Wonderful! - Wonderful! 65: The Big Bubble Man

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

Griffin's favorite new animated super hero movie! Rachel's favorite plane snack! Griffin's favorite neighborhood discovery! Rachel's favorite renovation programming! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Got those rainy Monday blues. Oh, it is not even Monday is the thing. It feels like it what with all the rainfall. I got those moody Monday blues because all the rainfall, cold and rainy and tummy hurt. But that's not that weird. I feel like my stomach hurts more than it rains. Let's I want to sort of compare my stomach issues versus the average sort of rainfall in Austin, Texas.

Because I think we have a fight on our hands, people. But I'll tell you one thing. Please do. It's going to be a good episode, I bet. Okay. You feel the energy? You feel that raw 2019 energy coursing through your bones? I mean, if I'm going to be honest, no, not yet.

But we'll get there. You don't have that raw 2019 electricity in all of your bones at the same time? It is so nasty outside right now. It's nasty outside, but the year... Feels a lot like 2018 still to me. No, no, no. The year has a lot of potential in it. Okay.

I'm here to sell you a year, and the year is 2019. I feel all this electricity in my bones. It's like a full body orgasm. Oh. Do you have any small wonders? I do. Okay. I am really enjoying the show Seven Days Out on Netflix.

Yes. Rachel is, I am kind of enjoying it. Rachel is more into it than I am, but it is a good show i think what i like about it is it taps into this idea that any kind of big event is interesting when you get right up until the big the big reveal yeah and so it just kind of meets all these people right before their biggest thing right so there's an episode about the westminster dog show there's an episode about the like some restaurant reopening um there's a nasa thing yeah with a cassini mission where they crashed a probe into uh saturn i want to say uh there's a episode about

a league of legends championship um it's cool i think that the show sort of episode to episode like some episodes are like all about putting the shit together. Yeah. Some of them are more stories about like what goes on in the actual event. And I feel like with this show, I was more excited for the like, how do you put on an event that huge? Yeah. So some episodes, it's not as big a focus. But I mean, all the episodes are, it kind of reminds me of like Chef's Table, but for event planners.

Yeah, the concept is just really interesting to me. I hope they continue to do it because I feel like there's a lot of opportunity there. I'm going to say one of my small wonders. I was thinking about doing hot dogs as a main topic, but then I realized I've talked about hot dogs at a ballpark as like a small wonder. So I didn't want to double dip. So I'm going to say eating a hot dog at home is another small wonder of mine. Oh, I almost did pigs in a blanket this week. Those are fun because of the name of them.

My mom used to make them wrapped up in bacon, which I loved. I would fight my Uncle Chris every New Year's Eve. He would come over and we both loved them so much. We'd have a competition where we'd present toothpicks at the end of the night to see who could get to do more of those bad boys. But now my heart couldn't take that. I'm also going to say I got an accordion from Justin and Sydney for Christmas. And still trying to wrap my, well, my body around it.

It's a big one. It is a big instrument, folks. And it makes a big, loud, proud sound. Wait, why did we move away from hot dogs at home? Did you have more to say about that? No, it's just a small wonder of mine. They're good. Okay.

Accordion's good, too. I go first this week, according to Wonderful.FYI.yi all right the next number one source of news for our podcast and my first thing is spider-man into the spider-verse now in theaters i've never i don't think i've ever done a move have i i don't remember if i've done a movie before but i have definitely never done a movie that is actively in theaters that you can go see right now but like this is the first movie that I've seen more than once in it while it was in theaters in like a long long time I think I went to see the Grindhouse movies like that two-pack that came out with um the planet terror and death proof like I was in college when those came out and so I was sort of the target audience and i remember really having fun going to like a midnight screening of those so i went to that

twice that may have been the last time and that was like shit dog 2006 maybe 2007 i'm not sure when it came out um i i love this movie uh as evidenced by the fact that we don't have a lot of time to go to movies together and i went to this one more than once when there were other movies I could have seen. I just, I really love it. And I want there to be more of them. And I think everyone on Earth should see them so that they'll make a lot more of them. I was sold on this movie kind of minute one from the trailer, which if you have not seen, go and watch it because it kind of shows you what the style of the film is. It's very like, it is a very clever way of sort of adapting several different comic book styles of how Spider-Man has been sort of drawn and the world of Spider-Man

