Wonderful! - Wonderful! 76: "Shades"

Episode Date: March 20, 2019

Rachel's favorite reverse-rapping artist! Griffin's favorite modular furniture! Rachel's favorite eye protectors! Griffin's favorite parodist and national treasure! 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. And you know what else is wonderful hey hey baby you have our money don't you worry it's max fun drive time and i thought that we could pitch that as the theme song to max fun and see what they thought about it hey griffin hey you know what i heard what i heard it's the max fun drive did you hear that bullshit oh come on that happens in jebruary you're always a skeptic but i promise this is not a boy who cried wolf situation this is a girl who cried fun drive and

it's true i can't believe you call me a skeptic just because i think the earth is hollow and i believe in a month called jebruary that is a secret month between march and april i cannot believe you just said that on our love show that we do and people like you're so in love it is max fun drive time though and uh it's the most wonderful time of year because uh you get to show your support for this stuff that you like which hopefully if you're listening to this show you know includes us uh and uh you can you can support us directly by going to maximumfund.org slash donate and giving an amount that you feel comfortable giving to us monthly.

And because of the support, we've been doing some version of McElroy shows have been on the network for eight years now. This is our eighth Max Fund Drive, which is wild. And because of the support we've gotten, we've been able to turn this into full-time careers. So, yeah, your support has changed our lives. And if you are a new listener or maybe you're listening to more shows, you know, we hope you think about donating.

For sure. It's something that we don't ask for most of the time. But once a year we designate a little time to say hey thanks for listening would you consider helping us out yeah um so we're going to talk more about like the pledge gifts you can get and all kinds of stuff a little bit later on but before we get to that hey rachel you got any small wonders uh-oh i always see that there's a look that gives me that i know she doesn't have a small wonder um i did not plan one but let me tell you what i am grateful for when i finish the sentence and the end of the sentence is coming so i'm gonna

say starts with an s it definitely starts with an s i can tell you that much for sure you go first okay i got two one got some new key caps in from a keyboard they're beautiful they're beautiful it's like a like a sunset gradient yeah going from the top keys to the space bar it's beautiful i'm wild about it uh and number two i got to go to fsu earlier this week the week we're recording this and do a lecture for the students there. And it was really great. I've never done anything like that before. That's so cool. There were some nice, thoughtful questions.

And it went so good. And it was nice to, you know, talk to young folks. It was good. I liked it. Did it make you think that you talk to me all the time and I never pay you for it? I did actually have that talk. And I have an invoice that i've been meaning actually to send your way uh do you have a small wonder now finally i do finally now um our son has started to learn

colors uh-huh uh and a lot of times he just walks around pointing stuff out and it's just like i'm watching the whole world in front of him like explode because he's just like he recognizes that things are things and that they also have colors and properties so he'll point at stuff and he'll be like green like it's just occurring to him like this is a thing and also it has a color and it's the best he's also learned recently um defiance well yeah that's not so wonderful the part is rough i came up with the name for it though okay uh post mickey meltdown yeah yeah yeah pmm yeah i can't wait to take him to disney world for a week let's see how that goes uh hey what's your first thing though

my first thing is missy elliott oh yeah god that's the good stuff right there she has slowly over the past few years been reminding us that she is very much still a force oh for sure uh because her time period really peaked between like 1997 and 2005 and then she kind of went dark and i feel like people kind of maybe forgot about missy yeah she had uh graves disease is that's what it called and she she sort of went in the background was doing like production stuff for a while and then came back was the Super Bowl when she sort of like reared her head? God, that was so fucking good. Yes.

Yes. So Missy Elliott, I think, I don't know actually if this new generation really knew about her. But I know she was very much a presence when we were growing up. Absolutely. So I had So Addictive, which was her 2001 album. And that was the one that had One Minute Man and Get Your Freak On. Like, yeah. She was just inducted actually last month into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which is something you can only become eligible for after 20 years from your first commercial release.

Wow. And so she is the first female rapper and the only other rapper besides jay-z to be inducted that's kind of that's wild that there's not more rappers in the song what the fuck else do you yeah i think it's the longevity that's required the 20-year career like you've got to keep active for a long time before they'll let you in yeah that's true so i didn't realize like you know that like missy elliott guests on a lot of other tracks but i didn't realize, like, you know that Missy Elliott guests on a lot of other tracks, but I didn't realize that she has done a lot of writing for other artists, including Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey, Monica, NSYNC, Whitney Houston, Aaliyah. Wow. Ciara and Janet Jackson.

Yeah, I knew she'd collaborated and done some production work. Writer, producer. Yeah, sure. That's wild. She made her debut in 1993 because she helped write Raven-Symoné's debut single. That's what little girls are made of. Okay. I haven't heard that track, but I bet it slaps for sure.

