Doughboys - Spitz with John Hodgman

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

John Hodgman (Dicktown, Judge John Hodgman, Up Here) joins the 'boys to discuss Gober, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and Christian Slater before a review of Spitz. Plus, a special edition of Snack or Wack in honor of National Tootsie Roll Day.Sources for this week's intro: https://usabynumbers.com/coldest-states-in-the-us/ https://theoccidentalnews.com/uncategorized/2016/01/01/spitz-owners-eye-expansion/2880524 https://original.newsbreak.com/@greyson-f-563014/2697056927805-hollywood-based-restaurant-coming-soon-to-town https://www.dallasobserver.com/restaurants/spitz-mediterranean-street-food-in-frisco-channels-unicorn-magic-15649699 https://spitz-restaurant.com/mediterranean-greek-food-near-me/Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Want to watch this episode? Check it out on our YouTube channel by going to youtube.com slash doughboysmedia. What's up, everybody? It's your boy, The Spoon Man, and I want to talk to you about today's sponsor, UberEats. At UberEats, we've helped more than 400,000 restaurants across the U.S. reach new hungry customers and deliver growth quickly through new orders. Uber's global platform can help you grow, reach new people, get valuable sales data, and unlock ways to expand with flexible delivery options.

Put your business on UberEats. Get access to the UberEats platform, including valuable sales data to grow your business. Dig into your data. Really dig in there anytime to monitor your performance and customer order trends. Wow. Wow. Restaurant owners enjoy 0% commission for the first 30 days on all orders, offer subject to change per the terms of the restaurant agreement.

Wow. 0% on the first 30 days. Sign up today. That link that you want to click on is down there in the episode description. Right down there. Check it out. There it is. Move your cursor.

Go ahead and click, or if you're on your phone, use your finger. And click that link. Click that link in the episode description. Minnesota and Utah. Two of the coldest states in the US, these frigid landlocked territories could not be further from the temperate coastal climate of the Mediterranean. Yet they're the home states of two of the biggest names in Mediterranean American food, Bruce Rademan and Robert Wickland, who met at Occidental College, a tiny liberal arts

school located in Los Angeles. Upon graduating in 2005, the duo considered the woeful dining options available to starving students, noting a dearth of affordable takeout that wasn't gut-bustingly caloric, even in health-crazed Tinseltown. So drawing on a beloved street food from their European travel experiences, Rademan and Wickland dreamed up an accessible concept specializing in Donair, Cobob, establishing their first restaurant in LA's gentrifying Eagle Rock neighborhood. The eatery quickly found its fandom, even given the city's existing abundance of authentic

Armenian, Greek, and Persian restaurants, and saw a quick expansion throughout the Golden State and the American West. Today with locations in nine states stretching from California to Virginia, the health-conscious but affordable concept is part of a new frontier of fast casual. And while its name may seem repulsive at first, it's meant playfully to invoke the meat-roasting rod standard in Mediterranean cooking. But when you taste its menu, are you likely to swallows? This week on Doughboys, spits.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, Captain Munch, Oops, All Stairs, the Spoonman, Mike Mitchell. Because my home is All Stairs. He had a lot of stairs there. What was official count? Was it 54 stairs? I do have 54 stairs.

That's a lot. It is a lot of stairs. I mean, to me, you have a very narrow home. It's like a classic, like, kind of rollhouse. Actually, there are a few more outside that I didn't count that are probably, it probably puts it close to, like, 57, 58 stairs. You might have 60 stairs. I might have 60 stairs.

Do I have to count every stair? I think I do. We might have to do a recount of stairs, which for this Dumpogcast will be one of our greatest episodes. I got a lot of stairs. Look, what do you want from me? I got stairs in my place now. I wasn't a trust fund comedy kid.

You know what's funny is, like, you remember, like, there would be, like, a person that was, like, 0% funny. And then they were, like, a mess. And then they were, like, and they didn't have a day job. I had a day job. You had a day job. It's like, yeah, this guy, this kid, Matt Gober. And like, what's Matt Gober up to?

Oh, yeah. He just does improv and sketch, and he does, like, stand-up open mics. All right. But how does he make money? He's like, yeah, I don't know. Fucking Gober. You said, like, Gober would do a show and, like, he'd get zero laughs, and then he, like, fucking puke in his fucking pants.

Yes, yeah. And then you'd see, he'd take his pants off, because he thought he had to take a shit. Yeah. And then he'd puke inside of them. And then he'd puke inside of his pants. And he'd be like, how does Gober make a living? And then you find out there's, like, Gober Pharmaceuticals. This is, like, a billion-dollar company just living off of daddy's dime, doing bad comedy

in LA. Gober Pharmaceuticals is on the Wayland. What is it? Wayland, Utah. Wayland, Utah. Yeah. Financing expeditions to Jupiter's moons. I was never a little trust fund comedy boy.

No, you and I were both, we were both working our way. Hard work, man. Sustaining yourselves. Putting on my page jacket, heading up to CBS every day, learning the pits of the Simpsons PA world. That's what I was going to say, gassing up that golf cart so you could drive around the Fox lot. Not easy.