has been drawn in a 3D animated film. And it's sort of very cleverly through the story, which is sort of this multi multi-dimensional sort of fiasco. Did I just use the word fucking fiasco in my movie review i'm full-blown shalloting over here uh it it sort of has a good reason of sort of having all of these different art styles uh it is like a beautiful beautiful movie to look at but like that style uh i think sold me just from seeing it on the trailer there is so much about this movie that i just absolutely adore um the soundtrack is super good yes i want to i want to own it the soundtrack is fantastic uh also like the the action sequences of the movie like are at times like

completely choreographed to the music that is playing behind them like full-blown baby driver style uh it also like during those action sequences very cleverly uses like little flashes of like other otherworldly animation like now it looks like uh you know golden age spider-man now it looks like you know uh edgy future spider-man it just sort of flashes it when like a guy gets punched you just get it for like a frame and it's so fucking good every time um the voice acting is super good i didn't realize uh the the guy who plays miles morales who is spider-man in in this one typically uh in all the movies we've seen it's peter parker but in this universe it's it's miles morales um

and he's voiced by shamik moore who uh was the guy from dope the the movie dope he was like yeah as soon as i figured that out i was like oh shit yes that's where i knew that guy's voice from it's another movie with a great soundtrack he does like a really great vo performance there are some like heavy parts of his sort of origin story because it is like a different spider-man origin story uh that he emotes like so so so well he does an incredible job uh so does uh hayley steinfeld's in it uh maher shala ali is in it nicholas cage is in it lily tomlin's in it uh fucking john mulaney is in it like everybody does such a great job uh and and then there's stuff about the movie that's kind of like bigger

than the sum of its parts like it is it is for sure my favorite spider-man movie it may be my favorite like comic book movie ever and it's probably my favorite movie I saw this year because I saw it twice. I think that's a pretty good like rubric to go by. We've gotten eight Spider-Man movies in the last two decades. Oh my gosh. And I thought like I was overseeing this superhero's origin story,

but there's something that this one does that is so clever. So I'm not really spoiling anything because it sort of is in the title of the movie. Several different spider folks from different universes cross over into Miles Morales and are kind of, you know, testing him, kind of like showing him the ropes, kind of seeing what he's capable of and showing him like what Spider-Man is responsible for in their worlds and i think that's such a clever way of doing like an origin story because it shows you uh how unique miles morales's like origin arc is by literally making that like the whole plot of the movie the whole plot of the movie is look at these other spider folks and what is expected of them now that expectation is on you let's see what you do with it like it is such a clever way of

getting around the you know guy gets bit by spider guy drinks potion guy gets kidnapped makes armor for himself like made the stakes feel really real to me that was the thing i was talking to griffin about is like for me if you're going to do a superhero movie i need to like feel like it exists kind of within the real world yeah and that the characters like have kind of a reasonable reaction to the powers you know yeah uh yeah and it does that really well with his like family as well like again this is like a lot of this is not like completely new stuff because it does do the origin story stuff it just does it like better than any spider-man movie has ever done it before um he his relationship with his dad is like really incredible um it's also worth noting he's he is

afro-latino which is like uh there's it's a very very diverse cast even in like the spider folks uh which is like super fucking refreshing um and like it does all that origin story stuff that you kind of expect but it does it in a such a like well-paced way that by the time you get that like hero realization moment it's like everything after that moment in the film i actually kind of time my i told rachel this i learned after the first one to time my p before that so that i don't have to miss any of like the last 25 minutes of the movie because all 25 of them are ridiculous and over the top and like consists of some of the best action sequence

stuff I've ever seen. Speaking of which, like this movie is so generous with its action scenes. I've gotten so used to like the pacing of a live action Marvel movie where, you know, maybe there's a big explosive opening and then a bunch of exposition and then they move on to this next big set piece where there's another big action scene and then more exposition wrapping up with like this one big set piece with this huge extended fight and that's it and like that's not to knock other marvel movies um because those are fantastic i really liked infinity war i really loved black black panther um but like this movie is just non-stop with the with the action scenes well it's really it's really clever and i hope i'm not spoiling too much but they incorporate a lot of like panels into it like comic book panels which allows them to get a bunch done

in kind of one shot yeah for sure yeah which i thought was really clever which is good because you know some of the fights include mini spider people in it which is a good way of keeping track of them and yeah like because despite the fact that like the, the action sequences are, you know, almost constant and involve a lot of, uh, spider parties. Uh, and the fact that there's like a lot of comedy sort of built into the script and a lot of sort of like heavier emotional character development moments, uh, it never gets like, uh, it never bites off more than it can chew. Like, I feel like it is very capable of doing all this stuff. Uh, I didn't realize the movie was produced by phil lord and chris miller uh they were the one who um uh made the lego movie uh and they were i think directors on 21 jump street uh and they were also

