Wonderful! - Wonderful! 393: A Nap on a Fuzzy Belly

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Rachel's favorite unexpected musical mashups! Griffin's favorite huge round friend!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaBorder Angels: https://www.borderangels.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Welcome to Wonderful, a podcast where we talk about things that we like that's good that we're into. We do it. We do it all, folks. We run the game at. What are you into?

Sports? Sometimes. Movies. Uh-huh. We've seen them. Children's playground games? Inexplicably, sometimes, yes. Yes.

I like to think that we are the most versatile, well-rounded podcast on the planet. When people ask us what this show's about, that's exactly what I tell them. Sometimes people pick one thing, and they say, like, hey, I like this thing, and I'm only going to talk about this thing. Nope. And we're like, but there's a big world out there. Why pigeonhole yourself in there? Like, shows that talk about murders, and it's like,

There's a lot of other stuff going on. Like, people are doing other stuff that's not murders. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I do. We're really behind on only murders in the building. We are. Well, you know, it happened.

I kept leaving freaking town. And love is blind happened. Love is blind happened. Love is blind happened. And we got sucked right in. Good God. Good Jesus Christ, God. God in heaven and Jesus.

So I know right now we could be telling you like how it ends up, I think, at this point. We haven't finished it. But we are still at a point. point where they like just try it on their their wedding clothes. And so we're still behind. This is maybe our small wonders. It's such a mess and it's so weird. It's such a weird season. And the cast is the vibe is so weird. It's these usually people are able to kind of dig their way into the chemistry they found in the pods. Like sometimes. Yeah. This season, it seems like as soon as they left the pods, all chemistry disappeared for every couple. Yeah. And I guess that it is ultimately

kind of, and I feel this way about married at first sight too, it is when it continues to fail this instantly and this spectacularly, at some point you got to kind of hang up the whole premise of the show. Maybe love is blind. I don't think so because like 97% of the people who see each that for the first time, we're like, oh, I was telling Griffin that I really want them to chase that hypothesis in like a scientific way. And it's like Nick and Vanessa at the beginning, like, oh, God, we're so close. All right. Okay. Let's spend 15, okay. Yeah. All right. You go back to the lab. All right. So with this much research and, you know, and like really treat it as if like they're working for the National Science Foundation. Right. And they're under a deadline. Also, a lot of wild

sort of casual pretty hyper-conservative, like values being espoused off-handedly in a way that is so, I don't know, demoralizing, I guess, is the word that I'm looking for. It was shocking. I think there's this assumption among younger people that it was, you know, our parents or our grandparents' generation that had really like conservative perspective on like what a relationship. and a marriage and parenting should look like. Yeah. But like a lot of what they were saying was like, oh, that's what people said a hundred years ago. That's like a hundred years old, that idea. We've both been listening to Claire and Emma on Love to See It. Love to see it.

I think best best in the game. Yeah. Honestly, I think when we made the decision to stop doing the Bachelor, you know, podcast to stop doing those buddies, reality dating in general as like. like the sole focus of our show. I think it was partially like we listened to them and other shows like them and were like, okay, they know exactly what the fuck they're doing.

They are very, very, very good at this. And it's hearing them talk about love is blind is such a treat. But yeah, wild season, man. Yeah. So wild. Do you have any other small wonders that you wanted to do or should we just hop right into it?

Let's get into it, man. I do want to say we got some feedback in the email, wonderful podcast at gmail.com. We encourage you to send in your small wonders for us to consider at the end of the show that perhaps next year, if it becomes an annual tradition, we find different verbs rather than smash or pass. There was some good stuff that was suggested. A couple different people pointed out, trick or treat would have been maybe better for the Halloween. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, it was right fucking there.

And I can't help but agree. I can't help but agree. Wow. Yeah. That would have been. I enjoyed the format, but I do think the vernacular could be tightened up. Yeah. You go first this week.

Yes. So this, actually, this is, my topic this week was just kind of pushed to me by YouTube. It just kind of showed up in one of my suggested videos. Yeah. And then I had to watch every video in the playlist. Yeah. There is a platform called Musora that does online music education. Right.

And it's been around for like 15 years, almost. They started with drumio in 2012. Cool. And then they added piano instruction in 2016. Was that pianoio? Pianoio? Pianote. Pianote.

Okay, that's a good one. And Gittario in 2017. It'sami. And then singeo in 2021. Yeah, cool. And that's kind of the focus of that platform. Like it's music instruction, it's like a subscription service, like you sign up, whatever. They're not advertising with us.

