Wonderful! - Wonderful! 372: Spirit of the Fans is the Real Fifth Character

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Griffin's favorite cinema coincidences! Rachel's favorite fledgling poet!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaNational Immigration Project: https://nipnlg.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. This is wonderful, correct. And it is a show where we talk about things we like that's good that we are into. Where Rachel and Griffin McElroy, the world's- The show is called Wonderful. The show is called Wonderful.

You're listening to it right now. You are listening to it. Who are you? I don't know, man. That's the thing, you know who we are. That's what's wild, man. That's what's fricking wild, man. It's like, can you imagine having a conversation

with someone and they can see you because you're like right there, but when you look at them, they're like an invisible person? That's what it's like for us right now. And no one ever sympathizes with that. Like where's all the concern for us podcasters talking to all of these invisible people, these ghouls, inspectors.

No one ever says anything about us, ever. I'm sorry, I don't know how to play with you in this space. I also don't know how to play in this space. I'm flailing over here. I don't feel, I guess because it's only like a part-time job for me. Yeah. You know, I'm not fully invested in the lifestyle.

I spend my whole day basically shadow boxing if you really think about it. And I check in and out, you know, I leave it at the office. You could take or leave this lifestyle. For me, it's in my blood. You have a lot of other stuff going on. So much. I think one of the reasons I am scrambling

is that we did just record this show what feels like 45 minutes ago, but was in fact maybe two or three days ago. Tight recording times here as we all navigate these choppy spring break waters. I think it's over now for most people. It's well over. Do you have any small wonders though? Because that's sometimes like a good way

to kind of get our feet wet. Oh, cool hockey game. Listen, we're gonna talk about hockey a lot because the Blues are in the playoffs for the first time in a couple of years, which is very exciting. Series as of yesterday morning, the Winnipeg Jets, best team in the league, were beating the Blues two games to none

in this best of seven series, and then last night happened. Set it up, babe. I love a good underdog story. Sure. And the last two games were in Winnipeg, but this one was gonna be in St. Louis. And so already it felt like,

oh, there's gonna be some good energy here. And then like St. Louis just on fire. Pavel Bucznaiewicz three minutes out the gate scores two goals, fastest two goals in playoff history for the whole franchise. Blues wins seven, two. But Bucci gets a hat trick.

We love this. We love this. All the previous games have been like one or two goal games. Like the Blues have not really lost in a significant way the first two. But this one, they just, man. And the secret, as far as I can tell, the thing that they, the code they cracked

is they started hitting the other guys really hard and fast and often. I mean, they'd been doing that. But harder and faster and more often, I noticed in this first period, so much so that the Winnipeg Jets never really got their, never got their engine going. I think it was another character that was on the ice.

Who's that? And that was the spirit of the fans. Oh, I thought you were gonna say town man. And then I was like, he doesn't go on the ice. They don't let him go on the ice. Who's that? And that was the spirit of the fans. Oh, I thought you were gonna say town man. And then I was like, he doesn't go on the ice. They don't let him go on the ice. No, no, no. It kind of like how New York is a character in a lot of movies.

Yes. Like the St. Louis Blues fans were so loud and so rowdy and so excited. Yeah. And it was just like, I don't know. It just felt like, I was telling Griffin, it's like everyone could leave that arena and go out and pull a stoplight out of the ground. Which sometimes in sports, that does happen.

True. Not after game three of the first round of the playoffs when your team is down one game to two. That would be, I think any fan of any level would be like, that's not necessary at this point. Wait till you get eliminated or win the Stanley Cup playoffs. Like that's what you need.

Anyway, it was exciting. It was as hard as the barely qualified team to feel like you've got a great shot against the first place in all of the NHL team. But then we smashed their asses apart. Yeah, it was good. I'm gonna bring the first episode of the season two premiere of Nathan Fielder's The Rehearsal,

a harrowing, shocking watch. If you're not familiar, the first season, the show ostensibly is Nathan Fielder helping people prepare for uncomfortable scenarios, usually conversations with loved ones by setting up incredibly elaborate simulations of those things. Yeah, you really get a sense of the budget of HBO

in this show, because he will foot for foot recreate an establishment and cast background actors and really set the scene as realistically as possible. So at this point, there's this whole, like, lore and world around this particular version of Nathan Fielder and this particular project. And season two, the first episode, it kind of sets up that in doing these sorts

of elaborate role play scenarios, Nathan Fielder accidentally discovered a actual real life cause of a lot of aviation disasters, which is like lack of communication in the cockpit because of weird power dynamics. And so then the whole first episode, I will warn you, the first 10 minutes of it starts out with a lot of simulations of aviation disasters,

which is a tough watch. Because then they cut, they use actors and they have a simulated cockpit, and then they cut to the actual crash. The actors are reading actual black box. It's harrowing, challenging stuff that we spent the first 10 minutes of this episode, like what the fuck are we watching?