Not easy. Yeah. Not easy at all. Hey. You ever ask for any handouts? No. No, you didn't ask for handouts. You didn't ask for handouts, we fucking, we, we, we, we, I was not a, once I got out here

wagged, it was all over. My parents stopped returning calls. It was done. Yeah. Hey, I was working, I was working in the video game industry and I was, that was a full-time job. That was more than full-time job. I was pulling 60 hour weeks trying to make bad video games and I was as, I was doing comedy

on the side. It's a fucking. So all you were working for. We were working out there. You started, you started, did you start from nothing? We started from nothing. Yeah. We started from the bottom.

We started from the, now we're here. Built it all yourself. Now we're here in a different part of the bottom. Yo, everybody listen out there, you too could have stairs someday too. You just got to put your, you got to put the axe to the grindstone. Follow your dreams. You can have stairs. I have a question.

Yeah. You think young people today have a work ethic? Yes or no? I mean, that's the problem. Do they know what it takes? I feel like no one wants to work anymore. That's just my take. Yeah, no one wants to work.

Me, Weiger, Kim Kardashian, the three of us feel the same way. I want to have, I want to have, I come, I don't have stairs. I don't do, I don't work, but I want them. I don't know. Gober fucking do fucking. Yeah. Stop coveting other people's stairs. His name, Gober.

Gober. Yeah. Gober. I know Gober. Mac Gober. We know Mac Gober. Yeah. Mac Gober.

Him and, uh, who's the other guy? Mark Doofson. They had a two man team. Well, this is the thing. Gober is canceled. We didn't want to talk about it. We didn't want to bring him up. Doofson's doing great.

Doofson's doing great. But we don't like Doofson. He's doing great. Yeah. He's doing great. Uh, I'm asking him for help, but, but yeah, Gober, Gober's kind of faded away. Gober did like, he did like a sketch variety show of like, is like places around the world and then he was like, acting as different people around the world and we were like,

the test show, we were like, this is not good. This is really if he's territory. Dad, he shouldn't do this. And he was like, it's me, Gober. I'm going to pull this off and he fucking, it's canceled. It didn't work out. Um, it's like teaching improv and like Omaha now instead of his own theater. Uh, that, that roast was sent in from Joseph.

Joseph writes, hi, Doughboys. I hope you're both doing well. The roast is a reference to Mitch's concerning amount of stairs in his home, perhaps as many as 60. It would be nice to hear this on the podcast one day, roastspoonman at gmail.com. Mitch, we have, he's doing like, he's playing some music like he puts, he posts his music up online. Yeah.

It's like, it's, he's got like a band, but it's just him. It's like, but you know, yeah, he's, he's doing great. We have a couple of announcements, Mitch. Yes. We have a fantastic guest here and, and we're, we're running late cause we, for, for a variety of reasons. So we don't want to take too much of his time. But so I'll get, I'll speed through these.

First of all, you don't have to speed through anything. No, I'm going to go back to Gober for a few minutes. Actually Nick, do what you're going to do. Remember when Gober used to like take his shirt off and push his stomach out and be like, here's the pregnant lady. And that was like his big character is like, which is crazy that we're saying that he's not funny because that is fun. Well, it's funny in theory, but you watch him pull it off.

It was confusing. Yeah. This guy's like, he has like zero, you know, like people that you meet in the comedy world and like, they can't even talk to like a normal human, like they can't have a conversation with you. Yes. Yeah. So why, but like the ideas were there for Gober.

He had, yeah, he had good ideas. He could have been a writer, but he just insisted on the problem. What were you going to do, Nick? I'm sorry. You were starting to do something else. So first announcement, our producer, our MVP, the great Emma Urdbrink, it is her birthday Eve as of this recording, when this episode releases, she will be on the other side of 30.

Emma, I don't know if you want to be to stay your age, so we can bleep that. You can bleep that. I don't care. Wow. Happy birthday, Emma. Happy birthday, Emma. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you.

It's going to be fun. A 21 wow salute for you. That's a 21 wow salute. There are three of us, so we have to say it seven times. Okay, good. Ready? Yeah. One, two, three.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Gober started it, he was like, I get 30 kisses by the end of the night, and we're like, Gober, this is going to be uncomfortable. It's also because he had, he was like, great Gatsby had just come out, the Baz women one, and he was like, it's going to be like a Gatsby ball. And we're like, how are you affording this? He like rented out a, he like rented out a venue, he like rented out a ballroom, and

he had like ice sculptures and shit, we're like, Gober, like, you're unemployed. What, where did this come from? And then I remember he did do, he did characters from around the world that night. He was like, I'm going to do my show, because it's my birthday. It like a makeshift stage, he's up there, and everyone, no one likes it, no one likes it. Oh, Hodgman, I love you, remember? Hey, Nick, Nick, what are the books you have there behind you? Oh yeah, we got, you know, just any of them.

They don't read, they're good. Give me some to pass the time. Here's the woman warrior, you can enjoy that one. So happy birthday, Emma, thank you so much for having me. Happy birthday, Emma. And the second announcement, Mitch, next week, our annual tournament of champions begins, it comes faster every year, but we are already there, and we can announce the theme for this year is Munch Madness 2023, the tournament of champions, Bull, Bull, Bull, Bull, Bull.

