Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 25: Pizza Time Dudes

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

Rachel's favorite week-long beach rager! Griffin's favorite breakfast dessert! Rachel's favorite accesibility service! Griffin's favorite Canadian rock band! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hey, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Pizza time, dudes! Okay. Yeah, I figured if I started out like that, like old TMNT vibe. Yeah, I was going to say.

I feel like April O'Neil over here. Well, hold on. You could be one of the turtles or the big rat who was like the turtle king, I guess. I'm not Michelangelo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe Raphael. I feel like I'm not Michelangelo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe Raphael. I feel like I'm kind of a Raphael. Oh, okay.

Which is the other one that you like? Donatello? Okay, actually, I know what I said, but I feel like I might be Donatello. He was kind of, actually, he was the smart one. Anytime I have to think of what the turtles were known for, I have to think of the theme song. It's the only way for me to remember. Yeah, it's like Donatello. He's got the stick and Raphael. He's a pizza hog and Michelangelo. He's got a third arm. How come the mutant turtles

weren't like really fucked up? I mean, they were turtles that were like dudes yeah i guess it's not great but i'm just saying like if they're mutants because they got the ooze on them i want one of them to have like six heads what do we why did we start with the team and t chat do you think uh because you said something about pizza oh that's right it's pizza time dudes yeah there it is would it be like so obvious or just like pizza it's hard it's hard to walk a line because i like doing like broad strokes stuff on here on wonderful things like uh you know pokemon or just like you know uh driving cars with boys that's very. French fries was a good one. Yeah.

But I feel like there's ones you could do where it's just so basic. Just like pizza. Like, yeah, duh. Uh-huh. Anyway, my first thing this week is pizza. No, it's not. I think you actually go first this time. Yeah, I wanted to start with a small wonder.

Oh, yeah. I forgot we did this. Mine's very small. Go for it. It's the littlest wonder. Okay. So, mental floss is a big source for me when I'm trying to get inspired as to what to talk about. Yeah. And on March 6th, they had this article that came out called 135 Amazing Facts for People Who Like Amazing Facts.

Okay. That's maybe the most mental floss ass mental floss shit I've ever heard. And so it's full of little pieces of trivia, including just a few little things just to wet your whistle yeah what what it get it what uh ravens in captivity can learn to talk better than parrots that's incredible can we also take a second why is that wet your whistle who's getting their whistles dunking them in water it ruins it anyway that's horrible and I hate it. If I ever saw a Raven talk, I would immediately jump off a bridge or something because I will think it's been a curse. Two more little trivia bits.

Are they as spooky as the first one? Because I might have to veto. One of them is a little spooky. Oh, shoot. Bela Lugosi. Yeah. As you know, was buried in full Dracula costume, cape and all. That's kind of fun.

It is. Yeah, it's fun and I like it, but it also feels like maybe we're tempting fate because he did pretty good in that movie. And I'm just saying his method. Ready to come back. Oh, he's biting. And then the last one, during Prohibition, moonshiners would wear cow shoes. And they have pictures of these.

It's actual shoes that left hoof prints instead of footprints to help distillers and smugglers evade the police so they love little hoof prints when they were scamming okay yeah but the fact that you and i know that i mean that's that a lot of people knew that back in the day which means that cops back in the day would just be like i don't know tire here. And then it looks like a cow got out of the car and ran away. There's no way. There's no way. There's a man's footprints walking in,

but then a hoof prints on the way out. This isn't fucking Farside there, Gary Larson. There's no chance a cow's driving the car. Case closed. We lost. Yeah, so there are 132 more pieces of trivia just like that on the mental floss article so it's pretty good i'd recommend it uh i didn't really have a small wonder but um sugar-free hazelnut coffee creamer every day every day it's weird there's not many other sort of food items varieties

of coffee creamer available to you right but i'd found the best one which is sugar-free hazelnut coffee creamer every day I drink it every day. It's weird. I don't really do anything else every day. But I drink that every day. Yeah. So what's your first big wonder? Okay, my first big wonder.

Your great wonder of the world. Spring break! Woo! Okay, it's very funny that you're bringing spring break because you are having, like, the most shitty spring break. Yeah, well, they, you know, get know get lamer i think as you get older so i don't feel too let down by that that is true they are not as exciting as you age but there's a whole history of spring break okay which i didn't know about until i did some research that is weird how did that sort of how did that sort of come to pass i've never really thought

about it before but everyone's just like, you know what? It's March. I'm done. And it's all over the world, too. If you go to the Wikipedia article, they list the various countries and what their spring break traditions are. Is it related to like, oh, it's finally done being cold? Let's take a minute and appreciate it?

