Wonderful! - Wonderful! 374: Jonesin for Married Content

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Griffin's favorite character story arc! Rachel's favorite vocal affectation!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. This is wonderful. Welcome to wonderful. It is the world's only married couple podcast talking about stuff they like that's good, that they are into. That takes place in Washington DC

and has a couple with two children. Yeah. I just wanna add some additional qualifiers. Gotta get granular. Cause I'm pretty sure there are other podcasts with married couples talking about things. Weirdly no, it's just our family is the only family making married content.

Married content. I do not know what it is, but like no one else is out there married making content. And I don't get it cause it's so fun and so, so fucking lucrative. and so, so fucking lucrative. People are jonesing for married content. Married content. That does sound like a phrase that like advertisers

would use to like refer to a specific kind of like co-branded release. Yeah. How do we get more married content on our network? And it's like married, like Doritos and Dairy Queen. Well, I think in order to get more married content out there, we got to start patching up the sort of societal fabric of America.

And I have, and I've got a lot of thoughts about that. I don't have any thoughts about that. Do you have any small wonders? Got a ceiling fan. Game changer. This is one of those things, if you have moved into a house and you have this little list in your head of things

that you think you should eventually do, this was one of those things for us. Two and a half years ago. Yeah, two and a half years ago, we're like, we should really get a ceiling fan in this room. And then just a lot of time continued to pass because it's something that you and I don't feel necessarily comfortable doing.

There wasn't a fan in that room yet. It wasn't like we needed a new fan. We needed like a brand new development. So we just sat on it forever. And then it was done in like a day. Yeah. And it's so nice. So lovely to just get that breeze.

It's one of the rooms in our house that gets very, very warm. Yeah. So nice. I do love that. Speaking of married content, I wanted to call out this most recent episode of Very Important People on the Dropout Network that we watched featuring Brennan and Izzy

as recently divorced professional wrestling instructors. I didn't get this since professional wrestling instructors. Very- I didn't get the sense they were instructors. It's hysterically funny. I mean, the dropout shit was good. The crop was good this week. There was also an episode of Game Changer, the entire premise of which is that these three comedians

featured common players on the dropout lineup had to be completely earnest in everything they said and did for 30 minutes, which was- Like, we're given prompts and couldn't turn it into bits. Couldn't make a bit out of it. Had to reveal a lot of personal information. Sent a shiver up my spine. One of the prompts was like,

talk about what you're working on in therapy. Yes, which I don't know, I guess it makes it sound fairly exploitative, but they kind of know what they signed up for. One of them is to do a karaoke legitimately without making a bit out of it. It's so deep like meta process shit. And they picked exactly the right people.

Like that's what I think about a lot on Game Changer is they very intentionally prepare prompts for the people that are going to be on that episode and they picked the right three to do something like this. It all culminates in a musical performance that is, it's like a dream. It is like a dream. I go first this week.

I would like to talk about a storytelling trope that I very much enjoy, and it is the enemies to friends trope. There's a lot of variations on this. And I kind of bulk at the use of the word trope in general, partially because, I don't know, there's a whole online culture around using it to reduce any story down to its most basic

fundamental parts, almost always in a way to showcase how derivative anything is. I guess so. I mean, there's a whole field in the universal system called comparative literature. Absolutely. And in order to talk about pieces that have things in common, you need to have some kind of language for it.

Absolutely, I totally get that. I guess what I'm saying is that this concept of, when an antagonist becomes a deuteragonist is such a broad concept. Wait, what is that word you just said? Deuteragonist. I don't know that one. Is that one of the cats in the Broadway musical Cats?

I have to look up that I'm saying it correctly and that a second most important character ranking after the protagonist is the Deuteragonist. Whoa, I've never heard that before. Apparently there's also a Tritagonist, but that I had never heard of. I went to school for words. I'm gonna just sit here quietly

and enjoy how I'm just feel so, I feel I'm high on this right now. It's such a broad storytelling device, but it is one that really, really always hits for me, which is not true of like kind of any other trope that I can think of off the top of my head. I will say one of the sweetest and most sincere things about you is that when we watch programs,

you really love to watch like sweet friendships between two people develop over the course of like a story. I love a friendship. Gosh almighty, I love a friendship. Yeah, I mean, you can get your hooks in me pretty easily if you just have a show about two people becoming buddies. I do like that a lot. It was my favorite thing about the Sherlock, you know, the BBC Sherlock series.

