Wonderful! - Wonderful! 85: Mr. Balloons Goes to Washington

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

Griffin's favorite food opportunity! Rachel's favorite water war innovation! Griffin's favorite fictional master thief! Rachel's favorite nutty paste! 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. Carly Rae Jepsen did it. Did the fucking thing again. You don't know what it's like having to sit on that. She's got an album out, guys. She has an album out.

It has a thousand tracks on it. And each one is a, I'm going to say, sensual banger. Those two words together aren't great, but it's a different Carly. It's a grown up. And this energy that it's pouring into all of us, and it's good. It's wonderful. The tour is going to happen and the music i haven't listened to it yet what the music you you haven't listened to

what'd it come out friday uh it came out uh it's i don't know it seems like it's time immemorial because of how much it's changed the just sort of sort of the landscape. I mean, it's Tuesday. I just haven't gotten around to it. Okay. I mean, I guess we had a busy weekend together. So it's good. It's called Dedicated. It's good. And that's a...

You got anything? What's that on Spotify or something? No, you can only get it at Suncoast. Sorry. Now that I'm like actually here in the moments come where I can talk about a good thing on a good podcast, I'm like i've run out of steam i've run out of steam so quickly oh here comes the steam's coming back it's so good um this is a show where we talk about good things things that we like things that we

love even sometimes things we're in love with maybe even sometimes yeah all the time i am in love with you so rachel are you gonna talk about me this week no am i the wonderful thing this week you're the wonderful thing every week but people would not tune into that show if i was like probably would this week uh you got it folks it's rachel you've heard me talk about her smile her humor her wit her intellect the butt we did a whole holiday special about each butt cheek it took two years but today we're gonna talk about her soft hair damn it we've done that one already we have her left earlobe okay it's cool this one dangles it's unpierced because it's not a conformist and that's it's good you want to know my small wonders yeah please pen 15 i've heard that's good

i watched the first season on hulu while griffin was on tour and it is so much fun what's it what is it like what's it about uh it's these two women who are now in their early 30s and they play themselves as middle school students and the cast is entirely middle school teens and them okay is it like did you ever watch like strangers with candy yeah okay a little bit but but they don't address the fact that they're older oh okay i see it's them actually inhabiting themselves as as young people oh that's fun uh and and they do some stuff that's very like 90s specific which i appreciate a lot uh and it's a great show i've been watching the americans holy shit that's a good one wow that's a good show rachel is angry at me because I think she wants to watch it.

Yeah, you really took off. Well, see, initially you said, oh, I just started it. Maybe you can catch up. And I said, how many episodes? And you said six. And I thought, well, that's, that's not. It's eight now. You need to, you gotta hit the, you gotta pound the pavement.

I have a lot of wonderful things right now. Like I'm super into a lot of different stuff. The Carly album. I just got the Oculus Quest, the standalone VR thing. And I fucked with it for like a half hour and it's like changed my life. I came home and Griffin

had the telltale marks on his forehead. The raccoon face. And then I had something else. I've been playing Golf Blitz on my phone. It's a golf game. Stickman golf game.

It's really good. And I want everybody to play it with me so I can beat you because I'm better than you. And I need the trophies. I gotta get the trophies, babe. I think I'm better than you. And I need the trophies. I got to get the trophies, babe. I think I go first this week. Sure. Do I? Sounds right. My first thing this week is

rice. My first thing is rice. The stuff, the grain, the thing we call rice that you can eat any damn way you please because it's rice, baby. Huh. We had rice last night. I had rice last night. Yeah, I did not. You had a salad. I had rice last night. Ah, dar, we're going to have rice tonight. I think I'm eating rice like three or four times a week at this point.

You know we're going to have rice tonight. Hell yeah, we're going to have rice tonight. We got big plans to eat Chinese food and watch a hockey game. We're super, super stoked about it. Unless the Blues lose, in which case, I guess we'll know by the time this comes out. But anyway, rice is so good. Don't you think so? I do, actually.