executive producers of last man on earth so like i feel like yeah i think all of those kind of have this sort of tone uh and maybe tone's not right but like all of those things tied together i felt so entertained by all of them so like constantly uh and i don't know like why i don't know how how exactly they pulled that off but once i found out that connection i was like oh shit that makes a lot of sense because this movie is constantly entertaining it is uh it is visually cool uh it could have been one of those things and it still would have been like one of my favorite movies of the year but uh there is stuff that happens in this movie that uh i wasn't even done with my first viewing yet when i was like i'm going to come back here and see those again uh yeah it's very good please go see it please

please go see it is spider folks is that how people are referring spider well one of them's a pig like i did spider is some spider organisms spider spider spider folks i think is good no i like it uh what is your first thing my first thing is checks mix oh hey hi hi hi i'm bringing checks mix thank you i have a bowl for it. Pour it right in. Hey, Tommy, come get this Chex Mix. That's my favorite commercial for Chex. Did you ever see that one? Tommy? Yeah, when the woman comes in and is like,

I brought Chex Mix to your house. And then one boy's like, I have a bowl for it. And then he yells for Tommy to come eat the Chex Mix. And then it ends abruptly. You don't even see the Chex Mix. And then it ends abruptly. You don't even see the Chex Mix. And then Tommy dies. Yeah, you see Tommy like fall down the stairs for like one frame and it cuts to black.

It's like the end of Sopranos. Chex Mix is good though. It's my favorite plane snack. I don't think you knew that because I don't know that we've gotten it. Of course I know. Are you kidding? Oh, did you know that?

I think Rachel's being facetious because we've gotten it literally every time. Sometimes when Rachel jumps really high, she makes sure that she has a bag of Chex Mix in hand. If she goes up more than one flight of stairs, she's going to need Chex Mix to be her sky friend. I really wasn't sure if you knew that. No, babe. I mean, you know, we know each other's proclivities. For you, it's Chex Mix.

The past several years, we've kind of, we've changed our flight buying since we have Henry with us and that we don't really indulge our own preferences as much. Right. Maybe you'd forgotten. I think you misspoke there when you said flight buying. I think you actually meant every aspect of our lives, every every possible element of it from which we could derive joys that we do not derive directly from our delightful, delightful son. Here's a surprise to me yes you couldn't purchase checks mix sold in packages until 1985 prohibition tell me more about that prohibition got them you know rum runners came through and they brought all the booze in it was illegal but they people went to speakeasies and great gatsby great gatsby great gatsby never read it and they rolled barrels of checks mix out from under the basement and then everybody was like you know

what booze and checks mix is awesome let's ratify this and so they did but they forgot about checks until 1985 and reagan caught it caught the he got Chex Mix sort of loophole, and he fixed it. Well, you know... Why did we wait that long? I don't know. I was almost born into a world without individually packaged Chex Mixes. I know, and I was. And that explains a lot of the differences between us, I think.

Uh-huh, millennials and Gen X. I'm not Gen X. I know, I know, I know. Don't date me. So, Chex Mix introduced 1937 only as Wheat Chex. Ew, why? Rice Chex, as we know it today, didn't come out until 1950. Oh, I mean, I imagine Wheat Chex is much better for you, but like, ugh, y'all, come on.

Chex Mix became a thing in 1952. Is that when Melba Toast was discovered? You think that it was just Chex Mix and they were like, well, this is just cereal. And then the Melba Toast really made it a mix? Yeah. No. Okay. I'm saving Melba Toast for a later episode.

Thank you. I really wanted to have a Melba Toast talk with you, but you seemed really resistant really resistant no i'm holding on to that one okay that's like sweet sweet right there all right i mean you already did pumpernickel bread isn't melbatost just super old pumpernickel bread that got like mummified we can talk about this during your great melbatost segment this is maybe a two-part episode you're right you're right uh so checks mix uh became one of the many popular tv mixes uh which is a snack that could be consumed without interrupting television watching which appeared in the 1950s could be consumed or prepared consumed okay the idea that you could just blindly shovel it into your mouth while watching a program hey 50s people get better at watching television

and eating this is everything to me i eat fucking i could eat lobster i could eat crab legs while watching television and not break line of sight with the tv because i don't want to miss the terrace house subtitles yeah that's exactly it we've really thought about our meal consumption based on whether or not we can read subtitles at the same time if we get pho which is always delivered in like individual components that you then have to sort of compile into one big cup i can do i like i can't we either have to pause terrace house or else i make a big sloppy mess because i'm just throwing shit in the cup overflowing it getting it on my feet the hot broth on my feet because i can't i gotta see what they're saying so do you have a memory of somebody like actually preparing checks mix like from scratch as much as you can from scratch?

