Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 30: Droney

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

Griffin's favorite difficult game! Rachel's return to the Poetry Corner! Griffin's favorite outer space goofs! Rachel's favorite shaped meat! 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. And hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Oh, it sure is, isn't it? Ten out of ten, this one. Welcome back to Wonderful. On this podcast, we talk about the things that we're into and the things that you're into. Things like popsicles, artificial grape flavoring. I'm just burning topics right now, so maybe I should stop. I don't know why I'm doing this. I was going to do artificial grape

flavoring next week, and I don't care what form it takes. If it's purple, I'll Yerple, which is my new catchphrase. And also, you have to imagine that Yerple means to eat and enjoy a food. So, how are you? I'm good. I'm still riding that high of the Max Fun Drive. Oh, I love that high. And when we say that, we mean it pretty literally, right? Every donation that we get, we mean it pretty pretty literally right every donation that we get uh we

chop it up oh no and uh lick it lick it all up and we just are just completely zonked at that point can i say something incredible about it uh-huh griffin told me this um and i am excited about it? Uh-huh. Griffin told me this, and I am excited about it. We got more donors doing wonderful than we did doing the hit Bachelor podcast, Rose Buddies. Yeah, we were a little worried about that, but y'all came out and showed your support and got us completely

fucking zonked out of our minds, and we just, we appreciate you so much, and it means a lot, and thank you so much for your support. And I guess as a reward And thank you so much for your support. And I guess as a reward for that, we're going to do a bang-up episode for you this week. You got any small wonders? Small wonders. No, I don't.

This is like your third week of not having a small wonder. You got to have something. What's good? What's good? What's good? Maybe you could talk about the way that our son eats a banana. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, you can have that one. I was going to do that one, but I'll think of another one.

I just don't want people to think that you aren't grateful for every little precious thing that happens in this sweet adventure we call life. adventure we call life um he uh was uh late eating solid foods but one of the first foods that he would confidently bite was a banana but not the way that you'd expect and uh he likes first he will not eat sliced banana he wants to hold the whole banana in his hand and then when he chomps down he uh takes approximately a third of the banana in his mouth. From the side, typically. It is the most amazing thing to watch. But, you know, like father, like son. I have a thing.

Okay. And it's a gift that Rachel got me for my birthday, which was yesterday. Do you want to tell them what you got me? And by the way, can you also explain whether or not you regret that you got me this my birthday, which was yesterday. Do you want to tell them what you got me? And by the way, can you also explain whether or not you regret that you got me this or not? It is hard to buy things for Griffin because Griffin has taken a lot of ownership of getting the things he wants in the past few years. So I decided one thing he had casually mentioned that I had dismissed years ago was getting a drone.

But we have a new opportunity in our new neighborhood to really explore the space. And I thought this would be a fun present for him because you never get toys at this age. So I got him a drone and it makes the loudest, most terrible noise I've ever heard, which I have a feeling Griffin is going to demonstrate for you right now. And the way that we like to do it is, well, we take off. Now what happened there, little guy? Let's try again. Okay, so we take off.

Okay, a couple failed launches there, but we take off. Oh, God, it's so fucking close to me. How close do you think I can let it get to my face? This could be like a fun game. Let's let him actually get on the microphone. That's so close! Why am I doing this? Oh, what's that, Droney? Droney says he likes hot dogs.

That's what he's grateful for this week. And a promenade. Oh, can you turn it off? That was a hand landing or a handing where you stick out your hand and then Droney just comes right back. So at like 1030 last night, Griffin decided to try this out. And I was immediately regretful. I'll see why you have to be so mean. Droney's right there. I'm very excited why you have to be so mean. Drone is right there.

I'm very excited for you to have this new toy. Who goes first on this one? I think it might be my turn. Is it? Let me think. There's an easy way to check this. Actually, it's my turn. Oh, man.

I feel like it's always your turn. It explicitly wasn't. Last week it wasn't. Okay. So my first thing this week is a video game. And I don't usually talk a lot about games on this show, because I know that it's like not your jam. But I recently had something that happened that kind of like, made me appreciate this thing a whole lot more. And the game is Spelunky. I don't know if you remember that one. Me and... Yeah, of course, you've played a lot of that game.