I had always kind of convinced myself that it was a healthier option. Oh, no. But it's just a carb. But it's a nice small carb. Yeah. And you can put a lot of stuff on it unlike a like bread for example um yeah you can't put hardly anything on bread the you know um i didn't i never really liked rice when i was younger i didn't really like it i mean i was a very very picky eater and so like actually a lot of

um like particularly asian food i was like just not into until I was like. Well, you were also having like the West Virginia spin on Asian food, which maybe isn't as reliable. That is fair. But I didn't even like I think what excites me about rice is that rice is for me a medium, a food platform. Yes. And I didn't appreciate that. I just thought it was a kind of mostly flavorless side dish. Yeah. And that's not the case because a

it's got good flavor especially brown rice like uh i i prefer white rice but brown rice has kind of a nuttier flavor that i can i can get into um but also it's just like when you have rice you've got options like we've got a big bag of rice in our pantry and now like if we have that and we have a vegetable of any kind and maybe a protein of some sort and a sauce that's dinner yeah it can be dinner now make the case for me why it's better than pasta why rice is better than pasta i don't know i feel like with pasta you have to think about the type of noodle you have to think about the shape and obviously there's uh long grain medium or grain short grain rice although short grain is mostly for like mashing into a pudding

and long grain is uh you know typically like side dish eat it as as it is grain rice um you don't have to worry about that with rice though i just feel like rice is more sometimes i get in the mood for pasta sometimes i do get in the mood for pasta but like if i'm going to eat some meat and vegetables on something i want that to be rice yes if it's a if it's a hearty sauce if it's a hearty sauce or something maybe i'll talk to you about pasta maybe we'll get there together rice is obviously enjoyed by a few people around the world. Just you and me. It's me and Rachel,

and most people aren't into this underground hit grain that is called rice. Hey, you guys hear about rice? Yeah. The only thing is that it is an agricultural commodity with the third highest worldwide production. They only did 741.5 million tons of that shit in, what was that, in 2014. And also it provides more than one-fifth of the calories consumed by humanity.

Weird. That's so much rice. Holy shit. I would have thought it was the Krispy Kreme donuts. Those Krispy Kreme donuts have my number, don't they? Yeah. And you like this character, by the way. I do. It's very

Kathy and I like that a lot. It's versatile. It can be anything you want. It's what sushi is made out of. And that sushi's good, isn't it? Yeah. I was thinking like, well, I could bring jambalaya. I could bring sushi.

I could bring, you know, pork tonkatsu on rice. But why not just bring rice? Well, I could do paella or I could do rice because rice is all of that shit. Yeah. I just like, I don't know. I like having the safety and comfort of knowing I have rice in the pantry, that I have some amount of rice. Easy to cook. They make machines that just fucking cook it for you. And then you that I have some amount of rice. Easy to cook. They make machines that just fucking cook it for you.

And then you don't have to set it and forget it, baby. Yeah, that did. That was a big game changer for us when we like invested the whatever, like $16 into a rice cooker. Get a rice cooker. And then get instant curry. And then like, it's instant. And the rice is done. And this is dinner, baby.

And it can last you two days. It's so fucking choice rice is so good the rice can also get you can make it into uh what like the rice cakes you can oh dude freaking rice puffs rice crispy treats rice puffs and the little rice like uh saucers what are those called those are just called rice cakes aren't they yeah those are good onigiri is nice and that's like a little hand pie but it's rice baby do you haven't even mentioned though like uh the the mexican uh opportunities there's so many mexican opportunities for rice baby make it spicy rice i love it uh you can do uh you can do rice flour you can do you can do rice flour you can do like a sticky rice dough to make a little bun

hello rice you can if you freaking drop your iPhone in the toilet with pee pee in it you throw it in the rice bag and it's so true that's not true one time I was I was inebriated and I jumped into a hot tub like a cool guy I did like a cool guy move

into the hot tub to like hang out with our friends and show off what a cool guy was. And I remember I did have my iPhone in my pocket. Put it in the rice bag. It did not save it. No. Dr. Rice did not come through this time. You had a few things besides water at play there. I guess so.