What are they doing? And I don't know, like, I'm talking about it right now, not really fully knowing how I feel about it, because it becomes this big question of like, can this comedy man tackle this pretty serious subject where he might actually be able to accomplish something, even though the premise of the show is outrageous, could he concoct a sort of role play situation that could help,

you know, co-pilots stand up for themselves in the cockpit when they think the main pilot's making a mistake, and then it gets, guys, I'm not gonna talk anymore about sort of plotting or whatever, it is the most sort of like, I don't know, challenging is the word I keep coming back to, but it is also like, this is I guess how you escalate over season one, which was sort of insane in its own right.

Yeah, and we don't even know what the structure's gonna be. Cause I was talking to Griffin, I was like, is this going to be the scenario for the whole season, or is this just like a piece of like many scenarios? Because I mean, Nathan, for you, for example, every episode was kind of like a different thing. And obviously that wasn't true with the rehearsal, but it's really hard to know what to expect.

There's like nothing remotely formulaic about these shows. That's what's like, it opens with a simulation of an aviation disaster, a long one. And Rachel had to like pick up the remote and check to make sure we were watching the correct television program because it was so wild and so weird. But I love like, I don't know, man,

I love out there comedy shit where it's like, I could never in a million years have predicted where this was going to go. And it's such a, like, I don't know, a big cold shot. But I feel like, I don't know, a big cold shot. But I feel like, I don't know, he has pulled stuff off before in the past that has surprised me. So I'm excited about it,

even though the first episode of it made me feel pretty bad given the climate and the landscape. I go first this week. I would like to talk to you about twin films, not the Parent Trap, not film starring twins. This may seem like kind of a stretch, but I am very just fascinated by this phenomenon.

Twin films, Wikipedia defines as films with the same or similar plots produced and released within a close proximity of time by two different film studios. Right off the top of your head, can you just gin up some of these? Oh, what was it, like Anaconda and the other one? That's possible, that's not one that I have.

Also the one, oh my gosh, where they have to go to space. Armageddon and? Armageddon and? Deep Impact. Deep Impact. Starring Ta Leone, yeah for sure. That is a huge one, that's a monster one. But there's so many, there's dozens if not hundreds of these, a lot of which have happened in our lifetimes. I did not realize how widespread a thing this was,

these twin films were, until looking into it today. Basically since the dawn of cinema, studios have been accidentally, or in some cases, intentionally releasing extremely similar films within really close proximity of each other. The first recognized twin film case was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1920. Paramount released their version,

starring John Barrymore in March, and then a producer named Louis Meyer released a version a month later. It's actually a triplet film because there was a German studio that made their own Jekyll and Hyde film called Der Januskopf three months after that. There's lots of instances between 1920 and the 90s, but the 90s are where things go absolutely ape shit.

You remember Babe, Pig in the City? Do you remember Gordy? Because Gordy came out before Babe and was also about a sort of cute talking pig going on a big adventure, released months earlier. How about A Bug's Life? We love A Bug's Life. An Ants.

An Ants with a Z. Those came out real fucking close to each other and were animated films about bugs, specifically ants. Saving Private Ryan and Thin Red Line, real close to each other. Truman Show and EdTV. A lot of people forget about EdTV because mostly because it was a twin film of Truman Show,

which is as far as a superior motion picture. Big Blockbusters, Deep Impact and Armageddon. Do you remember Volcano and Dante's Peak? These were two volcano-based movies with incredibly similar plots that came out very, very closely together. I remember seeing those four blockbuster movies in particular in theaters and being so confused,

being so confused, like, wait a minute, we just saw a movie that was just like, are they even allowed to do this? Sometimes it's not even just the plots that are similar, but the cast. In three consecutive years, we got 10 Things I Hate About You, Hamlet, and Oh, all modern Shakespeare retellings,

all featuring Julia Stiles. Wild. So like, that's understandable. She's a popular ingenue at the time, and this film genre, you know, maybe since, was it Bas Lerman did Romeo and Juliet? Like this like modern Shakespeare recreation that was gaining traction.

And this one actor just happened to be in all of those movies. That kind of makes sense, right? How about in 2022, very recently, we got Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, we got Pinocchio, a true story, we got the adventures of Pinocchio, all in the same year, all starring Tom Kenny.