I'm not trying to get you to sign up. No. But what they started doing about a year ago in August 2024 was something they called covers on the spot. Yes. And what this is is they bring in a pretty established ban. And because this business, this Mizora is located in Canada, it's located in Abbotsford, British, Columbia. Right. It's a lot of like Canadian bands. Right. And most of them I have not heard of. Right. I don't know if that was your experience when you looked at it. Absolutely not. I have

not heard of. I think the spin doctors rolled up for an episode and obviously there's some name recognition there. Yeah. But yeah, most of the bands I had not heard of. But so like a relatively established band rolls up. They go into a like a music studio and there is somebody sitting in a booth and this person is Ron Jackson. And he plays for them like a famous pop or, you know, rock song. And then it's their responsibility over that day to develop their own version and cover it kind of in their style. When Rachel first mentioned this to me, it sounded a lot like the, I think it was called Undercover that was it the AV Club used to do? I think it was AV Club where they would have like a list of songs for the season and then when a band came in they had prepared like their version of the song

the uh kind of like i mean it's on the tin on the spot sort of uh challenge surprise nature of this series really really really sets it apart and makes it something yeah really fun to watch the way the videos are structured is you get to watch the band hear the song for the first time right and sometimes they don't know it um but most the time they will recognize it within the first few seconds and they'll listen to it all the way through and then they kind of have the option to listen to it again. Yeah. And they intentionally pick songs that are way outside the genre that the band usually performs in. Right. So just for example, I don't know which ones you watched, but some of the most kind of obvious different

ones. They have a jazz band covering Nirvana's heart-shaped box. That's probably pound for pound my favorite episode. Just because, one, like, everybody in the band is so immensely talented. Yeah. The bassist in that jazz band is one of the fucking craziest performers I've ever seen, like the way he just takes it on a walk. That version absolutely rules. There's a hard rock trio called Bad Money that I didn't hear of that covers Adele, someone like you. I didn't see that one. And so they really speed up the demo, they add a lot of drums, and it's two frontmen, and so they split the verses, and then they share the chorus together. Okay.

This indie Vancouver band called Peach Pit covers Nickelbacks, How You Remind Me? And this is like, my favorite part of this series is the moment, the song that they've been assigned starts playing, because you will see, especially in like a bigger band, just this wave of realization kind of like go across everyone's face. And so like when this band realized like, oh, we're doing nickelback, it was like, okay, okay, we can do something with this. There are definitely ones where like there was one where the drummer of the band looked like he was going to cry like the entire time because of the song that they had been assigned. But sometimes they're stoked and sometimes they are not stoked, but the result is always like at least pretty interesting. And that's what I think like part of what really works, especially

for somebody like me who doesn't recognize a lot of these bands. The song is usually pretty you recognizeable. There was a, there's like this dark old rock duo. I can't remember the name of the Bay that does it, but they get assigned a thousand miles by Vanessa Carlton. Yeah. Which they turn into a- I think that was the one the drummer was really bummed about. Maybe, but they turned it into a minor key kind of like rock song and it fucking shreds. It fucking rules. It's so good. Yeah. So I was looking, it's hard to find a lot about this because one, It's only been around for a year, and also it's in Canada, so I can't find a lot of U.S. coverage of it. But I will say I looked up the guy, Ron Jackson, who sits in the booth and is at least presented as the one picking the songs.

Yeah. He's the media director at Musora. Before he joined the, and this is from his LinkedIn, before he joined Musora in January 2024, he was a high school English slash musical theater teacher for eight years. That rules. That rules. Oh, man, that makes it. There's one episode that is so out of left field where they get the lead singer from Mariana's Trench to do defying gravity. Yes.

And it's, he doesn't change the key, which is fucking nuts. Yeah. So they have the option when they do it to change pretty much as much as they want. Yeah. So they can like deconstruct the arrangement. They can transpose it into their own musical stuff. They can take their own ascetic and swap it out. There's one I really liked.

There's this band Ider, who is this like dream pop band. It's these two women. I was just about to bring this one up. And they cover Weezer's hash pipe. Yeah. But they make, they change some of the lyrics to make it sort of fit. Yeah. Instead that line that goes like, come on and kick me.

They change it to come on and kiss me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, it's a little subtle stuff. But they still say ass wipe. Their version is really good. It's beautiful. It's really lovely. Yeah, so there's not a ton of videos because, again, this just started like a year ago.