Hot. Hot. And probably the urine of everybody who had ever rented that Airbnb we stayed in. Where's that part of the press conference? Yeah, most phones are waterproof, but this one, it's piss-proof. And to prove it... No, please don't prove it.

No, come on. Get out of here, Joanie. Pee on this phone. I'm going to pee on this phone to show you how pee-proof it is. Is Joanie their chief pee officer? He has evolved into that. They created the position for him.

They didn't want to. What's your first thing? So my first thing, I'm excited to take you on this journey. And it is the journey of Bunch of Balloons. This is the most... Rachel sent me a link to this. It was a YouTube video with like 400 views. And I was like,

are you, are you sure you want to go down this extremely obscure? It's not just the product Griffin. It's the journey. Rachel, take me on the journey for this. Is it an active Kickstarter still? No.

Okay. Bunch of balloons. This all got started 2014. It's man. Last name on Malone. Last name is malone yes you mumbled he said it kind of like bore out like last name on my mother uh he is a father of eight that is okay now i understand can i say something you just that was the key that unlocked the mystery of Bunch of Balloons. When you have eight children, you need a bunch of everything.

So he's a mechanical engineer and he decided to develop Bunch of Balloons, which enables more than 100 balloons per minute to be fit and tied. These are water balloons. These are water balloons, folks. Don't try and fill these things up with air. They'll pop probably. Yeah. So you twist it onto a hose it's like a it's like a long tube that has a bunch of little um uh what do i want i want to

call them flanges no i don't think flanges is the right word it has like straws little spouts that come off yeah and imagine like an octopus with a hundred arms and then throw yourself into bed and try to sleep and forget it because that's so scary what i said uh fills 37 balloons at a time and then you shake the contraption and then the water balloons slide off and automatically seal themselves because they have little rubber bands around the the the hole why man why is water balloon terminology so difficult the nipple the nipple of the balloon a lot of folks don't don't fill balloons as part of their daily life but apparently this this mr malone does yeah uh with his eight children so he set a ten thousand dollar goal on kickstarter and managed to rake in nearly a million dollars

with more than 20 000 backers holy fucking that's a lot of families with eight children that went to went went for that thing. Well, have you tied a water balloon before? Yeah, it sucks. It's the worst thing in the world. Yeah. Because you goose yourself and then it's like, well, if I've gooshed myself and I'm already wet, what's the point of going out there?

And like, there's no more danger in the fight, you know? So Mr. Malone gets a lot of attention. I believe his first name is Josh, but I don't seem to have written it down. I actually like you calling this honored individual. Mr. Malone, the mini ballooned man. He gets a lot of attention. He gets press in Sports Illustrated and Time. He appears on Good Morning America and the Today Show.

And the demand is so great, he pairs up with Chinese toy giant Zuru for manufacturing and distribution and applies for a patent in February 2014. And the patent he applies for two that includes system and method for filling containers with fluid and device for filling multiple water balloons. Yeah, you gotta fucking protect yourself, Mr. Malone. You got to. You've struck gold.

Don't let somebody snatch that out right from under you. But this is just the beginning of the story. Oh. I'm really trying to do like a uh reply all kind of sure sure okay let me play some like like cool music let me let me take you to the present okay may 2019 wall street journal article they received 31 million as part of a settlement of a long-running dispute between Telebrands, which is the As Seen TV, and Mr. Malone. Mr. Malone received $31 million? Him and Zuru.

