Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 28: Wuh-Woh, WaghettiOs

Episode Date: April 4, 2018

Griffin's favorite online community! Rachel's favorite musical artist of all time! Griffin's favorite fun-zone! Rachel's favorite childhood staple food! 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. Cha-ching, cha-ching. This is wonderful. Cha-ching, cha-ching. Uh-oh, the donations are coming in so fast. I'm having trouble managing it.

Why did they put me in charge of donations this year? I have no sort of business experience. And, oh, God, baby, look at all these $5 bills. Oh, shit. I lost one. It went down the sewer. I got to go down the sewer to get the $5 bill. Uh-oh, the alligator king.

Oh, the $5 bill. Uh-oh. The alligator king. Oh, listen, be careful. The $5 bill is mine. Here comes Rachel, though, and she's got a big sword. Get him, Rachel. Dun-da-da-dun. I've got a sword, and I'm killing the alligator. Stab him right in the fucking gut. And it's all worth it for $5.

If it was for $5, I would have given it back if you just asked. Papa? No. Don't look. So anyway, Rachel killed the alligator cane to get your donation back. It's the MaxFunDrive. It's the MaxFunDrive. Hey, welcome to the MaxFunDrive.

What is the MaxFunDrive, you might ask? Well, over the course of this episode, we're going to tell you all about it. But just to set things up here at the top, we are a pledge-supported network. You, the listeners, can donate, and we ask you once a year during the MaxFunDrive to, if you listen to our shows or you listen to a bunch of MaxFun shows, consider donating some bucks. If you have the means and you like our stuff and you want to support us, this is the time to do it. Yeah, most platforms that offer you entertainment ask for a monthly fee. And we offer all this content to you for free.

But if out of the goodness of your heart, you'd like to support our work, we would really appreciate it. And if you do so, first off, you help us to reach our goal of 25,000 new and upgrading members. That is a big goal. But you will also get some cool gifts like bonus content and a bunch of other stuff.

Yeah. And we're going to tell you more about that later. But really, it means a lot to us if you would consider supporting us. We would really appreciate it this year for Wonderful. It's our first year doing the MaxFunDrive as this new show after we stopped doing Rose Buddies. doing the MaxFunDrive as this new show after we stopped doing Rose Buddies. And so you sort of supporting us is a very direct way of saying like, hey, I don't mind that you don't do the thing that you started doing.

You basically did a big trick on me by switching things up. No, we really appreciate it. And you have helped turn this into a career for Rachel and I, and it really means a lot. And so MaximumFun.org slash donate is the link, and we will tell you more about the MaxFunDrive later on in the episode. But actually, can I tell you my first thing? Yes. Small wonders?

I don't have one. I've got a mat that I stand on for the standing desk. I got a standing desk, and I have a mat, and the mat has all this weird topographical shapes on it, and you mat has all this weird like topographical like shapes on it and you can like dance all around it and it kind of gives your feet a little rub while you stand up and do your dang work and it's a nice friend. I was skeptical of the mat. It feels great. It feels fucking awesome. Griffin loves this mat. First thing is maximum fun and this is not yes I promise right now this is not going to be an extended sort of ad campaign for the Max Fund Drive.

We will be doing plenty of that later. But when I was thinking about good things that have had like a substantial impact on my life, there is nothing that qualifies, you know, nearly as much as Maximum Fun does. Maybe our marriage and our child. Yes, those rank above. Maybe our marriage and our child. Yes, those rank above. But being a member of the Maximum Fun Podcasting Network really has changed my life. And so here's some history. In 2009, I graduated from college at Marshall, and Travis and I moved away from Huntington, me for the first time, to a town called Batavia, Ohio, which was about a 35-minute drive from Cincinnati.

It's a zero-minute drive from the mall we lived immediately next door to. I did a lot of eating at sort of bad food fair. What are those called in malls? Food court? Food courts, not food fairs. Anyway, I didn't know anybody in Batavia, and I knew very few folks in Cincy. The only friends I ever made were through Travis's theater company that he worked at. And the mall food court.

And the mall food court employees who knew me by name and knew how I took my low main. But even then, like seeing the friends I made through Travis's theater company, it entailed an hour of driving if I actually wanted to like go out with them. Why did you guys pick Batavia? It was just affordable? Yeah, I was broke. I had no money at all. And so as a result, like I had been, I lived for a year just holed up in our apartment eating ramen and writing around the clock for Joystick where I was working at the time.

I was a weekend editor and also a weekday editor. I was working seven days a week, writing 180 posts a month. I was writing nonstop and not socializing, not doing anything. And I had some occasional good times with my brother and his friends. But for the most part, it was a really strange and lonely year for me. And because of that long drive that I had to take anytime I wanted to do anything but go to the mall, I needed something to do in my car. And so I started listening to podcasts. I think it was Justin that recommended You Look Nice Today, which was my first podcast, and I got hooked on it immediately. I listened to the whole thing in a month. And one of their episodes was a live episode

titled The Monsters of Podcasting, which was a live show doubleheader that they did with Jordan and Jessie Goh. And after I listened to that episode, I got hooked on them too, real hard. I was really fascinated by JJ Goh because I'd never really heard anything like it. This was back in 2009. The podcasting wasn't like a big thing, really. And my only exposure to this kind of thing was radio where my dad worked. But this felt so much more and I know this is like a shitty way to describe something,

but it felt so much more punk rock than radio did. But at the same time, it was so much warmer and so much more approachable than than any radio show I'd ever heard. I loved it so much. Yeah. And so with that in mind, we started doing the Bim Bam in April 2010. Justin and I had been doing the Joystick podcast for a while, and we wanted to do something with Travis and something that would sort of give us an excuse to all keep in touch every week. And I sort of started listening to more podcasts to kind of broaden my knowledge about the space. But I always listened to JJ Go back then. I remember right after I moved to Chicago, this is kind of an embarrassing story to tell now, but I went to a meetup where Jordan was supposed to be there and I was way too nervous to talk to him.