Oh, that's a good example. I'm just like, oh man, these guys are gonna get along, but it's even sweeter when they're enemies at first and then they become friends. There's just, there's so many examples of this, right, throughout literature and TV shows and movies and everything. A lot of times it's used like in rom-coms too.

Absolutely, it's used in rom-coms. Like very Jane Austen like, I hate that person and I'm never going to speak to them. So that's a variation, I wasn't sure if I was gonna like get into the enemies to lovers trope, right? That's its own kettle of fish, obviously like pride and prejudice peak among them. Usually in between enemies and lovers though,

you've got enemies and friends. That's true, there is a nice sort of pipeline there. But yeah, I mean, you could unpack enemies to lovers in its own sort of segment. Like I think my favorite, the best that's been done in my lifetime is Parks and Rec. Ben comes in to like shoot a shot and take apart the Pawnee city government

and then has the greatest romance story in sitcom history with Leslie Knope, really, really, really wonderful stuff. than has the greatest romance story in sitcom history with Leslie Knope. Really, really, really wonderful stuff. But I wanna focus specifically on Enemies to Friends. There's so many examples of it. Movies has a lot of really, really big ones like Darth Vader at the end, spoilers. I guess some spoilers throughout this.

Apollo Creed in Rocky III turns a new leaf, that's a really good one. The one that is happening right now that I think has maybe pulled this gambit more times than any other story ever is the Fast and the Furious franchise, which at this point has established a formula where they will introduce some new villain in a movie and then to beat that villain,

they'll have to bust the villain from the last movie out of jail to get them to join the team to beat the new villain in a movie and then to beat that villain, they'll have to bust the villain from the last movie out of jail to get them to join the team to beat the new villain who inevitably will be busted out of jail in the following movie to beat the next villain. It is a circle and like half those fucking guys were villains in previous Fast movies, which I love. I have seen a lot of those movies now and I always enjoy them. If you had to ask me common threads between those films,

I would just say like Cars. Yep. Family. Yes. But I don't think I notice that they always take the previous villain and use him to get the next villain. It's just, I mean, you get a lot of really, really great villain performances in there.

You get Statham in there doing his thing and they're like, not only are we gonna keep bringing you back, you're gonna get your really, really great villain performances in there. You get Statham in there doing his thing, and they're like, not only are we gonna keep bringing you back, you're gonna get your own fucking spin-off, dude. And it's gonna be called Hobbs and Shaw, and it's gonna beat absolute ass, and it did. So like, I don't know, it is something I feel like you see a lot in the action movie world,

where it is especially exciting to have this superhero, or super villain, rather, turn a new leaf and join the good guys. Biggest example of that that I can think of that has worked out the best is from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, did it with Tom Hiddleston's Loki, did such a kick-ass job of it,

taking him from the arch villain of the first Avengers movie to having his own spin-off TV show that was pretty great and becoming like one of the franchise's most beloved characters who like works with the team sometimes. Marvel has done it a whole lot. There's always, you know, you have to write in

some sort of reason for a bad guy to change, to turn a new leaf, whether it is like an arrangement of convenience to take down some bigger threat, or I mean, it can get fairly contrived, like in the case of Spike from Buffy, who had a mind control chip that made him not be evil, like hurt him when he tried to be evil,

which is like now that that show's been out for a while, looking back on it, that's kind of fucking wild. That you could be like, yeah, there's this bad guy and we put a brain control chip in him to make him good. That's all right, clean. Really sneaks up on you too. Shows like that, they like get you real comfortable. Like, hey, there's vampires and maybe werewolves.

And then at a certain point, you're like, well, I can't protest this. Yeah, yeah. And they're like, good, good, here's a robot. Pfft. Pfft. Uh, the version of this trope that I like the most is when it is sort of an organic shift

in an antagonist's like characterization that you get when they stop fighting with the heroes for a bit and they all just kind of get to know each other a little bit. That's sort of like the imagined ideal of what it's like for someone to become good all of a sudden. And there is no better version of this than the OC's Luke Ward.