She has written more than 500 songs and has won five Grammy Awards and sold over 30 million records in the United States, which according to Billboard in 2017 made her the best-selling female rapper ever. Wow, yeah. I had never thought of it that way, but I don't know who would come close to competing with that body of work. Yeah, so I found this quote that I really liked

from this story they did on her in 2017 in Elle magazine. It said, while other rappers were adversarial, making you feel broke or uncool or backed up against despair, Missy was inviting us to join her party. Others insulted us for listening, told us about what we didn't have, didn't own, and couldn't brag about. Whereas Missy said, forget who you are, forget what you heard, and come dance with me. Which I just think is like a really great way to summarize kind of her like emergence onto the scene. You know what I love the most about that is that there are other artists who like i think conceptually try and do the same thing and none of them are nearly as like lmfao right

is that the idea i'm making a serious point here like the idea of party rock and like come on let's just get wild and like a lot of the black eyed peas stuff uh which is fine but like it is sort of her whole ethos and also it's some of the best fucking like music ever yeah and i think i mean part of what me like drew me back to her is just my interest in lizzo like lizzo is is obviously like people have noticed uh lately when we were talking about her she was kind of like becoming really popular and now it's just like every month she like becoming really popular and now it's just like every month she has like a new incredible yeah it's this uplifting like positivity yeah exactly and i just i feel like lizzo probably owes a lot to missy elliott for just like

bringing forward this like female rapper who's just like positivity like party starting yeah big way yeah uh lizzo's blowing up right now and i could not be fucking happy i feel like i've seen like five different lizzo features come out in the last like two months uh so she started out in high school and she just happened to know timbaland and pharrell williams growing up okay so like they used to like get together and start like playing songs together that's awesome when they were in high school um but yeah as you as you mentioned like she had all of these great albums super duper fly uh under construction which one had loose control lose control was on the cookbook in 2005 right and that was her last album that came out. Before she, yeah.

Yeah, and I wanted to play a little bit of that. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Bring the roof down and holla. If you tipsy, stand up. DJ, turn it louder. Take somebody by the waist and, uh. Not throwing any face like, uh. Hypnotic, robotic. This here will rock your bodies.

After the cookbook came out, she started to feel ill and suffer dizzy spells and have unexplained weight loss, which was a large part of her taking time off. And then she was diagnosed with the thyroid condition, Graves disease. Everyone was talking about how much weight she lost thinking it was like some big, like fitness craze. And it's like actually the result of this illness she had. So what Griffin referenced is that in 2015,

Katy Perry asked her to appear for two and a half minutes in the middle of the Superbowl. And at that point she hadn't released an album since Cookbook. And she was super anxious. Apparently, she was like having a panic attack the night before that required like medical care. Because she hadn't been like out in front of people. And then you're doing the Super Bowl. Yeah.

So she came out and sang samples of Get Your Freak On, Work It, and Lose Control. But so she came out and sang samples of Get Your Freak On, Work It, and Lose Control. And then apparently, 24 hours later, it was downloaded 20,000 times hitting the number one spot on iTunes. Yeah. Because everyone's like, you know, either they're like, who is this person? This is incredible. Or they're like, I haven't heard Missy Elliott in 10 years. Yeah. And I super want to listen to her music again. to her music again. So I also wanted to play some of her recent stuff. So at this point, she's in like her mid 40s. But she's like slowly working her way back into the scene. In January 2017, she came out with a track I'm better. And before that she came out in 2015 with a single with Pharrell called WTF. So Griffin, I'll let you pick.

I'll play that I'm Better track. I listened to that today. I'm better, I'm better, I'm better. Brand new flow when I rap. DJ, bring that back. You ain't never heard a track like that. Shit might slap, booty go clap. Roll up in the beans.

Looking like a teen star. When I rock, make it bop. In my car, in the bang, bang, bang. Like, yeah. Go blah, blah, blah. So the other thing that was teased on her YouTube page in 2017 was a documentary about Missy Elliott. Yeah, I'm there. And they've filmed some, like, testimonials from a lot of her collaborators.

And, like, so it looks like part of it has been filmed, but it has not been released yet. I do not know when it's going to be released. one day one i'm there day one oh okay i thought you were trying to give me a hint as to when it was going to be released i was like did 2020 january it's day one of the 2020 olympics yeah i don't actually know but uh i'm very much looking forward to it i just like when i was listening to her music again preparing to talk about her there is there are no like there are no disappointment tracks no on like ever she's incredible i love her and her her uh aesthetic is like nothing else that i've ever seen before her music videos are invariably buck wild start to finish like unforgettably yeah it's like unforgettably

like strange and almost like um uh what's what's the word i'm looking for not combative but there's there's an element of it that's just like wow you're really you're really coming after me they all have that like screen shake every time like the beat really drops we're like whoa damn and she has that like that um that growl she does in a lot of her tracks that just like always gets me so hype. It's so fucking good. Yeah. Man, I love Missy Elliott. Can I do my first thing?

