Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 3: Get Busy, Towel Man

Episode Date: September 20, 2017

Rachel's very favorite type of bread! Griffin's favorite time to go to a movie! Rachel's favorite unofficial mascot! Griffin's inexplicable favorite sitcom character! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by Bo En and Augustus: https://open.spotify.com/track/5hs2nY40aeqM0mpP8SBOon MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. Welcome to Wonderful's to the new podcast that's three episodes old. It's little baby it's a little baby did you bring it a gift you gotta bring the baby a gift of gold frankincense and myrrh where the baby jesus of podcasts what is the third episode gift frankincense oh yeah yeah yeah so it got gold it got gold and it got myrrh i don't know what myrrh is entirely but but I'm sure they were psyched about it. And then frankincense, I think, was potpourri, which I don't know what a baby's going to do with that.

If our baby's any indication, it's probably eat it and get real sick. Just immediately vomit. Just immediately throw it all up. But the throw up would probably smell good, but still, it's not the ideal situation. What's a baby going to do with gold? Actually, that's probably for the parents. This is our holiday episode. This is the third episode.

Thank you all so much. The response to the show has really been wonderful. Oh, we can't use that word really unironically on this podcast ever again, huh? Thank you for all the good reviews in the iTunes. Yeah, that means a lot, and it really does help us out. But even aside from that, it's been so great just seeing other people in the wonderful Facebook group and on Twitter tweeting at us and just talking about stuff that they're enthusiastic about. I was hoping that that would sort of be the result of us doing this show, and it has been. And it's been a really, really great thing for us. So thank you all so much for that.

And tell a friend and let's, you want to dive into it? Who's going first this week? Me. All right. It's my turn. You pointed at yourself. You're the only other person in the room. I'm new to this podcasting thing.

Yeah, you hit your mic too. You really goofed it up. Let me clear my throat. You that song uh-huh dj cool i'm gonna start us off real easy okay give me a slow ball some it was like weekends a little better than that orgasms oh that's uh that's the weekend of doing it if you think about it because you're at work all week uh monday tuesday wednesday thursday tgif saturday nope nope nope what is it then says friday like foreplay then i guess i mean, Monday would be foreplay. And then we get into the hard work of doing it Tuesday through Thursday. And then Friday is, you know, just looking forward to it.

Depends how long you go. And then Sunday's the Lord's Day. You don't do it then. My mom listens to this podcast. I know. I know. That's why I mentioned I've been trying to keep it sort of PG-13. There's nothing not American Pie so far in this one.

My wonderful thing that I'd like to start this week off with, soft pretzels. Oh, babe, I knew that this was going to come up. You knew it was coming. Should I just do sour candy this episode, too, so we can really nail down into the McElroy food groups? too so we can like really nail down into the mackerel food groups uh i am a lifelong huge fan of soft pretzels not just sporting events not just at airports just whenever wherever airports there's always an annie ann's at an airport okay i guess that's fair i mean there is an austin airport i don't know if it's as ubiquitous as you think it is. Malls, definitely. Yes, shopping malls.

Yeah. You know, Google offers this feature where I typed soft pretzels into the search bar and it said soft pretzels near me, which I thought was a nice feature. You know it does that for all kinds of stuff, though. It's not like they have pretzel radar. You know that,

right? It's important to me that you... No,'t know that so you just sorry sorry sorry sorry you thought you thought that the google folks got together and like what do we want to work on let's just have the best email application that just like everybody's going to use um we're going to come out with our own little phone and it'll be kind of niche but cool. And then also, we need to have special radar that will geolocate you and make sure you know where the nearest pretzels are to you. If I typed in tomato soup, it would start to fill in tomato soup near me. Probably. Maybe. I don't know if it would autofill it, but it could get you there.

I clicked on it. It could get you to tomato soup. I clicked on it just because I was excited about this new feature. Yeah. Just Annie Anne's. Annie Anne's, yeah. Soft Pretzel, though, has a rich history. Are you excited?

This is one of those where I don't know that the history of the Soft Pretzel is going to be as entertaining as we think it is. A lot of hearsay out there about the Soft Pretzel. A lot of scuttlebutt. of hearsay out there about the soft pretzel. A lot of scuttlebutt. Some accounts say Italian monks presented young students with dough twisted in the shape of crossed

arms, which used to be the position of prayer. Wait, really? Yeah, as early... Dear God! Why didn't you harvest me harvest? I guess that's what they were doing back there was harvesting things. Harvesting pretzels. Yeah. That was as early as 610 a.d that that time may as well be a billion bc it's there is no way i have no like what else there's just no way back then i have no idea

um there's also there's like a lot of religious allusions. That's probably not the right word. Religious iconography with pretzels. Really? The three holes have been said to suggest the Holy Trinity. Holy crap. Apparently Catholics also used to consume pretzels during Lent since meat, dairy, and eggs were prohibited. Is that, I can't, I'm not catholic so i'm not familiar with the rules of lent i thought you were going to say that it was like a they would sometimes just slip those into

