Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 41: Hello, Boats!

Episode Date: July 5, 2018

Rachel's favorite outdoor relaxation furniture! Griffin's favorite way to cool off! Rachel's favorite way to see free concerts! Griffin's favorite revolutionary action movie! 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. Sup, it's Griffin McElroy. This is wonderful. It's a grand old flag, she's a high-flying flag, and forever the flag is a flag. Except when the flag's not a flag, it is swim shorts. And you wear them at the beach.

I love that song. Turn into a funeral dirge there at the end for the American flag swimmy shorts. A bold look, but a patriotic look nonetheless. And thank you for, you you know repping the set when you're out in the sandy like a little bandana a little flag bandana oh you know I love an American flag bandana

at like a fucking blues concert at a regatta or something down by the river that's my shit right there like 55 year old dad wearing an American flag bandana and maybe even also a big dog t-shirt if i could be so bold and they're just jamming to like the local blues sleeves are gone the sleeves they they got this shit out of the bag from the big dog store and

they like went to the cashier and like do you have scissors because i can't even leave the store with these fucking sleeves. Put those on American flag bandana, and then they go and they listen to the local blues musicians play at the regatta. Can I ask you how many regattas you've been to? One a year for every year I lived in Huntington. Tell me about that. It was by the riverfront, and I guess it's just kind of like a fair. I always thought regattas had to do with like sailing or boat craft.

Yeah, there were boats because it was on the river, the mighty Ohio, Ohio. And we would look at the boats, wouldn't go on the boats. One time I went on a barge cruise when I was 15 or so, but mostly it was just sort of sitting by the river watching boats go by and watching this guy, this motherfucker, like extra from Storage Wars ass-looking dude with his American flag bandana and sleeveless big dog shirt and just losing it to the blues that was happening on stage.

Those guys are like perpetually tan year-round. I don't know how they do it. They're always quite tan, and I love that. Maybe it helps them win the storage unit bidding wars a little bit better. But anyway. Wow, we watched a lot of Storage Wars really, really fast a long time ago. This was years ago. And then we never watched it.

I can't watch it at all now. What is that? We watched it almost every day. I feel like we got Travis into it for a while. We got a lot of people into it and we watched it a lot. And then it was like, and done.

It was like there's a part of our brains that was syncopated that was like 76 episodes and then never, you don't, that's all that you need. It's like we'd filled a quotient or something inside.

A quota? A quota even. So I'm wonderful. We talk about things we're really into. Do you have a small wonder that maybe you're just kind of into? I do. It is the new imitation down comforter that we, I was also going to say this imitation down comforter, full disclosure, full disc haven't gotten underneath this big boy.

It just looks real nice on the bed. It just looks real nice on the bed. We're talking about an hour that it's been in our home, and it's already sort of... It's the best thing to happen to us all day. And it's very, very exciting. American Ninja Warrior, many thanks for that. NBC. Griffin and I realized today, for the first time, that we are, in fact, super fans, because

we have seen approximately every episode. I mean, you see Najee Richardson step up to the plate. I get excited. I get very excited when I see the phoenix rising, Najee Richardson. I guess in my head I always assumed that super fans of American Ninja Warriors were, in fact, people training to be Ninja Warriors themselves. Can I ask? But then I thought about the fact that we've seen every episode and that we eagerly watch it every time we get a chance and then i thought well that's pretty much what being

a fan is that's what being a fan means um uh two things one it's very possible we are the world's biggest fans of american ninja warrior and i have not even begun to grapple with that we also do talk a lot about what our ninja names would be yeah um i would probably be like the unlikely ninja if i'm being honest i have a question for you though okay vis-a-vis a and w do you since we've watched so much of it have you ever pondered for i'll say longer than 10 seconds what direction your life would have to go like to get you on the fucking show, if it would even be possible. Well, usually when they do the video package, a lot of people have like a turning point in their life that motivates them to get fit and train for Ninja Warrior. Yeah. I guess that turning point for me would be if, I mean, something terrible.

Yeah, like a meteorite. Well, sometimes it doesn't always have to be that. Like there's definitely people who are like crushing that shit who like have not gone through a meteorite falling on their house or something. And I think that would be me. Maybe if my husband. Yes. Bet me that I couldn't do it. There it is. I think that would be me. Maybe if my husband Yes? bet me that I couldn't do it. There it is. I love that. And you know what I love the most

about that? Is that it's sort of very publicly and on a national televised scale shows me being sort of a big dill weed who's like, you can't tell my wife cancer. I'm a fine guy. So you're sitting on the couch with your arms crossed, shaking your head no? Yeah, and I'd be at the sidelines as sidelines as you were, like, on the floating steps, like, no way.

That's great for me. Like, I love that for me. And, like, my image. What about you? I would just fucking do it. I would probably do a podcast about it. Yeah, no, no. Like, Griffin's, like, Rise.