Yes. My first thing is sectionals. Sectional sofas. I want to talk about sectional sofas though. Yes. Griffin and I. Go ahead and tell them. Okay.

So for years we've been together and we had not taken that step as a couple. And then just recently we said, we're ready. Let's do it. It's a big leap. And it's good. It's changed. It's really, really good. I'm all about like peak functionality from the furniture that I own.

And just like, you can't beat a sectional in that regard. And owning the sectional in my own house is very exciting to me because actually it's been a while since I've been a part of the sectional team. We had one in the house growing up. I know. So jealous. When I was in middle school, we had this like back like storage room on the house uh and like a backyard and we tore that out and put in a basketball court and a family room and in the family room we put a sectional sofa and it was dope it had so much stuff it had like a lounge section it had a fold down the recliner uh yes it had two recliners it had a fold down like tray with cup holders in it it was out out of control, this sectional.

It's like having a little Voltron in your house. It's like a little Voltron. And I don't know what we did before that furniture, because there were five of us. Yeah, that's enormous. So the traditional two-couch sort of structure is going to be kind of a tight fit when we're all gathered up together watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on the couch. It's got so much functionality and I love it. And so they became sort of in fashion

and more common in the mid 20th century. But sectionals, as we know them now, there is evidence of them actually being around in like the early 19th century. Yeah. So there was a three-piece sectional found in Fredericksburg, Virginia that was dated back to 1820 that had like the metal hooks to like hold it all together and was obviously like a custom job. So like a lot of these things could be found among like wealthier households in the American South.

And then during Civil War, like a lot of them were destroyed. It's like you need enough space for a sectional. And enough money to have one custom built for you. So like these wealthy people who are entertaining guests and stuff got them made. But, you know, over time and during the Civil War, like most of them were destroyed. But yeah, it's not a like super modern invention. It was very much like the same thing it is now. Just this like sectionals are very much the Burger King of the furniture world because you can really have it your way, baby. Like you can show when we were.

Should we pause a minute for that great joke you just made? Yeah, I guess. Now I feel I feel naked. I feel exposed. Okay, continue. When we were shopping for our sectional like there's just a menu of things you can choose from you can have you know sofa sections you can have the lounge the chaise lounge you can have a little love seat section you can have the corner the corner piece is what does it like without a corner piece it is it is just two couches or it could i mean the corner piece could also be like a little tray tape a little you know tray with cup holders it can be a little media console i think justin justin and sydney have

one too and it's got like a little there's like folds down it folds down and there's a power outlet in it what the fuck yeah it's a couch uh you get the recliners you can get whatever um and yeah in more recent years that's when we get the tech that's when we get the cup holders that's when we get the the cooled powered cup holders and the media stuff inside it um i just like i enjoy getting a good lounge going i enjoy making myself comfortable in the furniture that i know i'm going to spend a lot of time with and sectionals just allow me to approach that grand quest in a different way every time i lie down on it am i gonna like stretch out on that side of it or that side of it or like curl up in the corner or like lean up against the armchairs like we have

a new room within within a room in our house and i find myself a lot of times thinking like i have all the space yes i have all the space now what am i going to do it's so optimistic it's optimized for the space it's optimized for our space and we get more just raw seating power out of the space that we already have because of that sweet corner section it's just it's all so good it's like bringing me closer to my dream of just a room that is all couch where you just kind of like step down into it and you're just like on the couch already and everybody can be on couch in the world i want to give the world a couch and tell them to take a freaking load off for a bit.

I almost actually accomplished this dream in my bedroom with Superbed, which I'm sure I've talked about before, which was two twin bed mattresses pushed together and wrapped in a California King sheet. And it was so big in like the very small rooms I was living in, in like Batavia and Chicago. And I almost had that setup

where you could just step foot into bedroom and you're in, you're in bed already. Can you imagine? You're not as excited about this idea as I am. Um, I just, I love, uh, I love it. I love a sectional. I do. It does make me, it's bittersweet. Cause I feel like when I look at a sectional, I get this sense that humanities like furniture evolution has like really slowed to a halt because what, what kind of new stuff are we bringing to the table post post-sectional? I don't know. I've seen sectionals where they,

they do just what you're describing. They take what is basically like an Ottoman piece and they put it right in the middle. That's great. So you got like a full, but that's still sectional. You know what I mean? Like I want new,

I want a coffee table that, you know, also, uh, what if it was called the dimensional oh shoot and i pulled it up and you could have a bunk sectional that would be pretty cool yeah babe that's badass all right um how about it how about it science come on science where's my hover hover coffee table that's what i want um hey let's talk about maximum fun and the drive that we do. I guess, but, you know, keeping it in fashion, I'm going to steal you away. Can I tell you something unique about the MaxFunDrive opportunity?

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I forget what we did, but I'm sure it was hysterical. But it's not just our show that you get the bonus content for. Oh, was it the interview with Jasmine? Was that last year? That was, no, that was Rose Buddies. Yeah. Anyway. But you get all that.