Played it a lot. So Spelunky, if you have not played it, is a game from a developer named Derek Yu. And it first came out as a freeware game for PCs all the way back in 2008, which was a decade ago. Jesus Christ. But it debuted as a downloadable game on Xbox 360 and then got ported to a bunch of other platforms. I played it a lot on Vita. It's out on PC, too. And it's one of those like rare rare like recent modern games that achieved classic status very very very quickly like there's a lot of people common consensus is like this game is a classic just as much as you know sonic the hedgehog or tetris um and a lot of that is thanks to its

kind of brilliant and and very thoughtful design it's a platformer like mario which is how you uh describes it to to people sort of unfamiliar with the, but it's blended with roguelike elements. And that's a genre that is kind of common these days, but it wasn't when Spelunky first came out. complex freeware role-playing game where every time you died, you basically lost everything, and you had to start over, and the game was randomly generated every time you played. And so those two concepts are kind of integral to the roguelike genre. And that's the basic gist of Spelunky. You're this explorer who's going through a series of levels, you're finding treasure and power-ups in these levels, and the levels are different every time that you play. But when you die, you lose everything, and you have to start completely over again. And what makes Spelunky really clever is how every single object in the

game, including the player and all the enemies and all the pickups and power-ups that you can find and treasure that you can find, they all follow a specific set of rules that govern every interaction in the game. And that's what makes it beatable. Like, your progress resets when you die, and though the levels are going to be different every time you play it, the rules are always the same. Your knowledge about how the world works is cumulative and your greatest asset in trying

to find your way through. And it lends itself to these wild, chaotic situations born out of things of this world just following its own rules. So here's an example, and it's like the most famous one that kind of outlines the brilliance of this game. There is a caveman enemy who has a boomerang that he throws at you and it knocks you back and it can knock you back into like a pit of spikes. And then you're just like toast. Um, and when, when the caveman enemy doesn't have their boomerang,

they go out looking for it. Uh, sometimes they will wonder into one of the many shops that populate this world where you can exchange the treasure that you found for new items and powerups. And one of the things they can sell in the shop is a boomerang. And so if the caveman walks into that shop and sees a boomerang on the store shelf, they'll pick it up and walk out with it, which then sets off a rule of the shopkeeper,

who, if you try to shoplift something from him, he pulls out a shotgun and tries to kill you. And there's a famous scenario where a game developer named tom francis game developers fucking love this game because it's like the most game game to ever game uh did this in a level with like six shopkeepers in it and this caveman tried to steal a boomerang accidentally just following its own logic and it set off every shopkeeper in the level who then like blew the level apart and killed everything in it. And all of that happened just because of these like complex interlocking systems that exist inside the game. And I find that so appealing, like as a game design concept in every type of genre where you if you've been paying attention, you kind of know how the world works and it can work in

really unexpected ways so is this a game you can win is there like an objective it is yeah there is a a final level that you can beat uh it is also like full of like secrets um that are not explicitly outlined at all like secret paths that you can follow to like reach a secret level and a secret bonus ending. But most people don't do that because the game is extremely, extremely hard. You have like four hit points. There's tons of stuff that can kill you in one hit. Yeah, and the fact that you have to start over and over and over again. Yeah, it can be a little bit too much for people.

There's some statistics that say that I think half of the players only make it past the first level and only like something like 6% of players actually ever beat the game, which is a pretty low statistic for something like this. So it's a very tense and very punishing game. But learning how to like, anticipate and exploit situations where these different mechanics are following these rules that you've learned are what make it so great. And so like, I've always thought it was a classic, even from like the first time that I played it, but I haven't actually played it in a long time. But I recently fell back in love with it thanks to something that is really rare in the games industry. And it's really why I wanted to

talk about it. I read a book written by the developer about his own game. It's part of a series called Boss Fight Books, which goes through and they're basically like long form essays about different classic games. Oh, interesting. Usually written by like fans of those games. The Spelunky book was written by Derek Yu about how he developed his own game. And it was just fucking brilliant. I read it on a flight, two flights actually, there and back to Dallas and Houston. And it was so fascinating to read about what makes games rewarding for him and how he found

this now very obvious mix of genres of taking the roguelike genre, which can be like super complex and really, really uninviting, and platformers, which are by their nature, like one of the most inviting popular genres ever, and figuring out like how to blend those and how he wrote these rules that govern these interactions in the game and how he reacted to seeing how players played his game and saw this community spring up around his game. It even goes into technical details of how he figured out how to randomly generate these different levels and some tips on how he actually finished the game, which is a really, really hard thing to do. There's a lot of game developers out there who start doing their game and then maybe

they realize, like, oh, you know what? I know so much more now about my game. I'm just going to start over. And they start over and then they realize, maybe they realize like, oh, you know what? I know so much more now about my game. I'm just going to start over. And then they start over and then they never finish it. It's so fascinating. And the reason it really stood out to me is because game development in general is such a clandestine practice. And a lot of that is, there's so many, so many reasons to that. And so I don't want to sound like authoritative and be like it's because of this one thing because there's a lot of things that