Yeah, it's usually like a break in the spring. Huh. Well, yeah. Well. Well, yeah. Well. Well, yeah, I knew that part. But I'm saying like, is it like a climate sort of base? Like, ah, finally, let's take some time. Well, the article on Wikipedia more gives the time frame.

It doesn't really say the reasons behind it. So what are they saying? So the history of spring break. So Fort Lauderdale. A righteous dude named Zach Coolbuzz was just like, come on, dudes, pizza time. And everybody put down their hammers and shovels and old timey looms and work instruments and said, yes, past, past me thine millilite. He, he colored his glasses black and said, you know what? This is really great for somewhere.

I'm suddenly feeling like I want to be out in the sun. And then he ripped his sleeves off. Yeah. And he was like, this should be a whole thing for a week. This should be a whole thing. No sleeves. Okay, sorry. Okay, so Fort Lauderdale built Florida's first Olympic-sized pool in 1928.

And Florida, as you know, is kind of a vacation spot. I have heard that. For the young people. For everyone. Are you vacationing in Florida? You've joked. I have heard that. For the young people. For everyone. Are you vacationing in Florida? You've joked. I go to vacation. I went to vacation to Florida literally every year.

Yeah. I mean, I imagine the closer you are, the more that makes sense. Yeah. Also, my nonny's there. Hi, nonny. Oh, she doesn't listen, I don't think. She doesn't. Okay.

So, by the late 30s, more than 1,500 student-athletes were flocking to the city's College Coaches Swim Forum. The first forum was hosted in 1938, and college swimmers made Fort Lauderdale their exclusive spring break home well into the 60s. So, again, this is where spring break came from? Well, the tradition of really partying hard. Okay, I thought you were talking about where, like, the concept of taking a week off in the middle of spring came from. No, I mean, there's this- I completely misunderstood. You're literally talking about fucking party time.

Yeah, the history of party time spring break. Not, like, the history of, like, the Greeks and Romans celebrated the coming of a time spring break not like the history of like the greeks and romans celebrated the coming of a new season like it was probably that for that though yeah okay they also probably fucking partied but in a different way a different way sexually uh there was also um a mgm movie called where the boys Are that came out in the 60s that was a coming-of-age film that followed four college women during their spring vacation, which apparently was very influential to people,

seeing the youths on screen celebrating spring break and then thinking, I could also do that. Well, the 60s are when a film started to really show that real hashtag teen life. No, that's true back in the 50s you get a poster and be like this movie's got two kisses in it and people were like whoo two kisses danny don't go see that movie that was the rating back then yeah instead of like pg-13 it was like two someone takes the lord's name in vain once, and there are two kisses between four different adults. These red hot pecs are too hot for your teen eyes.

And then, of course, you and I know, MTV Spring Break. This is a big jump. We went from the 60s to... No, hey, you know what? In 1986, MTV launched Spring Break. What? Did you know what? In 1986, MTV launched Spring Break. What? Did you know that?

What? 86. That was pretty, when did MTV launch? I think MTV started right around then, and they were like, hey, let's start Spring Break, too. So they were like, video killed the radio star. What's up? We're MTV. That's our first jam. Get down to Florida.

Get down to the Keys. Sway, young Sway, young baby Sway, eight-year-old S first jam get down to florida get down to the keys sway baby young sway young baby sway eight-year-old sway get down here we're gonna do this fucking thing right yeah it was launched in daytona beach florida uh and then by the end of the 80s um then that was when there was kind of a backlash against spring break yeah because i guess in 1985 370 000 students people died showed up died and uh they get the there's there was a uh there was a bad batch of keystone that went out and we lost 370 000 so you talk about keystone a lot yeah um our like cheap crappy beer was natural light it's funny i feel like it's a regional thing.