Oh, my God. I couldn't talk to him. He sat at the table where me and my friends were chatting and I literally could not muster up the courage to speak to him. It is funny because I just recorded a guest episode of Jordanordan jesse go last night that's going to be up uh it should be up already which was uh a sort of a weird lifelong dream jordan is like the most approachable he's a very approachable dude but i was starstruck i was that bought in and so to my surprise in january 2011 i was checking out groceries at trader joe's and just on my phone and i saw an email in in my inbox from Jesse asking if we would be interested in joining the maximum fund network.

And I'm not being hyperbolic when I say like, it was a profound, unbelievable life changing moment for me because I'd been working at joystick for a while and my bin band was doing okay, but we weren't like, we weren't making any money off of it. We hadn't, the thought had not crossed our minds that it would be something we could do as a job.

Um, and it just wasn't what I considered like a career path at the time. I had, I had no sense of direction in my career at all. I had no sense of direction really in my life. Yeah. You weren't like, I'm going to be an entertainer. Right. Yeah, exactly. I, I also like didn't know that many folks in Chicago either either because i and i was i was pretty lonely there too and so here in this email

that i was reading in the checkout line at trader joe's was some kind of like validation it was like it was an email that i saw some kind of like future in for the first time in my life um and the rest is the rest is history a few months later, they came to Chicago, Jordan and Jesse, and we did our first live show ever opening for JJ Go. And I thank them profusely for taking us on. And I think that Jesse was kind of in disbelief of how much their show had actually inspired us to do what we do. He still talks about that sometimes. When your show comes up, he kind of doesn't really believe that you guys were such big fans prior to joining and now it's years later you've been on the network for a long time and we have a bunch of shows on the network and i can't imagine what doing what i do anywhere

else i can't imagine doing anything other than than what we do um and and it's the network is just so special the shows that they've picked up especially recently like the efforts for inclusion and focusing on just outright sincerity are so wonderful like our show is a pretty um hyper laser focused version of that where it's literally just us talking about things that we are genuinely enthusiastic about but there's a thread of that in every show oh completely on the network there it is a it is a irony and cynicism-free sort of zone. No, that's how we fit in so well, I feel like. Right.

And the community that has grown up around that, I think, reflects those values. And it's unlike anything else that exists on the internet. And I can speak on that pretty authoritatively because I've worked online for over a decade now. And I've seen plenty of shit communities. But MaxFun listeners, and I'm not just saying this because we are about to ask you for donations. I truly and genuinely have always believed this. MaxFun listeners are just way kinder and way more patient and way more supportive of the creators they enjoy and each other than the average fan of anything else.

Yeah. That's so Yeah. I promise. I should have done this bit like two weeks ago when we weren't doing the Max Fun Drive because this is my genuine and honest belief. And if you are a member of this community and you're a fan of these shows and you stay in contact with other Max Fun fans, you know that I'm not talking out of my ass right now.

It's a really, really special thing. And I'm grateful for it because obviously it's it's a really really special thing and i'm grateful for it because like obviously it has changed my life and given me a a career in in entertainment that i never in my wildest dreams as a very anxious um very awkward very sad sort of like teen would have ever imagined that i could have um but even divorced from that for my own sort of personal teen would have ever imagined that I could have. But even divorced from that, from my own sort of personal feelings about the network, like it is this anomaly in terms of online communities. And this is a thing that is sort of a topic of conversation that is very hot

right now as these things become not just like weird hobbies that you do when you sit down to dial into the worldwide web, but like a defining feature of human society, there's this one outlier that is just like, good. There's just, there's this recognition within the community of MaxFun listeners that everybody is just kind of this, this dam against this like, huge waterfall of emotion. And I just, I feel that with the Max Fund community that everybody is funny and smart and kind and just so ready to open their hearts at any,

any one moment. And so every show you listen to on the Max Fund network, there's just this moment where I feel like the floodgates open, you know, and people bring their true selves to what they do. And it's, it's beautiful and you feel seen when you listen to max fun shows like you feel like you're a part of the conversation and that's not something you get in a lot of places like that and on the other side just like

let me say like it is a privilege to do this show and all the shows that we do for for this community it really really means a lot i was super psyched to join. You know, the McElroys, as most of our listeners know, have a lot of shows. And I was kind of the holdout for a while. But that was largely because I didn't really see myself as an entertainer. And when we got welcomed to the network, it was a huge confidence boost for me because I didn't really think about doing anything like this. And I loved so many of the shows already. So I felt like. And you're killing it.