That's right, we are going to be reviewing the office lunch staple, Bull Places. That's right. Places you can get a big, sad pile of food, just pure nutrition, Bull, that's the theme. And you know what, we're setting off today with a place that you can do that if you wanted to. It's pretty similar, maybe it'd been in the competition, you know what, if it was in the competition, it might have run away with it, not to spoil anything. It might have kind of a spoiler.

It might have done, we can believe part of that, it might have done, I think it would have done well for itself. Yeah, not in the competition. Just because you have a great bowl doesn't make you a great restaurant, does it? That's true, and I think also part of the competition is you should be bowl focused primarily, because this place has bowls, but I wouldn't call it a bowl place. We know what a bowl place is. It's not a bowl, was there an earthquake?

Is it now? Yeah. Right now? I didn't feel it. I might have just shifted in my seat, but it felt like it felt like a wobble. Can I just feel that? Mitch, did you feel that? It felt like...

Hodgman was wobbling, Mitch's chair. Oh, there it is again. Yeah, there it is. That's what it felt like. It felt like a... Yeah. It's all... It's all...

Is earthquake trending? It's all coming to an end. This is really how I should die. In the headcam studios? In the headcam studios. Crushed by the falling stealing of the studio. To get crushed by the Doe Boy sign would be a funny death. Some of these, you know, getting a concussion from some of these falling succulents on these...

Yeah. Getting bonked on the head by a fake cashmouse. Shells behind... The last time... The last time I saw you in person. Yeah. Well, we were on stage in Boston, Massachusetts, 2019. Was it that long ago?

Yeah. You nice people in person. Yeah, lovely. Since then. And I think of that show fondly. I've not been back to the Wilbur since, and I presume you haven't. Wait, did we go back? No, I've driven by it since then.

You certainly wouldn't have gone and done a show at the Wilbur without me, would you? I think we did, Mitch. Oh, wait, did we? Oh, my gosh. No, I know that's true. In fact, I think I had COVID. Yeah, no, it was a great... I think I had COVID for the first time.

But then before that, well, also, that was an amazing show. You had Gators and Carl on it, and they were amazing. And of course, Ed and then Mays, sure. No. For sure. No, I'm saying they are. What were you going to say? The point is, before that, I met you in person back when you ran this little operation where

that previous hovel where Mitch lived. That stairless hovel. There were no stairs there. There were no stairs to the non-stared... Yeah, but outside stairs. Outside stairs, yeah. The pre-moving on up, Mitch. Yeah.

Mike Mitchell hasn't given me my security deposit. And now look at us. Here we are. Look at us. We're sitting on some, I don't know, blue dot furniture, maybe some Ikea. I don't know where... It feels Ikea-ish. Right?

Pretty comfy. What were you going to say about having furniture in a room with some shelves and some succulents that could fall on me? Nice tableau. And it's terrific because now you're on... I'm on camera now. We love it. We love being on Hedgum's signature fat cam.

My gut. I was also thinking that if there was an earthquake and I got knocked out to be woken up by a Hedgum hunk, Marty is... Hey, buddy. Marty's... You all right, dude? You cool, bro? I don't know who could possibly be watching this, but yeah, this is what I look like.

It was a hard couple of years. Thanks for giving me a chair to sit in. This is the best way for a middle-aged man to be. I think there could be no... The only more flattering thing could be sitting in high stools, I think is the only other thing. What were you going to say about me having COVID? All I was just going to say, do you remember it was like March 2020 and Gober put up his one-man show in a black box theater and we're like, what are you doing?

You can't do that now. It's like the height of this pandemic. No one knew what was going to happen. We all thought we're going to die. Yeah. We were in there doing like characters from around the world. Characters from around the world. He was doing it and he was like, no one showed up at all.

Yeah. There was no one there. And then so he blamed his failure on the COVID. He blamed it. But then he also was like sending out an email. I was like, this was like a charity event. I was trying to raise money for people who had been displaced by the ban and no one showed up and that makes me feel really unsupported.

Yeah. Like Gober, come on, dude. Gober. And then also the charity, remember the charity was the sick fund and we were like, this seems fake. It's yeah. What is the sick fund? The sick fund just didn't, it didn't feel like Gober was full of shit.

Anyways, how the hell? Just Spoon Nation. Emma, let's hit him with a drop. This one sent in from Gober. Dr. Mitchell, how does it look? Perfect vid. But he was never supposed to know. But then I found out he was an executed serial killer.

Oh my God. This summer. Wow. So this is. This is, this was one of the drop off submissions. The last, I feel like this was the second place finisher, the silver medalist in the drop off. We love dead man's hole.

So this is, hey, dough boys, formerly Kenny of summerville here. Oh, I'm now Kenny of LA. Oh, it's all right. I left Boston, Mitch. For the drop off, I made an 80s thriller movie trailer for dead man's hole. One of my personal favorite bits of 2022. Thanks for another wonderful year of laughs and another wonderful year of my girlfriend asking me to put on headphones.

Motherfucker. I mean, you're right. You should put on headphones. Yeah, you should. Yeah. Or just don't listen. Just don't listen. Gober's got a podcast.

A brief reading from the woman warrior. He's watching the whole, he was watching all of the Drew Carey show for the beginning. We're like, I like that sitcom, but who is this for? Yeah, it seems, it's a very niche podcast. It's called go, go, gober. It's called go, go, gober. And with, with gober. With gober.