Okay. Yeah. Because what happened in 2014, Telebrands claims that Malone's patent wasn't valid and makes Balloon Bonanza Easy Einstein Balloons and Battle Balloons. Balloon Bonanza. Einstein Mini Balloons. valid and makes balloon bonanza easy einstein balloons and battle balloons balloon bonanza einstein mini but what was it einstein balloon easy einstein balloons and battle balloons the battle balloons it's not you've made it violent what the fuck man we can't a lot of balloons so telebrands telebrands has made uh as seen t as seen on tv brands like the pet egg which is the leg and something called the crank chop which i'm pretty sure is the slap chop so they their whole thing is going after popular items and selling them yeah and like bed bath

and beyond and whatever now i will sayank Chop is a much more powerful name. It makes me want to do both motions that they have suggested. So in November 2017, a jury in Texas found Telebrands had willfully infringed on the patents and ruled Malone's original patents to be valid and awarded $12.25 million. Nice. But Malone had spent about $ 20 million in legal fees whoa damn during the years of litigation against telebrands uh at this point though a bunch of balloons is a hundred million dollar business what they were making a100 million annually at this point. It's water balloons. I know.

Isn't that fascinating? I guess there's a lot of like... When's the last time you used a water balloon, right? It's been a minute, but I guess there's a lot of like vacation Bible schools around the country that need some wet summer fun. So he's paying for these legal fees because he's making a bunch of money. But here's the thing. So in March 2019, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Schrader ordered telebrands

to pay enhanced damages after finding they had demonstrated an intent to delay and obstruct the court proceedings. Don't even. So this is when we get up to the 31 million as of this year. of this year there's there could be more i want there to be i think we're done now no i want them to be fucking ruined i want them to i want them in the ground rachel because it's one thing to step on the lot of

balloons brand but when you step on the neck of lady liberty like that lady justice like that that won't fly and mr malone's gonna get you so so this is a permanent injunction so at this point telebrands has to stop with all the their balloon bullshit battle the battle balloons in the in the einstein balloons so here's the thing that i also loved about this so the judge pointed to an exchange in the record from a telebrands executive to an employee and this is the quote from the email so you know what the original actual product bunch of balloons looks like and then inserts a picture of bunch of balloons here's a pic below here's our version below where we would just paint the cap and

change out the balloons using the bands removed from their product new blue balloons we load up and on a painted cap oh that, that's fucking ironclad. So like literally evidence saying, hey, you know, this original product that we're going to rip off, see the picture below. We're going to just change the color. Yeah, it's super bad. That's you're a very bad criminal at that point. But also, even if we didn't have that evidence, if you were in court and they were like, this

is literally the same thing, your defense was going to be, uh-uh, this one's blue. So this guy is a Texas guy. He was living in Plano when all this was going down. Now he's moving to Washington and making like a whole career out of suing the As Seen on TV people. Because I'll be there, baby. I'll be there. Just say when. 30 million.

This father of eight. So now maybe he can send all of them to college. Water balloon fights were really fun back in the day and i will say this this seems environmentally disastrous because you're i mean water balloons are already not great um but so the reason i sent you that clip too is it's like him yeah probably using his own kids to like do this demonstration yeah it is a very now that i know it was look like a home video it was like very very uh very this guy just starts out of the kickstarter and then this company steals it from him and now he is a multi-millionaire from water balloons i would have more water this establishes water balloons as a thing you can do because me i would be like let's have a water balloon fight and then a half hour later i'd have five and i'd be like it's gonna be a short short fight hey can i steal you away yes i got some jumbotrons here this one's for c and

it's from b who says to c from b hey ace i'm writing this from the end of 2018 and boy howdy what a year i'm so glad to have uh to have you as a best friend and as a teammate in so many of our mutual endeavors. One of the most wonderful things in my life is having you to come home to every day and I hope you always believe in this gal that believes in you. Love, Daddy. I don't know if B is Daddy, but I do know that- But 2018 was a year i will say that that is one thing i can definitely understand in this message is that many things happen in 2018 am i right folks yeah i got another

one here this one's for claire and it's from meg who says claire i'm so glad we spent six years together in metaphor and some months together in location i love you lots thanks to you and my awful squad junior friends for encouraging me to live my grad school dream and for putting up with my obscure science nerdiness you all make up the best parts of me also don't forget to drink some water that is a good message glad awful squad juniors still out there may change in the world one uh chicken dinner at a time. And also... Griffin's been really good about drinking water lately.