mass during the the wafers it would it would transubstantiate from like a delicious soft pretzel on your tongue oh that's not a heart can we agree on this though before you get too much deeper in the history fuck hard pretzels yes 100 i am not they are, unless they have a little peanut butter nugget in the middle of them, like they sell it like Costco and World Market and shit like that. I cannot get down with a hard pretzel. It is just work. It is just work for work's sake. You know, I'll eat it in a pinch, but would I ever, ever in my life pick it over a soft

pretzel? No. Absolutely not. pick it over a soft pretzel no absolutely not um in the 1600s uh pretzels were used by swiss couples to seal the bond of matrimony fuck yeah which they think may have been the origin of tying the knot straight up really that's what it said that you would give pretzels to your beloved isn't there but isn't there like a religion where you actually like tie the knot you actually like tie the cloth around your hands while you're that's that seems wildly apocryphal to me yeah come play with me no i know but i also don't want to discount like an entire culture we're in the pretzel verse now i know

but the pretzel verse can't be a place where like other religions don't exist um i would you straight up would you have done this if you had known about this custom during our wedding? Would you have insisted on like, and then we eat a soft pretzel? I love you. I love you, too. You may now kiss. Stop. Wait.

I'm gonna eat this fucking pretzel right now. I will get to you in a minute. Does anybody have any honey mustard? That's nice. You know how we did the ring warming ceremony? Yes. Where everybody passed a ring from the back up to the front. Filled it up with their love.

And we took it from a Monstars style. We could have them pass up a little container of honey mustard. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to say a pretzel. I am not going to eat something that has been manhandled by fucking 60 of our dearest friends. There has also been tales that the pretzels came over on the Mayflower. I don't know. Come on. What the fuck are we doing here on the Mayflower. I don't know. Come on.

What the fuck are we doing here? Here's what I will say, though. The true American origin of the soft pretzel, or just pretzels in general, from what I can tell, Pennsylvania. In 1861, Julia Sturgis founded the first commercial pretzel bakery. Auntie Anne's didn't start until 1988, by the way. way yeah they seem like a sort of recent comer to the game upstart what is it you think you love is it this is your favorite bread right like if i know anything about you it is that i cannot think of a bread that you prefer more than this oh um you mean like pretzel bread like soft soft pretzel bread yeah yeah oh yeah no if it's an option at a restaurant, I get unbelievably excited.

Yeah. I mean, I like the doughiness. It's a real doughy experience. I like the salt. Yeah, kind of the thick rock salt quality. I like that you can pull off the little ends, you know, where it crosses and makes the... Yeah, and you just have little nuggets. I eat that first, and then you have the bigger pieces pieces it's dippable in so many things and there are very few things you

can dip it in that's bad you know what i mean there's a lot of bad dips out there but pretzels is just like on point beer cheese what's your favorite dip because i i am torn between beer cheese and spicy mustard you sell it you serve me up a soft pretzel with both those bad boys i'm gonna go i'm gonna go back and forth yeah um there's a place here in austin called easy tiger highly recommended that offers you a giant soft pretzel with multiple dips uh uh yeah i think i think a honey mustard is is probably you know what i used to like is cream cheese with a pretzel oh that's kind of interesting because the pretzel is kind of similar to a bagel. Which I also like.

We've not talked about this, but I love making soft pretzels. They are really easy to make, and you feel like the fucking emperor of food when you do it. Yeah, Griffin's done this a few times, and it has cemented our relationship. Really not hard. You just make a dough, and then you just boil it. And then you've made, congratulations. You pretzeled. Why does the boiling happen? I don't understand.

That's what makes the skin all brown, and it makes it the way it is. It's the same way that bagels, the exterior of bagels, are sort of the similar texture as the exterior. It's because you boil them with baking soda, and it alkalizes or whatever the fuck i'm not gonna pretend like i know but boy do i love pretzels anyway soft pretzels that's my they're the jam my number one uh my first thing that i want to talk about this week is midnight releases and i'm saying this and it sounds like i'm talking about when you are dreaming and you have a particular type of dream oh griffin midnight releases come on no anyway i'm talking down i am talking about uh when different sort of multimedia things uh come out at midnight on either the day before that they are intended to come out um and is a

sort of big event i did some googling to like learn about the history of this practice and it was kind of difficult. First of all, there's no like go to term for it. Um, if you're using sort of film parlance, it's midnight screenings. Um,

although that's not even really accurate anymore. Um, and it, it, it's also kind of tough to find because the idea of watching a movie at midnight for a long time was sort of the, um, uh,

the, the, like a cult movie thing like Rocky horror picture show or other like pulp horror movies. But I am talking specifically about when something new comes out and it is, uh, it comes out at midnight and then you go and you stay up late and you share that experience with other people enthusiastic about that thing.