And then he, and then we're like, okay, so the title should at least pertain to what you're doing. He's like, well, it opens up. I could be, it could evolve into other things when I'm doing the Drew Carey show. But like, if you, I listened to a couple of episodes. It's just him saying like what he would have done if he was in the Drew Carey show. Yeah. But it's like, as if he was a real guy in the Drew Carey universe.

It's not like, if I was, if I was Ryan Stiles part, I would have said this instead. Yeah. It's like, oh, like what if I also worked with Drew Carey and like lived in his neighborhood? It's just so confusing. It's really, he talks about what he would have done if he, it's, she talks about working at the, oh God, I wish I knew more about the Drew Carey show. You're not, you're not steeped in the Drew universe. Did you work in a brewery at one point?

He did. I think he eventually did that. I knew it. It was set in Cleveland, but at first he worked in kind of a standard office job. Yeah. And that's his thing too. Like he would have gotten rid of Ryan Stiles, he said. Yeah.

He would have said like, I would have fired him from the Winfred Lauder department store. Drew Carey show is a show that I did. I like remember like laying on the foot of my parents bed watching that show. Yeah. Just in like years where you would just, you know, when you would just waste time. I watched the Drew Carey show and I, you know what? I think a funny show, a funny show, funny sitcom. Sure.

It's kind of like disappeared. You can't really find it anymore. Frank probably because of rights issues, but like you watch it as like, oh, this has a lot of good jokes. And you know what? Drew Carey took over the, when talking about my page experience, took over Price is Right. I played the price. I, for Drew's test to be the Price is Right host, I, I played the games.

I came on down. Oh yeah. It was me and other pages. Do I, have I told this before? I don't, I haven't heard it. It was me and like, anything, as long as it's not about Gober, I'm gaining. Well, Gober was one of the pages. Gober.

And I think that that's maybe where he came up with the idea for the, the Drew Carey show podcast rewatch. I remember you telling me that he would always mess up the lunch order. He would always mess up the lunch order. And it was like, it reached a point where he thought it was maybe intentional. So he didn't have to do it. Yeah. So like other people, I got it.

Gober. Don't worry about it. It was like bad mess up. You're like, I'll get a salad and he'd bring you like a sub. Yes. So it was like really bad mess up. They call that weaponized incompetence. They say that on the line.

That's, that's Gober. Yeah. That's Gober. Gober in a nutshell. Me, Gober and a couple other pages we, we were testing out. We tested out. The big wheel? For real.

I mean, I have said this on the podcast, but they called us all down and then I played Plinko. So that was fun. I got to play Plinko while like Drew was saying stuff. And then I did spin the big wheel and I've told why I exist. And I said it on the podcast, but it was like, I nearly spun a dollar and then it just suddenly stopped like at 15 cents or whatever before it. And there was a crew guy behind it who stopped it.

He was like trying to like hurry things along. You're saying the wheel is rigged. I'm not saying the wheel is rigged, but I'm saying that. It was rigged that day. They have the capacity to rig. That day. They have the capacity to rig it. The crew guy who was like, let's keep things moving here.

And like, it was so clear that he had stopped the wheel. Wow. You know, I was a celebrity guest on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Is that true? That is, that is cool. And I look forward to telling the story once I am introduced. Our guest today from Dicktown and Judge John Hodgman and the upcoming romantic comedy musical called Up Here!

Episodes drop March 24th on Hulu. On Hulu. Hi, John. Thanks for being here. I'm so happy to be here. What a treat. What a treat. And we had a wonderful lunch together.

And here we are now sitting in this room. But I was, they asked me to be a celebrity phone friend or something. How? What were all the lifelines? Yeah, that was one of them. You had 50-50 phone a friend and you had pulled the audience. Right. And so they had celebrity phone a friend.

This is when Meredith Vieira was hosting it. That's cool. And it was an early experience in work from home because they shot it in LA and they did not want to fly me there. And I was only arguably a celebrity to begin with. This was obviously more than 10 years ago when I was still on the Daily Show and stuff. You're a celebrity very much so. Well, that's very kind of you to say. But in any case, they sent me a kit with a camera and a microphone and everything else.

And I had to do it from home. And so I was watching the taping remotely. And when the contestant wanted to phone a friend, they were phoning me. That's wild. That's really cool. And there was no, I was sitting at a computer and there was no guidance given as to whether or not I could use the computer. Oh my God. Wow.

And what I realized, and so I didn't because I'm a very, I'm a good boy. I'm an only child. I'm a rule follower. And I figured it would be cheating. I so would have cheated. I wish that I had because I lost people some money that day. No. I helped people get some money.

There were some answers that I definitely knew. But there were some stumpers for Old Hodgeman. And I had a producer in my ear and my headphone. And every time I gave the wrong answer, the person lost to go, oh, that's a real shame. What the hell? We really wanted her to go farther. Like, oh, she seemed so nice. What a shame.

And I was in the moment. I thought maybe I was getting hints that I should be checking Google as I did it. But I saw Quiz Show. I didn't want that to happen to me. I didn't want to become part of a national scandal. Yeah. I didn't want to become a congress. I didn't.

Yeah. That's one of the things that I don't want to do. Yeah. Wait. So how many, was it all contained within one episode? Multiple episodes? It was one episode. It was one episode.