You get all that. You get everything that every show has done throughout time, all the bonus content. And it's like over 100 hours. It's like a ton of stuff to go listen to and that's just five bucks a month uh and then 10 bucks a month you get this beautiful pin you tell you seeing this pin okay i'm seeing this pin it is it is a hot dog yes says small wonders above it looks good has little stars on it it's got little stars because you got to uh you get this and you get a max fun membership card and you get the the bonus episodes at ten dollars a month um if you're feeling frisky how about this

puzzle though i've never seen i've never seen so many dang pieces in one puzzle this 550 piece puzzle that you get at 20 a month uh and the stuff that comes before it you get the you get the um you know the pin and you get the card and you get the episodes yeah it's a whole tiered system yeah it's a whole pyramid everything comes along for the ride oh shoot they say specifically not to say no it's not a pyramid scheme uh it's a way of supporting us that we we really really appreciate you were a donor to the network before you had a show on the network right oh for sure i was yeah i was a donor before we were even married whoa that's true dedication had to get that bonus content had to get it really wanted up in there we've made some pretty buck wild stuff uh across all of our our shows um so yeah you can get some

cool stuff but you know if if that doesn't sound interesting to you just the the knowledge that you are helping us grow and um uh try and do more stuff because again like everything we're doing now is because of the because of the support you've shown us through the over the past yeah and i would encourage you and this is something we talk about if you um have been donating and have since you know increased your your income level and increased your enjoyment of other shows on the network, I would encourage you to consider upgrading. Yeah, or if you're a donor and maybe your credit card stuff has changed and your donation has lapsed,

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And yeah. Should we get on with the business? Yes. What's your second thing? Second thing. Sunglasses. Hey, okay. These are the dark glasses. These are the dark glasses you wear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They look pretty cool. They make you look like, you know who I always think of when I see the sunglasses? Terminator. Oh, see, I thought you were going to say the Men in Black. No, the Terminator did it first. Terminator, did you know this? Terminator came out before Men in Black, and he was the first one with sunglasses. They made him for that movie. That's not what my notes say. Well, tear up your notes because I'm here to tell you the dang truth about it.

And it's that the Terminator made the sunglasses to protect his robot eyes. The very first sunglasses were created by the Inuit people as slices of walrus ivory cut with thin slits to keep out the sun.

Okay. So not glass. No. Like just like a circular piece of ivory that just has a little slit cut out in the middle. Can I say something? And this is not a joke. I bet those look fucking badass. Yeah, I bet they do too.

I bet they look super, super cool. Glasses featuring dark lenses came about in 12th century China. Holy shit. Yeah. dark lenses came about in 12th century china holy shit yeah the glasses we know today that have like the different tints like blue and green different tints came out in the 18th century and it was focused more on um elderly people uh because it helped create contrast interesting so if your vision was failing this was like a way to create contrast and make it easier to see where you were going i always just thought it was like a stylistic choice no actually

i haven't even uh an even deeper cut here okay early tinted glasses were also used as an accessory for those who suffered from syphilis what there were two telling symptoms of syphilis. One was light sensitivity and the other was one's nose rotting off. Oh, God. So to fix this, there was a pair of round, dark glasses that had a metal nose covering that people would wear. I feel like I've seen these. I feel like I saw these in a museum or something. Yeah. That's a little rough for me.

To cover up your whole face. Your whole, yeah. Hey, Rachel. Hey, that's a that's what that's a little rough for me to cover up your whole your whole face your whole yeah yeah that's yeah that's right hey rachel hey hey that's rough i know no it's very rough that one's rough so when they became cool was when movies started well hold on hold on hold on i would argue that from the moment that an inuit person made these dope ass ivory slit sunglasses they started being cool immediately right then yeah but I guess you couldn't like you couldn't go to stores and and choose from a selection of maybe you could have yeah you know I don't know I don't know we'll have to we'll have to do like some kind of travel through time Bill and Ted's excellent

adventure to figure that one out yeah not only were movie stars using them to disguise themselves the lights used on film sets and cameras were extremely powerful and harsh flash bulbs even contain magnesium oh yeah i know all about that it's really hurt your eyes out there on the the red carpet when we were shooting the uh the tv show it was just like the bright lights were, I felt like a big moth or something. I thought it was weird that you were using 1920s cameras, but it really comes across, I think, in the final product. We want it to be authentic, you know?

All this digital, when it's digital, you can't even fucking feel it. No. I want that old, dirty film. At the end of the 1920s, sunglasses became a full blown fashion accessory. Sam Foster created the first iteration of mass produced sunglasses as we know them today. And he started selling them out on the beach in Atlantic City. It really seems like somebody should have hopped on this one if we were doing this shit back in like the 13th century or 12th century.