The only time I think i've ever done that and correct me if i'm wrong on this is when we went to see star wars uh yeah so is that a midnight release i recently it is moved forward uh the first push uh was a few years ago um uh like 2012 it started to move back to like 20 to 10 p.m and that was like a decision sort of pushed forward by the um like the actual film companies themselves trying to uh boost boost sales because not a lot of people want to stay up at midnight and then you can have like an entire theater doing 20 screens of a 10 p.m show and more people will come to it uh because they don't have to stay up till midnight even though the time has changed i'm still i i still think it is a cool phenomenon do you ever do any one of those like harry potter books so i'm glad that you've asked this was as

far as i could tell the the first evidence of like really popularization of this practice for for films was uh star wars episode one phantom menace in 99 uh there are of, lots of resources of, like, people telling their stories of that midnight release. And I think that's because it was one of, like, the first experiences where that happened. Yeah. But where it really, really, really took off was the Harry Potter books. Yeah, that's what I remember. So in 2000, Goblet of Fire was the, that's the fourth Harry Potter book. It was the first one that came out in the U.S. and the U.K. at the same time.

The series had been out in the U.S. and been at the top of the bestseller list for like 40 weeks in a row. And Goblet of Fire came out in 2000 pushed uh for for this huge nationwide event uh not just nationwide worldwide because it was in the uk also they did midnight launches all across the uk and the us uh and sold millions and millions of books that first night and i think that that was i think around five million is what i found um and i think that was when this sort of idea became like a a thing that other industries and other publishers and everyone was looking at like oh okay now we can make the release of our thing like an event um uh speaking of harry potter uh the final harry potter movie part two of deathly hallows is the most successful midnight

screening of all time um it made 43.5 million dollars in one showing essentially across the country uh which is completely buck wild uh and if you go through like the top like 20 movies uh that had midnight launches it's harry potter is everywhere on there uh hunger games is everywhere on there uh twilight's on there a couple times um uh a couple of the the marvel movies are on there but mostly it's harry potter and like harry this little magical boy like started this like thing and for for books i went to a couple of the midnight releases for the harry potter books what i was gonna ask you how many times have you done this uh for for the harry potter books i i probably like three times how old were you uh in 2000 i would have been 13

with your dad i went with clint wilson and then we'd have a book race which is a where you go back to your house and you both are reading the book and then every like 15 minutes or so you would announce what page you were on just to see how far into the book you've gotten oh my gosh uh and then your your friend's dad would tell you to go play outside for a bit and so you'd go and you take your one pair of rollerblades that you share and you each wear one of the rollerblades and push yourself along with the other shoe in a sport that we called uniblading. Oh my gosh. If you ever want to hear wonderful stories

about Griffin's childhood, just ask him about activities he did with Clint Wilson. It was very wholesome. And so this is now like a thing for movies. I've been to like a lot of the midnight screenings. We went to, like you mentioned, Star Wars Episode VII uh although that was like at 10 p.m or so um that's the only one i've ever done really i am kind of an early to bed kind of lady you sure are so the idea of seeing anything at midnight like like the cost outweighs the benefits for me.

Yeah, I definitely get that. I've been to like a lot. I went to a couple of the first trilogy Star Wars movies. I went to Spider-Man. Did you ever get in costume? I don't think so. No, no, no. No?

No, I never went quite that buck wild with it. But the other thing that I want to mention is that it's also this is also a thing that video games do but on a much smaller scale um i used to work at gamestop i worked at gamestop for a couple of years and so i participated in some of these and i also want to say here that like i also totally recognize that this is a thing that is um for a lot of folks i imagine in, in these industries, in these, like, service industries, like, it is forced upon them. Like, hey, you know, Halo 5 comes out tonight. Come on out and help us with the launch. I enjoyed it. Like, I always enjoyed the atmosphere. Like, I thought it was cool. We would, like, do little games or whatever. I worked in a movie theater for a while, and we had a couple of midnight releases there. And I always thought it was, like,

kind of cool and kind of fun. But at the same time, I was, like, 18. 18 now that i am 30 i do not know that i would be as like thrilled to have to work it they're having no experience with these can people buy other stuff while they're there they can but it would be really annoying how does it how does it work this so they do they hand you the book and then you immediately go to the register and they're ready to with essentially there were lots of ways of doing it like one is just like if you had a pre-order you could just bring in your slip and if you had a slip you would get a ticket and you just handed the ticket and get your book and boom boom boom boom boom yeah i just wondered if anyone was like you know what i need i need a 2017 calendar yeah uh i feel like that definitely happened while i was working at gamestop and we