Griffin's Ninja Corner. Yeah, like, climbing Mount Midoriyama and it's just like my start from right now and thank you for listening to the pilot episode of climbing mount midoriyama featuring griffin match matriroy and rachel match to roy and it's me right now and i can't do any of the things i think i could probably i think i could get what came up with the name for your podcast. Okay. Mount Midori, I'm gonna be on Ninja Warrior. Oh, yes, yes. Oh, yes. I think within three weeks, I could do the floating steps.

And that's the first obstacle every time. This is for nobody what we're doing right now. And you're up first. Okay. That was 10 minutes. Shit. Shit. We're super fans.

Yeah, I guess. Turns out. My first thing, and maybe one of the reasons I'm not going to be on Ninja Warrior. Uh-oh. Hammocks. Yeah. Yeah. Super chill.

Like laying still and then having something else swing me. I don't want to come at you right from the start, but we definitely had a hammock at our old house well the thing is it's always 102 degrees in texas that is true and that thing always had a bird poop on it like the frequency with which birds would take a big old dump right on the hammock was as such that while you were cleaning off the previous poops three or four more would just appear i definitely did go out in that hammock sure times. Sure. But as soon as it hit like, I don't know, June, that was the

end of the hammock. Yeah, for sure. So, hammocks have a rich history, if you can believe it. Sure. I do. But I did still find some surprising facts. Uh-oh. Did you know the hammock...

I'm trying on a new character for the show. Did you know the hammock is a bigot no the hammock i loved the hammock uh hammocks were developed by native inhabitants of central and south america for hey sleeping yeah buy it uh later they were used aboard ships by sailors to enable comfort and maximize available space and then you just need some fucking rope for that, and they got all kinds of that for the sails and what have you. Early hammocks were woven out of tree bark, and later this material was replaced by sistle fibers because it was more abundant. Yeah, probably seems like an upgrade from sleeping in tree bark.

Apparently, they were called hammocks because the woven bark came from the uh hammock tree h-a-m-a-c-k oh okay yeah is this a so they just like can i ask can i raise a hand and ask a maybe a silly question i probably will not have the answer so go ahead does it just grow out of out of them does what you plant a hammock in the ground uh-huh and then this tree come comes up that's a neat thought and like five it takes a long long time like five years but then great imagination yeah i didn't like it just hammocks come out. Like multiple hammocks? Yeah, I mean, you'd want a good yield. You can't just fucking plant one hammock and get one hammock back.

Where are all the fucking hammocks coming from? So another reason hammocks were popular in Central and South America was the ability to provide safety from disease transmission, insect stings, or animal bites, since the beds were suspended above ground. Yeah, for the ground insects, there's a lot of nasty boys that can get up there with their wings and stuff. Here's a fun fact, though. I'm learning so many fun facts from you about hammocks right now.

I didn't just go to Wikipedia. I went to multiple websites, and every site listed this with no additional detail. So I want you to help me think about this. In the 1920s, parents throughout North America used fabric hammocks to contain babies just learning to crawl. I think that's true. I think that's true. So when your kids started to become mobile, and you were like, uh-oh, I gotta keep an eye on you, they would dump them in a hammock?

Yeah. Listen, it was the 1920s, man. We couldn't drink, and so folks had to have some form of excitement, and I guess for them back then, and I don't condone it, but I think they just turned their kids into a little metapod. A little what? A metapod is a Pokemon. He's like in a cocoon.

Okay. I just think kids that are just learning to crawl have difficulty balancing. And then to put them into something that is unstable ground that can rock back and forth. Seems like a lot of kids would really struggle in that. Yeah, for sure. But again, in the 1920s. Like a pen on the ground. Yeah. Like some kind of play pen, perhaps. I think in like 1936, somebody was like,

we should, what the fuck are we doing? Let's put them in a pen. Because if they fall out of the hammock. Quite bad. It ain't good. One time I saw my brother Travis fall out of a hammock while we were camping, and it wasn't like super far down. Right. But he was not so,

so big a boy. He was nine and he was not the biggest nine year old. And I thought for sure he's dead. Like a hundred percent. Like he fell good. Like he fell, well, he fell bad.

It was a bad, bad fall. Did you guys ever do the thing with the woven hammock where you spin somebody around and wrap them up like a burrito? No, that sounds incredibly dangerous. Are you kidding me? Am I Johnny Knoxville from Jackass? We used to have one of those like fishnet style hammocks and you would get kind of wrapped up in it and you'd spin. Oh, gosh.

I'd be afraid that it would wrap up too tight and I'd get, like, gushed. Like I'm in a late-era Jason movie. I like a Capri Sun being squeezed. Oh, babe, don't even joke about that. I'll never get another hammock for as long as I live. So I love a hammock. I have yet to find a way to use them here in Texas that is satisfactory because it is not pleasant to be outside.

A lot of the, like, primo hammock. But in the fall, oh, man, the fall. Yeah. Not bad. I feel genuinely bad about how little we go outside. But it's either hot or mosquitoes. Yeah. Gosh, the mosquitoes are bad.