So I just kind of like cruise through most of them yesterday and today. It's a good watch. The individual moments of like realization and the performances are very, very good. I am also like so infinitely and forever will be fascinated. by like bands and band members who are able to communicate in this like telepathic shorthand for how they want to like approach playing a song it's so many examples of it in basically every episode you will see like the drummer like say something with words I don't even necessarily understand and immediately like the bassist and guitarists are like

oh okay yeah yeah we'll put that down like that and just I don't know it the way it comes together is so it really seems like magic. Watching the process is maybe the best part because you see how the band kind of works through putting a song together. Right. And like sometimes the first time they're listening in it, they're already kind of on their instruments kind of like coming up with what it might sound like. Sometimes they like are very faithful to the song at first and then try and figure out how they're going to change it. I mean, it's just, it's really fascinating. And so far, every band seems to have like a lot of fun and it's just delightful we should play a clip from one of the if you were to pick one of the songs that you think is like kind of like the most I think we should do that hash pipe yeah let's play a little bit of Ider was the name of band their cover of hash pipe car now my book is they get out of control I know it you don't care but I want you to know these knees talking flavor is a favor of

treat of men that don't bother with the taste of the heat, oh come on and kiss me come on and kiss me oh, you've got your problems oh, I've got my eyes

white, you've got your big cheats. I got my hashby So lovely So beautiful If you were on this show What cover would you want to do?

Oh, don't do this to me I'm just trying to provide some space So we don't go straight from the musical clip Right into the audio break For the advertisement break You know what I mean? I mean the idea is that they pick something Really outside of your comfort zone

So like the idea of me picking something I'd want to do Is kind of against the conceit of this show I've assigned you the where in the world is Carmen San Diego theme song done by Racapella and that's your version. I've always, when we did karaoke one time, I really wanted to do Kesha. But that's it. She does some very complicated stuff.

Oh my God. Yeah. And I had no idea until I tried. So that would be probably my hill to climb. Yeah. Can I steal you away? Yes. I got something for you and for the audience.

And it is called My Segment. And this week, my segment is a movie. And the movie is my neighbor Totero. Oh, God. It feels like cheating. It feels like we have at our disposal, like this quiver of arrows. And each arrow is all the Studio Ghibli movies. Because you could do a segment on pretty.

I did. Spirited Away, which is my favorite. Okay, I was going to say, you've talked about Miyazaki before. Yeah, Spirited Away is my favorite. I think it's like a true masterpiece, one of the greatest films ever made. Yeah, that's a real, like, chunky plot, too. There's a lot going on in that one. Which is why I think my neighbor Totoro is a really interesting compliment to that because- Yeah, I mean, definitely heavy. It's heavy, but it also, there are some pretty key differences between that and Spirited Away, and also between that and a lot of the other animated film. that were coming out in the early 90s, you know, in the west. And I want to get into all of that.

I just like, I think Todoro has this place of kind of cultural significance that, I don't know, made it something I wanted to talk about. I also have been playing a lot of that Japanese rural life adventure game on my phone a lot lately. And my neighbor Totero is a pretty solid Japanese rural life adventure. And so the synergy there made sense. This movie, my neighbor Totero, about a family. The family is two young girls, two sisters, their father and their mother, who is hospitalized, and they are living in the Japanese countryside in the 1950s. And during their sort of move to this new town that they are living in, while settling in, they encounter these big fuzzy forest spirits, the biggest and fuzziest of which is Totero, who is just this huge

round friend who lives in a hollow camphor tree in the woods behind this family house and the movie is just kind of about the handful of encounters that these girls have with Todoro and his fuzzy friends as they are dealing with kind of this series of pretty basic childhood dilemmas like finding your footing in this new area or dealing with like a family member being sick and away and that's pretty much all that's going on in the movie. And I think that that is very rad. I think it's easy to understand why Totoro is such an icon because he is like, you know, a big, adorable, soft friend. May, the younger sister, upon first meeting, Totero, takes a nap on his belly while they're, like, in the woods.