had like 30 people outside like waiting in line for the Wii midnight release. Gobstoppers. Don't mind if I do. Can you tell me anything about this man who is named Mario? Like, get the fuck out of here. Take your Wii and run. So, like, I recognize that, like, there's probably a lot of people who are not crazy about this because they have to, like, work these events, and I totally get that. I am totally appreciative of that. But there is something to be said for this feeling i i think everybody always

wants to feel like they are part of the zeitgeist right everybody wants to feel like they're part of um they're on the ground floor of the of the thing that they are into right now and that they are participating in these communities that share that same like excitement that i have for this thing right now and i have like this idea of a switch being flipped or a floodgate being open and then all of a sudden all of you are experiencing this like thing that you've looked forward to for a long time all at the same time and then can share that it's really really cool um i got to do that with uh destiny 2 which is i've been looking forward to and it came out at the same time midnight eastern time and then all of a sudden like just my entire

playstation friends list with like all of my my buddies and co-workers just like everybody was on all at the same time and then the next like couple days it's like all we talked about i think it's really cool it's stuff like uh digital releases of stuff specifically for games sort of limits this a little bit because you don't have to go to a store there's just like at midnight the e-store refreshes then it's like oh i got it um but yeah i just really like the idea of of of staying up late knowing that like i'm gonna feel like shit tomorrow but knowing that like you're you're going to be a part of like the most excited version of experiencing the thing that you can experience, I think is like really on point. Yeah, I will say that that kind of community has never necessarily appealed to me.

But when we did go see Star Wars, it was neat to be in the theater. It was neat to be in the theater. Everyone's cheering and genuinely excited and clapping. And it feels like you are a part of something. I didn't go see Phantom Menace at midnight. I'm kind of glad I did because I can't imagine, man. Can you imagine? Oh, I wonder if people realized that it was not. At what point did they realize?

Yeah, I don't know. Uh-oh. Let's not shit talk Phantom Menace, though. Instead, do you think that maybe i could steal you away yeah oh you want me to do the song a bing bing bing binga binga binga binga binga binga binga binga boing so that was it's like kind of banjo-y but also kind of kazoo-y you know kind of like banjo kazoo-y, you know? Kind of like Banjo-Kazooie. Did you mean to do that? I don't know if you meant to do that, but if you did, it was really wonderful.

I did. Oh, thank you. I don't know anything about Banjo-Kazooie. I'm going to change my second one. Something that you are always talking about. I'm not always talking about Banjo-Kazooie. That's a really inaccurate way of describing sort of my day-to-day interactions with you. I don't know.

Babe, do you think that we could do that one, the broccoli pasta that you make tonight? And my favorite level in Banjo-Kazooie is the one where the seasons keep changing each time. I got a Jumbotron message here, and this one is for Jeremy, and it's from Regine, who says, Hey, Sweeby, you make every... I hope that's not a typo. You make every day special and make me laugh 24-7. Best friend doesn't even begin to describe who you are to me.

I am so lucky to have you in my life and I can't wait to marry you. Happy fifth anniversary. Here's to more years of board games and podcasts and smalls and cats. Smalls, not smells? No, smalls. Smells would probably make less sense than smalls, actually, now that I think about it. Here's to more years of smells. I love you so much, and I always, always will.

And I guess their anniversary is September 20th? Or, yeah, I think that might be right. So, whenever it is, congratulations on your anniversary. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Congratulations on Sweeby Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Congratulations on Sweeby. On Sweeby. It's got a lot of brand potential.

Hit me up. Put that shit on some shirts and just keep on smelling. This message is for Nick and Rachel. It is from Matt. Oh, did you read the copy on this? No. To my brother and his wife. Oh, you've got to do better than that.

Please. I know our baby's sleeping. You don't want to get too loud, but please do better than that. I'm not saying that you did a bad job. I'm saying I know you can do better than that. To my brother and his wife. Oh, babe. Congratulations.

I've never had to do it before. Can you just do me a favor? No, please. No, please let me go. Can you just do me a favor? Just give me five, rattle them off. And then,

cause when I edit it, I can take the best one and I can just cut it in there and I could tell him, good. So just give me like five, my wife, his wives, and really imagine the character. Please do this for i need it i need it it's been a really hard week here we go it's tuesday yeah tell me about it his wife a little more bigger

his wife it was worse it was that you're moving away from it. I need you to come closer to me. Take a, take a beat. I don't think you can do it while you're laughing. I think you need to take a beat. Cause you need, you owe me three more. And I'm so sorry to this Jumbotron message.

Cause this is probably not the direction you wanted this to go. Rachel's having a full, full blown meltdown right now. Here we go. His wife. It's been this literally this. Now I'm not expecting a great Borat impression. I'm not expecting a great Borat impression out of you.

I just need you to understand that you've done literally the exact same thing. That's all I can do. That's all I can do. All right. I'm just going to start. I'm going to read the copy. All right. I'm going to need you to be supportive.