I mean, we're not talking about puppy chow, right? No. Yeah. Because my mom definitely made puppy chow on the reg. I think, you know, I feel like I do remember. I feel like I remember people making it by hand, which makes sense. If it only came out in the 80s, people probably still had their go-tos. Yeah.

It was still like 92 and people were like, you can buy Chex Mix? I want to share with you the recipe i think i can suss it out okay so we get past the checks what's next well and then my and i land right on a soft cushion of melba toast it's actually quite firm and crunchy they don't so they don't they don't include a lot of the mixins like there's no pretzels or anything in this recipe the fuck this is like a ridge classic checks mix oh my god so you're asking me what was an original checks mix yeah i mean checks yeah let's move let's move on what they are and then there's sort of those breadsticks like little crunchy breadsticks you're focusing too much on the on the mix-ins is it like spices and oils and unguents and yeah tell

me about the unguents uh i mean salt yes good i'm gonna go out on a limb and say maybe pepper nope shoot those two are usually best friends at a recipe uh what is there garlic powder up on these there is garlic salt garlic salt uh i'm gonna guess that there is probably a little sugar in there nope just to make it a salt a little salty or i put a little sugar in and then i'm gonna say honey and then um m&ms and those breadsticks and melba toast and peanuts and raisins i'm confusing it with gorp aren't i yeah? Yeah, I think you are. We're talking butter. Yes. We're talking nuts.

Yeah. And we're talking a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire. I should have known. Yeah. My old enemy. Worcestershire. Where do you get off being that hard to say?

You're just like a stinky vinegar. Get out of here. Worse truth. So here's another fun fact I mentioned. Why are you laughing? These are all very, these facts are fun as hell. Corn Chex. Yeah.

Didn't come about until 1958. Okay. So we got. So 52. Right. You know, we get the like, here's Chex Mix. You know. Can we make this worse for us and the crunch out of this fucking world?

Yes. We make it out of corn, folks. Which is your fave of these? I think corn. I think it is corn. Yeah. I think corn has the most sort of resilience against milk. Uh-huh.

Yeah. What's your favorite Chex Mix variant? I mean, I like the Ridge because I don't like all the dust that you get on your hands otherwise. Oh, see, you need to tell me this shit because I'm always buying the cheesy ones because I know you like it cheesy. I thought you were buying that for Henry because he's such a cheese fan. Yeah, but I mean, he can't tell the difference between flavors. That's true. He has no idea.

He probably eat Wheat Chex. He would eat Wheat Chex with his pedestrian mouth and taste buds. Here's my last little fun fact. Okay, so according to- You actually can't call them all. I'm going to step in here and say you can't call every fact about your thing fun. That's a little much. So Chex was owned by Ralston Purina, which has a location, and I believe maybe the headquarters, in St. Louis, Missouri.

So Chex Party Mix became popular as a holiday treat. It was called Party Mix? Yeah. That's good. In 1955, when the wife of Ralston executive in St. Louis served the snack at a holiday function. Huh. Purina dog? Like, did he also do the dog chow?

Yeah, Ralston Purina is dog food as well. Huh. And that's in the same building. Yeah, I wonder puppy chow. I wonder if something happened in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure, for sure. It seems wild because if Budweiser and poison were made in the same factory, I don't think

Budweiser would put out a drink called poison. Sort of ironic, right? Like, yeah, that's wild. I do love puppy chow. Holy shit. Yes, so good. It's been quite some time since I've eaten puppy chow. You can buy that one too, but it's not the same. It's not the same.'s not the same no no i feel like they go you need a heavy hand you need a heavy hand

yeah it needs to be more gushy of a loving and irresponsible grandma who is just like yeah let's get these kids fucking jacked up so that they don't sleep on christmas eve ah takes me back i love you and checks next Mix. I love you too. Can I steal you away? Sure. Hey, I've got some Jumbotrons, Griffin. Hit me with those Jumbotrons. This message is for Rhi, or perhaps Rhi.

It is from Kim. Hi, Rhi. I thought I would surprise you with a shout out on your favorite podcast. Oh, thank you. I hope you're relaxing with some Stardew Valley as you're listening to this right now. You are the best game master, a fantastic writer, and I will always love our OC fandom of two. Thank you for being my bestest friend for all these years. Love, Kim.

