Wonderful! - Wonderful! 351: SpaghettiO's Sandcastle

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Rachel's favorite trend-setting magic duo! Griffin's favorite film-centric erudite board game! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya First Nations Development Institute: https://www.firstnations.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. This is wonderful. Thank you for listening to Wonderful. It's a podcast where we talk about things we like that's good that we are into. And it's a show about art and movie and culture, sometime about food, sometime about observation

of the human experience, and sometime about candy. Those are, I would say, the big buckets that we like to fill. Now art, does art, does- Art is paintings. Okay. And that's basically it. You could maybe get statues in there. Did you say like music and literature?

No, we haven't done any. We've done some music, that's right. So music is a bucket. A fair amount of music. I don't think we So music is a bucket. A fair amount of music. I don't think we've done any books because. A fair amount of literature. Well, we've done poetry, but that's not literature though, is it, really?

I'm pretty sure it is. Literature is like stories like Aragon and like cool books with dragons and fighting and stuff like that. That's literature in my, like that's what I think of. Poetry is poetry, it's another bucket, you're right. God damn, we are lousy with buckets around. We got a lot of buckets.

Looks like we got a really rainy, thatched roof cottage situation. It's like a double dare over here. Double dare, what with the buckets? Do you have any small wonders, any little things that you're feeling particularly grateful for today, specifically?

I just had my 200th class at the establishment where I go to do the sweating. They make a big deal out of these things at that establishment. Yes. And it felt nice. I felt like there was a period of time where I felt like I really just kind of plateaued

and it was just like I just was sitting in the same place for a long time. And then just in the past few weeks, I felt really like I'm doing this. You're doing it. So it was nice to have like a day to day where it was like this is a milestone and you're doing this. So it was nice to have like a day to day where it was like, this is a milestone and you're doing it. I think going from not really ever going to the gym

to going 200 times in the span of about two years is pretty fucking good, man. By anyone's measurement, that's pretty good, dude. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely, I've never been a huge gym goer, but I have been relatively active, I would say, until we had children. And then I, you know, just stopped.

Sure. And seven years later, here we are. Yes, it truly, I'm very happy for you. Thank you. It is a real. You are also, you know, getting swole. Yes, I have stopped doing that particular gym so much because I have like an in-home setup and it is nice.

It is nice. Last time I went on tour, people were very complimentary of my huge, huge guns. It looks like you could lift something. It looks like I could lift something. Maybe not heavy, but like I could help move. I could help you move and you wouldn't feel bad about asking me.

Wow, that's a good way to describe it. Yeah. I'm going to say, I just played a really fun, little mystery detective game. It's called Rise of the Golden Idol. It's a sequel to Curse of the Golden Idol, or Case of the Golden Idol, I think, which is on, you can play that shit anywhere. It's like on your iPad.

If you have a Netflix subscription, it's free. And it's just a neat little game where you look at all these crazy murders and you find clues in the form of words and then you have to fill in a paragraph with all these words of what exactly happened in each scene. And it'll- What platform is this on?

I played it on Steam on my computer, on PC. But the first one's on phones and tablets and everything. And I love these games. I love detective games like this. Yeah. They are not so common, but games like this and there's one called Return of the Obra Dinn, that's one of my favorites ever. I just like deduction.

I love to deduce. This is true, I would say for all of you and your family members. An odd penchant for deduction specifically. I would say that your brothers and dad get more into the murder mystery than you do. Yeah. But I feel like you all love a good clue. I love a good clue.

I love a magical realism, surrealist story, which is what these games tell. Real into the vibe. And yeah, it's good. Just came out. I'm hot off the presses on this. I haven't even talked about this shit on Besties yet. So yeah, you're getting the fresh,

the fresh pre-Besties shit here. You go first this week. What would you like to talk about today? You know what my thing is, because last night we were talking about it, I was like, oh, that's a wonderful topic. So I don't really keep that shit secret so much anymore. Okay, my thing is maybe more well known than I realize

because I'm not on TikTok, as I've mentioned. It's so fun when this happens. But I am on Instagram and a lot of time on the Instagram, you get the TikTok. You get the runoff. Yeah, for me, it feels like enough. TikTok puts its moldy bread in the dumpster of Instagram reels. That's at least my take on it.

