Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 2: The Most Powerful Butt

Episode Date: September 13, 2017

We hope you like hearing about arcane Four Square rules, because, Good Lord, do we go on a deep dive in this episode. We also talk about The Best New Animal, and some of our favorite food shapes. 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. Welcome back to Wonderful. It's episode two of Wonderful. And folks, the reviews are in. I'm looking at Rotten Tomatoes right now. They're doing podcasting.

And it looks like you got a hundred stars. How do you want to spend them? I want to get the backpack and the jean jacket. And the finger trap. That can be fun. And you can get like 10 tootsie rolls but they're really shitty stale tootsie the huffy bike damn okay we got 100 stars babe it's not that many it's on a scale of 150 you've changed the heuristics okay um everybody loves it is basically the moral of the story everybody fucking loves the show and everybody's never nobody said anything

fucking mean about it or how should go back to covering the bachelor fucking nobody nobody anyway i don't want to get negative because this is wonderful it's a positive show we got a hundred stars and i don't know how i'm gonna spend all of them one time it was my 10th birthday and my nani got me a star named after me that's what the mac always call their grandmother everybody knows it got me a star named after me. That's what the McElroys call their grandmother. Everybody knows that. Got me a star named after me, and I was so psyched out of my mind. Oh, you're that Griffin. Uh-huh. You know how when you look up at the sky at night, and there's that one big, weird red

star? Mm-hmm. That looks like it has glasses. Mm-hmm. I always thought, I wonder who that's for. Yeah, there's a face in it, yeah. And it's heading towards Earth. So, melancholia style. Like, it is coming i'm i'm coming i should say you know i never saw

melancholia i heard the first minute of it i heard it was not good i watched the first minute of it and i saw a planet hit another planet and i got so existentially spooked out that i was like oh thank you lars thanks lars check please um so on this show we talk about things that we like and things that are good and things that we're excited about. And then we listen to some of the things that you're excited about. And then we talk about those, too. I would love to start off things this week. I think you should start this week.

I'm going to start things off this week with a thing I've been really into lately. Okay. And I think I just have it on the brain because I've been traveling. I just got back from a Bim Bam tour. And the thing I want to bring to the table this week. Okay. Got back from a Bim Bam tour. And the thing I want to bring to the table this week is bars, by which I mean bar foods,

by which I mean bar-shaped foods. Foods in the shape of bars. Foods that use the bar format as a delivery vehicle. Are you talking about a candy bar? Mmm. Mmm. That's one of the things I'm talking about here. Yeah, for sure I'm talking about a candy bar. I'm also talking about, you know, a candy bar? Mmm. Mmm. That's one of the things I'm talking about here. Yeah, for sure I'm talking about a candy bar. I'm also talking about, you know, a nice bar.

I'm talking about a granola bar. I'm talking about a Nutri-Grain bar. I'm talking about a little cereal bar. I'm talking about a little flapjack. It's what our friends across the pond call, like, a little friendly little breakfast bar. I'm talking about a brownie bar. I'm talking about a cookie bar. Any kind of damn bar that you could think of.

And you like all bars? I tell you what I like is all bars. All bar-shaped foods. There's so many reasons for this. I travel a lot. And I have basically since I kind of started working at Joystick, which was like 2000 and holy shit, a long time ago. And I kind of learned, i have a like load out

that i just know like i've got to have my got to have my cans got to have my sleep mask i bring a modium i learned that little trick based on my fateful trip to austin where we met and i had the worst gut situation um and then i nowadays i usually have one or two bars with me. And the bar type usually changes, but I always rely on a bar. And I think a bar, like I measure my hunger in like relative bars. That's not to say that I only eat bars, but that I know sometimes like, oh, I'm getting pretty hungry, but dinner's in an hour. I can tie that over, I can cross that, I can lay a big bar down and cross that hour-long bridge to get me to my next meal,

my fourth meal, or my third meal, as the case usually is, with a nice Osei peanut bar. I feel like you're not into this conversation at all. Well, I'm just trying to think about it. So is it a cost-saving thing, or is it really a satisfying hunger thing? A Snickers bar satisfies the hunger. They know it. They got a lot of stuff in that one bar. It's not a cost-saving thing. It's a like, I have certain, whenever I snack, I always try to snack with a purpose. And so it's like, I need something that's going to, I'm pretty hungry and it's three o'clock. Ooh, three o'clock is bar time, isn't it?

Because you got to get yourself to six or seven until you get a bar going. I think i was confused about so i have incorporated bars into my daily life for sure uh but at first i thought it was just a travel thing for you and that's what i was trying to figure out it's definitely a big travel thing what is it about travel that makes you want bars i'll tell you what it is you you never know when you step onto an airplane you are making a contract an indefinite contract with that airplane you never you never fucking know when you when i get to like an airport and it's uh 11 35 right and i'm not quite hungry yet because i have my my breakfast at 10 but i'm on a four hour flight i don't want it to be fucking 4 p.m when i get to my destination i haven't had lunch that's where my friend bars come in and i have two of my bars i was confused was confused because the Griffin McElroy I know that travels specifically in the morning

always gets a coffee. Yes. Bagel and cream cheese. And? Banana. Ties it all together. The banana makes the coffee and cream cheese bagel work together in the morning. I don't know that I know this Bar McElroy.