In West Virginia, Keystone was like, if you wanted to get a six pack for two and a half dollars. Was there a nickname for it? Because in college it was like Natty Light. No, I mean, Keystone is tough to kind of... Keezy. Some key... We had a lot of nicknames for bad things that we shouldn't have been putting inside of our bodies like keystone light um so there was a backlash i imagine that was like

yeah so like early 90s were like backlash o'clock right mayors came out and said like don't don't come here and do this that's where like dare got started and that's where like people were like fucking trying to get pinball banned like well you're talking about like like reagan time yeah nancy reagan was a big anti-drug lady yeah and mortal kombat hated it probably just because she couldn't beat it probably because she couldn't beat it she went to the arcade and i was like hey nancy yeah come on over here it's this new game called mortal combat scorpion get over here oops uh yeah so for me my spring break celebration was always pretty mild uh i think one year i went to memphis tennessee on a road trip was very cold it was drivable so that was a big reason we went was like what's a fun city

that's drivable sure uh and then my senior year went to austin texas my first time oh really is it yeah we um i came with some friends who grew up in texas and so we made the drive from missouri to austin uh and spent a few days here. That sounds like fate. That's when you knew, this is where I will meet the love of my life. The love of my life. Cecil.

My spring breaks, I never went to the beach. Okay. I would go with my dad, my brothers, maybe a friend or two up to king's island every time just for a day well they had uh like spring break previews where like media outlets could like come and check out the new rides and shit and your dad was a radio man my dad was a radio man and so we would go to king's island like it's a ride all the rides and there would be like nobody there. It was awesome.

It was because it was like media previews. It was just like the park was at like 10% capacity. And so the idea was that your dad would go on the radio and talk about the hot new rides. Yeah, they would do like remote broadcasts from the park. That's fun. So like the year the Tomb Raider ride went out, I rode that thing fucking five times. Just would like walk off, walk right back on again. ride went out i rode that thing fucking five times just would like walk off walk right back on again my friend tanner got his balls destroyed by the team raider ride because it's like it crushes this

big harness over you yeah and then it spins you around with centrifugal force uh he lost his phone too his phone went flying from his pocket and his uh his bazone was uh was flattened and it was but it's a really fun ride and a really good park but again like the opposite of like there was no raging going on uh so my my kind of my final closing my chapter with spring break is when i moved to austin texas in 2008 um here in austin spring break always lines up with south by southwest. And so I would always take a few days off. Wednesday through Friday is the music portion typically. And during the day you can see a bunch of artists for free because usually

artists are just trying to get out and promote their music because typically they don't have an album out yet or they're unsigned. And so I used to take a few days every week and go downtown and see a bunch of free shows and that's obviously how i met griffin yeah and now that i work at a college i get the week off uh and i don't do any of that i usually will go see doctors that i have to see you are doing that you're like yeah spring break you clean up around the house. Just get errands done. Time to get my teeth looked at.

Yes. So that's typically what my spring break is like now. But I still appreciate, you know, the time off. Yeah, sure. My first thing this week is cereal. This is a dessert that you eat in the morning. This is a morning dessert. Yeah. Yeah, we were just talking this morning about, eat in the morning. This is a morning dessert. Yeah.

Yeah, we were just talking this morning about, or this morning, I'll have to say earlier in the podcast, about French fries and your more basic. Oh, yeah, dude. This is definitely one of them. Cereal, dude. This is dessert. Now, just to make sure everyone is clear,

you're not talking about the hit podcast. You are talking about the actual breakfast meal you consume i am saying i have enjoyed c-e-r-e-a-l a lot more like over a longer period of time than the podcast s-e-r-i-a-l now your oldest brother just mackler is a real cereal head he's a fiend about it, yeah. And I would say too much. Are there like deep roots in the McElroy family on cereal consumption? So I used to, every morning before school, from like kindergarten up to probably eighth grade, I would have a big, big bowl of cereal before school with a big old thing of milk poured into it.

And every day at school, I would be sick. And it took me a long time. A long time. It took me nine years. I feel like when I met you, you were just recently like, oh, you know what? I don't think milk goes well with me. Yeah, I said eighth grade. It may have been all the way through high school.

So let's say like around 14 years. I was just like, why do I get sick every day? I will say I do see you eat ice cream still. So it's not like you've sworn. Yeah, I mean, I got it. I need it. But this is not about my gastrointestinal distress. In fact, this is one of the few segments where I don't want to focus on that. Because now I've discovered almond milk. And now it's fine. Yes. Cereal, cereal, when you move to Austin, Texas, you and you may not know this, if you don't live here, you kind of have to break up with cereal because there's so many more sort of prestigious breakfast offerings that kind of suck you in. Yes. I'm talking about those breakfast tacos. I'm talking about kolaches. I'm talking about upscale brunch spots. I'm talking about artisanal waffles. There's like so much stuff. And so you move here and you go crazy on all these options and it's

good that's a good reason to live in austin i think is your breakfast options are fucking legit yes but then you're just gonna bring it back on home to cereal someday because cereal is always gonna be there for you um there's so much about cereal that is so mystifying to me um some of its origins i get right right? Like you, you cook up some grains and you're like, you eat it and you're like, oh, I like the texture of this, but the flavor sucks. And so you sugar blast it and you're like, all right, I want to eat this in the morning for some reason. Like all that I can kind of get down with. Why did somebody put milk on it for the first time? Is there another food?