They told me to. Welcome back to Fireside Chat on KMAX. With me in studio to take your calls is the dopest duo on the West Coast, Oliver Wong and Morgan Rhodes. Go ahead, caller. Hey, I'm looking for a music podcast that's insightful and thoughtful,

but also helps me discover artists and albums that I've never heard of. Yeah, man, sounds like you need to listen to Heat Rocks. Every week, myself and I'm Morgan Rhodes and my co-host here, Oliver Wong, talk to influential guests about a canonical album that has changed their lives. Guests like Moby, Open Mic Eagle, Talk About Albums by Prince, Joni Mitchell, and so much more.

Yo, what's that show called again? Heat Rocks, deep dives into hot records. Every Thursday on Maximum Fun. What's your second thing? My second thing, before I had to tell you my second thing, I gotta ask you a question. Okay. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? Goes from Nashville to Norway,

One day in Norway, And some freaking thing. Is your... And some thing. And back! Chose a simple second thing, From the street to the wall of China, Tell me some of the things, Your friend doing both police, Please tell me your second thing is Rockapella and not the TV show Where in the World is Carmen San Diego.

My second thing is actually the accordion. I want to talk about the accordions. No, I'm going to talk about fucking Carmen San Diego. I'm going to talk about the Carmen San Diego brand. How's that? And there will be a rockabella discussion. Okay, good, good, good, good. That's what I want.

I talk about this a lot on this show, but I was not a very good student. And so I feel like there are large gaps in my knowledge of things that people learned about in school. And I think geography is chief among them. But the little knowledge I do have about geography, I solely owe to Ms. Dr. Professor Carmen Sandiego. Actually, she was a thief, but you know what I mean. And all her. This is like when I talked about Mavis Beacon.

It's funny you say that because this is also a Broderbund jam. Oh, they love taking a character to inspire learning. They sure do. Broderbund made Mavis Beacon. They had a lot of edu games, which were like... I was in our talented and gifted class in elementary school and middle school. We had a whole pantheon of edu games that we played, like Zoombinis. I don't think that was them.

Uh, and math blaster and the like, uh, I didn't know. They also did like, um, Prince of Persia. They did the Prince of Persia on the original Apple too.

Uh, and they did missed, which I could do like a whole segment on missed. Holy shit. Missed rules. Uh, but yes, they did Carmen San Diego.

It launched in 1985. Um, and since then Broderbund has actually been picked up by The Learning Company, who is still making, they made a Carmen Sandiego game in 2015. There are dozens of these things. And obviously, some of them are where in time is Carmen Sandiego or her time heist or, you know, they've made a bunch of different variations. But for the most part, if you've never played a Carmen Sandiego game, the traditional structure is this. You are an Acme detective and you show up at the scene of a crime where a theft has been committed.

And you have to find clues as to where the perp ended up and also find like descriptions of what they look like that you write down in the warrant. And then you follow them from country to country and city to city and you learn and you eventually catch up to them. And if your warrant matches them and what they look like, they get put in Acme jail and you get a special reward from the chief because you're so smart and you did such a good job.

And they get harder and harder. The levels go, they get harder and harder because eventually you do face off against Carmen Sandiego. and it's a whole catch me if you can just like web of just sexual intrigue did you play these did you play carmen san diego uh i mean i just watched the tv show the tv show is important and i know you're so rowdy to talk about the tv show uh what i love about the game is it was scripted by a guy named David Siefkin, who created the character Carmen Sandiego, as well as the other characters,

the other criminals in the game. And I don't know what the game was going to be called, but the project manager at the time, a woman named Catherine Bird was like, you need to name this game Carmen Sandiego because it's the best fucking name I've ever heard. According to Wikipedia quote, her name suggested mystery and exoticism as well as humor.