I felt like I was in the club. And you're killing the game. Thank you. What's your first thing? Oh my gosh. So I wanted to do something significant because it's a MaxFunDrive and this is supposed to be the time where we all bring our. Our A game.

Our biggest and best stuff. So let me just turn on my computer. Look at your little computer. I biggest and best stuff. So let me just turn on my computer. Look at your little computer. I love it so much. My small wonder is your small, Rachel has a MacBook, and it's the tiniest, most barely there MacBook.

It's so adorable. You having trouble accessing your files? Oh no, you've been counter hacked. Shit, we gotta get sword. Somebody call swordfish. I haven't seen swordfish, but I think it's about a guy named swordfish and he goes around and he helps you get your files out of your tiny,

tiny computer. I've bought you all the time. I can buy you. I know. Well, see, here's the thing. I shut down my computer when I'm not using it.

That is so charming. Bonkers. Okay. So I brought my very favorite musical artist for like the past 20 years. The albums of. Kid Rock. 20 years. I guess.

I guess that's possible. It's possible. When did he start? Probably 20 years ago. I'm a real kid head. I'm a real kid head. I'm a real kidder. Kidder would make more sense. No, it's kid head.

The community calls it. Oh, sorry. I should mention. Maximum Fun listeners are great. So are all the kid heads out there. You know who you are. Dirty cowboys. Oh, my gosh.

I kind of want to play with that for a while, but I'm going to let it go. Okay. My favorite musical artist the past 20 plus years. Insane Clown Posse. What if that one though? I promise I'll let you do it, but can we also explore just the quick run of you being just a real hardcore juggernaut? Is that what the lady?

I don't know. I just said it and that might've been normative of me. But I like the turn of phrase a lot. Anyway, not ICP, not Kid Rock, but. What's left? Big and rich. I mean, I could go. Fiona Apple. Hell yeah.

I have been a huge Fiona Apple fan since title came out in 1996. Shadowboxer was kind of my gateway. Yeah. Into Fiona. She was 19 when that album came out. You're fucking kidding me. No. Is that when she did the whole This World is Bullshit?

Yes, I was going to talk about that. Okay. So she wasn't 20 yet when she was nominated for a MTV Video Music Award. And she won it. And this drives me crazy. Okay, I'm a huge fan apple fan um so one the caveat yes she's 19 to what she was talking about which a lot of people don't realize is not saying like this whole world that we exist in no bullshit uh the actual quote is um it's a part of

a larger speech when she received the awards but she she says, so what I want to say is everybody out there that's watching, everybody that's watching this world, this world is bullshit. And you shouldn't model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we're wearing and what we're saying and everything. Go with yourself. Fuck yeah. So like people I think saw that as like, oh, this entitled teen wins this award and she has no appreciation. I think she recognizes as a teenager, this is a moment for me to speak to this community of women that are watching me and think like I have to look exactly like her if I want to be successful.

Yeah. I have to wear what she's wearing. And doing that during the MTV Music Awards and not like the fucking Grammys or anything like that, already feels so like, it feels like anti-anti-establishment. I know. In the way that MTV was the hip, edgy thing that was fighting back against the norm, or whatever, but in a way sort of established its own norms, and then her whole deal is like, no, fuck that too. She did win a Grammy that that year uh for best female rock

vocal performance uh for criminal which is also on that album so each of her albums changes a little and so it's kind of one of those artists where i usually have to listen a few times um and she's only come out with four albums in the last 16 years so uh you really you have to be kind of a die-hard fan to hang around for somebody that's hanging out that infrequently. The next album was Win the Pawn, which is a very long album. I will not read all of the part of it unless you want to hear it. That's okay. Okay.

It's, I think, the longest album title to ever chart. Oh, no, I do want to hear the name of the album then. Okay. Is it longer than the turning of the screw is tighter than the something, something, something? Oh, are you talking about the idler wheel? Yeah. Yeah. Jesus.

I'm into it. I'm very into it. You got to know, like, I've listened to enough Sufjan shit at this point that you know I love a long, unwieldy song title. When the pawn hits the conflicts, he thinks like a king. What he knows throws the blows, he thinks like a king. What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight. And he'll win the whole thing, for he

enters the ring. There's nobody to batter when your mind is your might. So when you go solo, you hold your own hand, and remember that depth is the greatest of heights. And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land. And if you fall, it won't matter, because you'll know that you stand then you know where to land and if you fall it won't matter

because you'll know that you're right that's a name that's the name of the album i never knew that that is so choice damn that's fucking i could see her writing that and feeling like kind of precious about it and thinking like no i'm just gonna do the whole thing i'm just gonna name it that i'm just gonna do the whole thing and then and then that way they'll need like four pages just for the bill top 20 charts. She gave an interview about this album and she said the album came from being made fun of after her first album. And then she said, and then of course it becomes a thing I'm being made fun of for after she puts that album title out. The song I want to play off this album.