When you're eating a big bowl of chips, are you ever just like, what if all of this was wet? Well, I mean, think about oatmeal. Like that is an old-timey wet morning food. Yeah, I think we got to where we are here from. And I did no research on this. Okay. Because nothing's less interesting i think than the origins of of uh cereals um scientists however i did do some research i lied scientists did

cereal experiments which is a very good sentence um to figure out why we put milk on cereal and this is like a vein of like seinfeld why why don't we do water there are some people who do water and by the way i'm not slamming Jerry Seinfeld. I'm pretty sure we did that bit on My Brother, My Brother and Me once. You also like to do your Seinfeld impression. It sucks so bad. So, like, why don't we put milk on it? Why don't we put water or some other fluid?

They measured the, quote, rupture force of various cereals when submerged in different liquids, including 2% milk, and then distilled water, and then freeze-dried after soaking them for a set amount of time, and then examined the freeze-dried cereal that had soaked in these different liquids, and they found that milk actually holds cereal together better than water. The fats in the milk actually form a layer around the cereal that keeps the liquid from fully penetrating the cereal, unlike water, which just like destroys it. Who are these scientists, man?

They're doing good work. This is why I'm so excited about cereal. It's not just these scientists, but the scientists who are making the cereal. And I recognize it's hugely unhealthy. Please, I get it. It is like you're eating 10 candy bars in the morning. It's not great. But it is also like this eternal frontier for food ingenuity,

unlike any other sort of food sphere that exists. The people who make cereal are fucking bonkers and their experiments have gone unchecked for so long. Do you remember when Oops All Berries came out in 1997? And then you were like... Do you remember where you were? I probably do because we ate it a lot but i was like i remember being like damn captain this is excessive so your family didn't have a rule

about sugary cereals in the house oh no we did not oh we would go nuts but oops i'll bury his 97 you're like this is the this is it this is the wildest i feel betrayed i'm not mad about it but it's just like you all have betrayed sort of the core concept of your cereal and what the cereal means and this is as bad as it's definitely gonna get and now my boy captain crunch is doing sprinkled donut crunch and blueberry pancake crunch and sprinkled donut crunch has sprinkles in it and it's like is that still cereal at this point i don't know but i love that you're asking the hard questions. And then there was like this golden age of licensed cereals.

And that represented just sort of a better time in America, I think. Because Herculos were poison and I ate about half a metric ton of them. That was a real cereal you could buy. Herculos, yeah. The best one was, there was, I think like Mario cereal. We would go deep in the pain i mean of course yeah but then bill and ted's excellent adventure came out they released a cereal called and this is not a joke bill and ted's excellent cereal and i want aliens to find

that like the first thing they find when they come to earth is just like well they put their name on all the things that they make and they're very braggadocious about the flavors that they're able to generate. Bill and Ted's excellent cereal is so good. That's really good. What if they'd done like Harry and Sally's good oatmeal? And this is the oatmeal from when Harry met Sally. See, I immediately went to the Fast and the Furious movies. The Fast and the Furious's excellent hard-boiled eggs.

And these are little eggs that come in small bags. I get excited when it's cereal time, but I am perpetually always excited about how these food astronauts are exploring the endless reaches of dark flavor space. I know that you are a cereal enthusiast. I believe that. flavor space. I know that you are a cereal enthusiast. I believe that. One time I ate a bowl of cereal in front of Griffin in the evening and he looked at me like I was an alien.

It's a morning food. We just talked about it. But it's a dessert item. I will go to, I'm so sorry. I disagree wholeheartedly. It's a weird thing to eat, period. Getting a big thing of sugar blasted oat squares and then

getting it well, like really wet with cow milk or almond milk and then eating that in the morning is like wild. But I think it's 10 times as wild if it's like 11 o'clock and you're like, now let me get at these oat squares. Well, it's me, so it's definitely not 11 o'clock. No, it's like 7.30. It's more like 9 o'clock, yeah. Anyway, these food astronauts, they are committing crimes, and I could not be more proud of them. I appreciate your adventurous spirit when it comes to cereal

because a lot of times we'll go grocery shopping, and we typically buy exactly the same thing every time. Yes. But where i see griffin's artistry is when we go down the cereal aisle yes and he's like hey you know what i'm gonna get life cereal yeah i'll get some cinnamon life i did that so here's the thing these days i do have to actually watch my sugar intake a little bit yeah um and that's not a joke but some of these some of the cereal like um i used to fuck up a bag of Fruity Pebbles.

