Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 11: Fraggle Food Chain

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

Griffin's favorite funny video! Rachel's favorite vocab-building board game! Griffin's favorite place on the whole planet! Rachel's favorite children's show! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by Bo En and Augustus: https://open.spotify.com/track/5hs2nY40aeqM0mpP8SBOon MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

hi this is rachel mcelroy hi this is griffin mcelroy and this is wonderful oh yeah welcome back to wonderful what do we which one is this again which one is this is wonderful. Oh, yeah. Welcome back to wonderful. What do we... Which one is this again? Which one is this again? Is this our Formula One podcast? It's our fan cast of the show Small Wonder. Welcome to... Is it Small Wonder or Small Wonders?

It's our... Single. Singular. It's just the one robot. Yes. Girl. Anyways, so this is the Small Wonder. So this episode, we thought we'd talk about the technology.

Is it possible? Is it real? Are there people around us gets wet again she got wet again and oh now she's just reciting the digits of pi and i guess my question is this real and are there really small wonders all around us uh is everyone you know a small wonder and you're the only not small wonder it's kind of fucked up to think about really but um i just think i see a lot of people who have never seen them swim so their love is real but they're not and they can't eat food or spinach because it gets caught up in their robot parts i've never seen you swim or eat spinach so i think that's not true i've seen you do both those things at the same time rachel likes to do what she calls spinach parties and that's where she gets in a pool by herself and she gets angry if anybody else comes outside and she eats a bunch of wet spinach.

It's real Popeye inspired. Well, it's hippopotamus inspired. You like let the spinach float on the surface, and then you get underneath and you pop up above the pool surface and you eat all the spinach. And then you, you know, you shut down because your robot body didn't know how to handle any of this stuff. AI was a heck of a movie anyway. So this is the wonderful podcast where we talk about things that we think are really great and really good. And we should just do the damn thing because we're doing this one. Henry's at daycare, so we can be loud, but we also have a pretty hard out,

which is the time that we have to go retrieve our son from daycare. He's not a small wonder, right? No. We were both there when he was sort of organically manufactured. which is the time that we have to go retrieve our son from daycare. He's not a small wonder, right? No. No. We were both there when he was sort of organically manufactured, if you know what I'm saying. It's your turn to go first. Okay, well, the first thing that I want to bring to the table is a video,

and the video is on internet, and you can watch it there with your web browser, and the video is called Inspiring. People describe the first time they drank gatorade this is you've shown this to me before this is possibly my favorite internet video it's from clickhole which is sort of the uh sort of buzzfeed-esque parody brand from the onion which specializes in sort of making a mockery of like content, internet content designed to go viral. And across the board, like ClickHole has done some really brilliant work in the past.

I think like there was a period there where if you saw me laughing, and I was on my computer, and you said, What are you laughing at? The answer pretty much 100% of the time was something that ClickHole did, because they are really, really really really good at what they do uh they especially i wanted to highlight like one of the brilliant things they do is a series called click venture which is just a series of like web page based choose your own adventure games uh two recent ones include get fucked up on gin and build a gazebo for your neighbor um and can you help your dad lose his virginity at the Super Bowl? Like, it's extremely good. I was hesitant to talk about this because I feel like talking about

things that are already pretty funny is kind of like entertainment poison in a way. But I couldn't like when I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about this week, and I think about the types of things that we talk about, like I don't usually talk about things that I think are genuinely very, very funny. And I think inspiring people describe the first time they drank Gatorade is extremely funny. It is a three minute and one second long sort of encapsulation of the things that I think are funny. It sort of fits into this model of videos that are based on sort of viral Facebook videos, specifically like inspirational testimonial videos, which were extremely hot for a very, very long time, where they just play some soft, pretty music

under people talking about something very earnestly. And the premise for inspiring people to describe the first time they drank Gatorade is pretty apparent, I feel like, based on the title. And like, the things that are funny about this video i could i could list them out like that premise alone is extremely uh extremely good well and i think and this and this may not be true but i find it to be true um nobody really likes the taste of gatorade right am i wrong i i so i have a i enjoy it in very specific situations really after i do some

exercise or i have diarrhea which is like i'm not doing much exercise at all those are the two times in which i drink gatorade like what the appeal is that it's a sports drink for sportsmen doing sports right right and or people who have very very bad diarrhea um i enjoy it because you drew you do it after sports and it's like i've earned this flavor and you don't have diarrhea and it's like this is going to help me with my diarrhea and so there's a certain gratitude that you feel towards gatorade another thing is we cannot talk about gatorade and say anything even remotely as funny as this video was uh because this video is all about talking about a fairly mundane thing in absurdist terms, which is like my jam.