contribute to it um it's a very technical process and so like i'm sure there's lots of developers who think like nobody gives a shit about you know how we actually made this thing they just want to play it and that's probably right for a lot of folks um also games are super expensive to make and so it's a very risky gambit to to make a game and so maybe you don't want to let everybody know everything there's this idea of hype and wanting to build up hype and in order to do that you just like can't tell everybody everything all the time about your game so like for all of these reasons um the people who make the games that we play largely like exist in the shadows. And I think that's a real shame. I think it leads to like, a lot of disconnect in this industry between

people who play games and the people who make them. There are, it's hard for folks who play a game and say like, oh, that's my favorite game of all time to like actually name game developers like by name it's tricky because there's not like a ton of superstars because of all of this stuff and also like nobody really knows how games get made yeah and there's such long projects too like sometimes somebody can devote years to something uh and nobody knows that they did right and and so when you don't see the work that goes into the game the decisions why they made it it can lead to like sort of um snap judgments and animosity about like well why did you do this why are you killing the game when there are reasons behind it

it's just like nobody is is they're very few i'm not saying nobody there's lots of developers who uh particularly indie developers i think it's easy for them because they're sort of playing by their own rules. So they can put out like a commentary track to Gone Home, for instance, which I found really interesting as you're playing through Gone Home, which was this really cool adventure game where you just walk around a house and find these diaries. But you can like collect these little cassette tapes that like tell you what the game developers were thinking, why they made it.

cassette tapes that like tell you what the game developers were thinking why they made it it it's a rare and like really cool insight into this brilliant game one of the best games like ever uh especially the last decade uh and i don't know i just found it so so fascinating to get to like read into this thing because it's such a rare opportunity um so you said this is part of like a series of books it is part of a series of books yeah and a lot of them are uh folks doing uh interviews with like the developers um alexa who who used to work at polygon did one on kingdom hearts um just for an example so but but this is i think the only one of a developer talking about their own game um and like hearing their their history and their insight and like what it's actually like to make a game. Like, I'm so fascinated by that shit,

and I was very grateful for, like, the opportunity to get to read about, like, not only an interesting story, but, like, an interesting story behind, like, one of my favorite games. Yeah. So if you're interested in this stuff at all, it's a really good quick read. I enjoyed it.

Cool. What's your first thing? Uh, my first thing is a return to the poetry corner. Oh, we need a theme song for the poetry corner. Don't we? Have we talked about this before and failed? No, I can play one on the piano really quick. I would like that actually. Move it, droney. move it droney no no no that's that's

that's it's kind of already something though is the problem I think no because they use like a xylophone and that one was the jazz scat voice oh okay yeah so it's a new song they use a xylophone mostly but I use the jazz scat voice. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it's a new song. They use a xylophone mostly, but I use the jazz scat.

What's the poem? So the poet is Adrienne Rich, who is a poet that I read a lot of right after I finished college. She's a poet, essayist, and activist for women, specifically for lesbian women later in her life. She has written over 20 collections of poems. She actually passed away in 2012.

And her first collection came out right after she finished college. finish college. She's a famous activist. And actually, in 1997, she refused to accept a National Medal of Arts because she was protesting a vote by House Speaker Newt Gingrich to end funding for the NEA. And she had this great quote about that. She said, I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage. Wow. Isn't that good? Is this what that one episode of West Wing is based on? Do you remember that? Where I think it was Laura Dern was playing somebody who, like Toby, loved her poetry and wanted to name her Poet Laureate,

but she refused to. The timing works out because it was 97. Yeah. Interesting. Pull ripped from the headlines. She also, in her later years, wrote a book specifically regarding the need for women to unite. It's the book On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. And in the book, she said, quote, women have often felt

insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us. And we have a profound stake beyond the personal and the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other uh yeah so she she just she became a a powerful figure beyond her writing and her writing is prolific too i mean the fact that she started publishing immediately after college is 20 collections is a is a lot. It's actually 25 total. Jesus, please us. So the poem that I brought. Well, a lot of them like short though, like cheap poems.

I mean, probably. You know how poems are. Apple Snapple. That's one whole page of my book. Like seven sentences on a page and it's like, I'm done. I could do way shorter than that. Dog Log.

Next poem. What would you call it though? Here's the thing. The title is what's important. Yeah poem well what would you call it though here's the thing the title is what's important yeah i think i'd call it um thoughts on the log dog now see you gotta give it like gravity serious thoughts about the log there you go sad thoughts about the log dog on a rainy day on a rainy dark. Now it's too long, though. What if I just call it sorrow? There you go. See, this is the secret behind every high school poet. Mm-hmm.

So the poem I'm bringing is called For the Dead. It's from the book Diving into the Wreck, which she won a National Book Award for. Diving into the Wreck is one of the books that I really loved when I first started reading her work. Sorry, is it just called the National Book Award? Yeah. They couldn't think of like a better name? Like, yeah. Well, I mean, it's assigned to like a specific book, you know. I know, but it's pretty straightforward. When you win the Super Bowl, they don't say like you won the National Football Award. There's a name for that trophy.