The mosquitoes are so bad. I went out in the garage to install a new baby car seat in our car, and I came back with like eight mosquito bites on my ankle. It was rough, and I wasn't out there that long. Just the mosquitoes are real bad down here. Is there a place where there's no mosquitoes? Probably like Antarctica, but they have, you know. Does the desert have mosquitoes? I feel like humidity is usually

what brings them. Yeah, probably around like an oasis there's like a fuck ton of mosquitoes who like have nowhere else to go. Antarctica would be good if it wasn't for sea lions. Hate those guys. Do you want to know my first thing? Yes. My first thing is chill swimming.

Chill swimming. I'm not talking about the cold water, the like chilly, chilly, like Barton Springs, 70 degrees. Is it about swimming that's not really swimming? I'm talking about just like kind of, I guess, being in the water, being in a pool. Maybe I should just change it to being in a pool. Because here's the thing. I'm a very poor swimmer.

Not good. You've seen me, actually. Give me a numerical rating, do you think? Between one and ten, how good am I at the swim? What is ten? Ten's, you know. Like Olympic or like? Olympic.

No, ten is like confident, good swimmer. You see that person and you think, there, you know how to swim. Yes, they're quite talented in the pool. I would say you're a six. All right. That's higher than I deserve. I want to be specific. I'm not talking about swimming as a form of exercise, although I do think that it is great for that, especially for people for whom like weight bearing exercise is

not possible. And I'm not talking about as a means of moving from one place to the other, like so many better ways to do that. In my opinion, if it must be on water, like, hello, boats, jet skis. We should start a podcast called Hello, Boats, and you can talk about all your regatta experience, too. Yeah, so maybe we can do like a nerds double pack where we do Hello, Boats and Mount Midoriyama going to be on American Ninja Warrior in the same sort of show. So the first 30 minutes can be sort of regatta focused. And then the last 30 minutes can be like, well, very narrow audience bracket we've

created. I think it's like this podcast's audience minus two thirds. And that's me being very like, generous. I meant to say, swimming, just chill swimming, it feels so good um and i guess i can specify that in two ways one we do live in texas where it is no joke like over 100 degrees four months out of the year would you say like middle of may to middle of september probably it's like over 100 degrees i'm not being hyperbolic we the first year i moved here we had over 100 days in a row of over 100 degree temperatures. It's quite hot. And getting really hot and then getting in a cold body of water, specifically a pool, is the fucking best. Similarly, being in a cold pool and then lowering your body temperature, getting it all chilled out and getting used to the coldness of the water,

and then getting off and letting the heat dry you off is also really good. And Griffin was so adorable when we went swimming over the weekend, because we got out and we were in the shade. And he was so confused by the sensation of his wet body in the hot, what was supposed to be hot temperature. He turned to me and he was like, is it cold out? Yeah. No, you're just wet and it's windy.

I was rolling on Molly pretty good also. But I just like that feeling, not when we're in the shade, but when you're just like in the hot heat. And you know that if you didn't just get out of the cold pool, you'd be like miserable right now. But it's kind of nice right now. You feel like a blanket that just like got pulled out of the dryer. I enjoy that a lot.

I used to not enjoy cold water because like into it is kind of a shock sometimes. I don't want to get blue. But like, all my junk and my butt. Your butt? What happens to your butt? You know, when you get your butthole in the water. Are you kidding? Like when your butthole gets in the water, it's not like bracing?

Babe! I can't tell which one of the two of us is joking right now. I've never gotten into the water and thought about the way my butt feels as a result. Not your butt, but just your butthole. I don't want to say that. I don't think. Please continue. I used to like a nice body temperature pool because then you could just like

get in and get out whatever no no big deal but now i really like this sensation this bracing sensation of you know getting in on a hot day and then getting out and warming up um it also helps when you're drinking a nice cold beverage while you're swimming in the swimming pool not at like a public park or something like that um but you get know, cooled off on the inside and the outside, you're just like sort of messing with your thermostat a little bit. And I find that very enjoyable, even though I don't necessarily do laps or stunts or flips or dives. Can't dive, never learned how, very afraid. So chill swimming is just being in water. Yeah, I guess just sort of being in a nice pool. But there's another thing,

and it's not just the temperature of it. It's the feeling of weightlessness of being in a pool is very, very, very cool. And it's great not only because it does allow it to be used as a form of physical therapy for those that need that. There's something just kind of fascinating

about being able to keep your body up off the ground David Blaine style. Do you know what I mean? just like being in the water i enjoy the sensation of being in a pool and my feet aren't touching anything it's kind of like i'm hovering a little bit like you never just like float on your back and just kind of like chill there and it's like this is nice you always talk to me about how you don't think you're especially good at floating i'm not especially good at floating and maybe that's why i enjoy it more than the average person is because those few precious seconds seconds before my body's complete sort of um density let's say uh drags me down way down down to the bottom of the pool as if i'm being pulled down by an imaginary like invisible

monster like that one very scary episode of are you afraid of the dark um i just really love it i love the floating on it i used to i remember very vividly there was a time where we went to visit our aunt and uncle's house in florida and i've just popped in a snork and just floated face down in the pool for like a half hour which i'm saying this out loud and I'm thinking like, where was the parenting? Where was the parenting? You were just so relieved that you'd found a way to keep yourself busy that wasn't video games. Yeah, they were like, yeah. I imagine my Uncle Dave was like, wow, he's really floating there.