It's like my favorite comedy shit. And to that point, here's a short list of some of the things they call Gatorade in this video. Football milk, the sweet neon soup, the bright red neon soup, beautiful blue syrup or sweat potion, which is all fucking fantastic. The writing in general is just like super, super, super funny and it adheres to this style like without swerving or breaking even for a second. One line includes, I took a sip of the Gatorade and I could feel the electrolytes turn my body into strong, wild garbage.

What I really like about it, and this is something that i feel like i try to incorporate in the the stuff that we do uh the the comedy stuff we do in the other podcasts maybe not adventure zone that's a little bit on the nose uh but it does a lot of in the three minutes really there's only like a one minute section of it where it really hones down on this is lore building like it does so much to sort of yeah it introduces this concept that there is a world in which people drink gatorade and the experience is so powerful and memorable that they have a testimony to deliver in this video and then it adds on to that world by introducing uh the concept of gatorade scientists who develop the gatorade and they

develop the gatorade by doing deadly experiments on, quote, the football players. Well, and it also plays a popular McElroy game, which is, let's come up with a new name for something, and then let's see how many names we can come up with. Yeah, and it does that really well. But in terms of, like, establishing this fiction of, there are football scientists in the secret Gatorade laboratory who are doing experiments on football players that it does kill them. But is that cost worth the great taste of this neon soup? Like, that that I also really, really like that. And that's like, I feel like a thing that I try to do in in all of the comedy stuff that we do, because I think it's like, it's a lot easier to get

somebody to laugh at something if they are invested in the in the joke or the world of the comedy stuff that we do. Cause I think it's like, it's a lot easier to get somebody to laugh at something if they are invested in the, in the joke or the world of the joke that you've created. And the way that you get them invested is by fleshing it out. Like almost like you would do with like a traditional fiction narrative, which sounds like maybe I've gone way too far up my own ass in, in talking about it like that. But I feel like this video gets in and tells a bunch of jokes about gatorade and then

starts to explore this this gatorade obsessed world and the high cost of living in it um before landing it with like more jokes like i think it is like a perfectly constructed thing and we have now absolutely done the thing where we've ruined the comedy of it by talking about it too much um but it's just the the way that they say all of these completely completely preposterous things in a unswerving deadpan delivery is the funniest shit in the world to me and i watch this video on a monthly basis and i think it's extremely good and let's play a clip of it because i think even if you can't see it you can imagine sort of what the tone of this piece is just by hearing some of the things they say about gatorade the power of the football mill took me on a vision quest to the gatorade laboratories which are in

hell and in my dream i saw the gatorade scientists doing exercise experiments on all the football players and they were dying the sweat professors killed the football players with their gatorade scientists doing exercise experiments on all the football players and they were dying. The sweat professors killed the football players with their Gatorade experiments. I know the Gatorade scientists are running exercise experiments on the football players and that many of them get killed in the laboratories, but I don't care because I need the electrolytes for my tantrums. Every night since I took my first... I'm curious to hear what you brought to the table this time. I like our listeners picturing this actual table in which we pass our wonderful things back and forth.

How dope would it be if you actually just brought Gatorade or Powerade? That will never happen. You really don't admire this. Imagine like you're painting the house and you get all it's a hot summer day and you're painting the house and you get like a deep thirst going. Lemonade, water. Yeah. Yeah. Either of those. Yeah. good point. Either of those.

Yeah, good point. Scrabble. It took me a second because I was like, you don't drink Scrabble. Oh, Scrabble. That's my thing. Scrabble brought us together, babe. I know.

I have been a Scrabble enthusiast for gosh i don't know 15 years maybe yeah uh and it is something that griffin and i did together before we were really officially together our first like date technically our first like private hangout sesh was over some scrab i went over to griffin's place and played Scrabble and it was just the two of us. That's true. Earlier that night, I had come over to your house because we had found a, or you had found a board game of Sweet Valley High

at a garage sale or a thrift shop or something like that. And I had gone over to your house because you wanted to play it, but really it was sort of a thinly veiled excuse for us to hang out. Our friend Grace was there sort of as a mediator i think to make us feel more comfortable but i think she read the room and literally almost immediately after i got there she left so it was just the two of us and also i had no idea how to like go over to somebody's house that i was interested in and hang out. And Grace had said that I should

bring some beer. And I had no idea what a normal amount to bring was. Because again, like this was not anything I had, I was experiencing. So I brought like a 12 pack or a 24 pack, like a complete, and you both saw it and were like, what are you doing? What are you doing? It wasn't like the nighttime. It was like early afternoon. Yeah, I was a dunce. And you barged in with your 12 pack and then you suggested we continue the party at your place well it's because you wanted to play scrabble but you didn't have it so maybe you're not that big of a scrabble fan also because the

sweet valley high board game was very bad and we were missing a lot of the pieces uh so scrabble started in 1938 now i'm gonna warn you the creator of Scrabble's last name is Butts. So I want you to get ready because I'm going to say it a few times. Okay. Hold on. Okay. Oh, God. That was a really close one.