Which album? When the Pond. I'm not doing it again. Is I Know. And it's just this beautiful song. I mean, she's a lot known for kind of angry girl music, which was kind of the thing that was happening at the time

with Alanis Morissette. And she kind of got lumped in with them. But she also did these kind of beautiful piano ballads. And the reason I like I Know so much, I mean, she's she obviously is very into wordplay, which I enjoy, but I know is this really kind of sweet, mournful story about about being in love with somebody, and not getting kind of the return emotion that you that you are hoping for, but kind of soldiering on anyway. So there's this beautiful part, the lyrics are and when the crowd becomes

your burden, and you've early closed your curtains, I'll wait by the backstage door, while you try to find the lines to speak your mind and pry it open hoping for an encore. the lines to speak your mind and pry it open, hoping for an encore. But if it gets too late for me to wait for you to find you love me and tell me so, it's okay. Don't need to say it. I know. Which I love.

That's really cute. I used to love that. Just this kind of unrequited love or just feeling this kind of confidence, this feeling that you have is important and, and there's value in that. Uh, so here's a little bit from that song. I know. I do my thing in the background But all the time All the time No The next album that came out in 2005 was Extraordinary Machine. Hell yeah.

This was the first album of hers I ever heard. Whoa. I know, that's shameful. album of hers I ever heard. Whoa. I know, that's shameful. I know, but it's so good. It's very, very good. And so I was part of this group of people when the album wasn't coming out, there was this controversy

that their label was holding the album and wouldn't release it. So all these people were sending apples to the album. Oh, that's good. They were wearing these buttons that said Free Fiona. And it's good. With these buttons that said, Free Fiona. And it's good for them, too, because, hey, free apples. So she re-recorded the album over 2004 and 2005, and it was released again. Actually, you can find, if you're sneaky, you can find the first album versus the actual one that was released.

sneaky. You can find the first album versus the actual one that was released. So when the album eventually came out, it was actually three years after the original recording sessions had been, which kind of explains the gap a little bit. It's another one of my favorites. It took me a few listens because a lot of it's very up-tempo. So a song that I wanted to play a little clip of is Better Version of Me, which she has this theme that kind of runs through a lot of her music, probably because of how her career started of just kind of being the underdog or being a fighter or being somebody that is constantly pushing back against expectations and understandings of kind of who she is. And so this album and this song in particular is a good example of that. Cue the clip up, Jerry. Let the damn breeze dry my face. And then, okay, so finally, just very quickly,

so her most recent album was 2012. It was The Idler Wheel. The Idler Wheel what? The Idler Wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw and whipping cords will serve you more than ropes will ever do. A conservative title if anything a breeze where i think this one came out and people are like well where's the rest of the title fiona so given everything that happened with extraordinary machine she started recording this

album in secret uh and didn't even apparently tell her label and executives only found out she'd recorded an album when she presented it to them that is badass uh so finally this this album again to me feels totally different than the previous ones uh and i in particular just wanted to play a little clip from the song hot knife uh which is just such a jam she did it with her sister uh and it's them kind of layering their voices. And there's this great hook in it, which is, If I'm butter, if I'm butter, if I'm butter, then he's a hot knife. He makes my heart a cinema scope screen showing a dancing bird of paradise.

They just kind of bounce around on that for a while, and it feels very, like, 1940s-inspired to me, and I love it. Oh, here it is. He excites me, must be like the Genesis rhythm like 1940s inspired yeah and i love it oh here it is should we tell the story of how we almost saw Fiona Apple here in Austin? You can read about it. It's like part of her infamy now. Oh, is it? Yeah.

That's too bad. Well, because she was pulled over. And she did have a lot of that kind stuff. And she went to the jail. It's such bullshit. Yeah, she had marijuana on her tour bus, got pulled over. Marijuana.

Spent the night in jail. Are you a cop? Are you a cop that arrested her? Was supposed to be in Austin performing. Griffin and I were going to go see her. Had the tickets. I think it was a birthday present. Yikes.

Yeah. I actually have seen her, though. I got to see her in Chicago. This was before she was a wasteoid. After Extraordinary Machine. Are you a cop? No. though i got to see her in chicago this is before she was a wasteoid after extraordinary machine are you a cop no yeah uh so yeah so that is my most favorite artist ever uh her albums have always meant a lot to me yeah um i think she's great i feel bad for getting into her so late yeah she's just kind of she's a rebel she's a poet you know she's she kind of defies uh categorization

categorization and cauterization um if she gets a wound she's like leave it hey could i steal you away can you do it this week I like that it's flirty. Who is it? That's how I flirt. Well, when I flirted, but, you know, I just go out and hit up the clubs. What happened? It's so hot in your studio. Well, you want me to turn the fan on?

It'll come in through the audio. I can't do that. No, I want perfect audio for our perfect listeners. Thank you. And it would go to the bars and I would be like, perfect audio for our perfect listeners thank you and it would go to the bars and i would be like and you're like are you taught is that for me it worked a lot hey the max fun drive is now and it's happening uh this week and next week and during the max fun drive we ask you if you have the means and you are a fan of our shows

and you feel like you want to support us this is the time for you to do so by going to maximumfund.org slash donate. It's real quick and real easy. Punch in your information. You get to pick the shows that you listen to. And when you do that, you actually pick where your donation goes to. And that's a huge, like important step. It's not like Max Fund takes the money and then sort of distributes it at will. It goes directly where you want it to go. And that's a really cool part of the process. And then if you donate at certain levels, we are going to give you some cool gifts. Real cool, real neat gifts.