And my dad was like, it's kind of athletic, I guess. It's kind of outdoors. Let's just let him go. That was the same trip where moments later we were leaving and I saw that my uncle had a, I've definitely talked about this on some podcasts before, but he had a golf cart and I yelled, Grand Theft Auto! Because Grand Theft Auto, the video game was very hot then.

And I ran forward and I barreled through his screen door and he got really upset. You have definitely told the story. It's all connected. The whole universe, you know? Somebody right now is piecing together their Griffin index cards. The whole timeline. I just love, I really do love,

I'm getting better at floating on my back doing that with your ears under the water so you can't hear anything. Ooh, I don't like that. Oh, but you got the bad ears. I got the bad the bad ears well i got the good ears so let me enjoy my thing okay i'm very sorry about your bad ears because this sensation is quite good when i say i have bad ears i get swimmer's ear pretty much any time my head is submerged in water is there real shame i got real narrow canals um i'll say jesus christ should i leave that in i mean i think it's important people know who you are i also really like when you're by the edge of the pool and you can like

dive under and like push yourself off and like fly through the water see how far you can go without moving your arms like superman style that's still technically not swimming because i'm not actually battling my arms and kicking my legs i'm just kind of torpedoing i do that one a lot and i like it because it feels weird it feels weird to be weightless and sometimes i feel like i'm doing this podcast with a 10 year old i feel like a 10 year old sometimes because of the way you make me feel while doing this podcast i just like these i like these it's i agree it's a simple sensation one time i did the moon on this podcast and my thesis there was aren't waves neat but i just like i i had this thought uh recently we went swimming not this most recent time because we

just went in the baby pool which oh it's you can't do any of this i had a great time you had a great time because our son likes being around you in the pool. He looks at me as if I'm some sort of Leviathan come up from the deep to destroy his whaling boat or something. Anyway, I don't want to undersell the great active stuff you do in the pool. I'm talking about jumps. I'm talking about flops. I'm talking about flips, dives. What about those somersaults people do underwater?

Can you do that? Yes. I don't want to brag brag but i can do that and i can do a handstand so um but for me i just like chilling just like chilling in the water do you ever like throw stuff in the pool and go swimming after it once didn't i think we threw like five little rings in like a hotel pool yeah and i got like two of them and I was like, this was not a good investment, Clint. You just lost three rings, dog. Hope these weren't expensive. Can I steal you away?

Oh, I got it. it's not a fast food soda this message is for dylan z nice what that's just cool okay it's from claire i badass hey dill oh fuck yeah i really busted a nut up in this birthday gift Badass. Hey, Dil. Oh, fuck yeah. I really busted a nut up in this birthday gift. Oh, yes. You do such wonderful things in my life every day. A nice turn into the sincere. Your sweet butt. Oh, shit.

Gets me to nirvana. Oh, my God, yes. Hands in the air. I'm so, yes! Hands in the air! I'm so happy we finally live in the same state. Okay. All I have to do to see that choice-tushin' person is send you a telepathic message. I'll never stop loving you, baby.

Happy birthday, Claire. That was a fucking tight message. Are you kidding me? I had to say a lot of words there. Yeah birthday, Claire. That was a fucking tight message. Are you kidding me? I had to say a lot of words there. Yeah, you did. Hell yes. That was difficult for me. That was so dope for me.

The happy birthday deal. Happy birthday deal, no matter what. And great work on that keister. That sweet keister. You know what I mean? Yeah. This next message is for Elena. It is from Henry.

Elena, thank you for introducing me to Mbimbam and Taz. I love you so much. Will you marry me? What? What? The preferred time for this message to air was March. Oh, fuck. Rachel, what do we do?

Hope they weren't waiting on that. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. I'm going to assume this already happened. They had another vehicle. I hope they had a backup. Oh, what do we do? Hope they weren't waiting on that. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. I'm going to assume this already happened. They had another vehicle. I hope they had a backup. Oh, damn. Oh, damn. Babe, what do we do?

I mean, I think we just did it. We got to make this right. I think we've done all we can. No, we got to make this right. We got to plan every step of their wedding. Okay. Do you want hammocks at your wedding? Oh, they said no.