But it wasn't fashion you know once it was fashion people wanted a pair i bet it was always fashion but people were too scared to make it fashion you know what i mean like i bet there were people who were looking at these like dope ass syphilis nose glasses and being like they look so cool but there's a stigma i know yeah in 1936 stigma was still there? And like, Terminator puts his sunglasses on and people are like, does he have syphilis? What's going on? Why would he do that? What was that?

In 1936, Edward Land was one of the founders of Polaroid and he invented polarized glasses. And then Ray-Ban created the classic aviators, which gained infamy after being used by pilots who wore them during wartime in the 1940s which allowed sunglasses to cross over into menswear i've never been interesting to think about though like that it was kind of when all the like female actresses were wearing it they were like oh it's like a woman's thing and then um all of a sudden big the pilots are wearing them and men are like oh cool me too i mean war did that for like the the two world wars did that for like so many things. That's very true.

Actually, a lot of things like with fashion, like different textiles and stuff like that. But I think the great thing about sunglasses is that you can wear them and look cool. And they're also really important in protecting your eyes because the sun really can give you all sorts of like damaging eye conditions. The sun? I like sun. sorts of like damaging eye conditions the sun i like sun i like sun and i need sun to you know stay happy and keep my skin uh you know keep my skin looking looking fresh i guess uh you stay inside you get that d deficiency and you know the eczema the eczema um but the sun also can the sun will do some tricky shit from time to time.

Can really like, you know, it can like degrade your vision and give you like, you know, tumors. Hurt the skin, yeah. Horrible things in there. So sunglasses. Mixed bag the sun, I'd say. It's nice that sunglasses give you an option to like, you know, protect yourself and look cool doing it. Do you remember being young and having a pair of sunglasses that meant a lot to you? Oh, because I've got a story. Oh, I mean, I had some of those like John Lennon style sunglasses when I was

in middle school that I was real excited about. But that's kind of the extent of my story. Okay. I have one that was at Centrifuge, which was a church camp. I went to in, uh, North Carolina, I believe what's up all my other futures. Uh, just had a, having a good time. I think I went there like three years or in a row every time our church youth group went. And one year I had a pair of sunglasses that I thought were so bad-ass, um, that I wanted

the nickname shades and I wanted the nickname Shades. And I wanted people, and I think I've done that a previous year, but I wanted people, I wanted to try on Andy for size since Andrew is my middle name. I just wanted to see like what that felt like and that didn't catch on. And then I guess it was just my impression that going to church camp, I could be a new man for the week that we were there. And so I tried shades on for size. And I think like the bunk master or whoever, like leader of the youth group that I was bunking with was like, you can't give yourself your own nickname, Griffin. That's not how that, sorry, shades. That's just not how that works. I just, your statement about being a new man just made me think of an idea and I want to

get it out there in case anyone does it. Uh, Hamilton parody based on church camp. Oh, okay. In church camp, you can be a new man. Yeah. That's really good. Just wanted to put that out in the world in case anyone takes it. I want everyone to know. Take it and run with it. Um, Also sunglasses brought you and I together. And I think that's the most important thing they've done. That's so true.

Yeah, I gave you that pair of sunglasses at South by Southwest. Yeah, the first time we met, Rachel, I didn't have any sunglasses, and we were at, I think, Liberty Bar, seeing Sandra Leche, I think, at a concert, and you had a pair of Mike's Hard Punch. Mike's Hard Lemonade. Yeah. You actually offered me a red pair and an orange pair.

And literally first words you ever spoke to me were offering me these sunglasses. And I took the- You were squinting. I was squinting. And yeah, those were special sunglasses that I lost during some move. I feel bad about that.

I thought you were gonna talk about, when you said sunglass story, I thought you were gonna talk about the goggles that you and Evan Minsker had where you popped out one of the lenses. Those weren't sunglasses. So I'm not gonna embarrass myself twice on the same podcast. But yes, were going to talk about the goggles that you and Evan Minsker had where you popped out one of the lenses. Those are sunglasses. So I'm not going to embarrass myself twice on the same podcast. But yes, I did have Hot Topic goggles.

They were red. My friend Evan got a green pair. And then we popped the lens out each. Do you want me to call you Shades, Griffin? I think I'd like that a lot. I can call you Shades. Try Andy. Andy?

No, I don't like Andy. I don't like Andy for you. But I like Shades. And I think if your oldest brother, Justin, can go by hoops, you can definitely go by shades. Hoops, shades, and then Travis is going to need something. I mean, he has scraps. Yeah. I mean, we all have our own family nicknames.