Tom Kenny was in all three of these Pinocchio flicks all in the same year. Is that like a public domain thing? Did Pinocchio, like, is it like Winnie the Pooh where all of a sudden- That's entirely of a sudden everybody could get on it? It is weird that they kept using the same guy though. It is weird that they kept using the same guy though. That's fucking wild to be in two different

Pinocchio motion pictures in the same year is wild. Three is just. After many years of no Pinocchio pictures. We get a lot just from this one dude. So there's dozens of examples of twin films. What causes them to happen in the first place? There are a few main reasons. First of all, what I learned is like,

for every example that you have of a twin film coming out, there is countless examples of movies being scrapped to avoid becoming a twin film. Like motion pictures that are like, have been greenlit or have entered pre-production only to find out like, oh shit, like we are not actually going to beat this other studio in this race where they're making a very similar movie.

We just have to, we just have to can it. But why does it happen? Sometimes it is a race to sort of lay claim to some popular source material. I didn't know this story, but do you know the movie The Towering Inferno? Have you heard of it? I feel like I've heard of it, but I couldn't tell you.

From that like 70s era, like Poseidon adventure, like big disaster flick that was like really, took the world by storm about a big sky rise building that catches fire and then it's a disaster in a big flaming building. So there were two studios that bid on the rights to this book written by Richard Martin Stern called The Tower in 1973.

And Warner Brothers, I believe, won the rights to this book, to The Tower. Fox was also in the bidding war, didn't win, but shortly thereafter they did won the rights to this book, to the tower. Fox was also in the bidding war, didn't win, but shortly thereafter, they did buy the rights to a book called The Glass Inferno, which was very similar. I think they just kind of got it in their heads, like we would love to make a big skyscraper fire action movie.

These two studios, however, once they had the rights to these movies and started kind of like pre-proing them, realized like, if we release these two, they're going to cannibalize each other. So Fox and Warner Brothers got together to make a joint film. They both, both of these monster studios worked together

on combining the tower and the glass inferno into the towering inferno. I had no idea that that was true of that film, but I found it interesting. I mentioned that some of the time, this is not an accidental thing. Some of the time it is being purposefully done, perhaps by a much smaller, cannier studio

who maybe doesn't have the budget to stand up with the big dogs, right? What they can do is release something called a mockbuster. Mockbuster is a term referencing a film that is very similar to a blockbuster, only with a way smaller budget, and they just kind of bank on drafting off of the like, they just bank on like,

we can draft off these huge marketing budgets of these much bigger movies, and we can release a motion picture that costs very little to make and get a better return on our investment just because it happens to be like the other thing. The titles of these types of films are amazing. We have Atlantic Rim, not a sequel to Pacific Rim,

but a big robot movie nonetheless. We got Chop Kick Panda. We love him. That's a real thing. Yeah, we got Chop Kick Panda. He looks kind of like Kung Fu Panda, and that's kind of fun. We got Snakes Panda, we love him. That's a real thing. Yeah, we got Chopkick Panda. He looks kind of like Kung Fu Panda, and that's kind of fun. We got Snakes on a Train.

We can just make that movie, and that's not a big deal, and maybe some people will get confused when they're at the Blockbuster video, I guess. I just, I find it very fascinating, more so the like unintentional side of things, that movies are so huge and they are so hard to make, they take so long to make, they take so many hours of effort to make.

And yet, despite the fact that like a handful of motion pictures make it through this crucible every year to be released, you still get instances of incredibly similar movies coming out side by side. I encourage you to look up, Wikipedia has an exhaustive list of twin movies. There were some that I forgot about,

like fucking Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached, two different rom-coms about casual sex came out within months of each other. You got White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen. Basically the same movie came out once apart from each other. Whether it is for like, if there's sneaky sort of corporate espionage reasons for it

or just like dumb luck, I just think it's really interesting that a lot of the times there's just two movies where there should just probably be one. That said, I love Volcano, I love Dante's Peak. Don't make me choose. I don't think I saw either of those. I think- It seems like it happens a lot with action movies,

which makes sense. Sure. Like the scenario has to be like at a certain level and has to be kind of like popular at the time to get people into it. Action movies are the big one. The other big one is like newsworthiness. That's where you get your Flight 93 and United 93.

That's where you get your Captain Phillips and the other one about Captain Phillips. Yes, there's a lot of reasons why this thing happens and I can't believe it happens as often as it does. Can I steal you away? Yes. Thanks. Thanks. ["The Poetry Corner"]

Okay, my thing this week is a trip. And it's a trip that you've been on before. To? The Poetry Corner. Skrrr-a-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum And it's a trip that you've been on before. To. The poetry corner. Scrum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum I really took it on a walk that time.