And I don't know what... It's the Stanley Cup, right? If they called the Stanley Cup the Good Hockey Trophy. Do you know what I mean? It's like, but just a little bit. You know what I mean? Just a little bit. Just get back to me. Book folks. Yeah, Griffin's a hit generator.

As evidenced by Dog Log. Get her, Droney. yeah griffin's a hit generator as evidenced by dog log get her droney droney go uh so can i read this poem please yes okay so it's called for the dead i dreamed i called you on the telephone to say be kinder to yourself but you were sick and would not answer. The waste of my love goes on this way, trying to save you from yourself. I have always wondered about the leftover energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill long after the rains have stopped, or the fire you want to go to bed from but cannot leave, burning down but not burnt down, the red coals more extreme, more curious, and they're flashing and dying than you wish they were sitting long after midnight that's a sad poem though it's a little bit of a sad poem yeah well that made me feel feelings that poetry has only started to make

me feel and this one did a sad one to me i i there's something about Adrienne Rich's poems that just always kind of pull me in. Like, they're very elegant and precise. And I mean, you know, I'm not usually one to analyze poems, but this one's pretty clear by the title, that it's this idea that

after somebody is gone, you still have all of this weight within you. And I love the way that she describes it, the way that after somebody is gone, you still have all of this weight within you. Yeah. And I love the way that she describes it, the way water rushes down a hill long after it rains and the coals are still burning after you want to go to bed. I just, I found that really powerful. And I just, it's not necessarily like my favorite poem by her, but I felt like it was really emblematic of kind of the powerful way she's able to get it at specific ideas. Yeah, it made me think of that one time that we were trying to go to bed, but we had a fire pit going in the backyard, but the fire wouldn't go out.

And then I realized it's because we used only starter logs. So we closed it up anyway, and then our neighbors called us the following morning to say we left the fire burning the whole night. Yeah. And that's what it's like. Yeah. This has been the Poetry Corner. You gotta say that before.

Now I gotta play it again. It's really good, right? It's very good. But see, now we have to do another song. Oh yeah, hey, can I steal you away? wow that was really good that was garbage this message is for rachel oh and it is from matt okay Do you know Matt? I mean, everybody knows a Matt. That's true. Is it Matt Dorn? That's a fun call back

to the other one. The message says, Hi, Rachel. I can't wait to marry you soon. Hey, wait a minute! Huh? No! And be just as happy as Griffin is with his Rachel. Oh!

Yeah. I thought this was another Jumbotron trying to marry you thing. Maybe we'll start a rival podcast. Wait a minute! Called Enjoyable. Hey, dang it! What the heck, dude? This is a roller coaster of emotions anyways love you more

than anything and so excited to spend the rest of my life with you all right i think you're cute okay yeah that one took me some places that one was like the sad poem it affected me emotionally dude should i play the poetry was that a poem should I play the poetry corner slam for that one I mean Griffin what is a poem good point it's like I'm far away from the piano that's as far as I can go this next message is for Alan

it is from Taylor despite my continuing journey into the blasted hellscape of eastern Washington, you remain the best friend I could ever hope to have. I am a better human because you are in my life. My son will be a better human because you are in his life. Thank you for everything.

Here's to many years to come. That is a lovely message, and I had no idea that Eastern Washington was so challenging. What do you think is going on over there? Probably the Twilight vampires. When, you know, the cold. Yeah. Cold weather. Yeah, you get all chilly and you go out to buy a coat at the Burlington Coat Factory.

Do you want me to take the computer? It's so heavy. How's it going, everyone? I'm Oliver Wang. And I'm Morgan Rhodes. We have a brand new show on the Maximum Fun Network that we'd love to share with you it's called heat rocks morgan we should probably explain what a heat rock is it is a banger a fire track true fire right dope album each episode we will bring on a special guest to join us to talk about one of their heat rocks it might be a musician a writer

maybe a scholar i mean i would have been happy to just talk to you about your heat rocks but this is a different show yeah i think people might enjoy hearing maybe the guests instead to do that you'll have to go to maximumfund.org so if you want to talk about hot music you should check us out heat rocks i am so excited to tell you about my second thing okay i've wanted to try to find the right way to frame this for a while and now i i'm just excited to tell you about it i want to tell you about commander john young's space adventures i don't know any of these things good good good then prepare yourself and prepare yourself at home is this a real thing yes john young was an astronaut who actually just passed away this past january and during his career with NASA, he accomplished a great deal. He was part of the New Nine, which was like the second batch of astronauts

after the first seven astronauts who would start going on missions, alongside the New Nine included Neil Armstrong, for instance, and Jim Lovell, who was the commander on Apollo 13, which, well, that one went a little bit weird. He flew on Gemini 3, where he went on the first manned flight of the Gemini spacecraft. He was the commander of Gemini 10. He flew around the moon on Apollo 10. He was the backup commander for Apollo 13, just barely missed the bullet on that one.