Anyway, that is how I found a while ago, maybe like eight months ago, Siegfried and Joy. Yes. Which I didn't realize, did you know they were on America's Got Talent? Yes. It's so cool that you've seen a part of my algo. Like I've seen these part of my algo.

I've seen these dudes and so when you sent me this, I was like, oh hell yeah, Siegfried and Joy. And this never happens where you're like, hey, I peeped this thing from the algo. It makes me feel special. Because I don't get the fishing lures. You don't, you don't. Very often you will get things that I do not get.

I lay out some of the lures to catch the content that I crave and Siegfried destroy, maybe we should, you should talk about what it is. Okay, so these are two gentlemen from Berlin that present themselves as kind of magicians in the very like classic. Siegfried and Roy. Maybe you're familiar with Siegfried and Roy, maybe you're familiar

with Siegfried and Roy, this is sort of a send up of that. Kind of like the White Tiger guys who don't really hold up in today's world but were very popular in Vegas for a very long time. A lot of shimmering fabrics and like large, almost Zubas style sort of pants. So Siegfried and Joy also shimmery fabrics, present themselves as magicians,

but there's a little funny bent to it. Yeah. I started getting their Instagram videos, as I mentioned a few months back, and they're typically out in the world, kind of David Blaine style. Well, yeah. That is, I would say the only thing they have in common is the venue in which their magic is practiced

is outdoors mostly. And they do it very spontaneously. Like you can tell that they are around people that aren't really sure what is about to happen. Right. Also like David Blaine. Yeah. Unlike David Blaine. Yeah. Unlike David Blaine, they very intentionally set up these tricks that are very easy to figure out, uh, and they do that intentionally.

Toddler level peekaboo object permanence. So more often than not, what they will do is they will raise a like gold piece of fabric and kind of shake it, and whatever is behind it will disappear, but it's done in a way that you always see the item either going behind a car or hiding behind a tree or just literally dropping down to the ground. Literally that trick that you can play on pets

where you hold up a blanket and then you drop the blanket but you sort of get under and then you drop the blanket but you sort of get under it too and the dog's like, what the fuck? That's what they do to other people on the street. One of my favorites and like kind of their most famous one is when they stand in front of an area where a person is just inevitably going to come out of.

So they will raise the curtain in front of like stairs up from the subway and shake it until somebody comes up the stairs and then lower them. It's really good. Here's what I love about that. The act itself is not particularly funny. It is the improvisational, almost confrontational nature of the act of seeing people like, what the fuck is it?

Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they really sell it. There is no like real winkiness to it. They are very much like, I have just performed a trick, and you always get to see the kind of genuine reaction of the person who has become part of this trick. It's very good.

And now they've been doing it long enough that people will send in their own videos. Have you seen this? Like a lot of kids and couples and older people sending in videos of themselves doing tricks that are similar. I love it. There's a famous one with an elephant where these two people are like standing on a preserve

and they hold it up in front of an elephant and then the elephant slowly walks away. That's really good. So it is because these guys are from Berlin, it's difficult to find a lot of information about them. As I mentioned, they were on America's Got Talent in 2022. In the UK version of America's Got Talent. No, like full on it's like-

I guess it's called America's Got Talent. They call it something else there. They probably call it somewhere else. Something else is not America, I bet. Britain's America's Got Talent, I think is what they were on. Germany's Britain's America's Got Talent. No, this is like Howie Mandel, Sophia Vergara, Simon Cowell, and then Heidi Klum,

who was particularly excited because they were German. But they actually made it past the first round because everybody was just so delighted. But then like- Simon's not gonna let that kind of talk fool. No, he was actually the only one that voted against them. But they got on stage, they did some like, kind of like real kind of tricks.