I love you. I think you did a great job. It's just they didn't change at all from attempt to attempt. This is not Rachel's cup of tea, by the way. I think that's pretty clear. To my brother and his wife. Oh, you did it. No, you put a little bit of,

yeah, you put a little funk on it. Congratulations. I want the record to show on air that I have 10 to 15% ownership of your life together since it was at a party I invited you to that you met.

That's how it works. And the rest was history. That's how it works. That'll hold up in court. Enjoy those good, good tax deductions and enjoy your honeymoon slash first anniversary depending on when they get around to reading this. That's a sweet one.

Message was for August 2017. That was a sweet message. I'm sorry we spent most of it boratting. I hope you like at least one of those borat impressions. The Dead Pilot Society podcast brings you hilarious comedy pilots that were never made featuring actors like Aubrey Plaza, Andy Richter, Paul F. Tompkins, John Hodgman, Adam Scott, Molly Shannon, Busy Phillips, Tom Lennon, Anna Camp, Laurie Metcalf, Felicia Day, Michael Ian Black, Adam Savage, Paul Scheer, Ben Schwartz, Skylar Astin, Mae Whitman, Josh Molina, Ben

Feldman, Nicole Byer, Jason Ritter, Sarah Chalk, Steve Agee, Jane Levy, Alison Tolman, Danielle Nicolette, Casey Wilson, Anna Ortiz, Lorraine Newman, June Diane Raphael, Kiernan Shipka, Ed Weeks, Zach Knighton, Carrie Kenny Silver, John Ross Bowie, Jamie Denbo, Janet Varney, Alexander Torsani, Rich Summer, Natalie Morales, Matt Gourley, Heather Harkin, and many more. Listen at MaximumFun.org, iTunes, or wherever you download podcasts. My next one is Towel Man. Is what?

Towel Man. You are bouncing, or Rachel's now bouncing up and down. She could not be more excited to talk about Towel Man. You're familiar with Towel Man. You are, Rachel's now bouncing up and down. She could not be more excited to talk about Towel Man. You're familiar with Towel Man, and you don't know it. He is at every Blues hockey game. I don't, you, the word familiar is not what I would use with my relationship with Tow man at the st louis blues hockey games uh for the past 27 years ron beckley has come down from the balcony when the blues score a goal waved a towel at which point he pumps his fist for each goal that has been scored everybody

shouts the number of goals. And then he drops the towel from the balcony. You don't remember this? Every game? No, I don't remember that at all. Every game? Is that every home game? Is he on the payroll?

That's like a lot of... That's the thing. He's a seasoned ticket holder. He buys tickets himself. Holy shit. Because that's like a job at that point, dude. If you are that much of an institution, you should be making some bucks. ticket holder he buys tickets holy shit because that's like a job at that point dude like if you are that much of an institution you should be making some you should be making some bucks

so they ring they're like they sound a gong or whatever so there's so much stuff every more than any other sport hockey has the most things that happen because i guess it never happens right like most most hockey games not a lot of people know this and without any goals being scored. And so when it does happen, they're like, okay, we got, let's see, we got everybody get out the, you know, get out the mustard packets. And then we all throw those up in the air. And that signifies this. And then when the mustard packets land, we all sing, you know, deep in the heart of Texas. Towel man, as far as I know, is unique to St. Louis.

I imagine that other sports teams. Well, there's the terrible towel, which is the, I think, Steelers, maybe? Okay. But not at all related to this. This is a very good towel. This is an exceedingly good towel. So he started this. Apparently, he saw it at a hockey game in Peoria and brought it to St. Louis.

He saw it at a hockey game in Peoria and brought it to St. Louis. And after three years of doing it, it took off. Now they put him on the Jumbotron. And he says that he only misses one or two games a season. And he buys the tickets and has sponsors pay for the towels. I was about to, that was my next question, is where are these towels coming from? He says he brings seven to every game, because usually a hockey team does not score more than seven goals,

if even anyone can hear that. So if they score eight, he just comes out of the bag, like, I don't know, he has to hurl himself off of the bag. This is the adorable thing. So he has a few solutions to this. Either he ties a... How do you know the solutions? Because I read about this later. Oh, God.

This is great. Okay. He takes a lace from a skate, ties it to the towel, throws it, and then pulls it back up. Which I love. Or he like, he's thrown, apparently he's thrown like a paper towel or a napkin before. Or his underwear. You think he's gotten nasty before? No, Griffin, no.

Why won't you play with me in this space now? Because Towelman is a St. Louis legend and has been for 27 years. He probably... I don't want to talk about his throne's underwear. Then you take the headphones off.

Because this dude goes to all these games. He's a legend. I'm just saying if he could, if he wanted to like he could he could get busy probably he's 58 years old oh you're saying 58 year olds can't get busy short-sighted closed-minded um there is a towel girl oh so on nights that he hasn't attended there is another blues fan uh apparently by the name D. Loris, who has stood in for him if he cannot attend the game. D. Loris, not Dolores? Yeah, D-E-E, and then the last name is L-O-R-S.