She is named for Carmen Miranda, the singer, the Brazilian singer, and get this, the city of San Diego. What was great about these games is that they also had like a lot of super, super groany dad humor to them because other criminals included uh mt pockets and ruth less and hardly worth it uh are so the other ones and but my favorite thing about these

games was always the crimes that were committed uh the thefts they were i say crimes it was just thefts it wasn't nobody was murdering there was no there was no uh arson happening um they would steal like mount rushmore somebody stole mount rushmore in one of the in one of the games somebody stole the mason dixon line so are those two states just the same state now i don't even know how you steal the mason they do like a little animation of her like running carrying the later games The later games. The later games, I think. Carrying the Mount Rushmore. Right.

When you had to animate. It wasn't always her doing the crimes. It was her flunkies. She was the big prize, right? And of course, then we eventually got the game show in, I believe, 1991. Yeah, it ran from 91 to 95. I didn't realize there was a computer game before the game show. You're kidding me.

I thought everything was after the game show. No, no, no, no. Yeah, no. In fact, Broderbund was like the developer of the game show. And fun fact, it came out of it was on PBS. Right. So it was like we got to teach people some shit about where things are on the globe. Because in, I think, 1990, Nat Geo ran a survey that showed that Americans were very bad at geography with one in five or one in four.

I forget the actual number. Are unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean on a map. Ruh-roh, that's pretty bad. Well, so the Soviet Union's not a thing anymore. Well, that's fair. So that would be hard. But it's even easier to show where the Soviet Union is. It was a big old thing you could point at like one quarter of the globe the ocean's a little troubling that's a big ocean huh yeah it's a big one it's a big one uh so yeah in reaction to that

horrible fact pbs and brother bund uh designed a game show that would torture children uh by forcing them to solve uh nearly impossible geographical trivia. That was round one. Round two was like there was a big board, like a Jeopardy board with 15 tiles. And it was like a memory game because you had to find the loot and then you had to find the warrant and then you had to find the crook in that exact order.

And then whoever won that went on to the final game. The final game involved a continental map of like africa or asia or europe uh or eventually like i think they just did north and south america together maybe uh and you had to find countries on that map which i will tell you like this is great griffin's favorite thing like nobody won this fucking game if you got if you got africa on the map, I feel like I never saw a kid win Africa because first of all, I feel like you're running around more, but also just like the kids just didn't,

they didn't swing it. They just didn't get it. Europe is like easy. You just fucking bloop bloop. You don't even have to move. It's all like really, really compact. But yes, you have to run around and place these beacons on the ground.

And I do not know who decided what the fucking time limit for this should be, but they are a war criminal because it was impossible. only that here's a not fun fact uh one of the episodes never aired because during that round a girl fell and broke her arm while they were filming the show because that's what fucking the chief wants from you the chief is like you'll get out there go choose you have 11 seconds to place to find 15 country it was wild uh but two other things made the show great uh rockapella as rachel wanted to discuss uh that could be a whole thing that was a whole thing they were very very good i thought that they were a

they were the house band for for this show i thought that they were like they came together for this show and then went out and did their own separate things after uh finding that's what i assumed too no they were they were a uh acapella band so they weren't like a super group established by no they were not san diego uh but they are still actually touring i think the lineup has completely changed at this point so it's it's not the original rockapella but they did find like success after after this game show because it had the fucking best theme song for any game show they get heckled all the time though right at their live performances i mean they probably just do it they probably open with it they should start with it otherwise people are like play it play it do it you know

what we need uh and also uh the chief who was played by uh lynn thigpen uh who passed away in 2003 unfortunately but she was a tony award-winning uh actor who fucking killed it as the chief was all over that stuff, though, right? Like, remember when, what was it, Shining Time Station had the Ringo Starr? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And her performance was actually so good that they, like, they were like, well, we have to put her in the video games now.