And he became the ninth human being to walk on the moon on the Apollo 16 mission, being named the chief of the space shuttle program where he did a couple more flights on the space shuttle. So his contributions to our space program are enormous. And I do not want to undercut them here because like being an astronaut is a very dangerous job. You're putting your life on the line. For sure. And you're putting your life on the line in pursuit of like this spirit of exploration which is it's heroic plain and simple and i find i i genuinely unironically think that is so admirable and john young also did two of the funniest things i've ever heard of in my entire life and that's what i'd like to focus on today

again great astronauts so many contributions hero missions two of the funniest fucking things i've ever heard of um the first was on his first mission into space on gemini 3 uh it was a two-man mission he was on it with uh gus grissom who was another member of the the new nine and it was uh just a six-hour mission up in space the first couple gemini missions were like preparing for gemini 3 where they'd actually start going in space and start doing experiments. So they would be up there for six hours, had a bunch of experiments they were supposed to conduct. One of the experiments was to test out this new kind of dehydrated food that

other astronauts on future missions could eat. It would, it would make sort of longer missions, for instance, to the moon, a possibility. This was one of the more important missions they had to conduct. I guess you're not ice cream. You get in museum gift shops.

Yes. And, you know, actual, actual like food, food that you could rehydrate and, and eat up there. This was a big part of the six hour mission. They had a lot to accomplish in a relatively narrow window of time as they were one of the first few Americans in space. They had to test out this dehydrated food. John Young had some other lunch plans. I'd like to read for you the transcript of a conversation between John Young and Gus Grissom. This is all real, I swear to God. Grissom, what is it? Young. Corned beef sandwich? Grissom, where did that come from? Young. I brought it with me. Let's

see how it tastes. Smells, doesn't it? Grissom, yes, it's breaking up. I'm going to stick it in my pocket. Young? Is it? Young. It was a thought anyways. Grissom. Yep. Young. Not a very good one. It was a thought anyways. Grissom. Yep. Young. Not a very good one. Grissom.

Pretty good, though, if it would just hold together. Young. Want some chicken leg? Where did he get the chicken leg? The, like, infinite number of checks they have to go through and, like, different barriers in order to get on the shuttle. And then somehow he snuck in. He had snuck a corned beef sandwich on board shortly before launch which like you put on the suit and like you're walking down the the catwalk to the to the the the spaceship

and you're like oh shit hold on i forgot something let me go back into my uh locker real quick nobody else come with me where do you put it how does it not get destroyed by the fucking g forces as you are launched into outer space? I love the story behind it, possibly, that a loved one made that sandwich for him and said, here, in case you get hungry. I like it even better. That's a good suggestion. I like it even better if he made it for himself because he wanted to eat a space sandwich. So, obviously, it was a problem, right?

Because crumbs could get in the machinery and cause chaos on board a space flight um and that was part of the reason why he was formally reprimanded by nasa and by congress upon his return to the planet um because they had like sunk millions of dollars into this this astronaut dehydrated food and then my dude brought his own food into space it is so good would you eat this dehydrated food? Well, actually, I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry. I'm all full up for some reason. Your breath stinks like corned beef. Yeah, that's weird. So sadly, Gus Grissom died in a pre-launch test of the Apollo One. But he has a memorial museum in Mitchell, Indiana. And one of the exhibits is a corned beef sandwich

embedded in acrylic just to remind people this very very good thing happened so that's very good john young's zero g goofs did not stop there though because during a moonwalk on the apollo 16 mission where again he was the ninth human being to ever walk on the fucking moon. Young was reporting back to NASA about his status during a moonwalk. And every recording that I love listening to, like moonwalk recordings, because it's like you can hear. Obviously, the most famous one is, you know, one small step for man and giant leap for mankind. That's probably not how it goes. But it's very similar to that, I think. But that's like momentous right because you gotta you gotta nail that i'm the first person to step foot on the moon it's but then like you you listen to these more informal

conversations and it's a lot of astronauts freaking the fuck out because they're walking on the moon and a lot of mission control just like freaking the fuck out because we're walking on the moon and it doesn't matter which mission it is it's like wild that you're walking on the moon and so there's probably there's probably lots of recordings of john young during this mission i think he had three different um moonwalks during this mission being you know reverent like that right uh getting to take these rarefied steps on lunar soil but there also exists a recording of john Young saying the funniest shit anyone's ever said on the moon, ever. And I'd like to just sort of play this dialogue between him and Houston Mission Control right