Well, I like to eat healthy in front of you. And that's one thing i should i i think there's probably cream cheese is not that well it's all relative one thing i do want to hop on here is i think there's a lot of bars out there that say a bunch of shit but do another shit there's a lot of sweetums activia bar or whatever they call them on that parks and rec episode of just like because here's the thing. If I eat a Clif Bar, it's like I've just eaten a fucking magic eight ball of sugar. This is a fun story.

Oh, no. I don't think I know which one you're about to talk about. No, it is. It's fun. When we went on our honeymoon, we brought an economy-sized pack of peanut butter cliff bars which is my jam and we used those when we were kind of in between meals because we did a lot of walking yeah especially when we were in hakone where there was like we didn't know where a restaurant was

sometimes and so now i forever associate peanut butter cliff bars with our honeymoon it's my favorite it really is it's my favorite cliff bar let's talk about you eat a lot of the kind you eat a lot of kind bars there's a lot to talk about in bars here's the thing about bars bars are usually just like perfectly snack sized thank you it's i'm i'm usually on the go right i am never satisfied by a bar i'm just gonna put that you're never satisfied by a bar, but you're okay. Oh, it'll get me there. He'll get me there. This bar will get me there. I have actually, this is a fun, maybe sad story. I have become very dependent on bars now that Henry has been born. Because I find, especially when Griffin is out of town, it's difficult sometimes to eat meals while Henry is awake.

You should never skip a meal for a bar. I will just eat a bar for breakfast. No, baby. Bars are your friend. Bars are the car that gets you to your destination. They are not the destination itself. Yeah, I know. This is why I was skeptical, because I've never eaten a bar and thought, well, that'll

hold me over for three hours. No, no, no, no. You can't do that. Yeah. You gotta do better than that. The bar is a car. It's a car bar. It's not Seattle or wherever it is you're driving.

You know what bar I'm digging on lately? I know that's not the purpose of this conversation. No, please, let's talk about bars. Okay. I wanna say it like Lara Bar. Lara Bar, yeah. Because there's no U in there. Sure.

But they are dairy-free, soy-free. Gotta have that. and they have fun flavors um i got a mint chocolate chip brownie the other day you've brought me to my next pretty dope you've brought me to my next point i hate to turn things flip it on bars right now after i've been building up bars i've been building up bars but i'm gonna put bars on blast right now because here's the thing here's what i love candy bars loving them are you kidding me a milky way probably my favorite i'll fuck with a heath anytime you know what i almost brought to the table this week was that paydays oh that would have been weird because those aren't my favorite

i don't i don't want to yuck your yum um and i also like a granola bar a nutrigrain a peanut butter cliff bar whatever i don't like a chocolate like granola bar i don't groove on a chocolate like that's ridiculous fruit and nut bar i want my candy bars to be separate and then i want my fruit and nut and other flavors that's ridiculous okay the most contentious episode of wonderfully yet i'm not sure how i feel about this chocolate is an option in any item i know you should You should select it. For sure. That's my thing, bars. They are, they fall within the width and depth of my mouth

and then they get me four bites and I'm good to go. They are a yum plug for my food socket and I'm fucking into bars right now. Whoa. That's a sound bite if I ever heard one.

Nature Valley peanut bars are my jam. We get a box of 48 of them at Costco, and I drill into those motherfuckers. I destroy those big boxes. You're laughing because it's true. So unhealthy. Again, full Sweetums situation, a lot of these. I think I called them nice bars earlier.

They're kind bars. Yeah, I didn't really know what kind bars. I think kind bars are okay. I think there's a few that are like, okay. And then there's like a clip bar that is like, like eating 20. They all inevitably have more calories and sugar than you would think they

would. It's a bar. I'm of the mindset now that like, you need those calories. Sometimes you need those calories. I recognize that they are not helpful. And a lot of them are probably deceptive in their advertising. But a lot of times i have a bar size hole in my tummy and they fill them right up bars bars is it my turn i just moved away from my mic looking all satisfied at you like i

crushed my first topic let's see what's up you're uh you're gonna be blown away if yours is like discs of food food spheres i don't think ours are going to be similar this week griffin and i talked about how our dream is the week where we both bring the same thing but i don't think that's this week yeah i would be blown away if you're like here's a here's i this week i also wanted to bring a shape of food uh my first topic rube goldbergberg's. Oh, damn. Yes, baby. You are killing it. So I was thinking about this when I was trying to come up with the topic. And I was thinking about my favorite movie, which is Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

This is the truth. Rachel is not just saying that. Yeah. And I was thinking, what are some particular scenes in that movie that I like a lot? Maybe I'll just talk about those scenes. And then I thought, you know what I love? That opening breakfast montage where he gets out of bed and his little Rube Goldberg machine makes him breakfast.