His name is Alfred Butts. I know. He originally invented a game called Lexico, which was transformed into crisscross words. Not as good. Lexico is a really, really good name. I think I might like it better than Scrabble. And then in 1948, James Bruno bought the game from Butts. No, you only get two.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm over it now. And basically kept it the same, moved some of the premium squares around and changed the name to Scrabble, which is a real word that means to scratch frantically. Yeah, that doesn't really describe this, I think.

So this dude bought it from Butts and basically, let's be honest, probably ripped him off. Well, he gave him royalties. Oh, okay. Well, then we're good as long as he's getting those resigies. I love you just put your computer down. I know everything else about Scrabble off the top of my dome. Well, no, I think, you know, I could talk more about the history, but I really wanted to focus on why I like the game so much. Yeah, what do you like Scrabble so much?

There's a puzzle aspect of it, Natch. I mean, I imagine everyone knows how to play Scrabble, but you just make words and you have to use the letters from the previous words that have been put on the board. And there's some strategy involved because high value letters like X or Z, if you put those on like triple letter score pieces you get extra points i play a lot of words with friends you play more words this is another thing we've talked about this before where like uh rachel does not play a ton of games but the games that you do play you play more than i've ever played any video game ever including two dots and words with friends

literally every time i see you and you're looking at your phone you're playing with someone uh and i don't know i just i really enjoy it um i think it's it's good for kind of building your vocabulary and also i know all sorts of two-letter words now yeah i za for example i still can't believe that that's acceptable that's there's two things that kind of stress me out about Scrabble. And one is that, that in order to really play it at the level that you're playing it, I have to know all of these, I'm sorry, bullshit words. And then there's always a lot of argument about whether or not something is an actual word or not. But also it just kind of stresses me out like it's one of those games where i feel like i can only feel satisfied if i get the most amount of points i can possibly get on any given move which is is unreasonable like if you use a scrabble solver to see like what the actual highest score word is that because there's like computer programs that can let you do that

it's shit that you you don't know the word you would never think to put it in the way that it would be but i'm always i always feel compelled like like I have to do that. And so I take like 15 minutes to take a turn. And you're like, come on. And then I spell like dog. That's the thing. That's why I like playing it digitally more than in person. Because you can kind of take your time. You don't have somebody sitting across from you having to play. I think it's such a like a brilliant construction for a game because like, it's just words like all you need to know is all you need to know is words there's not i mean there's an element of chance in like whatever tiles you draw but mostly it's like

what what words can you think of to to put down here one game i really like that i think solves a couple of the problems that i have with scrabble which i still love but i don't play that much anymore because it again it kind of stresses me out is banana grams yeah it's a good one where you have to use your tiles to basically create a crossword on the fly and use every every letter that you have uh and force as you like use letters you draw new letters and you force your opponent to also draw letters there's no board there's no. And so you try to bury them in in tiles. But there's none of this like extra bonus spaces. And there's no like sort of formula you have to stick to, you just have to make sure that everything fits and that everything is a word and it's timed so that the games last like a few minutes, which I like it's like you get in and you

get out and there's none of this sort of like constant deliberation over like, oh, no, this isn't going to be enough points. Yeah. So I just, I thought that I should bring it to the council because I have enjoyed it for so very long and I don't see myself ever getting tired of it. We used to play it a lot, like a lot, a lot, a lot. We used to have friends over to like play it with us.

And I feel like that can't be fun for them because I feel like you and i both get pretty we're intense about it pretty intense about it i get intense about almost every board game that i play and scrabble is uh one one game that you also don't yeah i don't most games i kind of tap out almost immediately uh because i'm not super competitive unless i think i'm kind of good at something yeah well that's the secret you just have to think I'm kind of good at something. Yeah, well, that's the secret. You just have to think you're kind of good at all board games. You're good at board games, though. You win a lot of

shit. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. I think Scrabble is the equalizer for me. Yeah. You know what? It's the great equalizer, though. What? Homony. though what and then he died oh no yeah he died that was mr rich man and he had all the money in the world and he thought it was so funny how much money he had and he always talked about how money

is the great equalizer and he would laugh really hard. It was like his favorite thing to do. Then he did it too hard. He died. Does that mean we're never doing that stinger anymore? Yeah, he died. Well, maybe he might come back from the dead. Uh-oh. Next Halloween. Next Halloween. A year from now.