So then she started performing in the video games as they went on. That's awesome. From that point on. Carmen Sandiego, like, I think this is this is not for me it's not like a kitschy like edgy game hey hey 90s kids will remember this i feel like those games and the the show that came after it had a had like a tone that extended beyond let's teach kids about geography it had a tone that was like very very just super playful like super super playful the games and the the game show both uh that

really stuck with me there is very little as a kid that makes you feel like a citizen of the world yeah sure if you don't have a lot of privilege you know like i feel like if you're not a kid that gets to travel all the time and i was not yeah you don't really feel like your place in the globe and that game really kind of gives you that. Gives you all over. That and Encarta really did it for me too. Oh gosh, I had Encarta. Holy shit. Let's save it. I can do a segment on Encarta.

Okay. What's your second thing? My second thing is peanut butter. Okay. Rice and peanut butter are really hitting the staples this episode. I know. Here's the thing.

If you're about to tell the history of peanut butter, I feel like that's what, I feel like that's, I don't know anything about history, but I feel like I know the history of peanut butter i feel like that's what i feel like that's i don't know anything about history but i feel like i know the history of peanut butter do you oh damn it who's who's your go-to guy for peanut butter well now it's gonna be wrong isn't it it is gonna be wrong but i just want you to get it out there let's get it over with the thing they teach in school is george washington carver he's not the guy are you sure about he definitely has a relationship to peanut butter but he is not the guy are you sure about he definitely has a relationship

to peanut butter but he is not the peanut butter guy i'm gonna google the peanut butter guy and george washington carver is the first result well that's that's fair i would say he's the peanut first of all historically he's not like the inventor of peanut butter the way people think so okay but he did invent a billion things including like stoplights and all kinds of shit yes of course i'm not saying he's a fraud i'm just saying he's not the peanut butter guy okay but yeah if you google peanut butter guy peanut butter guy he will come up george washington carver comes up yeah wild yeah he just comes up i think if you're the first google result now you are the peanut butter guy well your revisionist history is not what I'm here to do.

Okay. So peanut butter. By the way, it also gave me an image of the baby covered in peanut butter. That's good. You remember that line? Oh, shit, that's good. So George Washington Carver was given credit, but the U.S. National Peanut Board confirms that he did not invent it.

What did he just perfected it? By the time Carver had published his document about peanuts entitled How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption in 1916, many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or patented already. So when we see the original patents, patents are big in this episode. They sure are, yeah. This was back in 1884. Carver didn't hit the scene until 1916. Okay. So we had peanut butter prior to Carver. Okay.

Yeah, but I didn't come here to like slam on Carver. No, he's badass. I think it's important to know the real history which started in Canada. So what did they do? They just smashed some of these bad boys and they were like, hey, that looks creamy, creamy. Let's go. They milled roasted peanuts until the peanuts received a fluid or semi-fluid state and then mixed sugar into the paste to harden its consistency.

Then we have some history with Kellogg in 1898. Always got to get a hand on the ball this nasty freak he used it to serve peanut butter to patients because they needed food that contained a lot of protein but could uh be eaten without chewing and then this is what when we really start to see that it take off is uh in the 1920s uh there was a chemist that involved a process for making peanut butter by separating the, or rather to keep it from separating by using partially hydrogenated oil. And this is what started Peter Pan peanut butter in 1928. Okay. And then Skippy peanut butter in 1932.

Which one's your favorite? Well, I wanted to hit on Jif. We gotta get to Jif, baby. We gotta get to Jif, baby. We gotta hit on Jif. In 1955, Procter & Gamble launched peanut butter named Jif, which was sweeter than other brands due to the use of sugar and molasses in its recipe. Yeah, they did. They came right up on top, didn't they?

Mm-hmm. What makes it better? A spoonful of sugar? It was right there in the song. You could have just made it sweeter with sugar and molasses. I am one of the few people, maybe, that while I like crunchy peanut butter better, I'll eat either. It's right there in the song. You could have just made it sweeter with sugar and molasses. I am one of the few people maybe that while I like crunchy peanut butter better, I'll eat either. It's peanut butter.