And I find that scene so satisfying. Here's the thing about that scene. We also watched Sing, the animal singing movie. And there's a bit where a pig set up a Rube Goldberg machine to take care of her kids while she goes on auditions. Does he have to set up the eggs? Our coffee maker has a timer on it where I can put the coffee in the night before

and put the water in the night before and then set it to make coffee waiting for me until it's up at 7 a.m. We've never done that. We've never done that. I do not think I would go around my house and reset the egg beaters onto the kite and then put some orange juice inside of the bust of Leonard. This is not the wonderful thing I wanted to talk about.

Okay. I didn't want to talk about the practical. I think Peewee would do it. Peewee would do it. I don't think I, I don't think I've got it in me. I would need to hire somebody to come and refill the bust with the orange juice. Yeah,

that's not fun. That's not fun to think about. I mean, it it's an expense but like you everything there's no such thing as a free automated rube goldberg breakfast focus on the wonder of these machines i'm blown away by them i'm blown away you're talking about whether they get orange juice in there every morning come on where do you think the orange juice goes from? Let's be realistic here. Rube Goldberg. Was a big racist, probably. Did you Google that?

We gotta Google that stuff. I'm gonna Google Rube Goldberg. Hold on. Wait, keep talking, but I'm gonna Google Rube Goldberg, racist. Was born in 1883 and lived till- Oh, 1883. The odds are probably pretty good. He lived till 1970.

Holy shit. He probably had some sort of machine that he had was plugged into the thing that i didn't realize okay he was a cartoonist and the reason that rube goldberg the inventions got associated with him is because in his comic strip uh he had a character that would develop crazy inventions. So Rube Goldberg himself, not an invention guy. It was a cartoon he drew. Okay.

So the cartoon was based on Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. And I say based on, but this is obviously a fictional character. So when I was researching Rube Goldberg, there is a corresponding guy in the uk so instead of calling them rube goldberg's in the uk they call them heath robinson's what there was also a cartoonist in the same time period named heath robinson that also had a character that created fun inventions okay so in the uk UK, they call them Heath Robinsons. All right, Heath. I mean, maybe Rube yointed.

Who was there first? Do you have any indication? I don't know. I don't know if this was one of those simultaneous stars aligned situations where they were both doing it. I don't know. Okay. But movies that have featured Rube Goldberg's include Wallace and Gromit,

Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Back to the Future. Mm-hmm. okay um but movies that have featured rube wilbergs include wallace and gromit pb's big adventure uh back to the future um the goonies gremlins the saw movies which i thought was kind of a stretch i mean everything in the it pulls on the thread and then your ribs come out alone home alone kind of again like for me it has to go a bit. Well, you'd walk in and the blowtorch would light up and set your head on fire. Yeah, that's a trap. If you step into this pile of leaves and it falls out and you land on the spike trap, that's not a Rube Goldberg machine. That's a trap I laid for you.

So when I was in eighth grade in my physics class, Did you make one? we all had to create Rube Goldbergs. How'd it go? Pretty good. The thing we didn't account for was that when we set up, we set up on two tables that weren't level. Oh, beans. So we had this ball going down a ramp that would hit dominoes.

Dominoes would fall over and put a stamp on a letter. Yeah. But the ball kept bouncing when it got to the end of the ramp because it was- Chaos theory. Didn't you see Jurassic Park? Didn't you listen to Dr. Ian? I did. I did see that.

I did see Jurassic Park? I did. I did. I did see that. I did see Jurassic Park. Yeah. There was a Japanese children's television show called Pitagora Switchi, which is Pythagora Switch, I guess, in Japanese. I saw this last year and I just Googled it and it turned up an article actually from this past April from from our good buddy chris plant uh on the verge and it is a rube goldberg machine that tells a story about these like brothers wandering through a forest but everything that happens in it is like things like moving around in a little thing it's so good oh for those that aren't familiar with the concept of rube goldberg's it's it's taking kind of complicated gadgets to perform simple tasks

in indirect convoluted ways. If you've ever seen an OK Go music video, you're going to get there. Do you remember one of the first nights that we had Henry home and he was sleeping in bed with us and we were so tired and we'd watched literally everything on Netflix and so we watched a documentary about the making of an OK Go

music video where they did the parabolic flight stuff. Those were fun. I have another one here. Can I talk about my next one? Yes, please. I want to talk about the wombat. You basically introduced me to the wombat.

I'm a recent sort of fan. I was not familiar, really, with the wombat. I'm a recent fan of the wombat. Everybody, I think, knows my proclivities for the humble capybara, I'm a recent sort of fan. I was not familiar, really, with the wombat. I'm a recent fan of the wombat. Everybody, I think, knows my proclivities for the humble capybara, the big rodent, the big and wonderful rodent. They've got little teeth inside of their huge, huge faces, and they got, like, horse hooves, basically, and it's really great. And I think my admiration for the wombat is sort of also, like, there, except, like, the

wombat, if this is even possible is even smaller and maybe even cuter than the capybara more bear-like definitely sort of more spherical this is a round mound of sound here smaller definitely they usually get grow to be about one meter in length um oh you're gonna have to convert that for me i think the meter is meter three feet or is yard three feet yard is three feet meters like what three point i have no idea so rachel and i are both scientists that's why we do this show wombats are go look at a picture of a wombat before we get started if you're not familiar because i didn't think i i think i before i saw my first

wombat i think i thought they were something completely different. I think I thought they were like weird, nasty rats or maybe even literally bats. Yeah, I thought they were more bat-like. I thought they may have been sort of a flying creature of some sort. No, these are just little, sort of a mix between a capybara and like a koala bear. You know how I know something is cute? Hmm. When I think about putting clothes on it.