Hey, do we have any Jumbotrons on this one? We do. This message is for Alice. It is from now. Hey, do we have any jumbotrons on this one? We do. This message is for Alice. It is from Maxwell. Alice, thank you for being an extraordinary wife and my closest companion. I can say with certainty that you have shaped me into a better bird than I have any right to be. And that you are a great mom to our badly named cats, Wormy, Pillbug, and Face. Those are great.

I hope this surprise public proclamation of my affections brightens your day. I love you. That's so sweet. I thought we specifically said no birds, though. Because when birds come in, they get their seed everywhere and their excrement. Don't even get me started. And the feathers stink. You ever smelled a bird out in the wild?

They stink, Rachel. When did you become so anti-bird? I think they're great when they're up in the sky, but then they fly close to your nose. You're like, what's that smell? What about cats? You still like cats? Cats are great. Cats are great.

Just anti-bird. Birds, their feathers, though, what are they flying through? Garbage hoops? I'm sure you're great, though, Maxwell. Here's another one for Morjo and Katie. It's from Susie, who says, I love both of you so much and am so happy we've been friends for seven years, starting from our blunder high school days. I'm so proud of you, Morjo, for starting med school and for Katie for starting her new

job. I know we'll be far apart geographically, but you'll always be close to my heart. That's so sweet. And I really hope I was saying that name correctly. Morjoe or perhaps Morjoe. Either one is beautiful and it drips right off the tongue. And congratulations on your great friendship. And, you know, don't let the distance keep it down. It's just space, you know? Ooh, that's true. It's just space. It's just space and, you know, the amount of's true. It's just space. It's just space and, you know,

the amount of time it takes to travel that space. You can always hop in a car, go wherever, unless you live in Hawaii and you want to come to, you know, the contiguous areas. That's when you need a boat. Or a plane. Oh, sorry about that.

Just had to dispatch some goons real quick. Hi, I'm April Wolfe, lead film critic at LA Weekly. And when I'm not kicking butt, I'm hosting the new Maximum Fun podcast, Switchblade Sisters. Do you love genre films? Do you love female filmmakers? Do you love discussions on craft? If your answer is yes, you'll love Switchblade Sisters. Every episode, I invite one female filmmaker on,

and we talk in-depth about their fave genre film and how it influenced their own work. So we're talking horror, action, sci-fi, fantasy, bizarro, and exploitation cinema. Mothers, lock up your sons, because the Switchblade Sisters are coming for you. Available at MaximumFun.org or wherever you find your podcasts.

Can I do my second thing? Yes, please. I'm so excited about it. I talk about things being like my favorite on the show a lot. And I try to keep that like legit. Like I try to when I say something is my favorite thing. This is my favorite funny internet video about Gatorade. Can I say something? Do I do it too much? You are the most enthusiastic man I've ever met. That's probably true. Or alternatively, we're going to run out of stuff to talk about on this show because I really do talk about stuff I think is my favorite. I want to talk about literally my favorite place on Earth. Whoa. This is not like hyperbole.

I feel like, do you have like a favorite place on Earth? Like if you thought about it in your head? I think that would be a really hard call for me. I think I know it. It's my favorite place on earth I think about it all the time I'm dying to go back there It is the Hakone Open Air Museum

That's definitely top five for me So recently I went to Japan On our honeymoon Back in what 2013? 2014? Jesus Christ that was three years ago This month it was three years ago We This month, it was three years ago. We went in November, and we went to Tokyo and Hakone and Kyoto, and it was the best

trip ever, and it was life-changing and genuinely one of the most fantastic experiences of my whole life. And the highlight of that was the Hakone Open Air Museum. So Hakone is sort of a short train ride away from Tokyo. I think it was about an hour on the the high speed train um and it is located in the fuji hakone izu national park on lake ashi which basically means like it's right up against uh uh mount fuji which is you know the big radical mountain uh and it's supposed to offer you these incredible views of Fuji

wherever you are, which are sort of a big tourist attraction, unless it is really foggy and rainy, which I was the whole time you were there. Yeah, I was overcast the whole time. We got a couple of okay looks at it, but for the most part we were denied that. But it's still a really fantastic place. Hakone is sort of a hot spring resort town

that's built into a mountain. There's countless hot spring locations, whether it is old inns with hot springs in them or actual hot spring places that you go just for the hot springs and they don't have lodging or anything

like that. There's a place we went called Yune-san, which is a hot spring water park, which is fantastic, that has a bunch of different scented pools. Like there was a red wine hot spring, which was great. Coffee. Coffee and yogurt hot springs.