You tapped in? Yeah, I did. I got them on. You can't hear it because I got the headphones on, but I got them on Skype. And they said no, strictly no hammocks. Now, I know as a MaxFun listener, you love enamel pins. But guess who were the first people to wear enamel pins? Everyone in Starfleet. We talk about him every week on our show, The Greatest Generation. Originally about Star Trek The Next Generation.

Now we're covering Deep Space Nine. The main thing we're trying to encourage you to do is listen to the show. Listen to the show and know that you are expanding the community of enamel pin wearing enthusiasts. You can only resist Big Pin for so long. So give yourself over to Big Pin and The Greatest Generation by subscribing and downloading right now. The Greatest Generation at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. How about your second thing? Okay, my second thing is very specific, but I think it will be useful and helpful to many.

It is volunteering at festivals. Okay. So I have seen a lot of great performances for free, and I have done so because I have volunteered at festivals. Okay. This is very specific. It's very specific, but I think it's not something a lot of people know about sure so uh i actually figured this out because i used to coordinate volunteers for festivals when i was in chicago oh i didn't know that you're you're i knew that you've done it at acl here

in town i did not know that this habit of yours extended all the way back to chicago yeah well i i ran the volunteer program for two different festivals. Holy shit. I thought, I guess you don't know this. So when I moved to Chicago, I started coordinating volunteers for Louder Than a Bomb, the Chicago Teen Volunteer Festival. Oh, okay. I didn't know that.

Yes. So they would have hundreds of volunteers sign up and we would have them do a variety of things like greet people at the door or help take tickets, that kind of thing. And that connected me to somebody who was starting a music festival in Chicago called Intonation Music Festival. And this was before Pitchfork. And it was just like a little indie music festival.

And so I coordinated volunteers for that. And all that gave me the idea of like, I should start volunteering at festivals because you get to see the shows for free. Right. Volunteer and you get a sweet t-shirt. I mean, you do have to work.

You do. Well, so I'll get to that. Sure. So I started volunteering at Lollapalooza in Chicago in 2005. And I did it every summer for three or four years. And what you do is you sign up in like may uh if the festival's in like august let's say and you work traditionally like a four-hour shift so you're either handing out programs you're sitting at the information booth or you're filling

people's water bottles and then when your shift is over you could stay the rest of the day for free so i got to see a lot of cool shows that's like the first time I got to see Flaming Lips fuck yeah did you see the peppers? yes I was joking you saw the reddest hottest chilliest peppers all of the peppers were there

I saw Weezer nice nice original lineup or the new guys? I mean I don't know. I saw Radiohead. Oh, cool. There's a lot of cool bands. Original?

Okay. And so I did that in Lollapalooza for a few years. When I moved to Austin, I did Fun Fun Fun Fest for a year. I did South by Southwest one year. And I did ACL Fest for like three or four years. And the more you do it, the more preferential treatment you get as far as when you volunteer. So you can volunteer in the morning, for example, and you get the whole afternoon and evening to see shows for free. I did not realize this is a thing you've done like a dozen times. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, my whole pajama drawer is full of festival T-shirts.

I had to actually put them in a Tupperware because they were overtaking my thing. I've also done it. I did it for a film festival in Chicago once. I did it for a blues fest in Columbia, Missouri. I really kind of got into it for a while there because, as you all know, festival tickets are incredibly expensive. Yeah. And I never really could justify paying that much.

But when you volunteer, you get a little wristband, you hang out for the rest of the day, see a lot of good shows. And I talked a lot of our friends into doing it, too. So, yeah, I would recommend it. A few months before. Usually after tickets are on sale. So you kind of have to gamble a little bit that you're going to get a volunteer spot, but they'll post a call for volunteers because they need hundreds of them.

Sure. And you sign up and then you, you get to take in the whole experience for usually like a registration fee to volunteer, which is like 20 bucks sometimes. And that's just to cover their costs for screening all the applications and stuff. If I had lived in a town that had music festivals, uh, frequently or gone to college, I should say in like a town that had like music festivals frequently, I would have been doing this

shit all the time. Cause I had no money and I was obsessed with the idea of going to music festivals. Well, and here's a secret, and I am not advising this. But let's say you don't live in Chicago, for example, but you have a friend that does. You could list their address. Because a lot of times they'll restrict volunteering to locals. Interesting. But if you have a buddy that lives in chicago you list their address you

show up you're good to go what's the best music festival you ever went to like shows wise experience wise like year what was the best what was the best what was the best maybe like specifically best show you ever saw at a music festival you volunteered for that you didn't pay any money for oh my gosh um man so i've seen like lcd sound system and arcade fire and florence and the machine and stevie wonder all on the same set that's fucking tight that would be a dope super group no it's just it's hard for me to pick you know mine's lcd sound system at pitchforkork the year I went to that. That was mind-bogglingly good. Well, and here's the thing, though. I did a lot of that by myself. Yeah.

You didn't have Jeremy Larson there next to you there, and you just had your fucking arms around each other just jumping up and down to fucking all my friends just weeping, crying, like just letting the music energize you and fill you with emotion. No, that wasn't me. You're just there alone, I guess.