Oh, okay. That's's how that's my metric like if i see an animal and i think what would that animal look like in overalls that means that i think it's cute yeah and a wombat definitely definitely would be good and i think a wombat would be into it i think a wombat would definitely be into it they are marsupials that are native to australia um marsupials are like a hundred percent great they are batting a thousand definitely is there is there an ugly is there an ugly like awful marsupial i'm sure there is but let's not think about that let's think about the good ones like the wombat the wombat is so good um here's a fact from wikipedia though genetic studies of the uh vombitidae have been under that's the whatever that's what nerds call them have been undertaken evolution of the family is not well understood wombats are estimated to diverge from other

australian marsupials relatively early as long as 40 million years ago while some estimates place divergence at around 25 million years where did these fucking things come from i don't know they're wicked old and we don't know where they came from but they are i think maybe i think god put them here on earth. So that means like- They're angels. There's maybe caveman drawings of wombats. I know, baby, you're going to get us slammed because I do not know the time periods at which different things did and did not exist.

Well, they were definitely here before us, right? I mean, we've only been here 6,000 years. No, I don't know anything about anything anything but what i do know is that nobody knows where these wombats came from and that delights me to no end they're such a wonderful little creature um wikipedia describes them as short-legged muscular quadrupedal marsupials and i love that because it's they do if you look at them through that little tony robbins if you look at them through that's weird that that's where you went yeah they're like little Brock Lesnar's if you look at them and you just think like these are soft sweet little animals that's great but if you look at them they look like really like

if they were bigger like actually like Kodiak bear size they'd be fucking ripped but because they're so tiny you look at them you're just like look at those little if they were bigger they'd be very prehistoric like I think um let. Let me tell you, I watched, I was Googling a video of wombats to get prepared for this, sort of emotionally, and also because it's a Tuesday. And I needed that strength in my life. Yes. And there's a lot of ones

of just, like, them hanging out in a big backpack, just like cuddling around. And there's one of, like, a guy laying in a field. Are there any of them eating? What do they eat? Plants. Plant stuff. Okay. They're very, very, very, around and there's one of like a guy laying in a field and then are there any of them eating what do they eat uh plants plant stuff okay they're very very very very there's two as far as i could tell records of uh attacks of wombat to human attacks two that's fucking great earth's been around for a trillion years or so two wombat attacks is not they've been repping the set for like 40 million to 25 million years sharks Yeah, it's better than sharks.

Way better than sharks. Let's not get down on sharks, though. They're going through a tough time. Wombats are, I was looking, and there was one where a guy was trying to water some plants, some sort of habitat in Australia, and this wombat kept running up to his feet and legs, just wanting some love. He's like, get out of here. Oh, that's nice.

I think I've seen that one. feet and legs just want some love he's like get out of here i think i've seen that one then i watched a video done by a gentleman who is as far as i can tell an extreme australia explorer and his particular jam is getting in abandoned sewer tunnels like very very very narrow spaces which sent me down into a tizzy um and it was listed as a a wombat attack and i was like well i do need to do my prep work for this i gotta know if these creatures are vicious because if so i don't want to promote them and what he explained and what wikipedia backed up and by the way he explained this while showing his like gopro video of him climbing through this like super narrow tunnel and then there's a wombat and then he freaks the fuck out which i thought he was being childish but then uh let me read this from wikipedia their primary defense is their toughened rear hide with

most of the posterior made of cartilage this combined with its lack of a meaningful tail makes it difficult for any predator that follows the wombat into its tunnel to bite and injure its target when attacked wombats dive into a nearby tunnel using their rumps to block a pursuing attacker. A wombat may allow an intruder to force its head over the wombat's back and then use its powerful legs

to crush the skull of the predator against the roof of the tunnel or drive it off with its two-legged kicks like those of a donkey. Hi, welcome to my house. I'm gonna fucking destroy you with my big, heavy butt.

Hi, yeah, come on in. Oh, you're gonna bite my butt? Oh, you're gonna with my big heavy butt hi yeah come on oh you're gonna bite my butt oh you're gonna bite my butt oh enjoy oh it seems like you're having trouble maybe it's because it's uh hard as a rock back there that's incredible you thought you could just have a meal of my dumps yeah come here come a little closer get right above my butt okay oh no your head exploded because i used my big and powerful and adorable butt, my big and powerful and fucking rock hard tushy to destroy your fucking head. Can we develop a workout video called Wombat Ass?

And it's just us doing kind of lunges and squats to really tone up the posterior so that we can, as humans, develop a tough, strong wombat ass. Maybe, or maybe I can just get some sort of cartilage implant back there to just give me that really powerful. I just like, I can't get over. Take the cartilage from my nose.