Green tea. Which may sound gross to you. They were just like sort of scented, infused waters. It wasn't like we were boiling in yogurt. Although that might still also be pretty dope. There's also a hot spring water slide which is like i think a thing that everybody needs to do before they die is go on a hot spring water slide um there is there one of the sort of characteristic things about hakone and i'm going to talk about this specific place in hakone here in a second

but i want to kind of set the scene it's all very very natural it's well outside of the the city uh it's a fairly small town uh and because it's sort of, very natural. It's well outside of the city. It's a fairly small town. And because it's sort of built into the side of the mountain, there's all these sort of geographic features. There's something called the Hakone Free Pass Loop, which includes all of these different modes of transport that you pay for a Hakone Free Pass, and then you can take all of them in a loop around the town. And so there's like uh old rail car that weaves through the mountains that leads up to a cable car that takes you way up the main mountain and then once you're at the top of that you take a ropeway over the mountain where you can stop at this uh sort of volcanically active

uh a pool where they boil eggs and you can eat the eggs there add years to your life add seven years to your life and do some hiking up there, and then you can take another ropeway down to Lake Ashi, where you can board an old pirate ship, which you can ride across the surface of the lake, and then get on a train that leads you back to the beginning of the loop, which takes a whole day to do all that, but it's such a cool way to be outside in nature

and see all these different cool parts of the town. And the coolest part of this town is the hakone open air museum which is a sculpture park with over they have over a thousand works of art but they have 120 sculptures on permanent display across the park the park is like uh i think the website said it's like 60 000 meters it's a huge huge expanse built into uh the the mountain and. And it has this incredible scenic overlook into the valley, where you can just see for miles and miles and miles. And even without all the art around, it's like one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in the world. They have all of these sculptures. And I love a sculpture park because I am not not like an art enthusiast or I

know nothing about art and I feel sometimes a bit disappointed in myself when we go to a museum because I feel like I don't know how to really appreciate the things that I'm seeing correctly which I recognize is just a lot of people say that I think that's interesting I maybe it has to do with exposure because I've i've never felt intimidated or felt like there was a certain way to appreciate or feel when you looked at a piece of art but i don't feel like like i'm not getting enough out of it you know my favorite is the chicago museum the chicago whatever it's called school the art institute yeah the art institute because i mean there's something about seeing like night hawks and it's like oh fuck like okay I get I get I

get Nighthawks I get Starry Night like I see those and it's like it's kind of undeniable but a lot of the time like it's just like oh that's a really cool thing and I feel like I struggle to really um uh feel this deeper connection with it because I feel like I would am being uh inauthentic in it because i don't really understand it but i don't feel that about sculpture and i don't feel that about sculpture parks which feel so interactive and they feel so accessible and it's a very like what you see is what you get and this is not a judgment on non-sculpture based art it's just sort of how i have come to uh consume the the art that i see i did not grow up uh huntington has a museum that was

pretty great and it showed off like local stuff but like i don't know it did not instill in me this like they have sculptures though at that they do yeah sure and i like out in the we mostly played on them because there's a theater up there too and so when you're a little kid and like you're not on stage we would like climb around on the sculptures which is probably not yeah great um so there's all 120 sculptures in this like incredible lawn uh overlooking the valley which is beautiful but they have a couple of buildings with uh other forms of art in it including a picasso pavilion and the picasso pavilion uh again like i don't i feel like i don't know enough about art to say like oh i'm a huge picasso fan but it it was kind of relevatory because it includes like a lot of his lesser known works.

It includes a lot of works that he gave up on, like works that he just did not finish because he's like, oh, this sucks. Well, and a lot of late in life, like pottery. A lot of experimental shit that he got into that didn't really get caught up in the public eye. really get caught up in the the public eye there are also a lot of sort of like uh never before seen photos of picasso and a sort of biography of him that takes you through his different sort of uh styles that he experimented with it was really really really fascinating and huge like they have so much stuff and you don't really expect to be in this sculpture park in a small town in japan and then they have this huge comprehensive collection embodying Picasso's whole body of work. They have a bunch of interactive spaces, especially for kids.