Let's start talking about these freaking gifts. Please. please if you donate at five dollars a month to help us out you are going to get a true a dragon's horde of exclusive bonus content these are episodes that you can only listen to if you're a donor uh to the network we got uh we have one episode that we put up this year that's just all submissions from listeners it was a really fun recording it was just us reading a ton of emails and then talking about our own sort of personal experience. Connecting to these people we've never met before.

It was really neat. Talking about things they love and why we like them. I think when we did Rose Buddies, we have those still up there and there's one where we did an interview with... The only one for Rose Buddies. Oh yeah, I guess so, with Jasmine, the Bachelorette Canada from the season that we covered.

Oh my gosh. For those of you that didn't listen to Rose Buddies, we found access to a season of The Bachelorette that takes place in Canada. And the show is just full of these real sweethearts who started following our podcast. And interacting with it. Including the Bachelorette herself. So she was on our show and we interviewed her. She is a, she's amazing. And,

uh, that was really fun. But we have, if you listen to a Bim Bam or adventure zone or any of those shows, we have tons of bonus content for those as well. Um, I was listening, Griffin,

you guys have done max fun drives for eight years. This is our eighth one. Yeah. Eight years of content on there. Yeah. It's really, really, it is a lot. So you get that at $5 a month. It's, it's all the bonus content throughout

time that all the shows have ever done. It's like hundreds of hours at $10 a month. You will get a drive exclusive enamel pin designed by Megan Lynn Cott. Uh, there's brand new designs for every max fun show. You pick your favorite one and you get the pin for that show. Tell us about the pin for wonderful. Cause it's so great. So every pin is kind of designed on the pin for that show. Tell us about the pin for Wonderful. Oh my gosh, it's so great. So every pin is kind of designed on the theme of the show it represents. Ours is a little thing of French fries. A little thing of French fries with a banner over it that says Wonderful. And you wear this one and if you run into folks who know about the show, they're like, oh, cool.

And if you run into folks who don't know about the show, they be like yeah french fries are pretty great yeah exactly also at this level you get the every every level you go up you get all this stuff for the previous levels too so you'll also get the bonus content with this one at twenty dollars a month you get lovingly curated for you by max fun hosts a cookbook that contains dozens of recipes from cocktails to desserts and everything in between and you get a handsome set of space themedthemed cookie cutters. Hey, can I tell you something? I don't think you know this. I put the chili recipe in that cookbook.

I didn't know that. That's so great. So if you want Rachel's chili recipe that we've talked about on the show before, go for it. I think Justin put in our mom's recipe for chess bars, which were fucking incredible. That's in there too.

There's a bunch. And then you get these neat cookie cutters, one of which looks like the MaxFun Rocket logo, which is cool. And then $35 a month if you want to step it up that much. You get a one liter juice craft, beautifully and permanently engraved with the MaxFun Rocket logo.

It's not just for juice. It's good for tastefully displaying all beverages imaginable. Bud Light Lime. If you want to decant your BLL, go for it. And you also get all the previous stuff too. There's other higher levels also, but we understand that that is asking a lot of you. We really don't care how much you donate. We really, really, really don't. What really

matters to us is that you show your support at all. If you're able to, and I totally, totally understand that there's folks who are not able to, please do not take this as us trying to guilt you into a donation. But if you have the the means any amount that you can donate any level that you can give it shows you're you're a fan of what we do and you're willing to support it you know in in a way that kind of like means something not that your kind tweets and fan art and all that stuff doesn't mean something but donating your hard-earned money to say i think that what you do is worthwhile is yeah and you you become kind of an investor in the show continuing and kind of the the ongoing production of the show which um is very much appreciated yeah and when you listen

you get to know like i helped i helped to support that i am i'm a part of this thing. So we're trying to get to 25,000 new and upgrading members. Help us get there. If you're already a member, awesome. Thank you so much for your support. If you're listening to more shows now from when you established your donation in the previous years, maybe think about upping it. There's so many new shows. There's so many great, great, great shows

on this great network. That could really use your support. Yes, absolutely. And yeah, thank you all so much. And do you want to know my second thing? Yes. It's amusement parks. Just all of them?

All amusement parks. And I'm being comprehensive here. Amusement parks, theme parks, water parks. That's interesting. The whole deal. You know know this about me you have to know this well i know you might not know this yeah i know that you have enjoyed your time at many a park yes i didn't know it came from kind of a deep a deep love a deep love for the park in general that might be because the last one we went to was six flags f Fiesta Texas, where I got my spine fucking fused by all the old rickety, just sort of bone crushing. We have very fond memories of amusement parks.

And we had this idea that we were going to go and we're going to live like we once did. And we both have old bones and old bodies. And it's difficult to withstand some of those old wooden roller coasters when bones rattle. Yeah, I think my wooden roller coaster days I think are well behind me. Metal ones, I'll still fuck with you. But anyway, the idea behind amusement parks

is just like pure, concentrated joy, right? I find that idea so great. Like this is a place that you come to where everywhere you look there are things that are engineered to make you happy. I think that is inherently pretty remarkable. Uh, and we've been chasing that idea for centuries,

this concept behind like fun zones. You can trace back to like medieval pleasure gardens and fairs. Um, and in the late 19th century, we started to get like mechanical rides as people figured out how to make those, like the carousel, which debuted at the World's Fair as so many rides like that back then, which and the World's Fairs across the world led to this propagation of the idea of like, hey, let's build some buck wild, super dangerous mechanical things. And so in 1920, the first roller coaster debuted at a British park called Dreamland Margate. And can you imagine it's 1920 and you see a roller coaster and you're like, look at this fucking wild train. The tracks are going everywhere. It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't take you from one place to the other. And the track seems very, very...