Yeah, get it all out of there. Put it in my butt. My shoulders, knees, get it all out of there. Put it all in my butt. What I can't get over is this image of like um you know a tasmanian devil are they carnivores i don't know anything about anything a big wolf chasing chasing wombat wombat dives in the tunnel wolf's like sucker now you're trapped and the wombat's like i'm not in here with you you're in here with me squish like oh you're trying to bite my butt

because i think because i get that like evolution that evolution and instinct teaches this out of animals, where you know, like, okay, well, I'm not going to fuck with that animal, because they have this advantage in this home turf. I do not think that this is a thing that anybody could ever learn, because you see a wombat, and you're like, I'm going to fucking pop that in my mouth, like Pop's secret, and then it goes into a hole, and you're like, yum, yum, yum, dinner time, and then your head is destroyed by its huge, powerful ass. What if you could breed a wombat and a skunk wouldn't that be incredible so if they're not deterred by you

spraying them with your smell you're right that's sort of the non-lethal tactic you just smush them with your butt yeah oh my god so that guy in that video that i was talking about he sees this wombat and he's like no and he like gets out because he gives like this testimonial being a video like that was one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me i've gone on a lot of adventures and based on his youtube channel he has and he was like and it is not it would not be that hard for that wombat to back up and suffocate me fuck yes wombat don't don't murder wombat but like the fact that you came with your butt is extremely good to me again i'm sorry. Again, I'm sorry, babe. I think Capybara is slipping a little bit down the list.

I think Capybaras are great. I don't think my exposure to them is as tremendous since the Nagasaki Biopark vine isn't available anymore. Yeah. But these wombats are adorable as shit. All they want to do is snuggle, and they want attention and snuggle. And also, if you go into their tunnel, they'll destroy your fucking head with their big powerful butts best animal and they look really good in like a little straw hat oh man can we get suspenders on one of these things i don't know how we're gonna fit it over you put suspend you put any kind of pants over

that big butt it's like oh really spectacles little spectacles on its head. Holy shit. How about we take a break and talk about some advertisers? Okay. Can I steal you away? How, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, It's very sensual. Well, that's, again, a lot of the reviews that we got we're not sensual enough turn up the sex and so here we are uh we got a couple jumbotron messages here this one is

for eileen denny and it's from matt denny who says happy anniversary leaner uh that's already the cutest shit ever uh we've been married for three years now and i have loved every minute of it whether raising our adorable baby reading to you while you fall asleep losing to you at dr mario or listening to all of our good good podcasts together you're my favorite love you babe q griffin humming amber by 3 11 i don't know i don't really understand why i don't know why baby that wasn't me where'd that come from i have no one baby I need you to go get the shot and jam it directly in... Right into my brain, babe. It's the only way to...

Whoa, baby, please. I like it. Why would I stop this? Because you need to get to the refrigerator and get the shot out of it and put it right in my wa-wa-wa-wa brain. Please, baby. Shades of gold displayed naturally. It's not a time to groove. It's not a time to groove.

Can you read this other jumbo, John? This message is for Griffin. Hey, I know him. It's from Angus McDonald, boy detective. The crossover event that everybody's been asking for for the past week when our show debuted. All right, here I'm going to show my fandom. Yeah, do it. Do my Angus impression.

Please do. Hello, sir. It's Angus McDonald, boy detective, speaking from across dimensions. I just wanted to say thanks for creating me. I'm a delightful character who brings joy to thousands of The Adventure Zone fans. I've never seen The Bachelor before, but I hear it's about the greatest mystery of all, love. So I'm sure I'd be a fan if it existed in my world. Oh, my sweet Angus, my sweet boy.

If you want to get a Jumbotron, how would you do that? You would go to MaximumFun.org slash Jumbotrons and do them there. And if you already had one on Rose Buddies, it's going to be on Wonderful. Obviously, that's how it's going to be on Wonderful, obviously. That's how it's been working. Thank you, Angus. Thank you, Angus. I apologize that I can't do the Angus voice.

You did so good, babe. I captured the mood, I thought. I'm Allegra Ringo. And I'm Renee Colbert. And we host a podcast called Can I Pet Your Dog? Renee, can I tell you about a dog I met this week? I wish that you would Pet Your Dog? Renee, can I tell you about a dog I met this week? I wish that you would. In turn, though, can I tell you about a dog hero?

May I tell you about a dog breed in a segment I like to call Mutt Minute? I would love that. Could we maybe talk about some dog tech? Could we have some cool guests on, like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Nicole Byer, and Ann Wheaton? I mean, yeah, absolutely. I'm in. You're on board. What do you say we do all of this and put it into a podcast?

Yeah, okay. You think? All right. Should we call it like, I don't know, can I pet your dog? Sure. All right. What do you say we put it on every Tuesday on Maximum Fun? Or on iTunes?