There's a place called Zigzag World that is just sort of this, I don't know how to describe it, but almost like sculpture of netting hanging from the ceiling. Yeah, it's like everything was made from yarn almost. And then there's these kind of large like crawl spaces. And it's really cool. You're supposed to take your shoes off if you go in there and there's mats. There's like a geometric sculpture of tunnels, like clear tunnels that kind of looks vaguely like a snowflake when you're inside of it. Like it kind of seems like you're in this like ice palace, but kids can just like climb

through it. There's this weird one where you climb down a tunnel in the ground and then you're inside of it like it kind of seems like you're in this like ice palace but kids can just like climb through it there's this weird one where you climb down a tunnel in the ground and then you're underground and it's completely dark except for a single hole looking up into the sky that one freaked me the fuck out um but like again like it's really accessible because there's a lot of stuff you can just like get in like you can get inside yeah um the highlight of it is uh what's called a symphonic structure which is a massive stained glass tower uh with this spiral staircase inside of it that you climb up and then you there's a viewing platform that lets you see the entire park in the whole valley and mountain every every in every direction that is like being inside of that one like piece of art that one massive intricate stained glass tower

was like uh i i'm getting i get chills kind of when i think about it because i think about being inside of it and they call it a symphonic structure because the acoustics inside of it are so unique and i remember climbing that tower and like whistling while climbing to the top of the structure and hearing it ping pong all all over this enormous structure and thinking like that it was a moment of like, I don't want to sound like, this is what I'm talking about when I feel like I'm being inauthentic, but it was this moment of like genuine like beauty

that I had never really experienced before. And then you get to the top of it and boom, here's like the most breathtaking view of nature you've ever seen. It's really, really fantastic. We have, I uh we bought a bunch of stuff at the gift shop because i remember thinking like oh this was a day that changed it changed my life like it legitimately did make me want to um uh appreciate art in a in a different

way which i think is sort of the objective of most museums and this was the first place that really knocked me the fuck out we have a table runner that looks like this stained glass symphonic structure actually given to us by the plants oh the plants are so sweet oh yeah they went to it too didn't they um so like i love i love sculpture parks like i said and this is my favorite one of those there's just so much to see there's so many exhibits there's so many incredible views of the natural surroundings around you like looking around and appreciating all these things that people have made position in this incredible place that people did not make is like a sort of, it's a really incredible phenomenon.

And so you walk around all of it and you climb this huge tower and you, there's a lot to see and you walk the whole 60,000 meters of the park and you get super tired. What's that right in the middle of the park? It's a lot to see and you walk the whole 60 000 meters of the park and you get super tired what's that right in the middle of the park it's a big foot bath fuck yeah hakone open air museum you're the best place on earth i want to go back there so badly if you go to japan um since we talked about going uh to japan on our honeymoon people are always asking for recommendations like go to this place it changed my life it's it's it will change yours too it's fucking fantastic it's my favorite place on earth and if you're not going to japan um my other favorite sculpture park is lawmire in st louis missouri too yeah i used to go to art camp there every summer um i i love a sculpture park me too yes uh you want to tell

me about your second thing yeah okay my second. You probably knew this was coming one day. It's Fraggle Rock. Oh, Fraggle Rock. We don't watch so much Fraggle Rock. We've started, Henry's gotten very into Sesame Street. Yes. Fraggle Rock, actually, you can watch on HBO Go. Weird.

Yeah, it used to be on Hulu. Now it's on HBO. It was actually the first original series on HBO Go. Weird place for it to live. Yeah, it used to be on Hulu. Now it's on HBO. It was actually the first original series on HBO. I did not know it was an HBO show. Yeah. Oh, okay. It's a Canadian show. It came out in 1983, created by Jim Henson.

Thank you, Jim. Natch. Tons of Muppets. Lasted for five seasons. Is that all? Yeah. Hmm. tons of Muppets, lasted for five seasons. Is that all? Yeah. And is an interconnected ecosystem of Fraggles, Doozers, Gorgs, and human beings.

I adored Fraggle Rock when I was younger. It's been a very long time since I've watched Fraggle Rock, but I was obsessed with it when I was a little one. I don't think I appreciated the world that they had built necessarily. I just thought the characters were so, so, so great. And I wanted to be friends with all of them. And I wanted to live under the ground with all of them. The more I learned about Fraggle Rock, the more I love it. Like, obviously, I loved it initially.

So the Fraggles are just kind of your standard Muppet, kind of seem like they could exist in the Kermit world. Then there's the Gorgs, which are these huge kind of larger than life Muppets. They're more kind of a Big Bird Snuffleupagus type, bigger than a person. And they are kind of the royalty. They assume that they are kings and queens of the universe. Do they eat the fraggles? No, they're always trying to thump them.

So the fraggles go into the gorg's garden to get radishes and to visit the trash heap, which is kind of the wise, all-knowing. Yeah. So they thump them. They don't eat them. No. Because I was thinking of like a troll's parallel. No, they're always trying to catch them.