Yeah, the courage it would take. Because now when I got on a roller coaster, I kind of convinced myself, this thing runs thousands of times a day. I didn't read any news stories recently about somebody not making it. Yeah. But if it was brand new... This was 1920, and it was like, what is that? Why would I get on that thing? It's a roller coaster.

I don't know. It looks pretty dangerous. Has it been in operation for a long time? No, dude. It's the first day. Get on board. Do you think this is what the song Crazy Train's about? That Ozzy Osbourne did?

Probably. Anyway, today, roller coaster designs are, I feel like they've reached just unfathomable levels of like ambition. Shit today is like designed to rip your soul from your body and then like return it after 30 corkscrews. And they're so short too. They're shorter. shorter well some of them are long but mostly well yeah i mean they can be designed i think son of the beast came out uh when i was i mean old enough to remember it to come out this was in king's island which had a wooden roller coaster called the beast and they're like what

if we made a super wild roller coaster like these uh metal roller coasters that are coming out that have these like mag launchers and all this shit, but we made it out of wood. And also it's going to take you five minutes from start to finish. And you're going to go through 40 loops. It is like a, it is a novel of a roller coaster, but yeah, most of the time.

So when you're talking about loving amusement parks, I feel like your main point of reference is Kings Island. Kings Island is definitely up there. I have a, I have a list of the best amusement parks. But I used to be terrified. I used to be terrified of roller coasters. Yeah, me too. Like, would not ride them.

I would sit at the gate while my family rode them. I was just so scared. And I know there's lots of people out there who still are. And that's totally cool. I do not mean to sound like I am, like, excluding you here. Yeah, I was maybe 14 or 15 before I even got great enough. Well, even adults. Like, there's some folks who's just like, this is not their jam. And I totally get that but I I did kind of get over this fear when I was like

14 or so and then I felt like I had to make up for lost time I also and this is not a joke I feel like playing roller coaster tycoon made me appreciate those rides a lot more um because it made me like kind of appreciate what a marvel of engineering a good roller coaster is like not only does it have to work and work safely, it has to be designed with, like, more abstract ideas in mind, like pacing. Like, it has to not completely overwhelm passengers. It has to deliver new thrills

that you've never seen on a roller coaster before, right? Like, each one has to be iterative in that sense, but it has to do that while sort of respecting human physical limitations. Like it can't knock you the fuck out. And I don't know. I think it's really, really hard to think of how you would even design something like that. And yet it is constantly happening.

And I think that's kind of incredible. What I just thought about in this moment is that, you know, like when you're screaming on a roller coaster. Yeah. Like there's only so long your body can physically scream. Yeah, exactly. I wonder if they think about that when they're building up a hill. Yeah, absolutely. For sure.

But it's not just the rides that I love at amusement parks. It's like the atmosphere. And that's not just limited to theme parks like Disneyland where the atmosphere is like the thing. Although if you're a huge Disney fan, I imagine like that's what makes the experience magical to you. There's just something about being in a place designed for human enjoyment and being surrounded by people who are all having sort of a remarkable special day like you are. That just feels really nice.

And also it gives you an excuse to eat corn dogs for like the only time that you have. I know you like corn dogs. I don't. But if I'm at a theme park, I'll eat a corn dog and be like, oh yeah, these are hot dogs surrounded with muffins basically. So I shouldn't make you homemade corn dogs from scratch for dinner? No, I'd fuck them up, but

it would be like, I don't know why I'm fucking this up right now, but I'm super glad about it. Anyway, the best theme parks that I've ever been to. Three of them, in no particular order. Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Rachel and I went to Hong Kong a couple years ago. Anyway, the best theme parks that I've ever been to. Three of them, in no particular order. Okay. Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Oh, yes. Rachel and I went to Hong Kong a couple years ago.

We went to this place called Ocean Park. It's made up of two levels that are sort of connected by a train that runs through a mountain. So it's like sea level area. And that's like a big aquarium and a huge zoo filled with exhibits where you can like see a panda. Yes. Or go in this huge underwater walkway and see tons and tons of real close to that panda real close to the panda. And it's all inspiring. But there's also this really cool emphasis on environmental preservation that is built into

every single attraction. I remember there was a shark exhibit where you go and you're like, wow, look at all these sharks. This is crazy. And then the last third of the exhibit is like education about how sharks have been over hunted and stigmatized and then at the end there's like a list of resources where you can help out and there's even like a little credit card swipe machine where you can make a donation to these preservation efforts and that's in like every single attraction at the the lower part of the park and then you ride a train through a mountain or you ride this um like ropeway and then you're on top of a cliff

side where it's just a fuck ton of righteous roller coasters including one that takes a bend off of the cliff and there's nothing below between like you and the ocean hundreds of feet below it is so sick uh king's island you mentioned earlier and that was like my theme park growing up because it's the closest one to huntington it's in columbus ohio and back in the day it was uh it was paramount themed i forget about that sometime but it was paramount's king's island so there was like the mission impossible ride and the tomb raider ride i've talked about king's island so much on podcast um and then the studio paramount sold the park in 2006 but it's still like rocking and rolling they just changed the names of all the rides. And what I've