Sounds good to me. Meeting's over. My second wonderful thing. Please. Four square. Okay, wait. my second wonderful thing please four square oh okay wait are you talking about the app okay i'm not talking about the app i'm talking about the game four square man i used to play the fuck out of four square four square was the best game for child uh athletes that weren't athletes that is so apt there there's a rubber ball there is four square what would you call that ball i guess a dodgeball right a playground ball like a playground ball dodgeball four square well more of a kickball than a dodgeball dodgeballs

were usually smaller okay um and it is it's just a square drawn on the ground with four quadrants. Yeah. If memory serves, you had a teammate. I would usually play... This is what I'm interested in. This is gonna get wild, because, like, literally,

there were school to school in Huntington, West Virginia. The worlds were different. I cannot imagine how y'all fucked around in St. Louis. I know. So, this is also called Box Ball. No, it's not.

Or King's Corners. Incorrect. And it's been around at least since the 1950s. This seems like one of those like ancient like they were playing this in like Incan like civilizations. So I found it interesting to read about this just because they listed a lot of example rules. So the way it's played, for those that don't know, there are always four people playing. And each time you advance in the game, which you advance by somebody either dropping the ball or the ball going out of bounds. And when they get kicked out, you move up a square to replace them. And so once you're in the four square, you get to decide the rules.

And you get to serve. Yes. Yeah. And so there's a four square world championship, which I thought was a little suspect because it happens in Bridgeton, Maine. And when I looked at the list of winners they were all people from maine like they say okay they say on the website that it draws athletes from the usa and canada and has registered competitors from israel to bermuda okay but when you look at the list of winners they're like that could that i mean that's partially because like who is like there's probably not that so

many people that are that into foursquare that they will drive up to maine to compete but tell me if you're familiar with any of these oh man it's such a specific rule set i am so fucking excited i've got them in my head too okay okay early birds don't know no what is that so to sort of like to paint like a little bit more of a clear picture it's kind of tennis rules right where you get the ball served to your square it bounces once in your square you hit it And then you have to hit it to a different square. I almost always play duos where you and your partner were on opposite corners. Oh, see, we never played that. Okay. Snake eyes. No way. Jackpot. No. Body parts. Does that mean you can hit them in the body and then they're out? You can hit the ball with any part of the body. Oh, okay. No,

I did play it that if it hit them, like it as a as a hit and so they would be out so that was a good tactic of just like just slamming it at somebody bobbles was that where you could sort of bounce it from one hand to the other yeah yeah we did play bobbles double taps was that where you could hit it towards the ground and then hit it a second time to like add like a yeah it was like a faint strike maneuver where you'd hit it and somebody would think they would know how hard it was going and then you could hit it a second time so that was it that was the only rules well those are just the examples they gave okay i would play uh outside lines are in inside lines are out no matter what if you hit an inside line you're out and if you hit the outside line it counts that's i am not

familiar with that okay that was in we will play uh popcorn where you could i know popcorn you could bounce it inside of somebody else's square and then like move in really quick to like hit it a second time and like bounce it down oh that's different than i think i know um yeah we definitely played that if you hit somebody else with any other part of their body so you could like drill it at them but if they got out of the way it would be out obviously oh um we had so many rules we had a four square championship here's a sad story i tried out for the basketball team at miller elementary school every year that's sweet i never made it i never even came close did you think that um please finish the sentence because it's going to be so cruel and you can't have started it and not finish it but go ahead and say it

go ahead and finish it because it's going to be it's going to be remarkably cruel but you've already started it and i know what the end's going to be so you may as well say it go ahead and finish it because it's gonna be it's gonna be remarkably cruel but you've already started it and i know what the end's gonna be so you may as well say it because i'll be even more hurt if you don't go ahead and finish that sentence for me please and just go ahead and did you think you were good at basketball all right there it was you know what i know what i said it actually it was much worse to actually hear it um we had a basketball court like growing up in our backyard we had a grass backyard where we had like all of our toys and then one day we built a like family room extension onto the back of our house and then dad paved over the backyard and put in a basketball court paved by the backyard put up a ball court and uh i didn't play that much but like everybody it was fucking space gym had just come out. It was fucking 96.

Like Michael Jordan was like crushing it in the bowls. What was your biggest basketball skill? Like were you a good shootsman? Yeah, I was a good shootsman. How was your dribbling? I was actually pretty good at like three-pointers. But like if anybody was covering me in any way, I would fall the fuck apart. But I can make a miracle long bomb from time to time.

I was not good. But still, if you were cool at our elementary school, you auditioned for the basketball team. You auditioned for the basketball team. That's sweet. Is that what I said? Yes. Oh, shit. You tried out.

You tried out for the director of the team. And so i did every year i never made it right and there were kids that i grew up with and was in like preschool and elementary school with and we had um there was uh i guess a like a in-home nanny's not the right word but like an in-home daycare thing that somebody ran um and me and like some of these kids like were in it and then they got athletic and they joined the basketball team so i'd always join it just because like all my old buddies were doing it and that was like where i started to feel like i was sort of slotting into my place in the hierarchy right because i had

all these i had all these buddies in uh kindergarten i had these buddies in first grade and had these buddies in second grade and then by third grade they were you know accomplished athletes and i was exactly when you figure it out and i was not and i was like watching them all kind of drift away a little bit which is not a complete sad story like i started doing community theater around that time and i made this incredible group of friends that i have to this day um but this was like scary for me and so i always tried to put basketball team never made it but i was fucking good at four square i was really fucking good at four square and so one day my elementary school threw a four square tournament and i got on a team with a couple of my old buddies fucking stetson

and uh and david and john and you had a buddy whose first name was stetson yeah yeah oh that's darling uh he ran i don't know if he still does, I think it may have shut down, but he ran a candy store next to a movie theater in Huntington. Did he have a handlebar mustache? He did not, no. So close. I was on a team with them, right? And we would do like rotations, like knockout style, or once your team was completely knocked out, you're out.