Yeah. Been working on some stuff in the jazz lab with Bone Dog. I can tell. The complexity of your jazz riff is increased. I'm a little congested, and so I wanted to sort of take advantage of that. The poet I am talking about this week is Tracy Brimhall.

She is a poet that currently lives in Kansas. She has five poetry collections. She's actually the poet laureate of Kansas right now. Oh, great. She's always fun to hear about. Like, it's such a mysterious thing. I have to imagine people just get tapped when that happens. Yeah, no, I mean, there's not a lot

of other artistic disciplines I can think of where there is explicitly named the official artist of that field for that area. Like I am the ambassador for this area. Right, there's not, as far as I know, like a sculptor laureate of Ohio. But I don't know anything. Yeah, I mean, the fact that there's a poet laureate

makes you think there's gotta be like a lot of disciplines that have this. That have their own laureates, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. So Tracy got a bachelor's at Florida State, an MFA at Sarah Lawrence, and a PhD at Western Michigan. She currently teaches at Kansas State University and lives in Wichita. And I wanted to read one of her poems, and that poem is called Fledgling.

And this is from 2017, which I imagine was associated with her third book. She just had one recently released in 2024 called Love, Prodigal. But this one is Sodad. The poem, fledgling. I scare away rabbits stripping the strawberries in the garden, ripened ovaries reddening their mouths. You take down the hanging basket and show it to our son, a nest, secret as a heart throbbing between flowers. Look, but don't touch, you instruct our son, who has already begun to reach for the black globes of a new bird's eyes, wanting to touch the world to know it.

Disappointed, you say, come and house Finch, as if even banal miracles aren't still pink and blind and heaving with life. When the cat your ex-wife gave you died, I was grateful. I'd never seen a man grieve like that for an animal. I held you like a victory, embarrassed and relieved that this was how you loved, to the bone of you, to the meat.

And we want the stricken pleasure of intimacy, so we risk it. We do. Every day we take down the basket and prove it to our son. Just look at its rawness, its tenderness, it's almost flying. Man, that one really covers a lot of ground, huh? Yeah, there's a lot going on in that one, huh?

Yeah, I loved it. I feel like a lot of the times I figure out what a poem's about, like at some point in the poem, and then this one is like about a bunch of different, very beautiful things. Yeah, I mean, she writes a lot about the natural world. She adds kind of surreal elements into it,

but then it's also kind of very grounded in like a real experience. But yeah, I mean, this could easily be three poems. Yeah, I know, yeah. I mean, at all, be three poems. I know, yeah. I mean, at all, I'm not saying it doesn't all work together. It's just, I was like, oh, this is a beautiful poem about sharing something with your child, and oh, nope, it's about how deep and loving

your partner is, and oh, nope, it's about a different nice thing. Yeah, she gave an interview in 32poems.com, and she said, quote, a great poem makes me feel less alone Yeah, she gave an interview in 32poems.com and she said, quote, "'A great poem makes me feel less alone in the world, "'but it also pushes around the boxes in the attic "'and moves in whether you like it or not.' "'I also like Emily Dickinson's definition

"'of how she defines poetry. "'It makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warn me. "'If I feel physically as if the top of my head "'were taken off, I know it's poetry.'" poetry, it makes my whole body so cold, no fire can ever warn me. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know it's poetry. Jesus Christ. Which I love, I think that's why I'm such a sucker for really great last lines.

Because the whole time you're reading a poem, you're kind of on this journey, and you don't know exactly what it is or where you're going, or what's happening. And then at the end poem, you're kind of like on this journey and you don't know exactly what it is or where you're going or like what's happening. And then at the end when they're kind of like, oh, this is part, this is the thing. It's just like, whoa. You know?

When we started doing the show, I don't think I appreciated that poetry could be such a visceral thrill ride that leaves you going whoa at the end of it. I did like, I learned about poems in school and stuff and I never had like that whoa moment, but I never had anyone have it come alive for me the way that you do.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, again, these are things, the poem is called Fledgling, I would recommend you check it out because sometimes I feel like a poem is so complex that you can't really get it through hearing it. But yeah. Well, and sometimes it like looks cool, right? Like sometimes the poem will be about like a carrot

and it'll look like a carrot. And then it's shaped like a carrot. And I love those, man. I love those. Because then it's cute. Then it's like, oh, look, there was a picture too. So she will be poet laureate of Kansas until 2026. She's also serving as the 2025 Guggenheim poet in residence.

She is exactly my age. She was born the same year as me. Her first book came out when she was 30 years old, which is kind of amazing. It's amazing, but it is also, I feel like, a pretty common refrain in the world of poetry, just based on what you have brought to the show in the past. I guess it was actually 28 when it first came out.