You got room for two more in that fandom? Yeah, we rewatched the Chris-Mica episodes recently. Yeah, season one, which is the best. Season two and three are a little too heavy for my regular Christmas viewing taste. And then Chris-Mica four is just like out of control. It's its own sort of Into the Spider-Verse, if you think about it. And that's all I'm going to say about it because I don't want to spoil it. That's good.

Do you want me to read this next one? Yes, please. It's for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And it's from Daniel Na, who says, Sup, you nerds. I'm not sure any of you actually listen to Wonderful, but in case you do, thanks for being cool and playing my dumb dungeon world hack

based on the McDonaldland franchise. I promise to try my best not to kill another one of you. Also, thanks for the support as i continue to make bootleg animorph audiobooks much love daniel an enterprising individual uh who is going to be hearing from my lawyers because i've been ronald mcdonald the entire time oh see i would have pegged you as a grimace well thanks rachel is that insulting i'm sorry he hates the their food and wants to destroy it. No, he doesn't.

He started out as a McDonaldland villain for sure. Hmm. He hates their food and wants to destroy it. He's just a big noid. I'm going to have to do some research on that. I could be wrong. Okay. Beginning this summer, you can listen to new episodes of Inside Pop every other week for

an even deeper dive inside the world of pop culture. Now we're still bringing you our brilliant insight, always on the nose opinions, and insidery inside information on the most interesting pop culture stories of the week. And we'll also have interviews with the pop culture professionals who create the culture you crave. For example, we'll speak to casting directors about how they find the right talent for the right role. We'll talk to casting directors about how they find the right talent for the right role. We'll talk to music supervisors about how they choose the music to create the right mood. And we'll grill producers who'll discuss what exactly a producer does. Oh man, Sean, how many times has someone said to you, oh, you're a producer, so what do you actually do?

So many times. Same here. So many times. Same here. So make sure to catch Inside Pop every other Wednesday on Maximum Fun to indulge your pop culture obsessions. And to hear in-depth interviews from the movers and the shakers in TV, music, film, and more. Can I tell you my second thing? Yes.

It is finding a new staple restaurant. A restaurant that cooks staples for you to eat with your robot metal mouth to crush with your metal teeth. I thought you meant the office supply store now has restaurants. They do have pastrami. Sandwiches that are so good they cook them in the printers. They take the printers and they hack them. They run a lot of power through them. And that glass screen with the scanner on it gets really hot. They'll slide some of the paper and the meat in the paper tray.

Is it weird that my mouth is watering as you tell the story? A little bit. I think I'm just thinking of the very good pastrami sandwich I had last month. So I love finding a new staple restaurant. And by that, I mean a restaurant that I know I'm going to go back to. Um, I feel like I've experienced this like so many times since I moved away from Huntington, uh, where I lived for, for 23 years and it was a fantastic place to grow up. There weren't that many new, like exciting restaurants opening up until of course the year I left when dozens of

them started to appear, which is fucking bullshit. I mean, it's good. Good for the city. And it's good every time I go back. But what the fuck, man? Anyway, so I moved to Cincinnati after that. I moved to Chicago after that. I moved to Austin after that. And then I lived in several different neighborhoods in Austin. And every time that that happened, one of the first things that I would do is kind of like look for my restaurants, a place that I know I can go to for good food or convenient delivery options because that stuff is super important to me. I feel like you and I have certain genres of food

that we eat super, super regularly, almost on rotation. Like we are eating Chinese food usually about once a week, maybe a little bit more. Yeah, I think once a week is fair. Maybe a little bit less, I mean. Once every two weeks at the bare minimum. We enjoy a good pizza. We go hard on sushi when we're feeling fancy.

We've had a big day. We'll go get some sushi. And we know the spots to do that stuff in. And it's finding a place to fill one of those spots that is so very, very exciting for me. This just happened. I love pho and there was only one good place at our old house that had it. And then we moved and we're out of their range now.

But then last week we found a new pho place that was really good. And I was like, hell yeah, whenever I want pho, I know there's a thing I can do to get pho. You were really excited i remember that you were like relieved of like the great wait is over there was a good have it again yeah there was a good tex-mex place that we got i remember the day we moved into this house we got tex-mex delivery and i tried to convince myself like this is so good i'm so glad

we have our tex-mex place but it was actually awful but then we did find a good text. We did. There's something about that that I find very comforting. I think that, I know that that may seem like silly, but there is something about moving to a neighborhood and wanting to have the same sort of experiences, food experiences that you have had at other times in your life, and then actually finding them, I think, is kind of a big relief i will also say like dinner is kind of a stress you know and that like our day has ended and we've kind of waited until the last minute to figure out what we're going to eat and knowing that like there is a place you can count on that will deliver something you like yes

there are days where there are days where we don't we don't do a good like planning job and so we get henry down to bed and by that point we're starving and so like we we know we have options um another thing i will say is my like moving days are i pray to jesus behind me um but every time i did move like there is something about finding one of these places that makes a new place that you're living in feel more like home. I will never forget when I moved to Chicago. That was by far like, that was a huge jump for me. I was, when I lived in Cincinnati, I was really, really, actually really far out of Cincinnati. So I don't know that you could technically call that city living. But we lived, you know, in the heart of Chicago.