always loved about it is how hyper focused on the attractions it is. It is not a huge amusement park, but there's so many dope rides just jam-packed in it, like the Beast and the Son of Beast, which is a spine killer but still very, very fun, and In Vertigo

and the Vortex and Flight of Fear and just all these great rides. And the Nephew of Beast of beast second cousin of beast and then mr beast which was the reboot um little beastie which is uh dog themed yeah it's a great it's a great park and like there's so many really cool rides there in this kind of unassuming park in the middle of columbus ohio it's like a real thrill secret place and then my favorite was universal studios islands of adventure i don't know if you ever went to that i did and i went when i was older too i think my parents brought me when i was in high school maybe yeah uh and it was so cool it's so cool so if you never went it was uh i went in like the mid-thousands um and it was such a novel idea at the time you start start off in this main port hub, and it's

connected to six different islands, each of which represents sort of different genres and time periods. So there was a medieval-themed island where you could watch a blacksmith making armor and ride dueling dragons, which was the coolest rollercoaster ever, where there were two trains suspended from

two different rails that would crisscross and fly towards each other at certain parts. That's been discontinued, sadly. Oh no. But also like there, the atmosphere and the food served in each Island was different. You could get like mutton in the adventure or the,

the medieval Island. So then there was like a Marvel Island with a, like a super cool mag launcher Hulk themed ride. I remember this. And then there was a Jurassic Park Island with animatronic dinosaurs and then a tune lagoon for the kids and a couple others. And it's, the park has changed a lot since then.

Namely the wizarding world of Harry Potter has opened up. I need to get back there. I desperately want to go to it. So, so bad, but I don't know. I just thought it was so cool. This idea that you cross a bridge and now you're in a completely

different amusement park where the food is different and the look is different and the music's different and the rides are different like it felt so awesome and even waiting in line like i remember with that dueling dragons um ride while you waited in line they like had these little environments you'd walk through to get you like hyped up yeah where they would like teach you the lore of why these two dragons were fighting so the harry potter park took that ride over for a bit, but then it got shut down and it's going to be replaced with something else in 2019. So maybe that'll be the time for us to go. But yeah. Also, I mentioned water parks earlier.

Schlitterbahn owns bones. Yes. That's all I got to say about that. What's your second thing? So I was reminded of my second thing this past weekend. We are trying to introduce our son to new foods. Yes. And one thing we tried this weekend, not a hit, but reminded me of my fonder times of SpaghettiOs.

Really? I used to love SpaghettiOs. I know. It's not a great choice. I also used to love bologna, and I'm not bringing bologna. Did you ever, oh, and I shudder to ask, did you ever combine the two into one horrible bowl? No, Griffin. Did you ever get creative, and maybe you watched a cooking show as a four-year-old, and you're like, I can do this. Bologna, SpaghettiOs, same bowl, let's go. Oh, baby.

Yeah, I ate SpaghettiOs, specifically SpaghettiOs with meatballs all the way through college. What? Yeah, it was like a comfort food for me. You know how some people grow up and they have like a dish that their parents used to make?

We weren't big cooks in my house, so my comfort food was SpaghettiOs. That's a lot of SpaghettiOs. Yeah. I mean, not like all the time, every day, or even every week. But every other day. But pretty frequently. Twice every other day.

Lunch and dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Here's the thing that I enjoy about researching things you love, is that there's such a good history of SpaghettiOs. researching things you love is that there's such a good history of SpaghettiOs. Introduced in 1965 by the Campbell Soup Company under the Franco-American brand, the pasta was created after a year-long internal study of the appropriate shape for a pasta dish that people could eat without making a mess.

What? Mission failed. Rejected shapes include cowboys, Native Americans, Spaghetti boys! Spaghetti boys? These are spaghetti boys. They got a big hat. Oh, you've dropped it.

Cowboys, Native Americans, spacemen, stars, and sports shapes. A little tennis racket. Yeah. How did they decide that O's were the cleanest shape these slippery bastards i can't get to do anything i try to put it you can fit so many on a spoon yeah that's not that just inspires hubris i can get i can get more o's i can get more o's on this spoon i can't they're not they're not they're not, they're not. I wonder if they tried

like squares and diamonds and rectangles and they're like, no, it's gotta be round. What about discs in the perfect shape

of a teaspoon and then you know you're just getting one? I'm describing ravioli. Yeah, kind of. SpaghettiOs were introduced nationally

without test marketing with television. They were just like, we got it. We crushed it. You want to test market these? Nah, dude. It's O-shaped spaghetti

with a sweet, sweet, sweet sauce. We've already spent a year picking this perfect shape. We're done. Our budget is blown on cowboy O's. So the television advertising used the tagline,

the neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon. Okay. I'm just now thinking about it. You don't normally eat spaghetti with a spoon. So they're onto something there. You know what I love? I love the idea that they had a long piece of spaghetti

and they're standing there looking at it and then somebody connects the two ends and they're all like, Well, the fucking Space Odyssey music is playing. He's done it. This also is when Uh-Oh SpaghettiOs came out.