Some of it is just like the nature of an MFA program. Oh yeah, sure. Like they kind of help you build a manuscript that then you can kind of use in competitions and try and get selected. But yeah, I thought, I don't know, I thought her work is really powerful. It has kind of like an environmental bent to it.

So you'll have a lot more instances like that where she is in the natural world, kind of drawing connections to her own life. I love that. Yeah. Do you wanna know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes. Got one from Daniel,

probably should have read this earlier. My small wonder is being part of the home team's crowd at sporting events. I was just at game three of the Blues versus Jets series where the Blues won seven two, let's go Blues. And it's so much fun to sing along to the goal song, count with the towel man, dance along to the Mortal Kombat theme

before power plays and cheer alongside the crowd the entire time. I went alone and still had a great time. Daniel, you weren't alone, friend. You were there surrounded by loved ones, whether you knew it or not. We had a good experience. So I have taken Griffin now to two games

where the Blues have lost. And then the most recent one here in DC when they play the capitals they did win. Yeah, and There just happened to be a bunch of season ticket holders there. So the st. Louis crowd was pretty large at that game And it was just it's just so I do I love that shit so much and it is also like such a double-edged sword Because when you watch your team play someone else's arena and you see all the fans doing their weird shit that they do every game, it's like, stop, you better stop that right now.

Don't play that song every time there's a penalty, that's mean. The Capitals do this thing that catches me off guard every time where when they announce the goal of the other team and they say who scored and who assisted, once the announcer is done, everybody yells, who cares? Yeah, which scared me the first time. And then I, it scared me, but then I was like, Hey, come on, guys. They're trying really hard out there. I know you want a different

result. Capital's by the way, doing very well right now. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Maybe it's the rudeness that fuels, that fuels them. Amy says when the weather gets nice enough that you can take off your flannel bedsheets and go back to using the regular cotton ones. Yes, I do this with the comforter situation. Sure, yes. Feels very ceremonial to me to fold up

the big down comforter and put on the lighter quilt. Yeah, it's been a weird season for that because the temperature keeps changing so dramatically that you're never quite sure when is the time to- We also never really do a flannel sheet. I feel like we're both very warm sleepers. We are, yeah. I mean, I just basically sleep with one cotton sheet

and that's it. Not to get too personal, like I don't, you know, I'm not telling you that for any reason. What are you wearing underneath the sheet? All right, I mean, pajamas. Pajamas always. Did you want something else? Cause it's always, I mean, pajamas, pajamas always. Did you want something else? Cause it's always, I mean, it's Jim shorts in a t-shirt.

Is that what you? Yeah, I don't think you can call that pajamas, honestly. I can and I will. Okay. And I must. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay.

You can find a link to that in the episode description. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. You can go to maximumfun.org, check out all the great shows that they have over there. You're gonna find something that you're gonna like and that you're gonna love and it's going to make you a better person. And we got some tour dates coming up for Taz and MbemBem. Tickets are on sale now for shows in Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio. All our Taz shows this year are gonna be Taz versus

more info and ticket links are available over at bit.ly Macaroy tours and I believe by the time this episode comes out We should have some new merch up in the merch store over at Macaroy merch.com If not, it will be soon. So go check it out. There's so much stuff there. I always forget how much merch that we have available because it's quite a bevy. You know what I realized is you can still buy that like Poetry Corner compilation. Oh yeah, sure.

It's like a dollar and it's like a download. And I believe you can still get the wonderful poster too if you want our faces in your house. We're not sure on that. And I believe you can still get the wonderful poster too, if you want our faces in your house. We're not sure on that. But you can find out over at McElroyMerch.com. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode of Wonderful. Until then, keep, fuck, one of these days.

What did you think, were you gonna lead into one of your other shows? Here's what, it hits me with like until then keep like keep feels like a good sort of starting keep on trucking. I mean the nature of our show is hard right because like while we are expressing sincere enthusiasm it's difficult for us to get kind of self-helpy at the the end and be like, keep looking for the bright moments in your, you know, like I don't. I liked that actually a lot, that felt good. What was it?

Keep looking for the bright moments. Keep looking in your. In your. Day. Eyes. Keep looking for the bright moments in your eyes. That feels cool. In your eyes? Yeah. What does that mean? Keep looking for the bright moments in your eyes. That feels cool. In your eyes? Yeah.

What does that mean? Keep looking for the bright moments in the eyes of your lover. Oh, okay. In your lover's eyes, find the brightest moments of all. And if you don't have a lover? Get one. I have him do poetry at you.

It kicks ass. Listen to you. I won't let you get off me I won't let you get off me I won't let you get off me