I mean, a lot of it was really silly, but there were some like actual magic tricks in there. Yeah. When I was doing research, so wait, first let me tell you about the guys. So the guys are Nico Donner, who goes by Siegfried Amor, D apostrophe Amor.

Great. And Joy Leslie, who is like the actual name of the person. That's great. So that is the Joy. But I couldn't find a lot. I did find one thing that said, Siegfried was awarded the Order of Magic in the Berlin Magic community at the age of six. That's interesting. I don't know what the Order of Magic in the Berlin magic community at the age of six.

That's interesting. I don't know what the Order of Magic is, but it sounds- Sounds good. It sounds like right out of a fantasy book. And thinking about it, I feel like a German magician organization is probably pretty legit.

I bet they take this shit pretty serious and make sure that someone is well trained in the mystical arts before they get the seal of approval. I don't know, I probably should have done a little research on that, but the fact that they emphasize that he received it at the age of six makes me think that that was pretty remarkable. And not just something they give out to somebody

who performs X number of hours. Unless he's been doing this very thing since he was six years old. And the order of magic is just like, that shit's bust me up so hard. It's so funny, go ahead. And then the partner Joy grew up in theater. So they both have kind of like a performance background.

But they, especially in 2024, have been touring around the world. They've done shows in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Spain. They were at the Fringe Festival in Scotland. And they have actually also done shows in Las Vegas. Their whole gimmick is, they always introduce themselves is Las Vegas in whatever city they're in.

So like Las Vegas in London. So they're very intentionally like meeting that Las Vegas vibe. It is so weird doing this bit after we just recorded, tell that to us Blart, Tim McGuire in Vegas. Are actually in Vegas. I've talked a lot about Las Vegas today,

which is weird cause I pretty much never talk about Las Vegas. Yeah, well you've never been, right? No, no. Do you think you'll ever go? Sure. There's good shows there. Sure, man.

I want to go inside that big fucking ball. That big ball looks crazy, dude. Yeah, the ball. I don't know how one gets in the ball. Do you think you guys will ever play the ball? You just have to run at it really fast and you pass through the membrane. No, I meant like get in the ball

as like a Carnegie Hall kind of thing. Like how do you get to perform in the ball? I mean, no matter whether you're performing or taking the show, you have to run at the membrane really, really fast. I could only find one interview with them. This is To Do List London, which I think is kind of like a timeout,

kind of like local culture thing. This is from 2023, it was an interview with them. Now, German is their first language, so their English is limited, so the interview was a little difficult to kind of pull standout quotes from. But one of the questions was, you're hit on Instagram and TikTok

with your hilarious disappearing acts. How did this idea come about and what drives you to keep making videos? And the response was, during the pandemic, when the theater was closed, we searched for a way to express our art. So we went out in the streets and learned how to turn every public space into a stage. We love to make people smile in moments they don't expect and we believe that this is pure magic. Combining with the real magic is our gift to the world. That's beautiful. That's lovely. Yeah, I just, honestly, there's not, I mean,

I wish there was more information about them. There may be and it just wasn't translatable. But every time I watch a video, like you know the bit. Yeah, right. They do, but it's just the delight on people's faces. Sometimes they will perform a trick and the person will be so game that they will like become part of the act

and like flourish themselves. Like I understand what I did. Yeah, that's always amazing. Yeah, I just, I always love it. Again, that's Siegfried and Joy. You can easily find them on Instagram. And I guess from what I understand, TikTok as well. You're aversion to it is beyond strange to me.

Cause I understand a feeling of like, I'm not gonna learn this new fucking app, but it's been around for a while. And there's some pretty good stuff on there. I know, I know. I recognize now it's not gonna be like a Vine thing where like you invest in it and it disappears. Oh no, that'll definitely still happen.

Definitely happen. That's the nature of tech and stuff. But it's fun for now. It's more like the format of it, the fact that you can just get bounced from video to video and that over time these videos get more and more tailored to you seems like a kind of drug that I am not ready for.