I mean, yeah. Game shows usually will film several episodes a day. But I was only on for one episode. Maybe they intended for me to be on several episodes and they pulled the plug. How many people did you help out? Let's say maybe four or five. Wow. Yeah.

On that episode, I guess, maybe three or four. Wow. Some people win. Do you remember any of the questions or no? The one I remember was how many zeros are in a billion? How many zeros are in a billion? The nine? Yeah.

It sounds like nine. Hold on. I had to write it out. Honestly, I don't remember the answer right now. Hundreds. Three. I think it's nine. Six.

Nine. Yeah. That sounds right. 100 is two zeros. 100 is two, but a thousand is three. A thousand is three. A million is six and a billion is nine. A billion is one thousand million.

One thousand million. So I think it's nine. That's probably right. I'm not going to... I did it then. I've done it once. I'm not going to do it again. Everyone else can figure it out.

You're on your own. If you want to be a millionaire, why don't you work for it like Mitch? There you go. You know who my phone number would be? No one gave him a million dollars. No one gave him 54 stairs. He earned each and every one. The stair cost about...

Hmm. I've had to put a price to the stair. I think it was like 50K per stair. Yeah. Yeah. These days with inflation. You know who my phone number would be? Gober.

God damn it. I took a COVID test to get in here. I mean, you know what's going to happen? I don't use Gober for the founder friend. And then all of a sudden it's like, in season two of Drew Carey. What? And I'm like, oh fuck. Why did I pull the audience on this?

And James Gunn's expanded Dronaverse. And then you get to a question and it's like, you know, who is the first prime minister of India and you call Gober and he's like, he starts to do like a character to like try to answer it. He's like, Jesus man. They're not going to put this on TV. They're just like, shut it down. You don't get the answer.

It was Nehru, wasn't it? Sounds right. Yeah, I think it was. Oh shit. Maybe you'd be my phone a friend, John. Yeah, you'd be a great phone a friend. I let a lot of people down that day. A lot of people did not become millionaires.

You got a brain full of facts. I'm not going to help you. You're already rich and cool penny bags from Monopoly over here with your stairs. It's because I got a few stairs. Everyone treats me differently now. You know, there was a young adult novel, a young adult science fiction novel by a guy named William Slater that really made an impression on me. It was about some kids who got kidnapped and woke up.

This is a very contemporary sounding thing, but this is, you know, when I was young in the middle ages or whatever, in the 70s or 80s, it was real. And they're 14-aged kidnap and they wake up in a building that is just completely full of stairs. Wow. They cannot see anything beyond stairs. And there's one landing where there's this combination sink, water fountain, or as you would say, a New England bubbler and toilet.

And then on another landing, there was a machine that would be dispensing these little meat cakes, but that was the only food they could eat. And in that case, I can swear on this, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah. They couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on. And I don't remember what happened. All I remember about that is two things.

One, I still think about those meat cakes. I've been tracing those meat cakes for my whole life. Yeah. Even though they were pumped out by a machine and some kind of dystopian torture factory, they seemed really good to me, like little sausage patties. And two was, the name of this book was House of Stairs. And the other thing I've always thought about since I read that is someday I'm going to meet a guy who's got as many stairs as the House of Stairs.

Well, you had William Slater and we had Christian Slater. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Here's my question. High five to the front of my face. Now it's Slater Kenny. Oh boy. Give me started.

That is someone, right? Yeah. Slater Kenny is a rock band. You're talking about all stairs. Are we talking like a ziggurat, like a stepslope pyramid? Or are we talking like... The image on the cover made it out to be a very... Can you give me that book, by the way?

Yeah, I'm going to buy one. I don't know if it's in print anymore. But it was like an MC Escher. Oh, okay. So they're going in all different directions. They're going in all different directions. Wow. It's very disorienting to the teens.

That's cool. There's quite a few horror movies kind of based on... On that kind of vibe, right? Yeah. Like, yeah, you wake up in a place and Cube was one of them, right? Oh yeah, Cube is one of them. Cube is great. Yeah, I don't know why they never made House of Stairs into a movie.

And then there was one that was like... Netflix had a similar movie to Cube that was like... There was like different levels to the... I don't know, some similar bullshit. Squid games. Squid games. I think it was just Squid games. It was Squid games.

I was reading Christian Slater book. That was really good. Did you read the novelization of Gleaming the Cube? Yeah. Starring Christian Slater. I was trying to think of a Christian Slater. He was in Heathers, right? He was in Heathers?

Yeah. That was his good breakout. He's got that comedy that very... It was a failed action comedy called Cuffs, I think. Yes. Where it was like... With a K. Yeah, with a K.

And he talked to the camera. It was kind of like a weird, fourth-world... Oh, so did... Wait, did he do the Tarantino... The volume? Yeah. Tarantino written movie? What's it called?

You know what I'm talking about. True romance. True romance. Oh, of course. True romance. KCR Engineer and Studio. Thank you, Casey. Chime in.

Yeah. True romance. People love true romance. It was a skateboarding movie. That sounds right. It was a skateboarding movie. Yeah, that was like where I learned about the... That teenagers were going to empty pools and skateboard.

Yeah, that's how skating culture started out here in Southern California. I think you'd probably have known about that. Well, I learned it from claiming the cube, but yeah, then I... Not from being outdoors and seeing it at all. He wasn't in Prayer for the Roller Boys, right? I don't know if he was in Prayer for the Roller Boys. Did you walk by? We were like, hey, fill that up.