now. Okay, and I sure think it's paying off. You guys are doing an outstanding job. I got the parts again. I got them again, Charlie. I haven't eaten this much citrus fruit in 20 years. Can I tell you one thing? In another 12 fucking days, I ain't eaten this much citrus fruit in 20 years. Can I tell you one thing? In another 12 fucking days, I ain't never eaten any more. I put them up over the, right

up in there. They ain't there? Oh, shit. Orion, Houston? Yes, sir. Okay, I got you. Where you have my hot mic? How long we add that? So if you had trouble making that out, on the Apollo 15 mission, the astronauts were having cardiac irregularities

due to a lack of potassium. So on Apollo 16, the mission that John Young was commander on and did the moonwalks on, all the astronauts drank a ton of this nutrient enriched orange juice. And apparently it gave John Young super bad farts. And he let Houston know about it. What is amazing about this conversation is because it's NASA, all of it was publicly broadcast.

All of it was publicly available. All of the transcripts of their dialogue had to be sent out to everyone. Earth heard John Young say, I got the farts again, Charlie. And this mission's up in 12 more fucking days. I'm never going to eat any more citrus fruit. I can tell you that much. And then he says, oh, shit. Earth heard that. All of earth heard that uh mary roach actually wrote a book called packing for mars

uh where she she mentions that the conversation was was broadcast to the world at large and caused the governor of florida to clarify that oranges don't give you gas like you wanted to get ahead of that it was the special nutrient nutrient-enriched juice that was the culprit. I don't know if I believe that or not. I don't think oranges give me gas, but... You think there's a big orange juice cover-up? Yeah, this was like a PR disaster for the orange state. And NASA, in their official records, actually,

that they put out, they changed the word farts to gas, and they cut out fucking entirely, which is a real shame because it's it is it's a great part of the the equation and like this this this stuff's really funny to me right like the juxtaposition of being in the most buck wild most uh impossible to reach scenario imaginable and also talking about the bad farts that you have and how you're never going to eat any more fucking citrus ever again.

It's the kind of history you want, right? Like when you're studying like these great moments in our nation, you kind of want these little humanizing elements. That's exactly it. Right. I think that this moment is, and I swear to God, I'm being honest here, is so relatable and so beautiful, because I feel like the concept of actually being on the moon is the most abstract. I will never do it. I will never walk on the moon. And I was obviously not alive when we were first doing the moonwalks. And so it was not a super relatable thing for me. And so in some small way, when I was younger, like I was not really into space.

It was hard to feel invested in space exploration and the accomplishments of like our dangerous journey into the stars. But here was a dude who drank too much juice and farted up a storm and then walked on the lunar surface within the span of the same hour. And like, I've done two of those things before. It's like, so it's so incredible to me. And it's so humanizing.

And for that reason, like, I feel like, I don't know how John Young felt about like his legacy that like a lot of people talked about the sandwich story or his farts. But I genuinely think it humanized this this sort of unrelatable process so much in a way that like made john young accomplish a lot more than just his his flight record would indicate and a great spokesman for gas sex a great spokesman for gas terrible spokesman for tropicana orange okay so this week I am bringing another nostalgic food item. And I think that's largely because we are in the phase of introducing new foods to our son. So I don't want my brand necessarily to be children's food, but here I am.

Here I am, here we are. Yeah, go ahead. I'm bringing chicken nuggets this week. Okay. Yeah, I mean. I'm bringing chicken nuggets this week. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I love, I love these little guys. It does feel a little bit like we are not even a year into this show and we are quickly working through the whole Wendy's menu.

So like we'll do like chili and then Frosty's the next week. No, chicken nuggets are a righteous food and I'm excited. So when I was a kid, I didn't eat hamburgers at all. I didn't have a hamburger until I was 14. Chicken nuggets were my go-to. Whenever we went to McDonald's, I would get a plain hamburger, and I would throw the bun away, and I would just eat the beef patty up until like seven years old. Interesting. Yeah, I was basically like a junkyard dog.

Well, that became a popular diet when Atkins came around, so there you go. I actually saw Dr. Atkins at the McDonald's, and he saw me do it. He stole it from me! Oh, no. That idea thief. I'm going to sue his butt. He passed away, didn't he? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's not alive.

He definitely is not with us. Okay, so you don't think about this stuff, but the chicken nugget was actually invented. And it was invented in the 1950s by Robert C. Baker, a food science professor at Cornell. I do want to say, I do think about this stuff a lot. I don't think about the invention of a food item, I guess. I mean, Christina Tosi does the crack, uh, crack pie, right?

Is that an invention or is it just a new recipe? Is a new recipe an invention or is it? Yeah. Wow. You know, Guy Fieri invents the, um, big boy Buffalo bombs.