And we were crushing it. We were crushing it. We made it through like three rounds of the tournament, made it to the finals, or the second, the final two. We were one of the teams in and we lost to the first place team. And I was heartbroken because it was so sad. Like these were my friends and I was finally proven to them.

Like I'm an athlete too. And then I went to computer lab and I got on like the clip art software and I made certificates. Sweet Griffin. I made little certificates for coming in second place oh sweet and i gave them to my friends oh my gosh i just want to hug you i'm getting emotional thinking of this story because i'm just now processing like why i did that and it makes me extremely sad no it's charming oh um maybe they still have those certificates maybe they treasure you still had your your math blaster certificate yeah that's space captain god i forgot when you

moved from chicago four square fucking owns i wanted to go so this is this what i was interested about four square um griffin and i grew up for the most part in a time where the internet didn't really dictate how we found out about things yeah so the fact that we all played four square four square all around the country but play with different rules is what's interesting to me so i wanted to see if you were familiar with any of my okay what are yours cherry bombs what was that that was when you could bounce it into somebody's square as as hard as possible and they would have like 10 seconds to go get the ball and bring it back oh interesting yeah i think we had that cherry we had something like that but i don't think it had a countdown

clock i think it was just like how big of a dick can you be so they'd have to run and go get it and if they couldn't get it back in and they would usually be hurling it from across the playground trying to get it back in uh typewriters uh is that where you could just kind of like bounce it really low to the ground yeah like very low yeah typewriters i also remember something called baby bouncies which in my head is very similar to typewriters okay and there was also like a like a tv tag or something there was something where you would pass it around in a circle and everybody had to name a tv show which i always looked forward to because that was where i can't make a fucking layup to save my life but i could talk about all the characters in alf and all

episode b plots um gosh what else was there i those are the ones that i remember okay i mean i named most of mine already the main one was inside lines are out outside lines are in and i was such a fucking like douche about that stuff like oh inside line nope like they would be playing and i would just like catch the ball like hit the inside line get on out of here one time uh john crider slapped me in the face uh because i said inside lines right outside lines we both got sent to the principal's office um he slapped me right on my face and i was fucking like seven so i didn't really know how to handle that uh and he was tall he was a big he got he got big early he slapped me right

across the face and it really stunned me um and we got sent to the principal's office and i didn't say anything because john was my buddy and i should have i should have did you make a certificate for him later that said best slapper the story's making me sad too i realize i'm looking back on that story i don't know how i feel about it because i make some emotions i just didn't want my buddy to get in trouble well i didn't realize four square was going to be such a rich vein for you yeah i didn't either but we used to play that like every day every day yeah i played it every day for five years so like yeah of course I have that and hot lava. Uh, that's just where you can't touch the floor.

Yeah. We had one of those like cement bar mazes things that you would sit in the corners and try and make it to other corners. Now, this is what I played. This is what I played in elementary school on regular elementary school days in my tag class days, my talented and gifted class.

Uh, we would usually just climb up on the big toy and do some by which i mean like you know what i mean by a big toy no i don't like a like a little thing with like a slide and a like a jungle gym on it like a playscape okay again a regional difference thing i think there's a toy i've heard big toy before that's adorable uh we would get up on it i'm up on the pig wait can you say it in your west virginia accent my big heard big toy before. Oh my gosh, that's adorable. We would get up on it. I'm up on the big, wait, can you say it in your West Virginia accent, please? My big toy. And we would get up there and we would basically do like a Final Fantasy LARP.

Oh God. That's what me and my friends at tag class would do. We'd get up there and we would talk about, you know, how our games of Civilization 2 went last night. Oh, God. And we would pretend to be, you know, Cecil and Rydia and Golbez up there and, you know, casting spells. Was Rachel Bailey in this with you? She was, yeah. Yeah, she was.

She was one of the students that I came in from another school because we didn't go to the same elementary school together. Yeah, I mean, a lot of my friends now were in that one. Not a big surprise that there's a lot of crossover friends now we're in that one not a big surprise that there's a lot of crossover between like theater kids and like oh griffin final final fantasy larpers i've learned a lot about you in this conversation it's been a good episode can i tell you something uh-huh love you more than ever oh good i'm glad to hear that i'm gonna be really unpacking that that fucking four square second place certificate story all night i think we maybe we won't put this one out um oh hey we have

submissions uh thank you all for sending in your submissions if you want to get a submission on the show go to wonderfulpodcast.gmail.com try to keep it one or two sentences uh like these and we will look into them uh here's one uh every autumn, I listen to Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. Not exclusively, but a lot. It's the perfect soundtrack to the leaves changing and the beginning of sweater weather. And after four years of this tradition, I get more excited about hearing Stevie Nicks sing Dreams

than I do about Christmas music. And that's from Tori. That is such a good... Like fall music in general. The idea of like, okay, it's the first cool day. Let's roll down the windows. And I put on... what do you put on? I feel like I have it.