Luke in the first episode of the OC comes in and he's just a huge piece of shit. He beats up Ryan and Seth, he's possessive and jealous of his girlfriend Marissa. Is he the one that says welcome to the OC, bitch? He says welcome, he punches them in the face and he says welcome to the OC, bitch. He does some terrible, terrible stuff,

almost kills Ryan in a house fire, but then Ryan kinda like saves him. There's this really antagonistic, nasty relationship between these two. And then there's an episode where Ryan has to do a school project with Luke. And they go to Luke's house and he gets to see his home life and then they accidentally walk in on Luke's dad

having an affair with another man, which the show came out in 2003, so maybe doesn't do the best job with that particular angle. But then rumors start to spread about Luke's dad and people are being like really awful and Luke and Ryan get in this huge fight with a bunch of like bullies and shit heads, just back to back brawl.

And then after that, from that point on, Luke just becomes this outrageous domesticated himbo in a way that is so pure and so funny. In the very next episode, he's playing Madden with the nerds and busts out his acoustic guitar to play some Dash dashboard confessional. Like it's such a huge shift that you go from finding this person to be the most despicable person

in Orange County to like, oh, he's just a big dumb like guy. And now he's like good friends with these guys. It is such a beautiful transformation. You don't get much Luke past season one, mostly because of a little tryst that he maybe gets into with someone that he shouldn't. But man, that change, I always have found

just really spectacular. Yeah, no, that is really good. I mean, because usually it kind of like helps you, like reaffirms your belief in humanity. Of just like, you'd like to think that somebody that you don't get along with or shares a completely different view or experience than you,

like somewhere you can meet in the middle. And a lot of times that doesn't happen. But when it does, particularly in like television or film or whatever, you're like, oh yeah, okay. Like maybe one day. And I do think it is particularly, I'm gonna wax philosophic for a little bit

and I'm bad at this, so I apologize. But like I do think that there is something important about being exposed to that kind of idea when you are a younger person, right? Like specifically, because it is very easy when you are a younger person who is still sort of like developing to have a strictly kind of like black to have a strictly

kind of like black and white moral view of the universe because it's kind of harder to grasp anything more complicated than that. And I can remember so many examples of like times when I was a kid, there was a, there's a video game called Chrono Trigger that came out when I was eight years old, when I was Henry's age.

And I remember playing and the whole time, like you're hunting down this evil wizard named Magus, the whole time who like turned one of your friends into a frog and like killed all these guys. And at the like back half of the game, spoiler alert for Chrono Trigger, you find out that like actually he's been doing to the same thing that you've been doing,

which is like trying to take down this big apocalyptic monster to save his sister. And he's been an to the same thing that you've been doing, which is trying to take down this big apocalyptic monster to save his sister. And he's been an asshole about it, but he is kind of on your side, and you can choose to execute him, or you can choose to get him to join your team. And all of a sudden, this badass evil wizard

is now your buddy. And I remember being so blown away by that. Like having my mind absolutely blown. And I don't know, I think that it is good to be exposed to this idea that people can change and people can, you know, don't always have to stick with this first impression that you get. Or maybe like your perception of them is wrong.

There's a certain kind of enemies to friends too that's kind of like home alone with the old man that lives next door. Yeah, mistaken sort of. Yeah, where it's just like you think this person is all these things because you don't know anything about them and then they reveal themselves to actually be very kind and you were completely wrong.

And I like that one too. It is, I think sometimes, you know, this is attempted after a point where I don't feel particularly compelled to like, want that bad guy to become a good guy, right? Like there's a certain amount of, well, they've gone too far. There is a character in The Walking Dead,

this was right when we stopped watching The Walking Dead, who comes in and does a bunch of really heinous shit to a lot of the main characters of the show. And now apparently like he's not so bad a guy, but it's like, are you fucking kidding? Cause he did some heinous, heinous stuff. So I think that there is a degree to which it can become somewhat irredeemable, but I don't know.

Generally speaking, I am always very thrilled to have a rivals to buddies arc in a story that I am watching. The Parks and Rec one is a good example because it's more like you can more easily connect that to your day-to-day life. Like, obviously with superheroes and Marvel, it's like, the whole thing is so fantastical,

but just like somebody that you kind of don't like and you think is totally different than you, and then they end up like really meeting you in the middle. It's very sweet. Michael Schur I think is especially good at this. No spoilers, but The Good Place does this so fucking well. I was gonna mention The Good Place. I don't wanna spoil anything

because I think everyone should watch that show. It's one of my favorite shows ever, but it does this thing so beautifully and organically and believably, and that always makes it hit so, so, so, so, so much harder. Yeah, man, he does do that a lot. That happens at the office too. Yeah, anyway, I like this, I like this trope.