But I definitely have had a lot of very good experiences. I wish we'd go to... We've been to one music festival together. We went to ACL one year. And we went to South by Southwest. We did South by Southwest. That's true. That's where we met, I guess.

Yes. I wish you'd come to Bonnaroo with me, though. I wish you could... I don't think I would have liked Bonnaroo. I don't think you would have liked how dirty and nasty I got at bonnaroo yeah like prostatitis like dirty dirty dirty butt dirty one of my favorite things at the end of the night is like getting home taking a good shower going to bed i took a shower and radio had great music so anyway my second thing's jurassic park just to be clear yeah the. The very first movie,

not the franchise. Oh my God. Yes. Holy shit. Y'all didn't need me to clarify that, right? That was Rachel being, that was Rachel clarifying for the one imaginable person who would assume that

when I said that, I don't know if I've talked, I feel like I have very recently talked about Jurassic world and how bummed out it makes me. And it's only in really thinking about how bummed out it makes me. And it's only in really thinking about how bummed out Jurassic World makes me that I realized just how fucking much I love Jurassic Park. Oh my gosh, it's so good. It was the first movie I ever saw in theaters. I saw it when I was six years old, fell right the fuck to sleep. Because I hadn't really entered my dino stage yet,

and the room was really dark, and I didn't really know what to do with that energy. Nobody had really given me a heads up. They they mostly really wanted to see jurassic park i guess so when all the dinosaurs roared you just snoozed right through it i fell asleep when it started shit started to break bad you know newman sort of fucks shit up and then the um uh you know the trucks rolled to a stop and i was like good time for a nap and then i woke up and you know pterodactyls were flying away from the island i I was like, oh, oh, shit. Whoa, okay. So now that I'm older, though, I can really appreciate how good this movie is and how silly it was that I slept through it. And the reasons that I love it are, I think, like the reasons why I was kind of left cold by Jurassic World,

and probably won't end up seeing the new new one. What's it called? Fallen Kingdom in theaters. When Spielberg, who directed Jurassic Park, was sort of pitched the idea of adapting the book by Michael Crichton, he sort of saw it as the opportunity to do like a Jaws on land creature feature. But I think it ended up being so much more than that like the killer dinosaurs the t-rexes and velociraptors and those little spitty ones i can't but like the the mean dinosaurs i guess if you want to call them that they weren't just like horror movie villains although there were some sequences like holy shit that's the whole sequence in the kitchen with the two

velociraptors and the kids is fucking perfect in almost every way that a movie can be perfect. That door handle turns. The door handle turning, the cinematography of everything, the pacing of it, and all the twists and turns that it takes. It hits those horror movie notes really, really perfectly. But I don't love it as a horror movie. What I love is that like the humans are indeed in this like dangerous deadly situation but the thing that is hunting them is this like humbling beautiful like ancient thing and it is the movie's like reverence for the

dinosaurs that i really really love in jurassic, that's a good point. That first scene where you see the brontosaurus or the whole sequence with the sick triceratops that just instantly, not humanizes, but I guess makes you feel sympathetic for this fake dinosaur. There's just so many scenes about how majestic these things are and how truly special it is to be around them,

juxtaposed with the fact that they there are some of them that is a really great point because that tension does not exist in the later movies in jurassic world there's a scene where 80 pterodactyls fly down into a crowd one of them picks up a woman and drops it into the mouth of like a dinosaur whale and the whole time i'm like what is this accomplishing what is this fucking doing um jurassic park on the other hand is just like all about these these beings of pure majesty and it accomplishes that largely because the dinosaurs look so fucking good and i don't know how much you know about like the history of of the like special effects used in in

jurassic park i don't know anything it was like a landmark movie for like cgi in in films it kind of changed everything it came out and sort of revolutionized how people still looks pretty good and that's the thing it looks incredible still today yeah and the way that it pulls that off is like how it tries to hide the the effects as much as they possibly can how they try to make it blend seamlessly into like the environment so when they started making this movie originally the original design for like the special effects for the dinosaurs was going to be all practical they were going to do like stop motion uh animation of the dinosaurs uh like fucking jason and the argonauts like but with

motion blur which they accomplished a few ways one of the ways is by smearing jelly on like a plastic screen and kind of holding that up over everything to to hide the transitions um they had also like animatronics both in like small scale and then they had uh oh what were they called it was like bigotrons oh bigatures which are like the fucking t-rex was a huge animatronic actual t-rex um and there was a team at industrial light and magic that like had started to do some cursory work with cg and wanted to to do it but nobody at um nobody at amblin who was the the production team of the movie like actually thought they could do it so there was a team this like splinter cell at ilm that started to sort of like work on some proof of concept stuff while they moved ahead and started making