It's peanut butter. I love it. I'm one of those people that would eat it right out of the spoon. Yeah. You know, on a tough day. I like to put it in with a pint of ice cream. I like to put it on a cookie. I like to put it on bread.

Yeah. Crackers. Dip a Ritz in there. Oh, God. Peanut butter. And because of the protein. It's good for you. You feel like, hey, that's not so bad. I do not like the, and this is probably going to get me in a spot of trouble.

Uh-oh. But like the organic peanut butter. Yeah, where it separates, right? Where it separates is terrible to me. Also because it doesn't taste, I mean, it tastes like peanuts and fine, whatever. But I think I want peanut butter to taste like sugar and molasses maybe now that I think about it. This is a theme for you a little bit, that you like your food to just generally taste sweeter. I do enjoy that.

I got to get my glucose levels down a little bit. So it's not, it's a tough transition. But yeah, I do like a sweet nut butter. Damn it. Now I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich very badly, and I don't think we have the stuff to make it. We do. We have all of the things.

Fuck yeah. Yeah, eat it. Let's finish this episode real quick. We got wonderful submissions. We got one from Scott who says that he likes bug spray, and we have... Scott says, I got a little thing for you this week,

the smell of bug spray. I went hiking yesterday and i realized that it always takes me back to running around outside as a youngster with all my cousins late into the summer night until the only thing we could see is the lightning bugs oh that's nice that's a good story because at first i was like bug spray who likes that but then you're right there's a real strong association yes i think a summer camp when i smell it i got one here i'm gonna uh not do good on the name. I apologize. Ariathna?

It's a cool name. It's a cool how I said it. I bet it's even cooler how it's supposed to be said. Ariathna says, I love golf carts. At work, we use them to get around the facility, and those 40 seconds of getting from one building to the next are so liberating and wild. I've gone golfing like twice. The golf cart is the absolute fucking best part. How did you guys use a golf cart?

Absolutely, we did. That's nice. if the option is available of course because then you feel like a sort of sports road warrior uh-huh you don't drive a fucking small car when you're playing football i think i've maybe only driven a golf cart once and that was like over 15 years ago that baby's got some get up and go a good one uh Here's one sent in by Griffin. A person named Griffin. Isn't that wild? You mean there's another one? Griffin says, hey Rachel and Griffin, my small wonder this week is preschoolers.

I work at a preschool and the other day a kid said his favorite sport was swords. And I think that's wonderful and hilarious. Might have been talking about fencing, but I do like the idea of just swords. You think the preschooler was talking about fencing? Maybe.

It's hot right now with the teens. The teens. The teen preschoolers. Well, you do know teens. That's true. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description.

Thank you to MaximumFun.org for all of their support. Yeah, thank you, MaximumFun.org for all of their support. Yeah, thank you, Maximum Fun. What shows should people be listening to on Maximum Fun right now? I mean, there's Bubble. There's Bubble, yeah. If you haven't listened to Bubble,

go listen to Bubble. And they have a bunch of other stuff too, like Can I Pet Your Dog and a bunch of other shows, all at MaximumFun.org. If that is it, if I may, let's try this.

I've never done this before. Okay, all right, let's do it. I would very much like to eat a peanut butter and jelly or jam sandwich. Yes. May I please be excused? Because you asked nicely. Yes, you may. Bye. Hey! If you're looking for a new comedy podcast, why not try the Beef and Dairy Network? It won Best Comedy at the British Podcast Awards in 2017 and 2018. Also, I love it. There were no horses in this country until the mid to late 60s.

Specialist bovine arse vet. Both of his eyes are squid's eyes. Yogurt buffet. She was married to a bacon farmer who saved her life. Farm-raised snow leopard. Download it today. That's the Beef and Dairy Network podcast from MaximumFun.org.

Also, maybe start at episode one or weirdly episode 36, which for some reason requires no knowledge of the rest of the show.