Well, that's wasteful. I think if a gourd got me, I'd want them to at least eat me. Well, they kind of treat them like pests, you know? Yeah. Like you wouldn't necessarily eat a rat if you caught it. I wouldn't. That's right, babe. Mm-hmm.

Unless I was a little kitty cat. Then I eat them up good. And then in the Fraggleverse. Unless I was a little kitty cat. Then I eat them up good. And then in the Fraggle-verse, which is subterranean, there are Doozers. And Doozers are little workers in the universe. They create these little structures out of Doozers sticks, which the Fraggles like to eat. That always weirded me out a little bit. Are the Doozers compensated by the Fraggles, or do they have their own sort of ecosystem? They just work for the sake of work.

They're just hard workers. They're kind of like ants, in a way, if you think about it. Yeah, but ants probably get some sort of, like, jelly or something from the queen for the things that they do, right? You know, I don't know a lot about ants. They're called doozers because they do, and I get it. It's's just like i want to make sure that they're taken care of if they're happy great i just want to make sure they are i just want to make sure they're not being exploited uh and then there's uh human beings which exist kind of through this hole in the fraggle universe

which is kind of like a a mouse hole in a building and they eat the gorgs no so they eat So they eat the gorgs, the gorgs eat the fraggles, the fraggles eat the doozers. And the doozers don't... No. Griffin, so this show was created to show that different creatures from all walks of life could cohabitate peacefully. Without eating each other all the damn time.

Okay, I mean... The human beings are called the silly creatures and they live in what the Fraggles call outer space. Yeah. That all tracks. So here's the thing that kind of cemented Fraggle Rock as my favorite in the world. One of the writers, Jocelyn Stevenson, gave an interview. And I've also seen this in kind of the special features of my Fraggle Rock DVDs.

and kind of the special features of my Fraggle Rock DVDs. But Jim Henson tasked the other writers on the show to say that they wanted to create programming that would stop war. So their big hope for this show was that children would grow up and learn about existing peacefully with you know different creatures and and people in the world and understanding each other better and that through that understanding would raise a generation of people that would stop war which how can you not love that yeah it didn't maybe necessarily pan out but it's a it's like the most altruistic exactly yeah exactly like it wasn't a show about selling merchandise although i'm sure that happened i definitely have some rock

merchandise yeah uh and so one of the shows or one of the episodes that i like is actually the second to last episode it's called the honk of honks uh And it has Cantus, who was one of Jim Henson's only characters on the show. He only did that and Convincing John. So he kind of came in as these, you know, one-off characters. and presents the Fraggles with wisdom. And the Honk of Honks is all about creating this one musical instrument that would then start off the Song of Songs. And in order to do this, Gobo, who's one of the big adventurer Fraggles, has to go find all the pieces to create this Honk of Honks. And so he travels throughout all the ecosystems, like the doozers and the gorgs and outer space to put this together.

And it's an incredible episode. There's a scene between Gobo and the silly creature that is so moving. I just watched the episode again today before we did this, this recording. But he they realized that there's this whole universe that exists outside of themselves, and how interdependent they can be on each other without even, you know, knowing of its existence. So I just I, I, every time I return to it it i'm so filled with this kind of spirit of optimism of just there are people out there creating these things because they have these huge lofty goals yeah uh and it it really resonates with me still and it's one of those

shows that i'm excited for henry to get yeah it's just about to ask like how old i'm really excited for him to watch it. Yeah. Because, again, I never watched much Sesame Street. I was more of a Eureka's Castle man. And I really enjoyed watching it. I feel like I'm getting an education and something that I never really tapped into.

Yeah, I love Muppets. I love the music. I love the lessons. The lessons are so big, you know? It's not just about, like, this is what a banana is. It's like, how can we coexist with the- See, that's why I was at Eureka's Castle.

A lot of gravitas. Do you know who was the lead writer on R.L. Stine? Co-creator? Oh, shit. I just said it. R.L. Stine was the co-creator for Eureka's Castle. I didn't know that. He can spook you, but then he can take you away to a magic world of puppets.

I think it just gives kids a lot of credit. You know, it's like, we don't have to just teach kids the alphabet. We can teach them these larger life lessons that become important for the rest of their life. And that's the thing. Like, I feel like, and I don't want to go too deep down like an Andy Rooney hole. But like, it feels like there's a lot of educational shows out there. God knows we've watched a lot of them your your little einsteins or what have you and there aren't a ton of them that are like it's not just about teaching you the alphabet and your colors and

your shapes and your foods like i feel like there is something to like teaching you also moral lessons in a way that is not ham fisted and, you know, preachy and gross. I think Daniel Tiger, from what I've seen of Daniel Tiger, Daniel Tiger does this in a nice way, sort of following in the tradition. That's Fred Rogers,

Mr. Rogers. Right. But yeah, I, I, man, I love it.