But hey, can I do my second thing? Yes, please. Weird. Al Yankovic. Oh, good. Yeah, somebody needed to do it. It's like we have a closet in our house full of things that we love yes and there are certain things that really need to be mentioned yeah

and pulled out every once in a while that closet and Weird Al is one of them and usually whenever we talk about a musician like we play me I don't think I need to play music during this segment because a like I don't know how I would pick the song that i would play only if you can find like a lesser known weird al track yeah i don't know and then uh like if if i don't know everybody's already heard all of these songs i just want to talk about weird al yankovic because i think he's the best i've been uh listening to there's an episode of hollywood handbook that just came out that he's the guest on and it's uh hysterically funny um and so yeah i love weird al yankovic uh the just his sort of creative drive and also ethos and also music when i was your first yeah what's your first weird al exposure

because i remember mine uh i mean holy shit it was probably amish paradise is like i mean no like so my first like exposure to weird al and this is going to sound like I'm trying to be a hipster, but it's not because I grew up in a weird like comedy cult household. It was Dr. Demento. There's this radio show called Dr. Demento that was syndicated out of Southern California where just this very eccentric man named Dr. Demento would just play weird shit on the radio. And I think we had them on like cassette tape or something like that and i don't know if my dad is the one who procured those working at a radio station himself but we would listen to them and uh they would play all kinds of weird stuff on it and then uh that's actually where weird al got his start dr demento came to uh it was like 1970 something. And Dr. Demento went to Weird Al's high school to do a talk.

Oh, my gosh. Weird Al was like doing his thing already at the time. And he was like playing at coffee shops. I didn't know this story. Isn't there a Weird Al documentary? There is, but it's like a parody documentary. And we made it like 20 years ago. So he came to Weird Al's school. And Weird Al like gave him a tape of some of his original songs.

And Dr. Demento liked them and started playing them on the air. And so like he got a start like super, super young. When he was in college, he had a radio show. I think he was studying architecture at the time. He had a radio show and like people were already calling him Weird Al because for obvious reasons and so he like used that as his like radio persona um and do you know what his first like big hit was do you know what his first like song to get uh released on an album was was it eat it no long before eat it uh the knack came out with my sharona and he did a cover of it called my bologna uh that he sent to Dr. Demento who loved it and started playing it all the time.

And then just it was Kismet, the lead singer for The Knack, liked it a lot. He heard the song and he liked it. He sent it to Capitol Records, who was their record label, and they actually signed Weird Al for six months and released My Bologna as like a single. I mean, he was in college, but like he was still he was he was pretty young. And then like his shit just like took off. And it he like continued to just constantly crank stuff out for the next three and a half decades. He's just like been on his grind since, you know, the late 70s. That's wild to me, the consistency with which he's been able to do this.

He did the OWL TV specials for MTV. Did you ever watch any of those? I did, yeah. God, those were so, so, I was obsessed with those. He, you know, released a ton of albums. He's also won five Grammys when I heard you say that that about miss elliot who also started in high school and won five grammys i was like wow that's wild um he won actually won this year uh he released a compilation set called squeeze box and it won for and i did not know this was a category best boxed or special limited edition package yeah uh which is amazing he made uhf the movie uhf which i have not watched in quite some time but I was absolutely obsessed with when I was a little kid uh he's written children's books uh he has we have to get some

of those I know I think he's written two children's books uh he's like done vo and guest spots and like a ton of different shows uh he had his own like kids television show for a while that you can find like episodes of uh online that are so good my brother and me show yeah so like i'm i am maybe biased a bit because he was on our tv show uh travis uh this is a true story we were filming the last episode and it was the last like it was the day before we recorded the live show which was the last thing we shot that was our our champagne shoot as they they call it in the industry um and travis like disappeared for a whole day and we had no idea why until the live show when he revealed that he had gone to i believe cincinnati where weird al was doing a show and got weird out to do a cameo and i was so pissed off because i wanted

to meet weird al and i don't know why travis got to do the segment and i didn't but um yeah he's also like he's been a director for music videos for a ton of different people. Like he did a video for Hanson. He did a video for Presidency United States of America, which is nice and cyclical because he did, he did Gump, which was a parody of Lump. He did a video for Ben Folds. I think it was, it might've been Rock in the Suburbs, which he had a music video for. I just watched that video the other day. He's released over 150 songs, both like parody and original songs across his albums and has sold uh over 12

million albums uh i just like you have to appreciate his productivity and um i just feel like it's really remarkable i feel like it's hard not to appreciate his body of work unless you're one of the people who he parodied and did not necessarily appreciate it uh the most high profile sort of issue the most high profile uh ted atet he ran into with this situation was with culio uh after the release of amish paradise about that um basically the long story short uh culio's record label the that that represented him when Amish Paradise came out said that he was fine, told Weird Al, like, he's fine with you doing the parody song. And so he did Amish Paradise and it was this huge hit. And then Coolio claims that, like, I never actually gave permission for this.