Is that an invention or is it just a new recipe? I mean, it can be, it depends whether it's, it's duplicated, whether everybody takes that and makes their own thing. Yes.

Whether it's able to be customized. Dippin' Dots were a fucking invention and I don't care what anybody says. Yeah. This is the ice cream of the future. So the bite-sized piece of chicken coated in batter and then deep fried

was called the Chicken Crispy by Baker and his associates. Dr. Baker's innovations made it possible to form chicken nuggets in any shape. Okay. Should we talk about like sort of the stigma of the nugget of just like. See, this is why it was kind of embarrassing for me to bring this because nuggets are wildly known to not have uh a lot of nutritional value and potentially not a lot of chicken yes and sort of have been made out of but here's the thing i feel like these days that's kind of not true as much and i'm not saying that it's like uh

i'm not saying that it's completely false and that chicken nuggets are like the healthiest food in the world. But I see a lot of like shit getting shared of pink goo being like expressed out of a Play-Doh machine. And it's actually not. Yeah, there's a lot of information out there about the reforms that have been made to the nugget industry to address issues. I don't know why this is a hill we're deciding to die on. I don't think we need to take some big bold stance on nugget, uh, integrity.

Uh, so the McDonald's version of chicken nuggets, which is how I was introduced, uh, was created on commission by Tyson foods in 1979. And the product was sold beginning in 1980. So in 79, they were definitely up to some shit.

I think we can all agree that there was definitely some sort of... But it's interesting to know that nuggets just came on the scene a little bit before we did, which is why they were wildly popular. I know. Can you imagine living in a nugget-free world? Yeah, 1975. I'm not actually feeling a burger right now. Can I get some small chicken pieces?

We don't have those. What are you talking about? So here's here's where the fun starts wonderful here's where the fun starts there is a record a world record for eating the most chicken nuggets in three minutes oh my god it's held by thomas wellborn can guess? I want you to guess approximately how many. In three minutes? Yes. 48. You're so close.

It's 42. Oh. You know he could have gotten the last six down if he just. This is why I thought it was interesting. Since nuggets are so irregularly shaped, they have 746 grams or approximately 42 chicken nuggets. Okay. I guess just for those at home that want to attempt this,

like maybe they think- Oh, oh, oh, oh, legally. We can't say that. Don't attempt this at home. Please don't attempt this at home. Please don't. When I did the fucking Totino's Mabim Bam, where I tried to eat a pizza roll every minute,

I started to get really panicky that it was going to be the end of the show because we had a lot of people telling us that they were doing it at home and I was going to be responsible for their good roles, folks. But don't hurt yourself with them. OK, now there's also a record for the largest recorded chicken nugget. Is it a fucking tender? Like at what point? i don't know what what is the differentiator what was the size do you want to guess i mean it's it's it loses the

the the classification i think at a certain point it crosses over into tinder territory 51.1 pounds that is not that's not even a fucking tender at that point. And 3.25 feet long and two feet wide. It was created by Empire Kosher and unveiled at Kosher Fest in Secaucus, New Jersey on October 29th, 2013. Okay. I'm getting a little ill. First off, there's no way that cooked through properly. No way. 0% way that cooked through properly no way zero percent chance that cooks they don't say like like how many chickens were used that is also quantifying that number is

the worst thing i've ever thought about in my life also it is tough to get the crust to meat spread on a regular chicken nugget just perfectly right. In that one, you're talking about, what, a centimeter of that good crust and then fucking two and a half feet of just pure chicken meat? Yeah, it's not great to think about. I will never eat another chicken nugget because of this. This is the first wonderful we've ever done where we were like, let's celebrate this thing before we never ever ever eat it again i mean we would be remiss if we did not also talk about the dips oh the dips see i was when i first started this is don't tell me you did nude yes this is very much like the french fry conversation

i was not a big fan of dipping sauces when I was younger. As I got older, I appreciated the honey mustard, naturally. Gotta have my dips. But when I was younger, I would eat a french fry plane. I would eat a hot dog plane. I would eat a... A what? A what? Oh, a plane. A hot dog plane. Did you think it was a plane made out of hot dogs? Because I love that. Listen, the Wienermobile is a thing of the past. This is Oscar Mayer's hot dog plane. We do direct flights between Columbus and Chicago.