And I say bag because we'd get that Sam's Club big bag. Oh, I would destroy them. The way that these instantly give way to the rupture force of the milk is, like, I love that instant sort of rainbow slurry, and I would just guzzle that down. Wild. And whenever I go to Huntington and I stay with Justin, Justin is with these food scientists. He is deep in outer space. It's like gravity. He got dislodged from the ship and he's just flying out there.

I actually asked Justin because every time we go, he has like the newest, like most underground cereal, like how he keeps up. And he does like, he does do research to find out what the new cereals are now just since the one who got me on blueberry muffin tops which back in the joystick days was like a thing we talked about in the joystick podcast non-stop because it was this incredible blueberry muffin top flavored cereal that's probably the best one of all time but the sugar content in that would literally probably kill me these days um so i keep it a little bit more reserved i go with a

nice cinnamon uh i like cinnamon in general cinnamon life i'll get down with that a lot of cinnamon checks uh honey bunches of oats that one's actually pretty high in sugar content but i still enjoy i have to but i can still walk down the aisle and see that there's like buffalo wing coco crispies and it's like whatever the the fuck, dude. Yeah, sure. I can't, but I'm glad you will. That's a great one because I also love cereal. And I think there's a lot of room out there for new discoveries. Still, yeah.

We've seen 1% of 1% of what's possible. I'm calling the food scientists cowards now because they know the flavors they should be dabbling with, but they won't. And I'm talking about meat cereal. You did just mention like a buffalo. Yeah. I think. Come on.

BW3. BW3 wants this. Partnership. With? With. Honey smacks. I want to see that buried a big buffalo in. Or is it a frog?

The smacks is the frog. Anyway, honey smacks are gross. Can I steal you away? Is it crickets? Is it like a little cartoon cricket got in here? Hey, bud. Oh, you got a secret for me? Don't. I shouldn't get in the car today why why should i stay out of the car today let's go i don't want to do this

okay uh you want to read that first jumbotron for me yeah uh this message is for the Benevolent Universe. It is from, this message is from Alma, Almag, Dalal, Feruza, and Lynn. Hi, Hannah. Happy Candle Nights. We thought the best gift would be... Oh, they actually want you to read this. Oh, okay. Hand it on over. Unless I'm their favorite DM, which is possible. We thought the best gift would be one of your favorite DMs telling you. It's not their favorite. It's one of their favorites. I'm in the pantheon.

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Coming Up Simpsons. We are a Simpsons podcast brand new to the Maximum Fun Network, and every episode we cover a different episode of The Simpsons that is a favorite of our special guests. We've had guests that are showrunners and writers and voice actors like Nancy Cartwright, all people that have worked on The Simpsons. And we've also had guests like Weird Al and people that are on the MaxFun Network already.

And each week we will talk to a very cool guest about their favorite episode. And it is so much fun. So if you like The Simpsons, come listen to Everything's Coming Up Simpsons. All right. Smell you later. My wonderful thing this week is closed captioning. Yeah. This is something that we started using a lot when we would have to turn the volume down on our television because our infant son was a very light sleeper and continues to be a light sleeper. But obviously this has tremendous value for people that are deaf,

for people that have difficulty hearing. So I did a little research on it today to figure out what the whole story was behind it. This is a, I mean, this isn't just like television too. This is, or films like video games. This is a big thing for like YouTube videos. There's an auto-generated like closed captioning service but there's lots of uh there's lots of other this is like a big conversation happening in like online media right now which is like it's it's this is a hard fucking job

yeah it's a tricky conversation but i think it's like essential work uh so closed captioning was first demonstrated at the first national conference on television for the hearing impaired in Nashville, Tennessee in 1971. That's how recent it is. I had no idea. A second demonstration of closed captioning was held at Gallaudet College in February 1972, where ABC and the National Bureau of Standards demonstrated closed captions embedded within a normal broadcast of the Mod Squad. So here's something that's interesting also, because I had always wondered how real-time closed captioning works.