And luckily, like, no big legal, like, nasty legal battle happened. But they did start paying him royalty payments for the song. And then later on, they squashed the beef at CES 2006. There was like some event that they were at where apparently they managed to get over it. And then in 2014, actually, Coolio was in an interview and they asked him about it. And he was actually like really remorseful. He was talking about how he was just acting like a big shot and how he was like being really cocky when like he should have just embraced it uh and he said that actually he

thought the show the the song was quote funny as shit which i really love uh and other artists have just like flat out refused to give him permission to use their work like uh prince like he kept coming to prince like please god i have a thing for kiss i have a thing for 1999 please please please and prince was like no no you're not gonna do it uh there was paul mccartney of course that's never really and a lot of these people like paul mccartney's like i'm a fan of weird al yankovic but i don't want him to touch my songs yeah uh and and m&m one time he got permission from james blunt uh and his record label atlantic records to do a cover of you're

beautiful uh just called you're pitiful and he wrote it and he recorded it and prepared to put it on an album and then atlantic records uh rescinded their permission and said like nope you uh you can't do it but james blunt was still cool with it. So he started just doing it at live shows and he like released it on MySpace to get around it. There's a picture of him that I found while researching this playing a concert during that era, I think it was like 2000. Oh shit, I don't know when the song came out,

but he's just wearing a bright yellow shirt that says Atlantic Records sucks on it, which is pretty great. I just, I don't know, man. I admire like how much juice he's got like i admire how much how many different disciplines he's like tapped into and his productivity like that is my absolute shit like that's the kind of thing i really admire in an artist um and also like he seems like the best dude but also like nobody else has been able to write funny parody songs

consistently no it's true like he's the only he's literally the only one out there who has made a Also, like nobody else has been able to write funny parody songs consistently. No, it's true. Like he's the he's literally the only one out there who has made a career out of this thing that I can think of. I think I think it's like it seems deceptively easy. I think people I think a lot of people like hear it and think like, oh, I could do that. But like, no, there's no way there's no way you can make it good. Like those those songs stand on

their own that's what i think is kind of incredible it's like a lot of people write parody songs that like you know are only really good if you like know the source material but like his songs like stand on their own as good songs by themselves yeah there's a sense of there the the sense of humor of those songs is not limited to um i'm going to write some his songs rarely make fun of the source material right which i feel like a lot of parody like people who try to write parody songs like fall prey to they have there's a joke that is its own thing that exists within the body of the work and also like his uh his polka medleys that i loved his like his uh his parodies but the polka medleys that he included on every album like that was my absolute shit i would listen to

those so much and then uh he actually just released a new one either last year or the year before of hamilton the hamilton polka which is so incredibly good um yeah i don't know i just uh i do not i don't listen to his stuff as much anymore, right? But it's like so many things that we talk about on this show. But when you look back at like the three and a half decades of work that he has done and how much he has done and how much quality he brought in being the only artist representing this entire genre in the universe. Like, I feel like his career is one of the most sort of spectacular of any musician how hard he must have worked because if you think about him sitting in a room with like labels and saying okay so i have this thing that i do and also i

play the accordion on it yeah and also i'm gonna keep wearing my hair like this and keep wearing these glasses and keep wearing these shirts and there there's really nothing you can do about it. There was the big controversy. I think it was around the poodle hat or like one of those early, early aughts, late 90s albums where he got LASIK surgery done. And when like LASIK was still like super early. And so he lost the like Coke bottle glasses and shaved his mustache and let his hair like grow out super long, which is like his current look. And people freaked the fuck out people lost their minds it's like when dylan went electric it's like what is this yeah and he had this famous quote back then that was like uh if madonna's allowed to change her look every 15 minutes i think i'm allowed to change mine every 20 years

uh he's the best he's the best uh and yeah i just i really i really admire weird al and i know a lot of people who do and there's a damn good reason for it yeah um we want to talk about the max fun drive just a little bit more before we let you go uh and talk about our our fan submissions from home if you wouldn't mind us trying to make the hard sales pitch just one more time uh i mean max fun drives two weeks so we're going to talk about it next week maybe we can do it in funny voices yeah like we'll do a weird Al parody because it's so easy. And we'll do it to the – what song is hot? We can do it to a Missy Elliott song.

So it'll be like, you got money? We need money. Put your money down on maximum – we're close. We're so close. We're really close. Yeah, I want to talk about some of the other pledge donation levels. Do you have them on your phone? We're close. We're so close. We're really close. Yeah. I want to talk about some of the other pledge donation levels. Do you have them on your phone? Maybe you could put this down on the wax, as they say.

Okay. So Griffin told you about the pin. He told you about the puzzle. Yes. What he didn't tell you is the glass coffee mug. Yes. At $35 a month, you get a glass coffee mug engraved with the max fun rocket logo it's a dope logo you also get the puzzle you get the pin you get the bonus content

you get the membership card you get the satisfaction and i appreciate the glass coffee mug because one year i think they did um uh shot glasses and i know not everybody enjoys a shot but i don't know anyone that doesn't enjoy a hot beverage i love shot glasses and i have not done a shot since 2007 uh if you are able to pledge at the 50 a month level you get a metal engraved max phone membership card personalized with your name in addition to the mug the puzzle you get everything the pin there's there's higher levels too if you are really uh really feeling it and you have the means but like whatever you are able to give we we hear sometimes from people who are like sorry i could only do five dollars a month and like you don't understand how like meaningful your your

support is in any way shape or form um we we have been able to to grow and uh do things with these shows that i don't think we ever thought we were going to do. If it weren't for these shows, I don't know what the fuck I'd be doing. Like, I guess I'd still be like, you know, writing video game news, which actually when I put it that way, you know, either way would have been okay.