And I was, you know, country mouse in a big city. I was very nervous. I didn't know that many people in the city. I knew nothing about sort of the geography of the city. And then the first night that we moved into this apartment, we found a restaurant called Hot Walks Cool Sushi. And we ate that and I was like, oh, this is a good place. It was just around the corner.

So I knew I had my place for food cooked in hot walks or cool sushi prepared just for me. It would still be cool by the time I got it back to my apartment. And that made Chicago feel a lot smaller. Like it made it feel a lot more, I felt like I could get a foothold in it. And I don't know,

I think there's maybe something very primal about that, about like oh god i can get food good uh which isn't to say like i didn't cook i love cooking and we we do it often um but you know i don't know how to cook pho so like when i want pho it's it's nice to know i i have no and i think back to like places i've lived throughout my life i like it's kind of interesting to do the like family tree of like oh where were the like four or five places that I used to eat in that place that I lived? It's kind of fun. So when I lived in Cincinnati, I actually lived about 35 minutes outside in a town called Batavia.

And the apartment complex we lived in was just like right next to a mall and nothing else. Like I would have to get on the highway if I wanted. The next closest restaurant was a cheeseburger in paradise um and the mall was you know mall plaza sort of uh food and so i never had like i like i never had a place like i only sort of had food that i made for myself or you know i would go downtown and have i had good meals like cincinnati's got great restaurants batavia does not necessarily uh and so like that that year of my life i just never really had this foothold and so that made it all the more exciting that that first night in chicago and you know the many many times that i had great meals in chicago the year i lived there that uh just i don't know i i ate that city up

and then i knew it and i found that to be very uh a very exciting process i feel like i know austin super well, partially because I've lived here longer than I've lived in any city other than Huntington, but also because like, I know where the spots are. And that's super exciting. Although Austin's kind of incredible. Like I've never lived in a city that like is changing so much month to month. And so like, we were real up on the food scene. And then we had- Maybe six months ago.

Yeah, now we're not so much. And then we took a break. And yeah. Yeah. I have talked for a long time about this it's just uh it's a it's a i've kind of forgotten how like cool the thing this is for me until it happened again last week uh and i i really like it you want to give me thing too yeah what you got and i don't know if we're going to be on the same page on this one yowza i can pretend you'll know if i'm pretending though okay i will home makeover shows You'll know if I'm pretending, though. Okay, I will.

Home makeover shows. Great. Good. I don't think you can lump them in in such a broad category, because some are very good and some are less. Well, and that is true. And so I tried to kind of zero in on the specific parts of a home makeover show that i like uh and the reason i was thinking of this is that we were watching uh marie kondo's tidying up show on netflix sure

uh and for those that aren't familiar she wrote this like book that became this phenomenon called the life-changing magic of tidying up the japanese art of decluttering and organizing which like i feel like almost everybody has heard of this book. Yeah, pretty much. I know lots of people who for about three months, it's all they talked about. Yeah, it's this idea of going through your possessions and individually holding them

and deciding whether or not they spark joy. And if you don't feel very strongly for them, you should probably downsize. Dump it in a river. I think that's what she says is to go out to the nearest river or sort of animal habitat and dump it right the hell in there. That's what she says. She cusses. I cannot imagine that.

I can't imagine either. No. She's fantastic. So it made me think kind of like what is – because for a while I was real into like HGTV too. Oh my God, yes. And I was like, what is it exactly? And I think it's just the idea of taking something that is unorganized and making somebody unhappy and then kind of neatly boiling that down into a like digestible hour of television.

Right. And you get to see kind of the beginning and end and it like all comes together did you watch this stuff growing up because i have two very vivid like two shows that to which i attach very vivid memories i don't know if it really existed so hgtv was launched in 1994 uh and i think at that point I was really focused on MTV. I don't think I was watching home improvement shows, although my parents did watch Bob Vila, which I remember. Okay. I was thinking like Ty Pennington, Extreme Home Makeover.