It was developed by the National Captioning Institute in 1982. In real-time captioning, court reporters trained to write at speeds of over 225 words per minute give viewers instantaneous access to live news, sports, and entertainment. As a result, the viewer sees the captions within two to three seconds of the words being spoken. The National Captioning Institute was created in 1979 in order to get the cooperation of commercial television networks. And the first use of regularly scheduled closed captioning on American television occurred in 1980. The first programs seen with captioning were a Disney's Wonderful World presentation of the film Son of Flubber on NBC. I had to do that.

Had to get that one. An ABC Sunday Night Movie airing of Semi-Tough and Masterpiece Theater on PBS. There's all this legislation around it, ensuring quality and access. It used to be the kind of thing where you could only have a box on your television, and the box was very expensive. Yeah, I imagine. But in the early 90s, there was an act called the Television Decoder Circuitry Act that required all analog television receivers with screens of at least 13 inches, either sold or manufactured, to have the ability to display as closed captioning. Well, this would have been probably around the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was 1990, I think.

Yeah, 1990 was the Americans with Disabilities Act. So, yeah, obviously, it's something that's very widespread now. It's something that I have, I don't know, I've just gotten so used to it now that when I watch something, even if Henry is not home, like earlier today I was watching something while I was eating and I wanted the captions on even though I could have turned it to any volume I needed to be. I think this is interesting, right? volume I needed to be. I think this is, this is interesting, right? And this conversation is maybe it seems a little bit weird, because I think we both acknowledge the fact that our enjoyment of it is secondary to its actual purpose. Yeah, I mean, we're coming at it from a place of privilege. Yes, absolutely. It is it is there to serve the sort of diverse community of people who who are hard of hearing and you know, whatever way, but I, I almost exclusively I play games with subtitles on I play, I watch

everything with with captions on. And I think it has something to do with like, how I digest information. But like, it is it is easier for me if I am reading the words that like a character in a game is saying or that a person on TV is saying, like, it is easier for me to, like, really digest and have it stick, I guess, than just, like, hearing them say it. And then, of course, for Terrace House, like, we need it because we do not know how to speak Japanese. We do not understand Japanese. And so the good people who do the unofficial streams should...

I feel like we're in a speakeasy every time we talk about this terrace house this terrace house hookup we have speaking of which today's the day right today's the day opening new doors new season on netflix terrace house we can't vouch for it yet we haven't seen it yet but i mean this terrace house is gonna be good um that is a good one this again like this is another thing like we really do watch everything with subtitles these days which is good but i mean it's more good that it's here for for the folks who really need it yeah it's it's super it's super useful especially if you're watching something that's more complicated or moves very quickly like to be able to read it and hear it for some reason it

it just makes a big difference for me yeah uh do you want my thing sure okay it's not like uh salt no uh it is the weaker than i want to talk about the weaker dance they're a band so it's weird lots of people in the facebook group have been talking about the weaker than's a lot like more than the national average uh we also get it like in our submissions box like a lot, like more than the national average. Uh, we also get it like in our submissions box, like a lot. And that's been really eyeopening, uh, for me. Uh, they, we got a lot of talk about it. They have a song that they, uh, wrote about curling, uh, because they are a Canadian rock band and they're very, very clever. Uh, and so when we discussed curling on the show, there were a lot of people like, Hey, let's do weaker thans. could dance and um i it's been eye-opening for me because they were one of my favorite bands ever

in like high school and college yeah you introduced me to them i was not familiar with them because nobody really is um aside from one song that they had on the wedding crashers soundtrack they never really gained much popularity they were in the game for about a decade. They released four studio albums. The last one was Reunion Tour back in 2007. And I cannot fucking believe that was 11 years ago. And then they more or less like went on hiatus and then kind of broke up. I think they say now that the band is cryogenically frozen, which is just I think, a cute way of saying that they broke up. But I wanted to talk about them because the things that make this band great are really kind of unique, and they're kind of hard to pin down. They are a Canadian rock band. They're fronted by a dude named John K. Sampson, who has gone on to release some solo stuff after the Week of Dance split, which I'd also encourage you to go listen to because it is also very good

in its own right. And John K. Sampson left the band Propagandhi. Have you heard of Propagandhi? No. And John K. Samson left the band Propagandhi. Have you heard of Propagandhi? No. They're a sort of a punk, politically driven punk band, politically charged punk band. I guess most punk is. It's weird to make that distinction. But he left that band to start the Weaker Thans. But I don't think you could categorize the Weaker Thans as punk. In fact, they were kind of hard to categorize in the sort of containers of popular music back in the early aughts, which for rock you're talking about. I mean, a lot of emo and Weak of Ends music was like emotional, but it wasn't like dashboard emotional. It wasn't, you know, Sunny Day Real Estate, I think, is another emo band. It's been a while.