Yeah, man. I feel like I already spend too much time on my phone. Mm, yeah. You would have to cut some words with friends out of your schedule. Yeah, right? I'm scared that I can't add one more thing. Yeah, no, it's dangerous. I'll continue to keep you briefed on what's happening.

I mean, this is how the teens know how to wash their skin and do their makeup. That's true. I've started washing my skin so much better because of the teens on TikTok. Can I steal you away? Yes. ["Wake Up, Wake Up"]

The reason I got so excited last night when I was like, this has to be a wonderful topic, is because we've been doing this show for a long time and I feel like I am running out of things that I have like forgotten I love. Yeah, of course. From my past. And so this one was such a fucking huge one.

Do you remember how we even started talking about, oh, oh. So we were talking, last night we were talking about. Fish Called Wanda. Fish Called Wanda, because you saw someone with a mustache and you're like, it looks like a guy from Fish Called. Kevin Kline.

Kevin Kline from Fish Called Wanda. And you're Wanda, because you saw someone with a mustache and you're like, it looks like a guy from Fish Called- Kevin Kline. Kevin Kline from Fish Called Wanda. And you're like, I've never seen that movie. And I was trying to think, have I seen that movie? But then I was like, I don't actually think I've ever seen that movie all the way through. What I have seen is lots of clips from that movie

and many other movies from the board game scene. I have never played this, I don't think. I am fully, I have no idea what the impact of Seen It was. Seen It is a movie trivia based board game that came out first in 2002, November 2002, just the standard Seen It movies edition dropped. It was always like DVDs, right? Yes. So like, I don't know, probably if you've listened The movies edition dropped and- It was always like DVDs, right?

Yes. So like, I don't know, it probably, if you've listened to our shows before and the other shows we do, like probably won't surprise you to hear that, like we've always sort of talked a lot about pop culture and movies and TV shows and stuff. And so this board game,

which asked you a lot of trivia about those things and also would show you clips of those things on a DVD that came bundled with every board game was a fucking smash hit. We played this thing so, so, so, so much. Every time you would play it, the DVD would self-randomize so you weren't getting the same clips every time.

But then it became more of a like, do you remember? Then it would become something of a memory challenge because we definitely played it to a degree where we've seen it, we've seen it, we've seen everything you got. So basic idea, it's like a Trivial Pursuit style thing. You have a board that you're trying to move all the way through.

You roll dice to see how far you move, but then you also roll a dice to see what topic or category of trivia you're gonna answer. Most of them come on cards, but then sometimes you will roll the dice and it will be a like refer to the DVD and do this one. So sometimes it'll show you a clip from a movie and then it'll ask you something about that movie,

either like a detail that you would only know if you were like familiar with the creation of the movie, like who was the director of X-R-C? A lot of the time it would be like, how many ducks were in the background of this scene? What color was the toy car that the boy was playing with? So it kind of threw in attention-based stuff in there too. But then there would also be sort of like mini games

where it would show you a screenshot from a movie that's super distorted, but it'll like undistorted slowly to see who could be the first person to yell out, oh, that's what it is. Or like a Wheel of Fortune fill in the blanks, like letters will appear and it's whoever can yell out first gets the point or whatever. It's a good game.

It's a fucking good game, man. And there's so many movies that still to this day, I have not seen that like I have seen a lot of because I've seen it. Fish Called Wand is a big one. 12 Angry Men, you gotta have that fucking knife stabbing into the table scene and then the other knife comes out,

like you gotta have that. You know that's up on the scene at DVD. Rear Window, there's a few Hitchcock things. I'm not like super well versed in Hitchcock's body of work except for the few that are on seen it that I've seen a lot of. And I don't know, that was such a novel idea. You have to understand that this company

that made these games was called Screen Life Games, made this first in 2002, and they just so happened to be releasing these games at the same time that DVD players were like really proliferating throughout America. And so those two things really dovetailed quite well because they did very, very well with seeing it. And they would go on to make like a million different

versions of the game. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is that the one time I may have played it was in Austin. I feel like one of our friends maybe had it. Yes, but they may have had one of the 33 different editions of the game. And it was like, I want to say it was like the OC. So there was an OC expansion pack.

