone does when they experiment in college with lollipops. I am a big candy fan, which everyone who listens to this show at any kind of level probably knows. And I don't think there's a better candy delivery method than the lollipop. You get sort of max flavor without filling your belly up with a bunch of like candle wax or whatever.

Your hands don't get sticky, which is ideal because of the stick. The issue is that most lollipop brands have some sort of fatal flaw. I think we can all agree like dum-dums are too small. And also like, I would say about 70% of dum-dum flavors are kind of gross. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like root beer, not great. Butterscotch, actively pretty yucky. Dum Dums, so too small. Blow Pops, nobody wants the gum in the middle.

It's not good quality gum. It's actually pretty bad quality gum. Yeah, same with Tootsie Roll Pops. Same with Tootsie Roll Pops, same deal. Those big suckers they sell at the grocery store, those are ball gags for your mouth, which some people like for other reasons, but not when you're just trying to have

a little bit of lollipop time. But the Chupa Chup is perfect. It's 12 grams of candy, the perfect amount, on a stick that doesn't get all gross, like wet toilet paper when you get saliva on it. There's no unnecessary filling. And the flavors of a Chupa Chup are out of this world, streets ahead of the rest of the competitor. I'm talking about, man, the transcendent strawberries and cream dual flavor.

Most Chupa Chups have two flavors sort of on either side of the thing. And the strawberries and cream is just like the best. I watched a How It's Made about Chupa Chups. And they just take like two big ropes of candy that they combine and then scoops a little ball out of them. And then it puts the stick in. The stick has a little divot in it you know and that's because then the candy sort of molds into that divot so that the candy doesn't come off the stick it's like adhered onto it because it goes into the stick a little bit i thought that was really interesting uh they got watermelon is very good

there's a raspberry vanilla chupa chup that is like amazing there is a cola flavored Chupa Chup that is probably my favorite cola flavored like candy stuff that is out there. I may have gotten, when we were at Great Wolf Lodge, our son, our young son got like a cup of Chupa Chups from the bulk candy. And I was like, oh, I remember these. I wonder how they hold up.

The answer, extremely well. They're very, very good. And so I got like a big bucket delivered to our house of Chupa Chups. There's some cola flavored ones in there. I'll hook you up because it's the shit. I think you're really going to like how it feels. The flavors are amazing. The size is perfect. And it just, it scratches the itch for me better than any sort of hard candy substitute uh it possibly can um so chupa chups was founded by enrique bernat uh who owned an apple jam factory and he had the idea to make candy there and all the investors for the factory were like nope and they dipped um but in 1958 he

went through with starting this company chupa chups, where he started to sell striped bonbons on a stick for one peseta each. This is a currency that is, as far as I can tell, no longer used. And so I don't know what the conversion rate is, but that seems like a pretty great deal to me. Within five years, Chupa Chups were being sold in 300,000 stores. Clever marketing technique. of chupes were being sold in 300 000 stores uh clever marketing technique he instructed shopkeepers to keep the chupa chups right at kid level right next to the to the to the till uh and so you know their little grabby hands could could get out and it's a very like attractive looking sucker it is a very attractive looking sucker i'm gonna talk about that too because this is my favorite thing about

chupa chups that i did not know until i did this research on this article. By the 70s, the brand went international. It was spreading all over East Asia and Australia. And then it finally came to North America in the 80s. The only sales numbers I could find for Chupa Chups are like 20 years old. But in 2004, they were selling 4 billion lollipops in 150 countries around the world. Huge, huge deal. Chupa Chups. Chupa Chups are a very appealing looking candy, right? The size again. Oh, perfect. It's exquisite. The wrapper, very colorful, very strict. And then you get that logo that is like, you know, this elegant sort of playful Wonka-esque. Exactly. Yeah. That logo was designed in 1969 by Salvador Dali. Oh, that makes so much sense.

I mean, it doesn't make sense, but like look, thinking about the style of it does. It's wild to me. What is even wilder is that Dali came up with the idea to put the logo at the very center of the wrapper. So as a result, it would always appear at the top of the lollipop instead of on the side. Yeah, that's so smart. So when you're looking at like a carton of these bad boys all standing up, their beautiful logo being presented proudly like some sort of banner onto the winds,

which, by the way, Chupa Chups also famously very difficult to open because they are sort of double wrapped and then sort of heated so that it adheres on and stays factory fresh for a very long time. I had a moment in Great Wolf Lodge where I purchased these things. And of course, Gus wanted it immediately. And I was like, oh my God, how am I gonna get this open?

And I started looking nervously around the store for some kind of device to open it. You don't need that. Yeah, you like turn it. Oh, there is? Yeah, you turn it and then there's like a little either black or red tag at the bottom of the popstick. I don't know why we started calling them that.

I mean, that's what Henry called them. Henry called them that when he was like a toddler. Yeah, I found that if you just kind of, if you turn it in the opposite direction and like loosens it. But if you can get a good pinch going on that flag, it'll just sort of tear off much easier. Also fun, Chupa Chups for a little while was the creator and distributor of Melody Pops. Do you remember Melody Pops?

Oh, the whistles? Yeah, these were pop sticks. These were lollipops that were whistle shaped and had a stick. Yeah, and you pulled the stick out, yeah. You could sort of pull it out on like a slide whistle, and it would change the pitch of them. It was the worst sound. It wasn't good sound. But I remember that they were always like a prize on Nickelodeon game shows.

But they do not make those anymore. But that's Chuba Chubes, man. I feel like I have slept on them for such a long time, and I'm so glad to be back in the game because they really, really are much, much, much, much better tasting than any other lollipop brand out there. They are gourmet in a way that is just right for me. They have like a creamier quality. Like there is a chocolate that like tastes like chocolate. Yes. Oh, yeah, the chocolate ones are great too.

Yeah. So that's Chupa Chups. Don't sleep on them. Get out there. And I was going to say get your hands dirty, but you won't because of the superior design of the Chupa Chup. Unless you're a little son and you are compelled to grab the top of it with your other hand just to make sure that it is in fact sticky, which it always is. It is. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that'll happen. We did not have a ton of submissions. of it with your other hand just to make sure that it is in fact sticky which it always is it is yeah i mean yeah that'll happen um we did not have a ton of submissions so uh i will ask if you have

a small wonder that you want to send in to us we are bad at mentioning the uh email address that you send those to it's wonderful podcast at gmail.com just one or two sentences about something that you're into right now and maybe we'll read it at the end of the show. Um, thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these for our theme song. Money won't pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to maximum fun for having us on the network. Go over to maximum fun.org. Check out all the great shows that they have there.

You're going to have a great time just sort of scrolling around. Beautiful website, very interactive, lots of stuff you can click on to make the screen change. And we got some, uh, merch over at macaroonmerch.com you can go check out and um i sure would appreciate if you would do that and uh we got some shows coming up we're gonna be in seattle doing my bim bam and taz at the end of

the month during pax then in october gonna be in philly and then in new york for new york comic-con should come uh come to those shows if you'd like to. Again, McElroy.family. I'll get you where you need to go. That's it. I'm gonna I'm gonna end the show now so that you can go and rest that beautiful voice

of yours. That would be great for me. Thank you for your courage and your bravery. Yeah. And my service. And your service. And I still can't believe

you talked about the poop bears but you just part of marriage is surprising. The other one, the other person. Uh-huh. So thank you for that. You're welcome. Maximum Fun A worker-owned network

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