And I think that seeing that scene really instills within everyone a secret. wish in their heart to take a nap on like a big tootero belly. What do you think Totoro feels like? Like a... What's the texture? Like if you had to put like a similar animal. I mean, I think if you could put shag carpeting on a, gosh, I don't know, if a beanbag chair could breathe like one of those big beanbag chairs, they probably make Totero beanbag

chairs almost definitely right yeah yeah i'm just wondering is it like a like a cat fur or is it like a i'm imagining a deep pile on todero i'm imagining cleaning a totoe i think would probably think a lot of time uh todero is not actually pulled from like pre-existing uh mythology the character of todoero was created by haia miazaki for the purposes of the film but uh tooro and you know all the other creatures that they meet in the forest are in inspired by Shinto folklore, what are called Kami, which are basically spirits that inhabit natural, you know, elements, parts of the world, and, you know, kind of ties into this belief in Shintoism of, like, peaceful coexistence with the natural world, which is a

constant, like, recurring theme in Miyazaki's work and in Studio Jibli's movies, which is able to kind of like execute and realize so well because it is the best animation in the world. Like it is the most detailed and loving like painterly animation that anyone has ever made in the history of mankind. When you read a plot synopsis of my neighbor Totero, it doesn't sound like a story. It doesn't sound like a particularly like cogent plot, which is kind of one of the things that makes it so sort of like memorable and so like transportive while you're watching it. Well, and it like speaks to this time period, uh, when kids just kind of ran around. Yeah.

You know, as particularly like during the day, but like this idea that like you would leave your house and you would maybe be gone all day. Right. Yeah. Uh, and so like not having a real specific objective or like through line feels kind of like, Well, yeah, no, that's kind of what being a kid was like back then. Yeah, for sure. I think that that's a great observation.

I think, you know, it captures a bit of the experience of like unencumbered rural life and like what the freedom that allows you as a kid and like what you do with that freedom and how kind of scary that can be a little bit sometimes. But it's basically just sort of a series of almost disconnected. events that kind of capture this transformative time for these two young girls with this backdrop of, you know, mystical, adorable forest creatures popping in from time to time. It makes it kind of a tougher hang for like really young kids. Because Totoro ain't in the whole flip. I was shocked the first time I watched it that this dude rolls up like a half dozen times. Yeah.

And the mother's illness is like a real concern to the kids. Yes. And that's kind of a hard, like, sell to your children. But it makes those moments where Totoro does show up. Like, the bus stop scene is so unforgettable. Like, it really makes the movie come alive because these kids are dealing with this somewhat heavy stuff. Yeah. And they've been kind of, like, trying to get home waiting on their dad's bus so they can talk to him and they don't really have a way of getting in touch with him.

And then boom, Totero's there. And boom, there's a cat bus. And holy shit. Like, everything's so fun and good and nice. now. I think more than like, you know, Totoro or the design of the spirits or anything else, it is the genuinely sort of pleasant, unthreatening vibe of the movie that really makes it a classic. One of my favorite Roger Ebert reviews of all time is what he wrote about my neighbor Totero. And he spends the whole review kind of pointing out these little details that stood out to him apart from sort of like

traditional Western animated movies and storytelling at the time, things like how the dad in this movie is really nice. And when the girls come to him telling him, like, we met these forest spirits, he's not dismissive. He's not shitty about it. Instead, he takes them into the woods to like give thanks in front of this big tree. Which was super rare in that time period. Extremely rare in this time period. Parents were the worst in that time period. So, so bad. the element of like the grownups don't believe in us and so like we're going to do our own thing is like not really part of it it really never comes up he points out this one really great moment like at the beginning of the movie they show up at their new house and there's a pillar holding up the like awning of their porch and they shake the pillar and they see that it's kind of wobbly but it doesn't fall down and the house doesn't collapse it's just like a little detail that happened. other thing he points out is like the mom's illness in this movie is treated as sort of a fact of life. It is the reason why she's not at home right now. It is not this sort of Damocles kind of swinging over their heads like at any moment your mom's going to die. You do. Yeah. And like I have been trained so much that when I first started watching the movie, especially like, you know, when you think about Disney films, you're like, oh, the thing is going to be that she does. Things that feel like in. In most, like, movies that I had seen before this movie, like, oh, well, that's a Chekhov's gun.

And there's another one. And there's another. But it's not. It's just like, it's just like these kids' lives. Yeah. This is a quote from Ebert's review. He said, it is a little sad, a little scary, a little surprising, and a little informative, just like life itself. It depends on a situation instead of a plot and suggests that the wonder of life and the resources of imagination supply all the adventure you need.