I've been out of the game for a bit. like it was emotional but it wasn't emo it it did go hard sometimes but it wasn't really punk uh their music was full of these like narrative and hyper obscure literary references uh and they painted these portraits of like unextraordinary small town scenes and that probably like contributed to their lack of mainstream success, because, like, it's, what is that? But I'll be damned, like, if it didn't check all the boxes for me back in the day. How did you find, how did you find them? Do you know? Um, I, I feel bad because I can't attribute it to who it was, but I used to get rides

to school, uh, with, uh, it may have been my friend Alyssa, who would give me a ride to school, and there was like a week event song on a CD of hers in the car. And I was like, hell yeah, this is amazing. I was in love with this band. I still am. I still think they are a terrific, terrific band. And if you're not familiar with them uh here's a song that is a perfect encapsulation of of everything i love about them it is from tournament of hearts which is a song off that last album reunion tour it is the curling song it is uh take it the title is taken from an actual women's curling championship that happens in canada and this song drops constant curling terminology constantly but it does them as metaphors to describe the subject of the song's

strained relationship with their significant other. So this is a clip from Tournament of Hearts. And I'm peeling off the label As they peel a corner guard Dance down the sheet to the tune of hurry, hurry hard And my popcorn squeaks in question Wonders why I'm not at home Where you wait beside a silent telephone There is no other band on Earth

who could pull off what this song does, a curling love song, kind of. And, like, most of their songs are like this. They tell these hyper-specific stories over music that fucking rules. Like, the music is also extremely good. It's not just like, oh, aren't we clever? It's really, really good. clever uh it's really really good they have another song called plea from a cat named virtue uh which is another song that would fucking stink from any other band it is literally a plea from a

cat to its owner all their song titles are completely literal um it is a plea from its cat to its owner to do something nice for themselves like throw a party like their owners in this funk and they want them to like get out of it by inviting some people over um uh it references like being a cat in some ways that are very very clever and delightful and uh it could be the most cornball shit ever but it really works here and not just because it's clever but because the music fucking rocks so this is a plea from a cat named virtue and i'll cater with all the birds that i can kill like they're tiny feathers And lick the sorrow from your skin Scratch the tear and begin To believe you're strong So that song is off of Reconstruction Site, which is their best album,

and maybe one of my favorite albums of all time, partially because every song on it is great, but also because it is an essay about losing someone close to you from a terminal illness and how you sort of reconstruct your life in the wake of that, which this album came out in 2003, and my mom died from cancer in 2005. And this album, and it sounds like a weird way to talk about like, an album or really like any inanimate object, I guess, but like, it was kind of like there for me in a way that makes total sense to me um and and it handles this like really heady really heavy

subject really beautifully and realistically in a way that i thought was like genuinely helpful at the time it handles that story of like loss and acceptance mostly with these three songs that frame the album the opening track is called, and it's this like celebration of this person's life. And then like right in the middle of the album, you get a track called Hospital Vespers that's kind of about their last rites. And then there's this final song that I want to play a bit of and read the lyrics to because it's very short, but it's called Past Due.

And it's about how the singer responds to this person's passing. So these are the lyrics, and I'll drop in some of the music, too, from Pastu. Because it's one of the most poignant things about Losing a Loved One that I've ever heard. The lyrics go, February always finds you folding. Local papers open to the faces. Passed away to wonder what they're holding. In those hands were never shown the places. Formal photographs refused to

mention. His tiny feet, that birthmark on her knee, the tyranny of framing our attention with all the eyes their eyes no longer see. Many things you owe these latest dead. A borrowed book, that check you didn't sign. The tools to be believed with, be beloved. Give what you can to keep, to comfort this. Plain fear you can't extinguish or dismiss. That's beautiful. It is a song about this idea, and maybe it's cliche, but it's really the only truth about how you actually recover from losing someone that you love, that when a person passes away,

they leave behind a footprint in your life. They have an impact that outlives them. And what this song kind of focuses on that I found so unique and so helpful is that that footprint is infinitely complex, so much so that you can't describe it to somebody else. It is made up of infinite stories and lessons and acts of service and jokes and all these other ways that they impacted your life that forms this thing that changes you. But it's so complex that you can't even really appreciate it. It's hard for you to do it, let alone for like an obituary to fully capture it. And in 14 lines, like it encapsulates that experience perfectly, the idea that like losing someone kind of makes you realize something bigger about the world and about the permanence of the things that we do with our time and how everyone leaves behind like something that is intangible, but also like the most meaningful thing that there is. And it also recognizes that with that realization,