I like this storytelling technique, and so use more of it, Hollywood. This is a message for Hollywood and books. This has been Griffin's Use More Of It Hollywood segment. Use More Of It Hollywood books and games. Thank you. Can I steal your way? Yes. Thanks

Okay, okay my thing this week actually came to me while we were watching very important people. Oh great and it is Like television news voice is what I'm calling it. That's really interesting. Like broadcast news voice, like the voice that anchors and like news reporters use when they're on television news programs. I could not be more thrilled to talk about this. I'm excited to talk to you about this because you went to school for broadcast journalism, correct? Yeah.

No, I saw the news voice deployed basically from every single person that I knew at that school, because you had to like kind of do a little bit of everything. You had to try like a little bit of everything. So like we had a discreet radio program that I was not in, I was in the broadcast side,

but I still had to do radio stuff, which meant I heard a lot of, you're listening to. So like, it's like a weird werewolf transformation. To be fair, you also heard a lot of that just in my life growing up with our dad. For sure, for sure. I, here's the thing, there's a lot, I mean, there's a lot behind it.

It seems, at least from my perspective, to not really have changed much in the past 60 years. Okay. I guess I'm thinking, yes, that makes sense, but I'm wondering how it could change as if organically every news anchor would be like, top of the morning to ya. Well, just this idea that language has changed very much.

A lot about our lives and how people present themselves has changed in the past 60 years. But this is timeless, right? People aren't like, what's up, fam? People are still kinda doing the same thing with the cadence too. Oh, God, I love the cadence. It is a weird relic of a different time.

The inflection in your voice to try and keep people engaged. Because obviously if you've been in a situation where somebody's very monotone, it's very easy to get sleepy keep people engaged. Because obviously if you've been in a situation where somebody's very monotone, it's very easy to get sleepy and tune out. But the way that news reporters do it, it's kind of amazing. Yeah, I love that. All right, what are we doing?

The way that I introduce this to you is the way that this article I found, a Business Insider did, which was talking about a viral clip of a journalist slipping into her natural Boston accent. Yeah. And so she's what is she saying now? I can't remember. We can play we can just play the audio from the clip Uh here here's the backstory. She is now a TV reporter for Springfield Station, Springfield, Massachusetts as well. You can take the girl out of Boston. You can take Boston out of the girl. Take a look.

Parts of this bill are similar to the executive orders that have already been put in place in New Hampshire. New Hampshire. We love you, Ellen. You had it right the first time, Ellen. By the way, the outtake clip, she posted it on all forms of... That's fun. So yeah, so see. She was in on the joke, the outtake clip, she posted it on, all forms of- That's fun.

So yeah, so see- She was in on the joke, it sounds like. She said it's New Hampshire in a way. New Hampshire. Person from Boston, I'm not gonna try and do it, but a person from Boston would typically say it. You could do a Boston accent. No, I can't do any accents.

That is low hanging fruit. This is the thing that you know about me and you still ask me to do. I would never ask you to do it. Okay, thank you. But you could do it. There's a lot of reasons behind this. One of the things I think is something that you mentioned to me,

which is the idea that when you are training to be a television news journalist, you are potentially going to move all over the country. And in order to get a job somewhere, you have to sound, as this person said, this is an article from NBC News where they interviewed a former news anchor who teaches voice classes in the broadcasting program. She says, to get a job somewhere,

you have to literally sound like you're from nowhere. That's a really, really, really good way of phrasing that. She said, they're not going to hire you in Yuma, Arizona if you talk like you're from the Bronx. Now, I don't know if that's factually accurate, but her point basically is that you have to be versatile. Right. You have to be able to kind of communicate information

in a way that's not gonna be distracting. Yeah, no, I mean, that all makes sense. And it is like a symptom of the fact that like, I don't know, this is an insane job. Specifically anchors, there's like what? 160 news markets across the country. I don't even know if there's still that many. Probably it's been sort of conglomerated and-

This is a fact that you know that I never knew. Yeah, and so I only knew it because like, when people started to get close to graduating from journalism school and the broadcast program, they started to get pretty nervous because they're all competing for the same like, you know, 300 jobs nationwide. Like it's not quite that bleak, but it is pretty bleak. Okay, so early part of the 20th century

when we're moving from radio to television, kind of the way that this voice is described is as a mid-Atlantic accent, or a blend of mannered British and the East Coast dialect of the United States. This was the kind of speaking that was popular in Hollywood movies of the 1930s and on radios, because it signaled some kind of upper class education.