the movie in this entirely practical way um and after a while this team produced a a concept of a t-rex moving in cg it's like eight seconds long. And it's just a T-Rex walking in broad daylight, which is fucking kind of wild, because that doesn't really happen much in Jurassic Park. And they did a screening of that test with Amblin. And they saw it and everybody was like, Oh, okay, so we have to change everything. Not just for this movie, but you know, our entire industry is going to change because of this like 11 second long clip of a dinosaur walking um so there are a couple of reasons why it still looks really really good today the first is that they they did do a good

job of kind of like hiding the cg and not do like a you know like the old uh the owl at the beginning of labyrinth that is not a very good that owl has not withstood the test of time very well um so they did a better job of sort of like hiding it and making it blend in a little bit better uh the other thing they did is they just made the cg look like freakishly unbelievably good for the first time that like sort of the this these effects at this scale have been included in a movie so uh they didn't just toss out all the stop motion stuff they repurposed it to like provide data for the cg to like help the animations work so they had this like really pretty good stop motion animation uh that that had a lot of research that went into it like how would this dinosaur move?

How would this dinosaur move? The CG team could take that stop motion video and look at it and then say like, okay, here's what the skeleton of the dinosaur should look like because of how they have animated it. Whenever they needed to shoot something that was too complex for CG to animate, they used practical stuff. So on close-ups of the T-Rx when it gets really really close to the car and like does the the breathing through its nose to fog up the window that's real that i mean it's not a real dinosaur it's an animatronic dinosaur um but then they would you know then pan out to

the full shot of the dinosaur and that's cg and at that point your mind has been so convinced that it's a real thing uh they would also use those bigatures the huge t-rex model uh for the same purpose they would they would film it you know fucking up a car you know nuzzling into it as it's kind of exploring and spinning it around and they can put cg in over that because now they know what it looks like there are so many clever uses of like hybridizing this these these two different technologies at what is essentially the passing of the torch from this old school way of doing it to this brand new, like very, very fresh way of doing it that makes this movie like a really interesting kind of junction point in, in how CG was done. And of course, like after that,

a bunch of movies tried to do this too. And they were like, this dude's going to be made out of fucking lasers and he's going to have nine heads each with like different faces. And it were like, this dude's gonna be made out of fucking lasers and he's gonna have nine heads each with like different faces and it's like, oh no, that's gonna look like dog shit, dude. There was also just like a ton of paleontological research that went into like how would a T-Rex move? Not just looking at like dino DNA, but also looking at like how elephants walk and looking at like, giraffes move their necks and shit. You can feel that when you watch a movie, like, that it's been well-researched.

Yeah, exactly. And the other cool thing that they do that, like, sells everything and is my favorite thing about the movie since I learned this and then watched it is that almost the entire film is shot from a human's perspective. Almost the whole film. So like the scene where they pull up in the car and they see the brontosaurus, you see just like the bottom half of the body of the brontosaurus, and that's all that's in frame before you get like the bigger shot. The T-Rex chasing Dr. Ian Malcolm away as he's like holding the flare, trying to get him away from the kids, that is shot from Ian Malcolm's perspective.

So the dinosaur looks fucking gargantuan. I really really really incredible um and uh yeah i don't know it's it's a it is a fucking perfect movie there are so many things about it that are so like ahead of its time and the fact that it did cg and sort of introduced it to like hey you can make movies this way and then for i don't know man eight years afterwards nobody was able to match it yeah it's true it's kind of incredible um and it was the only jurassic park movie they ever made they made that they made it they stopped on that high note they made it i don I don't know. I haven't seen Lost World or wait, was three Lost World? Which one had Vince Vaughn in it? I don't know.

Anyway, the first one's really good. Yeah. It's really good. I think it's on Netflix right now, too. The original JP? Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Let's watch that tomorrow.

Okay. Let's get Henry like early into the dino phase. You don't think it'll be a little scary? It's not that scary. A big T-Rex? Only thing that ever happened. Killing that goat. That's fine.

The only thing that ever scared me in a Jurassic Park movie is when Richard Schiff got all ate up. Oh. Oh, Richard Schiff. In the bathroom, too. Toby. Come on. That's got to combine a couple of your fears right there that's probably why it scared me so bad is because toby toby ziegler did get et by the big t-rex like having

somebody walk on oh but it's not just like somebody like barging in like oh excuse me and then walking right back out it's a big dinosaur that eats half my body shoot um hey do you want to hear some submissions from our friends? Yes, I do. Okay. Maddie says, even though they are a lot of work, garage sales are wonderful. Seeing your old treasures find new homes at any price always makes me happy. You got any fond garage sale memory? Did your family ever do a garage sale when you were younger?