there is like a pain that comes with it too, but like appreciating the bigger picture of a person's impact and like trying to like remember it and, and appreciate all the little, little parts of this infinite thing are ultimately like how you, how you move on. And I like, it is a manual on grief,

this album is. And it doesn't, like, glorify it in a way that, like, other bands might, where it's just like, I'm so sad, isn't that cool? It doesn't paint a pretty picture about it either. Most of the week of Ant's music tells a story, and this is a really fucking hard story to tell. And the fact that it tells

this story about grief and loss while also rocking very fucking hard is, an enormous musical accomplishment um so i'm really glad that the folks in our community like inspired me to talk about this this album and and like really reflect on it because i don't think i really appreciated how important it was to me back back in the day until like i kind of kind of started to do a deep dive into it. Yeah, that's incredible. Do you want to hear some submissions? Yes. Real fast. Yes.

Joseph says, I love watching Nardwar interviews. Do you know Nardwar? No, I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, Nardwar's great. He is a Canadian interviewer who does an incredible amount of research on the artists he's interviewing and even finds gifts for them based off of that research. It's wonderful to watch these people be amazed by his obscure questions, then get excited about the presents he bought them. I suggest watching

his interview with Pharrell Williams who stops him with Nerd. Pharrell Williams stops him several times to express how much he loves the interview and his interview with Questlove, which is 46 minutes of Questlove becoming increasingly giddy about the deep hip-hop knowledge Nardwar is bringing to the table. It's really good. I watched

a long compilation of people being surprised by Nardwar today. I love interviews. That sounds great to sounds great he does the best ones um samuel says something that stood out to me was as wonderful this week people's reactions to the surprise announcement of the new super smash brothers game while i'm excited for the game i thought the announcement itself was wonderful what i've really enjoyed is watching people's reactions to it um they announced the new super smash brothers game in the latest nintendo direct but they did it by showing like two splatoon uh kids like swimming around and shooting at each it by showing, like, two Splatoon kids, like, swimming around and shooting at each other, and you're like,

oh, more Splatoon! And then the camera zooms in on one of their faces, and then reflect in their eyes you see the Smash Bros. logo, and there's, like, countless videos of, like, at the Nintendo World Store in New York, just people going like, YES! That's awesome. Yeah, that's absolutely my shit, also. Whitney says,

one of my favorite wonderful things is when you're listening to a song and you can hear that the singer is smiling. I hear it a lot and they might be giant songs. It's just this little lift in the melody that makes it so I can't help but smile too. Oh my gosh, I never thought about that before. That's cool. Oh yeah, I love hearing that. I think, I don't know that John Linnell's a big smiler, but that is the episode.

Thank you so much for listening. you to maximum fun for having us on the network uh you can check out maximum fun.org there's a bunch of great shows yeah a bunch of new shows there's a new simpsons podcast for all of our simpsons yeah everything's coming up simpsons yes uh there's oh there's just so many great shows you're gonna go to that website right now and you're gonna find them or else and there's other stuff at mackroy shows.com that we do oh we're doing some live adventure zones and bim bams you can go to find them or else. And there's other stuff at macroyshows.com that we do. Oh, we're doing some live Adventure Zones and MBMBAMs. You can go to macroyshows.com slash tours. Tickets for that

go on sale very soon. So look lively. Is that it? Sorry we're rushing. We have to go to daycare like right now. So bye. Bye, I guess. Just bye then, I guess. Bye. Bye, I guess. Just bye then, I guess. Hey! Work it off! Hey! Burn it off! Hey! Work it off! Hey!

Burn it off! Hey! Maximumfun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Hey, my name's Jonah Ray. You might have seen me on the latest season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 or heard me on the Nerdist Podcast. Well, I got a new podcast that's about five years old,

but we're moving it over to MaxFun, along with my friend Cash Hartzell. Hey, everybody. And my other friend, Neil hi so it's a music podcast where a lot of people just kind of hang out and talk about music but so much more we also take submissions and so you could hear your band or our music or or both or both of it you could do You could listen to your band play your music. Yeah. So tune in, why don't you? You could find out about some new bands and maybe just hear us embarrass ourselves

as we drink too much. Not too much. Well, it's all perspective, isn't it? It sure is.