They made these like expansion packs that you could just like include in the regular scene game. But then there were like 33 full editions. Like there was one that was just Pirates of the Caribbean and there was one that was Simpsons, and there was one that was the Twilight Saga. Like a ton of these different things came out. What was really like, the game is really well designed,

I think, like it's very fun. It mimics Trivial Pursuit a lot. Like there's like a sort of final match that you have to like land on perfectly to like try and finish the game. And then if you don't get it that time, you move into this like holding zone where you have to, there's like some other stuff you can do.

Another cool thing is that the board was just one long, vertical board and you could fold it in half if you wanted to play a shorter game. Which was really, really good. But the reason that it really took off was not just because it was well designed, was it was because they had secured all these different licensing agreements from all of these different film studios. The reason that it really took off was not just because it was well designed, was it was because they had secured

all these different licensing agreements from all of these different film studios and all of these different actors who appeared in CNET. This is from Wikipedia. To this day, CNET stands as the only product boasting involvement from all the major studios, including Universal Pictures, 20th Century Studios, Warner Brothers Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Metro Goldwyn-Meyer Pictures, including Universal Pictures, 20th Century Studios, Warner Brothers Entertainment,

Sony Pictures, Metro Goldwyn-Meyer Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, and DreamWorks Pictures. Wowzers. All in the same sort of like universe, in the same game, which is insane. That is a crazy amount of collaboration. I think one of the reasons that this thing

eventually fell apart, they shuttered the studio in 2012 after Paramount bought it in 2008 and just couldn't, I guess, keep it going, is maybe as streaming became a thing, like people were less psyched about licensing out things. It seems like it could still be really popular though. It certainly does. So they've made a few video games of it.

One was on the Xbox 360. It came out in, I wanna say 2008, and it was called, Seeing It Lights Camera Action. And it came with buzzers. It came with four Xbox 360 controllers that were just like trivia buzzers with like little buttons so you can choose the answer. It was pretty fun.

I owned it and it was all right. They made a couple more, but then the team shut down in 2012. They did, Paramount revived the brand back in 2022 and released an app store game called Movie Scene It, which currently has a 1.8 star rating. This shop at every comment is like, it fucking doesn't work.

Like it just, it straight up doesn't work. So it feels like maybe this effort did not get the attention in time. It's just like, if they could figure it out on DVD, it straight up doesn't work. So it feels like maybe this effort did not get the attention in time. It seems like if they could figure it out on DVD, it seems like. It seems like that would be good. I don't know how they would go about securing these licensing agreements in this modern era.

I don't know, fuck all about that whole like universe, but and I'm not even sure if it's something that can be done now 22 years after the original scene it came out. But that's just so interesting to me that they had this- Did you look on YouTube? I bet they have like- Oh dude, the DVD like animated intro scenes and all the backgrounds, which is always like weird

neon like hoops floating in this geometric space and all the font looks like a serial killer wrote it for some reason. It's all very intense DVD menu shit. I don't know, this game truly ruled a lot and we played it so, so, so much and there really isn't anything like it now. No, I mean, this is like an actual game show.

Like this is like, if you wanted to do something like this, you would have to be on a television game show. Yeah, or I mean, there is maybe like, I don't know, Netflix could snap it up and just do their own Netflix scene or it's as they own all this shit and they're like putting out interactive stuff all the time anyway. Yeah.

But like, there's no shortage of people who like to talk about all the movie stuff they know. And wouldn't it be fun to sort of stick those people in a game where they could compete against each other and the rest of us can go hang out and talk about cool guy stuff like football and sports? Well, I just think about all the people that have their comfort shows

that they watch over and over again. This is so perfect for them. Yeah. Anyway, that scene is a thing I genuinely have not thought about in well over a decade. I had been completely pushed from the recesses of my mind. And then as soon as we mentioned it last night, it was like a light bulb went on.