It's just, yeah, it's motivated by kindness and getting along and, and curiosity and understanding each other i mean it's it's the fundamental things that make a person interesting their whole life right uh how about some submissions from our friends at home okay here is one from jess who says i wanted to share my love for theater and more specifically my high school drama department we just finished our opening weekend of the crucible and it makes me so incredibly happy to see a show come together

in a matter of weeks due to the sheer dedication and talent of the cast and crew. There's something really magical about opening night, and knowing all of the work we did was very much worth it. Shout out to Queen Anne's County High School. What's up, Queen Anne's County Barracudas? Ooh, this is like a sneaky jumbotron

is what it is. Oh, damn, you're right. But it's also true, like, I really like this one just because I loved plays and being in it with all my friends, getting up there. I know that about you. Yeah. You never did one? I thought you were in, like, Oklahoma or some shit.

No, our senior class did a senior play, and I was in a one-act kind of thing. I love it. That was it. I mean, it's not a real play if it doesn't have, like, you know,, music and dancing and singing. I still love it. Here is another one. And please don't message me. I was just kidding about that. Here's another one from Curtis. My family always celebrates Thanksgiving at the beach in Florida. And we love to spend Thanksgiving Day out on the beach playing lawn games. Bachi, Coob and horseshoes are our favorites. Love how accessible lawn games are to me and my family members, regardless of our age or coordination level.

Lawn games are great. Beach Thanksgiving, I've never even considered before. Yeah, I've known people that have done that before. I love getting out and exercising on Thanksgiving. We used to always go out and play basketball in our basketball hoop that we inexplicably had behind our house before Thanksgiving. Whip up a powerful hunger just doing turkey dunks. You know what those are?

Um, I imagine there's gobbling involved no it's just you do a big dunk and you expend a bunch of energy and you fill your belly up with turkey oh see i liked i liked yours is better gobble here's another one from isaac who says in the mid to early 2000s when dvd sales were just starting to dwindle a lot of companies tried incorporating little secrets in the option menus to drive up sales you'd randomly press buttons on the remote until something happened and then get to look at concept art or play a little flash game. I still remember my little brothers and I

freaking out after discovering the Finding Nemo extra when I was 12. And whenever I happen to pop in a DVD with one of those crazy menus, it brings me right back to that beautifully nostalgic day. Oh, I remember that. Oh my God.

Every DVD you bought, it was like a little journey, a little National Treasure, Book of Secrets. I mean, it, a little National Treasure Book of Secrets. I mean, it was the National Treasure Book of Secrets DVD, and there was probably shit all over that one. Do you remember when CDs used to have bonus tracks, and you had to let the last song play for like 10 minutes, and then you'd find another song? Yeah, it's like that.

Mike Doty had an album like that that had a really good track, but you had to let it just roll, which is great, unless you fall asleep listening to it, and then it's the fucking worst thing ever, because you fall asleep and there's nothing and then it's like bang bang here's a secret song thank you all so much for listening wonderful we have to go right now because we have to go pick up the the baby from daycare but thank you all so much for listening go to maximumfund.org check out all the great podcasts there thank you to bowen and augustus for the use of our theme song you can uh it's called money won't pay and you can find the link in the episode description is there anything else uh you know if you haven't joined our Facebook group,

I really recommend it. A lot of people get on after the episode and talk about the things that they like. And it's pretty great. It was like pie city there for a bit. Yeah. And I am very, very into that.

Uh, okay. That's it. Thank you all so much for listening. We gotta go. Bye. Bye. Money won't pay, workin' on it. I'm on it. Maximumfun.org

Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. What's up? I'm James, the co-host of Minority Corner. And look at that! I'm Aneke, the other co-host of Minority Corner. Girl, guess what? What? We just hit our 100th episode! What? And what do you think is going to be in store for the next 100?

Probably some more feuds with Jennifer Hudson. And I'm telling you, I'm the best! We'll probably do more investigative reporting too, like we did with the Kodak and their racist film. Not to mention exposing the truth, like how we did with the ugly history of the Texas Rangers. But we always lighten the mood with a splash of Pop Coach. Olivia Pope's new wig. Have you seen that? It's poppin'. Just like your lip gloss.

And Janet Jackson. And you know we like to put our nerd glasses on and talk about things like Marvel. It's true. That's it. I don't speak about TC. But you just did. What? All from a perspective that's black, queer.

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