That's a confusing name. My name is John. John? No, no, no, no, no. um but yeah i just i i think this this transcends the specific st louis blues hockey team which as many know i am loyal to and they're actually playing a game tonight against dallas that we are not watching oops uh not that loyal but i think that most sports teams and i was going to ask you if you can think of any offhand where it is not an official mascot but it is a person who has taken it upon themselves to play this role this is like every i feel like every fucking team has this like every team

has like a person who's like who's gone to every game who's gone to every game and it's like i'm gonna immortalize myself yeah i can't think of anything offhand because but again like you are asking the wrongest person although i anticipate that we are going to get an inbox full of these like local legends. Exactly. And I look forward to that. Yeah, that'll be interesting. I think it's I think it's cool. Like I mentioned, this guy is not paid by the team. He buys season tickets like everybody else and has just committed to this towel display.

Yeah. No, I think it's great. I appreciate it. It's like I'm i'm now i'm the mascot i've made the decision that now i am also the mascot apparently he always sits in the same section because he's a season ticket holder but i remember every time i get to a game i always look around like frantically to try and find him um i'm gonna change my last one because i was gonna talk about destiny because it's just like all i've been doing lately um and i think it's like

a cool game with like and i i was going to try to broadly talk more about like just playing video games uh online with strangers who end up being very cool i said that thing about banjo kazooie but then yeah and we got sort of got our quota met um and no also because like it would be sort of the same thing as like my midnight launch thing this idea like ask you a sincere question? Yeah, sure. What's the difference between Crash Bandicoot and Banjo-Kazooie? Banjo-Kazooie is like an open world like exploration sort of thing

where you're going around looking for pickups and in Crash Bandicoot, you're mostly running down sort of more of a linear track. What are the animals though? In Crash... Sorry, baby. Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby. the animals though and sorry baby baby baby baby baby what's a bandicoot am i supposed to know

that it is an animal you're telling me you wouldn't you would know what a bandicoot was if you hadn't played the game crash bandicoot absolutely not but i will tell you that when crash bandicoot came out in 1997 probably it was like oh that's a bandicoot came out in 1997, probably, it was like, oh, that's a bandicoot. Now I know that. Okay, what's a kazooie? It's okay. I suppose it's a double standard. Bandicoot is like a big bird

who rides around in a bear's backpack. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so instead of doing that, I do think Destiny is a great game, and I really do have a lot to say about playing video games online with randos who end up being kind of cool but i think it would just sort of be more of like this shared excitement thing that i kind of talked about in the midnight

release listeners can go to polygon.com that is true we do we do a lot of stuff there destiny coverage so i don't have any prep for this but i do want to talk about the character jerry gergich on the television show parks and Recreation. Rachel and I have, we're on our third probably rewatch of Parks and Recreation. It is a show that I adore. I think it is an imperfect show. I think that it has some slip ups. I think that it has some like weaker seasons, but it is one of my favorite shows of all time because Rachel and I have a hard,

we bounce off pretty easily off of a show or a movie where all of the comedy is derived from people being fucking miserable to each other. And I really just don't have any stomach for it i i don't think that it is like uh i don't think that it maybe in certain ways it works because i'm trying to think of it and like i love arrested development and i think that's the show where like a lot of the times the characters are very selfish and um not very great uh to each other and a lot of their like the humor comes from the ways that they sort of um you know pick on each other but there's also like some elements of like oh well these are also

people who love each other very much and you get some of that and parks and rec hits that like perfectly because this is a show about a group of co-workers and friends who love each other completely and while there are some definitely some parts um where they still pick on each other completely. And while there are definitely some parts where they still pick on each other, there is reminder after reminder after reminder of these are a group of people who love each other and would do anything for each other. And that is so rare in comedy,

especially on television, where the joke is like, you're a fucking idiot. And so I adore Parks and Recreation for that reason. It's also a show about struggling against apathy, like political apathy, and the frustration of how apathy affects our political landscape. It is a show that has a lot of stuff to say about that, and I think that that is

very bold and very perfectly delivered. But you wanted to talk specifically about Jerry. So, all that said, and this is why I want to talk about it. Slash Gary slash Larry. Slash Terry. There is a character on the show, if you have

seen it before, you know what I'm talking about. If you have not, there's a character who works at Parks and Recreation named Jerry Gergich, who is, and again, this is a show about people who love each other very much, and they're very positive and very helpful. He is this sort of edifice for their malice. Like, he is this target for their hatred. Now, hatred is not the right word, but they are constantly, constantly picking on Jerry Gergich,