Sung by popular singer Jimmy Rogers. I must not be that popular. Sorry, James. Loosely based on his 1950s song, Uh Oh, I'm Falling in Love Again. What, what, Wigettios. It was right there.

What are Wigettios? It just is everything, man. Whatever you want it to be. That's what Wigettios is. So I will say there was a small hiccup for SpaghettiOs. Actually, on our wedding day, December 7th, 2013, was the 72nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor

Day. SpaghettiOs' Twitter account posted a picture... Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. A picture of a smiling cartoon SpaghettiO holding a United States flag, captioned, Take a moment to remember. Hashtag Pearl Harbor with us. Shit! I wanted to mention

that. Oh, SpaghettiOs. It's so ridiculous. It stinks. I didn't want people to think I was overlooking that. I'm very aware of that and yes, it is terrible. Okay. But yeah, so SpaghettiOs, you know, I think everybody probably has foods like this.

I have to imagine. I know, for example, that you are a big cheese whiz and bugle lover. Yeah, but that's not its own sort of product. I did love. So you're saying your innovation makes it a more valuable contribution. Exactly. I think for me, God, I probably have tons of this, like Slim Jim's and Big League Chew. Yes, there you go.

We all have our cross. SpaghettiOs was a meal. Yes, it was a healthy well balanced my problem has never been with the o itself it's that sauce which i'm pretty sure is just v8 that they kind of dumped in there because if i gave you a plate of spaghetti with that sauce on it you would say what if why have you made the spaghetti so wet with this tomato sort of water? Do they make a SpaghettiOs Thick? Have you seen that in stores ever, SpaghettiOs Thick?

You know, they could because Campbell's has also created the Chunky Soup. Yeah. So they could do a- Get these two together. Give me the SpaghettiOs Puttanesca. Oh, God. Don't know God that. That would be good as hell. Okay.

Because I could eat that with a spoon. Oh, Cecil's here. Maybe he's not. He's just yelling at us from downstairs. Anyway, that is it. And let's do some submissions that were sent in by some folks. Catherine says, NBC's Jesus Christ Superstar live in concert is wonderful. I was in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

It has excellent music. Oh, can we watch that tonight? I would love to. I've heard a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. It has excellent music. Can we watch that tonight? I would love to. I've heard it was actually very, very good. And I watched a clip of John Legend playing Jesus, singing the song that he sings on, on,

on Gethsemane. And it was so fucking good. And I, I was blown away that apparently it's, it's like great. We've watched a lot of these live musicals and they have had varying degrees of success. I really liked Greece live,

but that's my sort of cross to bear, I guess. Um, Ben says, I think golf carts are just wonderful. I work at a golf course during the summer and I love hanging out with my friend, Tim and the stylish,

comfortable and disconcertingly fast golf cart that we lovingly named Bill. I have a lot of wonderful memories from that golf course, but the one-on-one time I got to spend with the dude who had become one of my best friends is really special to me. That's really nice. Riding in golf carts with Tim. I love that movie. It's my favorite movie. I love a golf cart.

I've only gone golfing a couple times. I was pretty bad at it, but I like driving around in this small car that it doesn't feel like you should be able to drive where you're driving it you look at a golf course you're like wow somebody spent a lot of time sort of managing that i'm gonna drive this small car onto it what's up now um savannah says i went fishing for the first time during spring break and it was a wonderful experience no fish were caught unfortunately and the worms used as bait were very gross but driving out to a lake with my best friend and sitting next to the water was very nice and peaceful sort of a recurring theme in these submissions just going out on some vehicle with a friend just kicking it so nice

um i away from that television from that devil TV and their Pokemons. I had sort of a more rural upbringing than most. Not super rural. Huntington's still a city. But I went fishing many times when I was young and a teen. And never caught one dang fish. Not even one little guy. Caught some crabs once in the ocean.

I've never been fishing. It is kind of chill. I have sat in many a boat. I like that part. Yeah, and this is a smaller boat. If I had just put a pole in my hand and a little string, I could have said I've been fishing. Yeah, technically if you're on a boat and you've got a pole and it's dangling a string in the water. Yeah, you're fishing.

There's a chance you might get a fish who's just like ready for it, man. That's fishing, baby. That's how we do it. Thank you all so much for listening to Wonderful. We're going to tell you one last time about the MaxFunDrive. Why don't you tell us about the MaxFunDrive?

The MaxFunDrive is an opportunity, two weeks starting this week, to give to support your favorite programs on the max fund network i encourage you to list as many programs uh as you are a listener of because your contribution will go to each program that you support yep it's maximum fund dot org slash donate is the link help us meet our goal of 25,000 new and upgrading members. Oh, and if you donate, tweet about it with the hashtag M-A-K-S-H-K. Hashtag MaxFunDrive. We've seen a lot of people do that already, and it's always very exciting.

Yeah. We can't tell you how much we appreciate all the support we've gotten over the years through the other shows that I do and then for Rose Buddies and then for Wonderful. And this is the best time of year for you to sort of show your support. And we appreciate it. And we will be back next week with another episode of Wonderful. Going to keep the MaxFunDrive running in the next week. Thank you all so much. How should we end?

You're supposed to do Jerry's doing a joke. Ow! I tried to do the pop noise and I hit my face really hard! MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.