Yeah, see that wasn't, I don't think that, that wasn't as big of a thing to me. Okay, that was a big thing in our family. That and Trading Spaces. Trading Spaces was, Yeah, for sure. I remember watching that. And so there's all these different research articles out there about kind of the value of having like an organized happy home. Okay.

Which I thought was kind of interesting. So there was a study from Indiana University that said your physical health is more likely to improve if you have a cleaner home. In 2010, there was a study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that found that women that described their spaces as cluttered or full of unfinished projects were more likely to be depressed and fatigued uh in 2011 researchers at princeton found that uh clutter can actually make it more difficult to focus on a particular task which is not surprising yeah uh a survey oh this one i thought was really interesting and made me like rethink our whole life uh a survey conducted by the national sleep foundation found that people that make their beds every morning are 19 more likely to report getting a good night's sleep all right and that if you have clean sheets 75 of people so they get a better night's rest when

their sheets are freshly cleaned that one i believe the making the bed oh i don't know is it is that 19 representative of like the sheets if you get into an unmade bed there's a chance you could climb into a weird fold you know you climb into a weird fold and like your leg gets caught up in it but you don't realize it and then you go to sleep and then at 3 a.m you try to toss and turn but your legs caught in the snare of the weird fold of the weird fold yeah or maybe there was a bag of open cheez-its in there that you didn't realize because you're having night cheez-its i think it's it's more like when when parts of your life feel organized you are like more able to relax and feel like

welcome in this space yeah so if the bed is like more inviting you're like more ready to well i mean that touches on like there's also a lot of sort of uh you know philosophical and like spiritual elements of of home design that that some people i i feel like there is a lot of that going on in marie condo's stuff i don't i did not read the book but just sort of based on the television show like yeah she talks to the house uh tries to like display thankfulness towards the things that bring you joy in the house. Yeah, I mean, mindfulness is kind of a big thing

in the past 10, 15 years. And I feel like that's kind of where this is coming from too, of like being more aware of your space and more like, you know, thoughtful about what you put in it. So there's this organizing expert who wrote a book called behind the clutter and in the book it says for every six minutes people lose 15 seconds searching for items they can't find every one more time for every six minutes people lose 15 seconds searching for items they can't find that sucks yeah that's a lot of time holy shit yeah is that just saying like you have one day where you lose your keys

for 18 hours and so like that throws off i mean if you think about like things that we encounter like trying to find stuff in our kitchen is sometimes challenging uh trying to find like spices in our spice cabinet can be challenging this is true you know and you think about all that time stacked up and it's like oh you know what maybe that is a thing uh yeah i just don't like thinking about it because that adds up that adds up so quickly that adds up so quickly let's see 15 seconds into six minutes that's 1 24th of that six minute period meaning every 24 years i've lost one year to missing objects by the time i was 24 years old i'd spent one year looking for shit i believe that i don't

like it though i don't like it i'll tell you like i i i believe that because i lose stuff all the time i have certain improvements i like this contigo water bottle that i bought last year now i don't have to search for my cupsigo water bottle that I bought last year. Now I don't have to search for my cups of water anymore. That is true. It's the big gray boy that has all the water in it. That's true. So I think there's something there as to why I like those home makeover shows. Because sometimes the families and the people in them can be kind of a turnoff.

But I really enjoy seeing a disorganized space uh be made organized and and and trying to do the same thing myself you know like griffin and i will do little purges of like clothes and stuff we we don't use anymore and that's always really satisfying right to the river right into the river uh yeah we do um yeah i agree i mean shit there was a period there where every time we traveled uh or i was going out for shows We made our things. Yeah, we do. Yeah, I agree. I mean, shit. There was a period there where every time we traveled or I was going out for shows or whatever, HGTV was like my constant companion. Yeah. The Property Brothers became my actual, they were closer to me than my non-Property Brothers in a way, in a manner of speaking.