and Jerry Gergich is always messing up. There is an episode where he says he got robbed in a park, and so they throw a big press conference trying to raise money for security in the park, but it turns out he just fell in a river while reaching for a burrito um there were like to to a point where there's an episode where he has a heart attack but he farts a whole lot while having a heart attack which is the thing that actually happens and then people like kind of laugh about it and then realize like oh no oh no jerry i didn't realize that like that is how hard this show goes on jerry gurgich when the rest of the time it is a show about people who

love each other and would do anything for each other um and i don't know how to wrap my mind around that like i don't know how it is it's it's like he takes it with such uh good humor so you never feel bad for him he has he is such a contented character and i think that that sort of builds up a barrier around him so much like he talks about how he and his his wife go uh to their uh timeshare in muncie indiana and how happy and everybody makes fun of him but he's like you know i got a big stack of mystery novels i'm gonna take with me i retire i get pension in two years i'm gonna go to muncie and just read all my mystery novels and i'll be like he's a very very happy character who has like the best light like this is a show also about people who are uh flawed people in a

lot of ways who have trouble with relationships and have trouble uh with their career and have trouble uh with their friendships and jerry gurgich doesn't have any of that he has this like perfect family and is so completely happy all the time but he also just screws up constantly there's an episode we just re-watched recently where he is sealing envelopes for Leslie's campaign and we just see him for hours and hours very happily just lick envelopes and close them. And it's such a good symbol of the kind of character he is, where he is just happy to have clear, straightforward work to do and to contribute to things. He's played by an actor named Jim O'Hare. And I just want to talk about Jerry Gergich because because this is again like our third time re-watching this series and for whatever reason like this is the time where i'm like this is the every fucking

thing every scene with jerry gergich and i think is absolutely hysterical from the scene where they're setting up their holiday carnival and they ask who wants to be santa claus and they said they couldn't be him because it couldn't be Jerry because he knows what happened last year and Jerry delivers the greatest line in television history which was, it was just farts. It was extreme. It's one of Griffin's favorite lines.

It's one of my favorite lines. I made Rachel, I rewound it because Rachel left the room and I was like, it's just farts just happened and you need to see it because it's extremely important. There's a scene where Andy, who is the character played by Chris Pratt, is working security for uh for leslie the main character's uh campaign and somebody throws a pie and they get it on at at leslie and they get it on

tape and in recreating the crime scene he just very andy very very very painfully slowly lowers another actual real pie onto jerry's face to like figure out the ballistics of the pie while jerry's just like no please while this pie is very very slowly colliding and like everything about the delivery of this like i think kind of hard character to pull off is so fucking perfect um and i think it serves i think one of the reasons i appreciate it is because for one thing like at the end of the day everybody still does love jerry like there are a few very very sweet moments where it's like uh especially when jerry's sort of serving as a foil of like i have this perfect family and you all are kind of fuck ups a little bit um you get these

moments where they are they are very sweet to Jerry. But I also think it serves as a contrast to how all other sort of sitcoms treat all their characters. And I think that's why I appreciate it. If you go back and you watch the first season of Parks and Rec, maybe you listen to this segment

and you think, oh, they like this show, I should give it a shot. That first season's not great because it tries to be like the office a little bit too much and that is not what this show is at all and also like in that first season pretty much all the characters are horrible to each other um because that's like what that's like what television comedy is for a lot of shows. And what I love is that this show moves so, so far beyond that. Except for this one character. It's like this weird tone shift that exists, this weird pocket dimension that exists just

around this one character. Well, and you know what it reminds me of? Part of what I think is funny about it, too, is it just seems like the level of contempt seems almost unreasonable. And it reminds me of the way that michael scott hates toby in the office yeah like just this fiery contempt for somebody another great that's i mean it's kind of inoffensive toby is the is is the the perfect comparison here of just like the office which we agree that was like the first show we re-watched

once henry was born um that was a show where pretty much all the characters, especially by the end of the season, even fucking Jim and Dwight were like, cared very, very deeply about each other by that final season. And that was pretty much universal across the whole staff. I love the holiday episodes of The Office. They are so warm. And well, for the most part,

there's actually one or two kind of fucked up ones, but they're like these uh testaments of how much these characters love each other except for toby who is like this kind of colossal mess who nobody really uh is especially sweet to i don't know why i like that i don't know why i like that character so much because i recognize that it is also the antithesis of what it is i like about this show but i think it's like putting a little bit of salt on a sweet thing and it makes the flavor a little bit better i think that's part of it and i also think that just uh jim o'hare like it was perfect it was unfailing like i literally everything that happens with jerry gergich on on this rewatch is like absolutely

slaying me um should we talk about what other people are enthusiastic about? Yes, please. Can you remind people how they get that information to us? Yeah, just shoot an email to wonderfulpodcast at gmail.com and try to keep it short, like one or two sentences. We get a lot of those and we try to keep them fairly tight when we read them here on the show. Here's one from Rachel who says, with colder weather coming up,

I've been really excited to try all different sorts of teas. It's so much fun to try a new variety of chai with friends or have a cup of Earl Grey while curled up with a good book. What kind of hot drinks do you two like? Thank you so much, and I love you both. Thank you, Rachel. Hot drinks. I mean, I've been known to have a hot chocolate in the wintertime.