Like any Nick Drake album. Oh, gosh. I don't know. Nick Drake, Brighter Later. I will put that shit on and just like, oh, it's fall. Like this is the moment that it switches over. I thought about like summer music. I've never really thought about fall music.

Oh, dude. I have two fall playlists on Spotify. Summer music is like summer summer music is not like jams they're jams they're temporary cuts the feeling right yeah but like i will put on a nick drake album every fall and this it marks it's like a flag in the ground i want to say joni mitchell although she does have some i mean california is fun and sort of summary um i also equate uh like dave brubeck and like any of the like the jazz albums that you sort of added to our collection like i think about like cooking chili in the fall and listening to dave brubeck oh that's nice that's getting me

going right now that was a very good one thank you tori uh here's another one uh i'm gonna mispronounce this uh okeanos explorer that's o-k-e-a-n-o-s explorer live streams from the bottom of the sea make me inordinately happy when i notice they've started a new mission i fist pump quietly to myself in my office at work eager to live out vicariously my childhood jacusto dreams uh they are currently exploring north of hawaii and then there's a link to the youtube channel uh and you can go to uh just search for uh Explorer O-K-E-A-N-O-S. And you can find their website. I need to check that out.

I've never heard of that. Yeah, I watched some of the streaming. It's just like people going on actual like using those like little submersible vehicles, like little underwater adventures. Just like, hey, the world is like 90% ocean. Let's see what the fuck's going on down there. That's cool. Into that.

That was sent in by JB. Thank you, JB. Here's one from trichelle in april earlier this year i started ice skating and even more recently i started taking lessons for figure skating i'm super excited about it and i'm curious if you guys have ever tried ice skating too tried ice skating yeah have you ever got like you ever thought about like getting into it i grew up in the midwest like ice skating was what we did on the weekends. Did you ever play hockey? No, but I wanted to. I was one of those kids, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't unathletic, but I also wasn't confident in my athleticism. And to be a lady trying out for the hockey team, I felt like I had to be super good.

That sucks. And so I had to be super good. That sucks. And so I didn't ever do it. I'm not saying that sucks that you said that. I'm saying that sucks that that was a pressure that was applied in any way. Because there was, in my high school, there was one girl that played hockey, and she was a goaltender, and she was not treated well. And so it kind of set the tone. That sucks, man. Let's go play hockey.

Let's get into it. I love ice skating. I'm actually pretty good at it. And I, in middle school, I got my own pair of hockey skates and I could really, I could really turn those corners.

I would love to go ice skating with you sometime. I have not gone since I lived in Huntington. And there was one that like we would take trips to when we were at church because it was like

right down the street and I would always get blisters on my ankles because I, I guess I wasn't very good at it. But then I just watched Yuri on Ice and now I think I could really carve it the fuck up out there. Griffin, I just got this image of the two of us going ice skating and holding little

Henry's hands. And now I just want to go to sleep and dream about it. Okay. Okay. Well, let's go there. Let's go to sleep together. This has been wonderful. Thank you for listening.

This episode is probably a little bit longer than they're usually going to be, but we got really into talking about Fours four square and wombats there uh please review our show on itunes now that we've switched formats uh it's really helpful to get your feedback yeah we were the number one podcast and by the way we need to change this category film and tv probably need to switch that we'll probably talk about film and tv sometimes but it'll not be the main focus of the show uh and that was because everybody was like supporting us and that really means a lot. And if you continue doing it, if you have not left a review,

I know every podcast on earth has you to do that stuff, but it really is helpful when you're getting started out. And so now is the time to do it. And thank you. Thanks to maximum fun for having us. You can go to maximum fun.org. Check out all the great podcasts. There shows likes stop podcasting yourself and lady to lady.

There's the new show who shot you with Ricky Carmona. Yeah. A bunch of really great shows, all for free on MaximumFun.org. Big thanks to Bowen and Gus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. I am going to drop a link

to the song here in the description of this podcast if you want to check it out. But it's like a really good jam and you should go check it out. Anything else? Nope, that's it. Yep.

We'll be back next week with more wonderful. We still don't know what the outro is going to be, but we'll, uh, like the, like the, like the beacons and get everybody together and we'll, we'll figure it out for you.

Cause it's, it can't be this. It can't just be us like rambling uncomfortably at the end of each episode. Some people have suggested like, it's, it's been, it's been wonderful or like, it's been wonderful or like, it's been wonderful talking to you or,

you know, something like that. Uh, yeah. I mean, we could just end it with a sort of like general, like positive, like,

all right. Well, no, we can't do that. Cause we almost always record when our baby's asleep. Oh yeah. Keep crushing it and keep crushing it like a long badass. You want to say that every week? I mean, I want to say it this week we'll figure it out we'll talk to you soon bye Hey! Working on Hey! Money more Hey!

Working on Hey! Money more Hey! Working on Hey! Money more Hey! Working on

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