Fill up that pool, buddy. Hey, kids, get out of there. Christian Slater is still working a lot. In Fleishman is in trouble. New series. Yeah. Also on Hulu. Willow?

Got it on the Willow Show. He's in Willow. It's on the Willow Show, yeah. He was in the original Willow too, wasn't he? Or no? That sounds right. His thing is that he's kind of like Jack. He's kind of a Jack Nicholson, yeah.

That was uncanny. Hey, it's me, Jack, reviewing Spitz. Is that Jack or Christian Slater? Do you remember Gober had a Christian Slater impression? Yeah. But it sounded so much like Jack Nicholson. They were all like, what? Because he'd be quoting Christian Slater movies,

but he'd be kind of into Jack Nicholson boys. It would be a weird thing. He'd be like, here I am, courtside at the Lakers. And we're like, wait, that's Jack. That's what Jack Nicholson would say. And then he was like, he would argue with you. But Christian Slater's like, he's famous. Yeah, he goes to basketball games and stuff.

You think Christian Slater can't get courtside seats? What's wrong with you? He could. I mean, yes, I understand that intellectually. I'm just saying from an audience's perspective, it's confusing. Yeah. And he would just like, he'd just get even more,

he'd just dig in. And then he'd be like, yeah, here I am at courtside at the Lakers, ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. And you're like, that's a line from Batman. That's a line from Batman. That's from Batman, the Jack Nicholson Joker. That's what people are going to think of.

And he's like, well, he could have been the Joker. Yeah. And then he's also like, Yeah. And he's also saying like, he's quoting the Joker. And you're like, why is Christian Slater a Joker? Why would he be quoting a Jack Nicholson movie? We're probably proud of his pre-seasoner.

Well, that was a move that was a Jack Nicholson move. And Gober would be like, oh, you didn't know that Christian Slater mounted an off-Broadway production of a play at pre-seasoner. Yeah. He was very proud of that work. He had an answer for everything. He just wanted to fight notes is the thing.

Yeah. When we're trying, you're trying to help somebody and they just are fighting back. It's like, well, what are we doing here? You know what's good? Wait, wait, wait. What's his name again? McGober.

McGober. Yeah. That sounds like him. Remember how his name was McGober? Oh, yeah. Crazy. By the way, the last time we went on a bit about a guy in the comedy world, it wasn't a completely divisive

episode where some people vowed to not listen to the podcast ever again. Wait, really? I mean, I think people also loved it. But that was something completely different. Yeah. We were talking about someone else. Yeah.

So I'm not actually going to die in an earthquake here in the studio. I'm just simply going to be canceled because of association with a conversation about somebody that I don't know. And I was half convinced you were making up as part of some elaborate improv game. You're guessing on the dough boys. It's always more and humiliate me.

It's a spin of the roulette wheel, whether it's the episode where we're going to get canceled. It's going to just like a toss up if it's going to happen. I knew what I was getting into. So let me just say one more time. Up here on Hulu, Premiers, March 24th, it was created by Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez. Bobby Lopez, of course, is the co-creator of Avenue Q

and Book of Mormon. Very cool. And together with his partner, both in life and in song. He writes songs. They write songs together, including the song Let It Go, which was in a Disney film. Wow. And now they've made a romantic comedy musical starring

Mae Whitman and Carlos Faldes. And I get to play the dad in it. And you get to sing a little bit. I sing along. I've known them for a long time, so they know my limitations. I have one solo song line. And I sing, note the spatter of blood at the base of the stairs. Wow.

They want to find out the context for that. Tune in up here on Hulu. All right. Now I'm either dead or canceled. I'm going to say this. I think, didn't you do Let It Do? Didn't you do that at one point? I feel like you did.

Fuck. That's good. Did you not do that? I must have done it. I feel like you did the Let It Do. I feel like you've done that before. I could be wrong. I'm hungry for some dough.

That's good. It's good. Let it dough. Let it dough. Again, I'd like some dough. Wow. Holy. This is happening right now.

Yeah. Just, you know, off the dome. Right. Off the dome. Yes. Off the dome. John, how do you feel about Mediterranean food? What rhymes with cold?

Well, I mean, cold is a... What food rhymes with cold? Oh. Mold. Rolled gold. Rolled gold. What about mold? Rolled gold.

Never bothered me anyway. There you go. Let it dough. Let it dough. Don't let it turn to mold. Right. That could work. Yeah.

But I was looking for the line. Have you ever heard this one? Cold never bothered me anyway. Cold never bothered me anyway. Mold actually probably works there. Mold never bothered me anyway. Mold never bothered me anyway. Yeah.

If you're talking about dough, maybe the dough got moldy. Maybe the dough got moldy for sure. Yeah. All right. Great. We cracked it. It happens. I'm a dough maker, as you know.

And I make a good New York-style bagel. Yeah, you do, huh? You do. You sure do. The last time I was in New York City, I believe... Wait. Did I see you? No.

We were going to get together in New Haven and eat pizza. Hey, guys, we're going to do a pizza tour. Yeah. Never got together. Well, it didn't happen. You couldn't do it, right? Wasn't that what happened? I chose not to.