Yeah. What's your favorite now, though? You got a favorite now? My favorite now? Yeah. a favorite now my favorite now yeah um i don't actually because what happened was we bought the house and then i kind of took a break i don't i don't want to see other nice houses that i didn't just commit 30 years and i did like chipping chipping joanna gaines though so i have some submissions from our friends at home do you want me to read them yes

here's one and it's sent in by becky who says i love it when i see a dog wearing a bandana around its neck it looks so cute and spunky and ready to lead a hiking adventure yeah that is true i do like that i do like a good bandana around a dog's neck um i don't typically like most clothing on a dog how often do you think they change out those bandanas that's a daily thing i hope often i hope often there's probably a subscription box service just for dog bandanas yeah for dog accessories uh here's one from steven who says something i think is wonderful is seeing and identifying animal tracks in freshly fallen snow i moved to chicago and it's nice to see evidence of nature still around me. Today I saw bunny rabbit, cat, dog,

and bird tracks on my sidewalk while walking to my car. That's a wild fucking street. What street do you live on? That is true. I feel like I never saw a bunny when I was in Chicago. Yeah, me neither. Here's one from Rebecca who says,

I love to see people making big bubbles in public spaces. Not only do kids love it, but you get to see adults transform and remember how to play as they chase after these wobbly round things to get that satisfying pop. It's wonderful. Oh, I thought we were talking about the gum bubble. No. That's good too, honestly. That's good too, but watching people use that thing that's like a big hoop on the two sticks

and then get it all oily and make a big bubble. Oh, that's nice. All the adults come out and want to play with it i like a big bubble man i love a big bubble man bubble man is my third thing i know we don't usually bring three but my favorite is the big bubble man bubble man demands being a third thing bubble man is a guy that will float uh up to your window uh knock on your door but you can't hear it because he has all bubbles, and he will ask

you for some bread. And you give it to him and he floats away, and he sings you a little bubble song and he floats away, but if you don't give it to you, if you don't give it to him, he flies into you. He flies into your body. How old is Bubble Man?

I feel like... Ancient. Yeah. Sort of... I feel like if you look on the pyramids, you'll see hieroglyphics of

Bubble Man. He's prehistorical. I mean, he is Lovecraftian and sort of, he's eldritch and old and ancient. But yeah,

he'll fly right in you and then you become the new Bubble Man and it's rough. So just always have some bread on hand. Is this what Kirby is based on? More or less. 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 our episode description. It's a very, very good song. And we are very grateful that we are allowed to use it. And we are also very grateful to Maximum Fun. Tell them all about it. Thank you MaximumFun.org for hosting our podcasts and all sorts of other podcasts that include comedy and culture uh podcasts i want to bring up is can i pet your dog if you're curious about dog bandanas i bet that they have some ideas too the inside scoop

also we have a new website it's mackleroy.family or themackElroy.family where you can find all kinds of stuff, news, merch, new episodes of Monster Factory. One just went up today. All at McElroy.family. We're going to keep updating it with all the content you crave. Oh, should we talk about our new P.O. Box? We got a new P.O. Box. That P.O. Box is P.O. Box 26038, Austin, Texas, 78755.

If you send joke shit to it, I will find you. Please, I shouldn't even say that because then people hear that and they're like, hmm, they're not talking to me. It doesn't even make it to our car. It does not make it to our car. It makes it to the garbage can of the post office. It is wasteful of the post office's time effort gasoline paper

whatever you sent it's your money not good way to spend it because it goes in garbage um uh that's a bad thing to say because we get lots of wonderful stuff it's just we moved and neglected reopening a new one closer to our house but now we've done that one more time it is p.O. Box 26038, Austin, Texas, 7755. Well, that's the episode. Any predictions for what's going to be wonderful in 2019? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. New perfume from... You want to hear what I'm thinking?

Yeah. It's a set of double-stuffed'm thinking yeah instead of double stuff oreos we got double outside oreos now these what's these uh the top and the bottom the cookie part yeah double so two i don't think it'd stick together baby no it's like extra thick oh damn a toothsome it's like a hot dog bun but oreo yeah sure uh what about you what do you think yeah i mean 2019 yeah sure i got one okay uh it's double stuffed double outside oreos it's just really big it's basically you blew it up in like a you know honey i blew up the kids blow up machine so uh you got anything else yeah lamps oh uh but the bulbs are shaped like

your favorite pokemon that's fun and that for you would be of course scrotal sore scrotal sore is an interesting one to say scrotal scrotal no see a lot of people say that but it's it's scrotal sore well the original japanese name of it was loosely translated to Scruttle Soar. So, I don't have another joke. Bye. Working on it, money on it. Working on it, money on it. Working on it, money on it. Working on it, money on it. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

Listener supported. We've all made mistakes in book club, right? You drink a little too much. You don't actually read the book, and if you're under the bubble in Fairhaven, your individual will gets subsumed by the collective. Hey, maybe I just let him go and whip us up some guac. We do not require guac.

We require only nutrients and expansion. You will become book club. You will eat, pray, and love with us. Join book club. Bubble, the sci-fi comedy from MaximumFun.org. Just open your podcast app and search for Bubble.