And I just remembered all the times I played that with my family and my friends, we would bring it to sleepovers and just played that thing so, so much. And I always had a really, really good time with it. Like cool guys. Like cool guys do. Do you wanna know what our friends at home

are talking about? Yes. Chase says, my small wonder is the 2024 Matlock show. Kathy Bates plays a septuagenarian lawyer who happens to be named after that other lawyer show. Every week she's constantly emotionally manipulating and lying to people in an effort to win a pro bono lawsuit.

Sometimes the things she pulls off feels like a heist movie and it's always a delight to see. Hell yeah, Kathy Bates, Matlock. I bet I would really like that. I bet you would too. I mean, not only do I love Kathy Bates, but I do love those stories where there's a case and everything wraps up

at the end of the episode and it's a nice little- Did you watch Law and Order? A little bit, yeah. I never really did. I don't think I've ever seen one. It was one of those things that was hard not to watch. I'm surprised that you didn't. Nicholas says, my small wonder is when you can take food

out of a container it was in, like a can or Tupperware container, and it falls onto the plate in the perfect shape of the container. Just something about it is always fun to admire before you inevitably squish it back down, kind of like a nice Spaghetti-O's sand castle. Yeah, that's a challenging way to describe it, Nicholas, but I'm like fully there with you.

I get the satisfaction. You do kind of have to disconnect the part of your brain that wants food to look pleasing. Like whenever I see that happens, I'm like, that is objectively satisfying. It is hard to think about that as a food that I'm choosing to eat. But I like to make my own, if we have the time

and interest in doing so, cranberry sauce for the holidays. Cause I feel like it's not too hard to make something really, really good in that category. But also squishing out that sweet, ruby blob onto like a cutting board and having it be perfectly cylindrical with the ridges still in the sides is a truly extravagant pleasure.

And you don't really get it any time. There's not many other times a year you get to plop a cranberry loaf out of it. That's very true. In my day-to-day life, it's very rare that I open something and I expel the whole thing. I'm not opening a ton of cans in general. Yeah, I don't remember the last time I saw you open a can.

I can of whoop ass when those guys were trying to talk shit about us. That's it for the show. Thank you so much to Bo Anne and Augustus for these theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to maximumfun.org for having us on the network.

Go to maximumfun.org, check out all the great shows that they have over there. You're gonna find something that you love. I guarantee it. We got a bunch of merch over at mackroydmerch.com. What I really wanna tell you about, Candle Nights is coming. December 14th at 9 p.m. If you go to bit.ly slash Candle Nights tickets 2024,

you can find out all the details. It's our, we pre-record it, but we stream it live and- And then you can watch it after too. You can watch it after too, yeah. But you get to be in this big room where everybody's talking about it. And it's like, I don't know, we do a bunch of different bits.

Each of the shows usually does something and we do a bunch of different bits. Each of the shows usually does something and we do a bunch of like questions from the Bim Bam and we do special guests come on and make stuff for us. It's so freaking heartwarming. It's a lovely, lovely thing that I'm so glad we still get to do and I'm always so proud to be a part of it. All proceeds from tickets and all the Candle Knights merch

goes to Harmony House, which is an amazing organization working to end homelessness in our hometown of Huntington, West Virginia. And so yeah, bit.ly slash candle nights tickets 2024. And come and join us for this stream. It's gonna be a bunch of fun. I think that's it. What if we just end, what if we had the courage

of our convictions to end it there? Like we were, like what if we dismiss our listeners? Like it's the end of a meeting. Like, all right gang, keep focusing on those big reports. Or if we had like a big loud school bell we could play. Yeah, but, and then like you hear like a bunch of like laughter from the halls and you're like, now don't forget, you need that paper back on Napoleon Bonaparte

and Maurice, you better not write Bonaparte on your next test or I'm telling your parents. This seems like actually a much longer road to walk than just say like, say, like, I would. Yeah, just say thank you for listening. Thank you for listening, goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.