And you can eat it. You can eat it from the outside, but don't do it while you're in the air. That's almost what I got you instead of the drone. It was a hot dog plane. It was a hot dog plane. These days, though, you do like the dips. Yes. Well, part of it is my introduction to ketchup, which I was

not comfortable with for a very long time. I changed everything for you. You really did. So you like ketchup on your nugs? No, no. I'm just saying that I had a negative opinion of ketchup, and so I thought all dipping sauces were not ideal. So what's the dip now for you? I mean, I would say honey mustard. mustard barbecue doesn't feel right to me no no no i mean ranch is

always a good one there we go i was a ranchy boy for sure i would have you know what we did actually was popcorn shrimp more at my house we do frozen popcorn shrimp and i dip those in a little bit of ranchy ranch because nothing goes better than ranch dressing and seafood but it was West Virginia and ranch is sort of um a main sort of food category for for me at least it was so oh I smell this stinky stinky weird milk sauce and I will just dip anything in it my toes so I yeah I appreciate all of you indulging me in the chicken nugget thing i think whenever i go to the poetry corner i feel like i need to step in the other direction you need to stink it up a little bit yeah with the nasty one um so do you want to hear some things that our listeners at home have to say yes okay they say the following melissa says i live in new england and i think it's wonderful when all traffic on a side street has to stop to let turkeys by.

I always take a deep breath. Oh my gosh. I always take a deep breath and remember that life is better when you slow down. I think that's good and true and pure and beautiful. But if I was running late to like a movie or an appointment or something. You'd be yelling out your window, come on. Come on, turkeys i think i think mindfulness and thoughtfulness is so important but like draft house won't let you in to the movie if you get there late and so hey turkeys pick it up samantha

says something i find really wonderful is watching people who have headphones in laugh or try to hold back laughter in response to what they're listening to i feel like you get to see into this little bubble of happiness and it always makes me smile. I swear I'm not including this as like a self-referential like because of our, I genuinely think this is great too. And I have a very fond memory of listening to, I think it was Super Ego on a long flight and I was by myself and these two women were sitting next to me and it was actually a really

turbulent flight. It was like very scary. Like one of them was like kind of getting very, very upset in the turbulence. Yeah, I think you told me about this. But I was listening to Super Ego to like just a really fucking funny bit. And I was crying, laughing, trying not to hold it. And I looked over and realized that they were like, like having, enjoying watching me listen to this very funny podcast.

I love that shit. Oh, one more thing here from Tyler, who says something I think is wonderful is tiny libraries. They are cute little wooden houses filled with books that are scattered all over the residential areas of the city that I live in Grand Rapids. You simply take a book and you leave another one in there. And I think they're really great for kids and look very cute. Yeah, we have some of those here here in town, right? Yeah, it's such a nice idea. Like it really builds a sense of community. You wanted to thank some people for sending us a mail.

Yeah. Okay, some people sent us some great thoughtful things that I wanted to thank them for very quickly. We got some vodka actually from Glenna, which was very exciting. Janelle sent us an actual mascot from the Olympics. Yeah. And we talked about it that one week

and then she went to the Olympics because she was in Korea and sent us a little curling stuffed animal. Korea and sent us a little curling stuffed animal. We also got a enormous five pound bag of Starburst jelly beans from Amanda. I've been tearing those down. Griffin has been tearing down. We got a lovely little embroidered sampler that says it's easier to buy two game boys than it is to make one friend.

I did not realize that was going to resonate with as many people as it did, but from Emily. Thank you, Emily. So yeah to resonate with as many people as it did, but. From Emily. Thank you, Emily. So yeah, so those are just some of the really nice things. I wanted to make sure those people know that we received them. Yeah, thank you all so much. And thanks to Maximum Fun for having us on the network.

You can go to maximumfun.org slash donate, but don't do that. That was the last couple of weeks. Just go to maximumfun.org and check out all the great shows there. You're going to find something that you love. And if you want to hear other podcasts that we do, you can go to mackElroyShows.com.

Oh, and thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to it in the episode description. I think that's it. That's it. You want to take it away, Droney? Let me hit you with this. Droney Mitchell. Oh, that's really good.

Oh, it's dead. Droney? What happened? Droney, wake up! It was on the whole time we were recording, too. No! Yeah, sorry about that. And you didn't say anything? I'm a living droney to die! Thank you. Hey! Hey!

MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Are you tired of trying to keep up with the news cycle? Is bad stuff happening too fast for you to process? Don't you wish there was an easy way to find out about only the most important info you need? Hi, we're Lisa. And Emily. Why don't you try our podcast, Baby Geniuses?

On each episode of our podcast, we discuss a weird Wikipedia page such as Flatulence Humor Clamato Catalan Witches Clippy the microsoft office helper death during consensual sex and the talking mongoose we ask each other stupid questions uh if you if you got a packet with like 300 seeds in it what kind of plant would you choose the seeds to be

that felt like you were assigned to ask me a question and there were certain words you weren't allowed to use. We talk about Martha Stewart, her pony, and other celebrity horse news. Ben Chunch. Every other week on Maximum Fun. Baby Geniuses.