And I... You know what? I'm sad because... It was a conversation we had. And then I thought, no. I never knew we could have... You could have seen Dano and the guys. Mike is...

How's Dano doing, by the way? It was great. He's got a son, baby boy. No. He does. He sure does. I didn't know this. I missed an episode or something.

A little... I don't know if I should say his name, but a little cute... Yeah. I don't think he'll care either. No, that's okay. You can believe it. Benny boy. That's his given name?

Well, Ben. Okay. Benjamin. I was... Also, I hope it's his name. I feel like I'm not great with baby names, but... Please bleep my coughing. I'm not sick.

I took a COVID test. I'm just disgusting. Yeah, we're all fine. Yeah, guys. I would have been so excited if Dano had literally named his son Benny boy. I mean, that's... I mean, that's... He's definitely...

I'm going to definitely call him Benny boy, but he and his wife doing great. That's wonderful. Give them my... Give them my hello's. He's watching. We talk about movies a lot. Ask him if he wants his hat back. I'd be happy to send it.

I feel like... There's an heirloom for his child. And I feel like he got the better deal of the hat trade. He had a great hat. Well, insofar as my hat was a Quebec Nordique's hat that probably I'd worn three times. And his hat was a Detroit Tigers hat that... That had that Dano stank. I think he was born in.

Yeah. Speaking of hats. It's great. I'm very proud to have the hat. It was a great time in Boston. Yes. It was great. We had a great time.

And I'm telling you something. That show you did with Gaberson Carl was one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life. God bless you. A lot of fun. It was so great. So great. Couldn't be there.

Can I ask what we're on the topic of hats? Because you have a lovely hat you're wearing in studio today. Can you describe it for us? Yeah, I was about to say before I came in. Yeah. Don't ask me about this hat because I don't remember. But it's another extinct hockey team. It looks cool.

Should you and I exchange hats? It's another extinct hockey team. Got like a P on it and several hockey things. It's in Plattsburgh, New York. And I think it's the Plattsburgh pioneers. I meant to look it up before I got in here. But you know, since I wrote about the Hartford-Waylor's in my book Vacationland, now available in my bag, things have really taken off for the sport of extinct hockey.

People are really into it now. Wow. You're going to be pissed at me. And there are a lot of companies that are finding old teams and this is like a minor league hockey. Yeah. Not an NHL or whatever. You're going to be mad at me about Plattsburgh, New York, hometown of Gober.

That's his hometown. That's not true. It is true. How dare you. It is true. Oh yeah, Gober Pharmaceuticals' headquarters there. Gober Pharmaceuticals' headquarters. He grew up.

The family kind of owns the town. Yeah. And there was like a mysterious murder that like revolved around his family. Yeah. Yeah. They were like, forget about it. It's Gobertown. I'm getting to that point in my decrepitude where it's actually appropriate.

Like this is good practice for me. For when I become a grandad and I just have to sit in a living room while people are having conversations that I do not understand and I'm not welcome in. Every now and then they say, Grandpa John, you want a plate? You want a plate? Can I get you something? I'm like, no, it's fine. I'm just going over the old times in my head.

Kids are talking about Christians later again. I remember when Mitch used to do this in a stairless house. Or it got fancy. I don't understand. Kids today don't want to work. They just want to sit on blue dot furniture. I got to get my security deposit back. I'm going after it.

Yeah. You're going to get your security deposit back from that old place? No. I lived there for almost 12 years. You know what they say? The people who really pinch pennies are the rich people. You know what I mean? Yeah.

They're the ones, the real misers going after a security deposit. Oh, wait a minute. I thought you were talking about the fucking landlord. Let it dough, Mitch. Let's take a break. We got a lot of restaurant to discuss. There was this part of the floor that was worn down that he never told me of. He was like, it's worn down.

But I'm also like, I lived there for 12 years. That's on you. That's not on me. We'll talk about this. No, we're not going to get back into this. I'm fine. You've wrapped up your point. We will hopefully get your security deposit back.

And we will be back with more dough boys right after this. Wow. This show is brought to you by better help. You know, Mitch, I learned something new about myself recently. I learned I can stick to a bedtime routine. Wow. I can go to the bed at bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day and stick to that.

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your first box. That's code DOE BOYS 50 at FactorMeals.com slash DOE BOYS 50 to get 50 percent off your first box. Do it. Welcome back to Doe Boys. We're here with a great John Hodgman discussing this week's restaurant Spitz with a Z, S-P-I-T-Z, a reference to the Spitz, the turning rods that meet. Oh, it's not a reference to saliva?

No, it's not a reference to that, yes. You do hear the name. You can understand why I might be confused. It's a little repulsive. The name of the restaurant is Spitz. Yeah. You hear it and you think, no, not in my food is your initial reaction. Yeah.

But, right. It's, you know, it's not the same type of Spitz. It's not the same sort of Spitz. It's a different sort of Spitz. It's a turning Spitz. It reminds me of how we named our cartoon Dicktown. Yes. The good name.

It's a, I mean, it's an eye catcher. Yeah. Very strangely, when you put it into Google, it actually leads to our cartoon. Hey, that's great. Good on you. I was very surprised. It's good SEO. Yeah.