But I'm like this version a lot more, I think. Yeah, but Griffin has nice equipment now that gets you this great sound quality. Yeah, got this bright ass key caps he's got software that allows him to do the the home improvement stingers that we all love so much that's pretty diy i wouldn't bring those up i really scotch tape those together i've got this nice metal folding chair that i sit on now that's all we got to talk about folding chair do you know that one cost me like nine dollars at tart no this some of this equipment is like quite quite

expensive the mics we use and the you know the sound interface is without your support yeah um so your show has a your your support has a direct and material impact on these shows so if if these shows have meant something to you over the years and you have the means we would love your support at maximumfund.org donate help us hit that 25,000 new and upgrading member goal and feel this like the sense of satisfaction that you get when you support the things you love. What's that link again? One more time. It's MaximumFun.org slash donate.

It's a good web address that you can go to and help us. So you want to hear some submissions from our friends at home? Okay. I got some good ones this week. Here's one from Beckett who says, I work in an air and space museum and a couple of days a week, I'm out on the floor with a table full of meteorites people can hold and learn about. My absolute favorite thing is watching people's faces when I hand them what looks like a regular old golf ball sized rock and telling them it's over 4.5 billion years old. The look of interest and awe on their faces

makes me so happy, and a lot of the times they'll start asking more and more questions about space and meteorites. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, a lot of rocks are old, but apparently meteorites are the most old rocks, and I like that.

I like that too. Here's one from Lauren who says, my wonderful thing is pinball. It's how me and my boyfriend met, and we play in a weekly league where we've met lots of amazing new friends who share our love of this cool and skillful game. You just can't beat that feeling of nailing a hard shot or beating your own high score on a machine.

I love the idea of a pinball league. Yeah, I bet they exist all over. I bet there's one in Austin. There are so many like pinball things that I enjoy, but I have no idea like what techniques and tricks there are. It would be awesome to like have a group of people that like help you figure that stuff out. I'm so terrible. I'm so bad at pinball. I wish I was good at it. I see. I don't think you're so bad. I just think you're used to being really good at games.

That's maybe true. Here's the last one from Kyle who says, my small wonder is shuffling cards. I love the feeling of cards slipping into each other, into my hands and think the distinct snapping sound shuffling makes. I love the feeling of cards slipping into each other into my hands and think the distinct snapping sound shuffling makes. It feels great to hear. Also, fun fact, 52 factorial is such an astronomically large number that each time you pick up a deck of well-shuffled cards, you are holding a unique combination that very likely never existed before and will never exist again. Just one more wonderful thing about shuffling cards. That's the best. It's very good. I love my special cards. Club bangers right when people want to send submissions where do

they do it they can do it at a wonderful podcast at gmail.com and um yeah we got lots of time because we're recording this like three weeks in advance before we head out uh on the on the cruise so get those in get your donations in at maximumfund.org donate thanks to bowen and augustus for these for our theme song money won't pay find a link to that in the episode description um and you want to talk about some of the shows you're listening to on the maximum fund network long as we're uh talking about them and supporting them and stuff yeah of course um i want to mention ones that i haven't talked about a lot friendly fire is a great one um that's john roger yeah let's say you like the flop house

because you like hearing people talk about movies well friendly fire they do that but explicitly with war movies uh which i know a lot of people love can i recommend beef and dairy network i think that show is fucking hysterical it is so funny if you've never listened to it try listening to one episode it'll blow your mind it is a very very good show about uh secret beef innovations uh beef rumors uh dairy secrets just a lot of really great stuff in beef and dairy network it's hysterical uh yeah there's a ton of shows on the network you can show your support to now and um yeah our website's macro dot family got new stuff going up on there all the time and uh that's it. You want to take us out? With our signature farewell.

Here it comes from Rachel McElroy. Keep your toes pointed forward and your elbows pointed back. Yeah. So I'm in this sort of diving position and now where am I supposed to go and turn your head okay towards the sky is this yoga i've never done it but it's i feel like this i feel like you're making me do yoga okay now what now i can't see what's coming in front of me that my toes are looking at and i'm gonna boopop you on the nose. Ow!

Ow! Till next week. Why'd you do that? Money won't pay Bustin' all day Money won't pay Bustin' all day Money won't pay

Bustin' all day Money won't pay Bustin' all day Money won't pay B Money won't pay. Money won't pay. Money won't pay. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.