Oh. That's really good. best. It's just a spectacular, just truly timeless classic that is slow and gentle and lovely from minute one aided by the fact that the theme song goes so fucking hard. Totoro, do toro. I really, really, I love it a lot. And, you know, even in the tremendous canon of studio Ghibli movies. It's so unique and so like, it's so special and so unlike anything else I think I've really ever seen. It says a lot because they are kind of slow like these Miyazaki movies,

you know, like I wasn't sure if Big Sun was going to like it. Yeah. But it's so like magical and surprising. Like even though it's a very quiet movie, it's still like really pulls, pulls them in. Yeah. Well, I think it also like the way that it depicts the challenges that these girls face is so realistic and it is so relatable. It is not that there is some villain out to get them. It is not that there is some threat looming that that they are afraid of. It is like they are living their lives and there's little complications sometimes that can be a little bit scary when you're a kid and you don't really know exactly what to do and their mom. is six so like that support system is not where they need it to be and that hits so that hits so hard

because it is so realistic because it is not exaggerated in some way that makes it feel like oh well this is just like a story the kids aren't like super precocious you know or like I don't know they don't seem like hugely remarkable they're just like kids yeah you know and it's nice to see that in a movie. I love Totoro. Yeah. I really, I do like all the, the Ghibli movies, but I don't know, it's, it's, it's a really good one. And I think that, I don't know, it always makes me happy when I see someone with like a

Totoro backpack out in the world, because it makes me feel like, hey, you get it. You know what it's up. Do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes, please. Andrew says, My Small Wonder is watching traffic part for emergency vehicles. I moved to a smaller city a few years ago, Brisbane to Hobart, Australia. Australia and watching lanes of traffic part down the middle to let an ambulance through is so satisfying. It's an amazing show of humanity to see people delay themselves for a few seconds

to help a stranger they know nothing about it. Oh, this is a big thing for me too. Oh, for sure. Like, I, I don't know. Like, driving can be so aggressive and so selfish. Like, you will see people make choices that are just full on dangerous. Yeah. And so it's kind of refreshing to see people recognize like oh this this is a caring and important thing to do and actually deliver on it yeah and it happens more often than not right like i can certainly recall times where like ambulances have been laying on the horn and someone's like sorry man i got to turn left here uh but most of the time like they do get out of the way and that is nice um jamison says my wonder is rotel cheese dip any day can be a super bowl party if you just make rotel dip not sponsored life pack use

spinach to line your tortilla chips to add more veggies or throw a scoop of dip onto a bed of veggies for a fun salad move not sponsored jamison this is also not sponsored we are not sponsored by rotel cheese dip um but i mean when you roll up to a party and they have a big bowl of cheesy oh for sure i mean in texas they call that queso they do call that queso um and it's one of the things that i miss a whole lot yeah arguably the thing we miss the most. I get very confused still when I go to an event and there isn't just like chips and guac and salsa and like queso there. That's such a standard at every event you go to in Texas. Hey, thank you so much for listening to our program. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the

use our theme song. Money won't pay. We find a link to that in the episode description. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to Maximumfund.org. Check out all the great shows that they have popping off over there. We got some new merch in the merch store coming next month, which is probably in a day or two when you are hearing this episode when it goes live, that's over at Macquariemerch.com. Our touring season has come to a close, but we do have one more special program on the books coming up December 6th in lovely Huntington, West Virginia, Candle Nights is back, home for the Honda Days as we go to the Keith Alby. Are those tickets on sale? They are on sale, and they are flying. They are flying fast.

How big is that theater? The Keith Albee's a decent size. We've never done a show there. It has been kind of difficult to get in there in the past. Did you do the TV show there? We did a bit from the TV show in there, yeah. But it's a lovely venue, and we are so excited to be doing candle nights in person again. We haven't done it since, like, COVID shutdown stuff happened, and we started doing all those virtual, like, live ones.

If you're able to come, December 6th, you can grab a ticket. We are also putting up a video on demand version of the show on, I believe, December 19th. You can buy a ticket for just that, for the video on demand. And if you do buy a ticket to see the show in person, you get the video on demand ticket as well. And all of the proceeds go to benefit Harmony House, which is an incredible organization in Huntington that we have partnered with a bunch of times that works to end homelessness in the area by providing permanent housing and so many different supports. Man, like it is, from what I've seen, like of the work of Harmony House, they are like a one-stop shop for people. Like they provide so many supportive services and meals and clothing and it's just incredible. It is incredible.

And they also need help with funding in the current climate. So, yeah, you can find tickets to that. I believe it's bit.ly slash candle nights 2025. And I hope to see you there. It's going to be a really fun time. That's it. Thank you so much for listening. have a spooky time.

Have a spooky time. What days is this go up? Have a spooky time. Safe. This weekend, huh? Safe? Safe. But spooky.

Get scared, but not of real dangers that you've put yourself into. Safe, smart, protect your treasure. Your treasure? I don't know. Bye. Working all day, money won't work. Working all. Money won't.

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