Yeah. I do like a chai, although I never make it at home. I only get it out when I'm out and about. And then, yeah, just coffee. Yeah, I drink coffee every day. You kind of did tea for a while. I like cinnamon tea. I guess at a point where, like, for whatever reason around, like, after dinner, I would just get super sleepy super early.

And so I just like to have, like, a little hot bev there to pet me up a little bit. And so I did a cinnamon spice tea. Like that's my jam. I don't really love a floral tea too much. I like sort of a spicy, spicy tea. In the fall though,

I love apple cider, hot apple cider, mulled apple cider. Like is my fucking jam. I walk into a place with mulled apple cider popping Hot apple cider. Mald apple cider, like, is my fucking jam. I walk into a place with mald apple cider popping off, and, like, I get out of my mind excited. It's my favorite. Here's another one from Elisa, who says, hey, guys, I have something I think is good. Every time someone asks my dad, how are you?

Instead of responding with the regular, good, how are you? He always says, another day in paradise. Oh, man. That's the daddest thing ever. It's also the best thing ever. Thank you very much, Elisa. Keep this going. I don't know how you keep this going, but here

is another one from Marisa who says, or Marissa, that's probably what it is. Dear Griffin and Rachel, there is literally nothing better on this earth than eating tiny portions of cheesecake or small cured meats out of a tiny paper cup at Costco for free. Sampies, though.

Sampies are very good. I feel like, can we have a serious conversation right now? I feel like our recent Costco trips have been very pedals to the metal. We have not, and most of the time it's because we have a baby there and been very pedals to the metal yes we have not and most of the times because we have a baby there and we just want to get in and get out and i get that but i will go i pass by a lot of sampies and i don't know how i feel about that no wait i do i

feel bad and that bad feeling turns into anger well it's my fault unless yes agreed adventurous now given my my food constraints um so i'm not I'm not able to just take things off a tray. But I remember in college, I had friends that would make a whole meal out of that on Sundays. They would make a sampie meal? They would specifically go to stores where they knew samples were being handled out. Oh, bummer. And they would turn that into a meal. It's college.

I guess it's college. I mean, fuck, i can't i can't judge i all i eat is crispy chicken sandwiches from wendy's every day because they were 90 cents um here is one last one from chase who says hey i'm a mechanic and the most wonderful thing is when the last thing snaps or locks or bolts into place the previously incomplete thing is now whole and it's great that reminds me of our car seat that snaps into our stroller. Yeah. It's got like a dock that's like installed in the car and then you just

like pop it right in there. It doesn't make that noise. It makes it very more satisfying. I was thinking more like putting together like a complex Ikea thing and it's like, Oh yeah, now it's an entertainment center. This has been wonderful.

Thank you so much for listening. If you want to leave a review on iTunes, that would much for listening. If you want to leave a review on iTunes, that would mean a lot. If you want to go to MaximumFun.org and check out all the great shows there, that would be cool. They've got shows like Jordan, Jesse Go, Judge Sean Hodgman, Stop Podcasting Yourself, Lady to Lady, Dead Pilots Society, One Bad

Mother. Wow, those are a lot of them. I know. I mean, there's a lot of shows, and they're all really great, and they're all free, so go check them out. We also do other shows that you can find at McElroyShows.com. Anything else? Oh link to that in the episode description. Oh, and join the Facebook group if you haven't. People are regularly posting wonderful things and videos and cute animations and

cartoons. And a lot of facts. Straight up, the wombat, it poops cubes. Oh, yeah. People really shared that piece of information with us. And I'm so glad they did, because wombats poop cubes. Hey, Capybaras, People really shared that piece of information with us. And I'm so glad they did. Because wombats poop cubes. Hey, capybaras, get out of here.

You're out. Wombats are in now. Capybara, don't go too far because you're number two. But wombats are number one because they have cube shape number two. Get out of here. You kill enemies with your butt, your big butt. You know what a lot of people said? What? We should have said wombat. Damn it. Get out of here. You kill enemies with your butt, your big butt. You know what a lot of people said? You're so soft and wonder, what?

We should have said wombut. Damn it. When we were talking about their great butts, we should have said that. Shit. Babe. That's a great wombut. Well, we'll get it next time. I don't know what to say.

Put it in the special features. Can you give me one more, my wife? Please, just send us home. And this could be like our outro, like every episode you have to do it. Good. My wife. I've been Griffin McElroy.

I'm Rachel McElroy. Bye. Bye. Bye. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Mugs, shirts, stickers, patches, tanks, and more are yours for the purchasing at maxfundstore.com. Hey, you already love the podcasts, so why not take this to the next level and outfit your home and bod with our merch?

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