You know, I don't know that we ever held one one but i have been to a huge number of them oh for sure we held one because we had you know my parents had like so many kids and we had just a bunch of shit i remember very distinctly we just got in the super nintendo and so we garage sailed our nes their original nintendo and like all our games for it for probably $15. Oh, gosh. And now I look back at that like, fuck. There was a lot of stuff that we did not get a very good price on. I remember playing the Batman NES game in the living room, and somebody came in and was like,

okay, that's mine now. And I was like, okay, good luck. Sucks. I got the Super Nintendo now, and then 20 years later, I was like okay that's mine now and i'm like okay good luck sucks i got the super nintendo now and like you know 20 years later i was like oh no i want all that back ironically bethany says i love when a silly movie trope happens in real life for instance when my toaster pops the finished toast up it really hops out of there and catches air someday i'm gonna grab it midair and I can't wait. So satisfying. That's great. I included this one because it's aspirational. I want to know, Bethany, if you ever do get it.

And I don't want you to stand. I feel like it's cheating if you stand over the toaster and wait. Oh, you have to just like walk by and grab it. I want you to have like, put it in, go upstairs, get your Jansport, throw your books in it, come downstairs. And as you're have like put it in, go upstairs, get your Jansport throw your books in it, come downstairs and as you're walking out the front door just like, bing, snatch chomp. That's really

good. That's so fucking good. If you can skateboard by like just slowly building up speed as you work your way out to the street and grind down your steps to your house, out to the front yard Just in time to see the bus fly by. But you sketch while eating this toast, and kids are in the backseat looking at you,

making like a guitar, like air guitar. And you're like, yeah, dude. I caught this this morning. And they're like, no fucking way. And you're like, yeah, I caught it. So do all that. Here's one from Greg who says, my wonder is the feeling of stretching after a long drive.

I recently drove a moving truck from Michigan to Florida. Fuck, Greg. Wow, dude. That's rough. From Michigan to Florida. And there was no better feeling than stretching your legs at the end of the day. I hope you took breaks. I hope it was not just one long go of it.

I hope that you took breaks. I hope there were breaks because that's a long haul. What's the longest car drive you ever did? I mean, I've done Missouri to Texas. Yeah. Which is pretty long. It's like 14, 16 hours, something like that. I did Chicago to Texas.

I don't know what's longer, that or Huntington to Boston, because I did that one too. That one was a roughy. So this has been wonderful. This is the podcast you heard. I am so grateful for all of you to listen to the show. I don't know when this one's going up. I don't know if we're going to put this one up on the 4th of July,

because I don't think anybody would listen to it. Is that weird? Can you imagine people at their barbecue eating hot dogs with their uncle or something? Holding their sparklers. And they're like, I also like volunteering at festivals. Turn this shit up. This is my jam. Pass the ox. Pass the ox, dude.

Yeah. Got a podcast about chill swimming. Now they're going to be listening to your grilling time playlist. Oh, I think that shit's public. I'm going to read the link that you letter for letter, unless it's very long. Some folks shared it in the Facebook group. Okay. But just in case you want to grab it and you're sitting at your computer right now and you want to grab grilling time for your 4th of July party or what have you, you're going

to be able to find that by going into your web browser and where the fuck is it? I've still as long as I can. You're going to, oh God, no, it's so long. Fuck that. It is the longest link ever. If you just search grilling time in Spotify, I bet it'll show up. Yeah.

I mean, people have been able to find it somehow. Yeah. So, um, thank you to maximum fun for having us on the network. You can go to maximum fun.org and check out all the great shows there. Shows like Stop Podcasting Yourself and Switchblade Sisters and Story Break. Minority Corner. Minority Corner. All of your favorite shows.

Or your new favorite shows if you haven't listened to them. He Rocks. He Rocks is going to be your favorite fucking show. And all of that is at MaximumFun.org. And we have other shows at Mcackleroyshows.com and thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song Money Won't Pay you can find a link to that in the episode

descriptions and I don't know man let's just go slam some sparkle dogs and get on it you know what I mean it's a grand old flag it's a flag that it flags and when it flags you know that it flags.

I'm going to bump you up a little bit, but keep going. I'm just going to ride the dial a little bit and get the good levels. And when it flags, it keeps flagging, and flags and flags and flags and flags. Yeah. Every heart beats true for the red, white, and blue. It's the best part. And the flags they raise still. Is it disrespectful to not know the words to this song?

They raise. There were like nine more flags that you left out. I got part of it right, though. Did you hear that? Yeah, the red, white, and blue part. That was good. So we'll see you next week. Hey! What's going on? Hey! Money long? Hey! What's going on? Hey!

Money long? Hey! What's going on? Hey! Money long? Hey! Maximumfun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.

Welcome everyone to the live wrestling spectacular in Los Angeles. So far the world's most boring wrestling podcast has been destroying the competition. Isn't there anyone who can save us from this travesty? Wait, could it be? It's Titan fights. The perfect wrestling podcast. Titan fights is here to save us from the monotony of boring wrestling podcasts with hilarious conversations.

Woke trips through the history of wrestling. And joke about the finer points of people wearing spandex. slings. And joke about the finer points of people wearing spandex. What a match! And the Tights and Fights podcast will be back every week. Thursdays on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. Please,

these hosts have families. Tights and Fights Podcast Tights and Fights