And America's Infatuation with England sounding vaguely British. This is from a Mental Floss article in 2020. That all tracks. I do think it comes back to radio where the inflection of your voice and everything is kind of the only thing that you're presenting. And I guess that those voices are very similar. This has fucked with me this segment so much because I don't think I ever really paid much attention to this fact, but now it's gonna be all I see

and all I hear when I watch a news report. There's something kind of comforting about it. Like I've noticed that when I travel and I turn on the news wherever I am, which is something I still do if I'm in like hotel rooms, for example. Right. There is something kind of familiar about it.

Like the way that they talk on news programs is kind of similar enough location to location that it's, I don't know, there's something kind of like nostalgic about it, I guess for me. Yeah, I mean, it would be more fun if, the thing that I'm thinking about is like, even when people would use this voice on TV growing up,

there would still be like a hint of an Appalachian accent like slipped in there that you don't get much anywhere else. True, and there are linguists who argue that there's no such thing as being totally free of an accent in this Mental Floss article. They say a southerner trying to remove any trace of a draw is going to sound different than someone from New England attempting to do the same.

We may not notice because humans aren't that great at recognizing more subtle accents, especially on our own. So this idea that like your starting point influences what your more generic voice will sound like. Some of it too is that microphones just used to be pretty terrible. So you had to enunciate very clearly and watch about like the like plosives

into the microphone and also think a lot about making it clear, and leaving off like slang so that it was more slow and like easier to understand. They also, in this article I read, they talk about how this woman, Shirley Bryce, this is back in that Business Insider article, is a member of a talent trainers coaching services, said that women broadcasters were expected

to practice lowering their voices and avoid a very feminine intonation. Wow, Jesus Christ. And she said that like when she was a broadcaster in the 1990s, this was still the case. And if you think about it, it's relatively true. Oh my God, absolutely it is. And like, this is a thing that like,

I know that there is an affectation that everyone I went to school with did when they were on screen or on the radio, but I don't think I ever like really thought about it in terms of like tone and like, oh, they have to get, they're getting much lower. I feel like the dudes that I went to school with also did the same thing.

Like someone you would hang out with would then do like a sports commentary and then all of a sudden they're down here. Which always like, I always found so strange. The woman I cited earlier that is a former anchor and works at Temple University in Philadelphia said that she thinks there's a fair amount of patterning is what she called it.

Said if you grow up listening to a certain news personality and then there's like a subconscious effort to like, oh, well this is how professionals. Everyone's shooting for Edward R. Murrow. Yeah, yeah, Walter Cronkite. What if news anchors could still smoke at the desk and just barrel the camera and read off a paper? Or drink, I mean, some of them were holding little glasses.

Good night and good luck, man. They're just at a dive bar but delivering important news to the country. I will say there has been some turning away from this. It's a lot more conversational, I think, than it used to be. I mean, a lot of news programs now have like, this lighter, friendlier component where it's like,

now we've done the news and it's very somber and serious, and now we're gonna have fun in the kitchen with this chef. Yeah, I will say that there is something sinister about that change happening in an inverse ratio with like three different companies owning every local television news station and having a pretty ironclad grip on the flow of information out of those different places.

There is something kind of Orwellian and frightening about that. But if you think about, for example, YouTube, which is obviously a big source of information for a lot of people, and it is led by a lot of YouTubers who are presenting themselves as personalities and being very familiar and friendly. Absolutely, I fully, fully understand the change.

You don't hear somebody screaming being like, and now Zonic is going through the ring. But there is like, I don't know if you have this relationship with like any newscasters from like St. Louis that you watched growing up, but like if the folks that the anchors I grew up watching on my local affiliates started to become weirdly friendly,

it would really fuck me up. Like it would really- Oh yeah, no, they're trapped. I mean, they can't go anywhere. Yeah, I guess it's the young guns coming in. Yeah, that was the other thing I was thinking about. Part of the reason that motivated this is I found out this woman who was a news broadcaster

when I was a kid just announced her retirement in St. Louis. I was like, whoa, she's still going? Like she was like an anchor person when I was like 10 years old. And I guess she continued for the next 30 plus years because she like just announced on social media that she was retiring. It's just kind of amazing.

I love the folklore like power that long time local personalities can develop like No Fear Tim Ear from Honey to West Virginia, the man without fear. Like there's something really magical about like, oh I see this person on my TV all the time so I'm gonna come up with my head cannon for them. I feel that way about like weather people in particular.

Cause they're like, they're kind of one of the only people that's really like allowed to bring personality, you know? Cause they aren't typically reporting on really like somber world events. They're just, you know, like sometimes just talking about a very nice day. Yeah. So yeah, so anyway, like I could name a lot of weathermen

I think if I had to just out of my own personal experience. Begin. I'm not gonna do the one that, I think, if I had to, just out of my own personal experience. Begin. I'm not gonna do the one that you have beef with. I appreciate that. Yeah. That was a test that you passed. But you know who I brought up, actually? One of the ones I knew in Austin was David Yeomans.

David Yeomans! He lives in Chicago now. Amazing, lots of weather to report on there. When I was getting ready to go to Austin, I was joking with our hometown friends saying like, why can't David Yeomans fix the forecast? And they're like, oh, we don't talk about him anymore. He moved to Chicago.

Oh, heartbreaking. And I went to his Instagram, it's just a bunch of photos of him in Chicago. Is he happy? He seems very happy. That's good. I'm so glad. I want nothing for the best for all of our climatologists

and meteorologists. This is the part of the show I'm so glad. I want nothing for the best for all of our climatologists and meteorologists. This is the part of the show where traditionally we would do listener submissions. We are recording this episode just a couple of days after we recorded the last episode. So we really didn't have any in the tank and we don't plug that email address enough and we should do that more often.

So I'm gonna do it right now. Wonderfulpodcastatgmail.com. If you wanna send in one of your small wonders, keep it tight, couple sentences, and real. We want that real shit, like something that you're really sort of like noticing and grateful for, and we will consider it and maybe include it at the end of the show here.

One more time, wonderfulpodcast.gmail.com. Thank you 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. Macaroonmerch.com, we got some new stuff over there, including the new, I'm gonna try and do it from memory, Flaming Not Poisoning, raging tea of doom. Is that right?

That sounds right. That sounds right. We've collabed with The Good Store to bring you this wonderful spicy tea, which is on its way to us right now. I've heard it makes an excellent sun tea. I don't know what that means. Is that just like you put it in a pot

and then you believe it out in the sun? You use like a clear glass jar. Yeah. And you put it, like you put it in a pot and then you leave it out in the sun? You use like a clear glass jar. Yeah. And you put it, like you put tea bags in the jar and you let it sit outside all day. Interesting. And then it like steeps for a very long time. That's very exciting.

We've also got a new Play Dohs rave puzzle. There's all kinds of great stuff over at MacRoyMerch.com and we have some live shows coming up very soon, including some new tour dates that we're excited to announce. We're gonna be coming to California, Texas, Georgia, Utah, cities scattered throughout doing Taz and Mbembem. All our Taz shows are gonna be Taz versus,

except we are gonna be doing Taz in Anaheim, California, and it's gonna be the next installment in the Dadlands series featuring Brennan Lee Mulligan. Cannot wait to cornhole for my soul one more time. More info and ticket links are available over at bit.ly slash McRoy Tours. A lot of exciting stuff happening. Yeah, and I will remind people

that when Griffin says we are going on tour, he does not mean me. No, I mean my Bim Bam and Taz. I just imagine that we have some really devoted, wonderful listeners who, their little heart skips a beat. But Rachel has the John Madden problem where she won't go on planes, and she'll only do a bus.

And sometimes it's really far away. I don't even know what you're talking about right now, the John Madden. So he won't go on planes? He doesn't fly. But he travels so much, he's John Madden. I don't know if he travels so much these days, and I don't know if he's alive.

I don't know if he is alive. I days and I don't know if he's alive. I don't know if he is alive. I think he is. There's no way to know. This is one of those where I feel like if he had passed away, I would know it pretty definitively. I mean, your dad definitely would have texted you. Dad definitely would have let me know. Anyway, I hope you're doing well, John Madden,

and I hope you, listener, are also doing well. And we'll talk to you next week. Goodbye. Goodbye. The Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.