But it's a little, it's, yeah, they should call it, yes, it's a restaurant actually named Spitz. Yes. It was founded by Occidental College graduates from Minnesota and Utah who fell in love with Mediterranean food while traveling. They opened their first location in LA's Eagle Rock neighborhood, so it's local in 2006, and it has grown. Well, it's been around that long.

Ever since, yeah. It's been around since then, and then it's kind of in recent years become a national chain that I think is in nine states. Pretty good. Yes. It's like nine states and several, and a few dozen locations. And it's, it's sort of like for people who haven't been there, it is a fast casual Mediterranean food concept, but also at least the location we went to.

And I think this is a lot of the locations are kind of have a gastropubby feel. Sure. Yeah. This place was decked out in a lot of eighties and nineties record album covers and stuff like that. Yeah. You felt like you were walking into like a cool roadside stand in 1999. And they have like, they have a seasonal mulled wine they were offering.

They have craft beers. It is very... Well, you know, the mulled never bothered me anyway. I think it would work. That's good. We got there. Yeah. But it's like you order the counter and then you can kind of, you know, you can sit there,

they have a bar and you can sit anywhere in the restaurant. And if you're feeling, if you're feeling frisky, you go over to the game zone. It's true. They have a game zone with board games. Pick up a, pick up a box of scrabble. Yeah. Do a little Jenga. Grab Pictionary.

Try to get Satsiki sauce on it. Yeah. It's like people are like, I want to have fun like the people on commercials have fun. That's what it feels like in there. When I was looking for parking, you were, you made a joke that you were gonna, which parking was a whole ordeal, but you said you were gonna get some mulled wine. You're gonna go around for it. And then you didn't get it.

I thought it would have actually been kind of fun, but it would have been an early alcoholic beverage. Well, at first I was a hot mulled wine and it's like, it's like an unseasonably warm day here in Los Angeles. It's a pretty warm day. And tomorrow. So I thought having hot mulled wine, a boozy, hot alcoholic beverage for lunch when we're all going to go record afterwards might make us a little sleepy.

So it wasn't serious. Yeah. By the way, a couple of cool names, Eagle Rock. It was a joke is what he said. Yeah. It was just a joke. I know. I now get that that it was a joke.

I mean, I think you replied LOL, which was maybe charitable, but. I liked the joke, but also it was kind of like, eh, it would have been fun to have. You still wanted them. Yeah. It might have been LOL, lift off the lid of the mulled wine that LOL, lift off the lid. That works. And that was also my joke that I was telling. That works.

I like it. It does work. I think we should use LOL in that way a lot more, too. Eagle Rock, cool name, Occidental College, kind of a fun Occidental College. Occidental is a fun college, but Barack Obama's alma mater, I believe. Occidental. Occidental. Yeah.

He did. It sounds like accidental. It does. Yes. It does sound like. That's where he. So that's where he met Michelle. Occidental.

I think they met at Harvard when he for graduate school. Isn't there that like horny movie where they meet and they and like, isn't there? Yeah. Am I thinking of some pornography I watched? No, it's called like Nighttime in Chicago or something. And it's like, and I think it's one of those ones where it's like an imagined first date between Barack and Michelle Obama because it's not actually documented. Yeah.

That's so weird. I don't think that's Celine Dion biography film. Aline. I watched it. Did you see it? No, I didn't. I've only heard about it on podcasts. It's a fascinating film.

Yeah. There's a flop house episode about it. That's where I heard about it. And I think probably I would listen to the episode before you watch the film because it's, it's, well, the thing that's, the thing that's good about it. I've got an idea. I might not do either. Yeah.

You don't have to do either. But I was going to say the. I mean, I love the flop house. Yes. Yeah. It's a, it's a very. So the thing is the director, the writer director star is a well known French Canadian comedian or she might just be French in her, but she's in her fifties, but she plays Celine

Dion through her entire life, including as a like four year old child and they just, they just do the thing. It's not like they kind of digitally de-ager, but they also just put an adult's head on a child's body. And so it's, it's a really. You know what? Jesus. I was wrong.

I'm going to listen to the flop house. I'm going to watch this. It's a really wild movie. I, I overall enjoyed it, but because just because it's so audacious, but it's kind of like if, if like Eddie Murphy made a clumps movie, but it was like a drama, like it was like, this is the story of one of the clumps and this is his entire life. I got a new rule. Yeah.

Sorry to be like Bill Maher, but I got a new rule. True rule. True rule. Okay, great. True rule. Don't show me the president nothing. I don't want to see the president nut. No matter what.

President is. I know, but I just don't want to see it. Okay. Any president. What about. Not gonna do it. Not gonna nut. I'm just a humble peanut peanut farmer from Georgia, but I too nut.

Look at it. Look at this. Not farmed. Ask nut what your country can do for you. I am not a crook. I am nothing my pants. So you're saying that Aline. Yeah.

The Celine Dion equivalent in this film was played by a French Canadian comedian. Yes. And she's like well known and she's like beloved in the world of French cinema. She got a nominated for the French equivalent of the Oscar for this performance. It's like a good performance. She's a comedian. She's a comedian in Quebec. She's a Quebecois comedian.

I guess so. I wonder if she knows our old friend who's a French Canadian comedian. Oh yeah. Remember all those times. I remember. Yeah. Spend with him. I'm happy that someone finally said his name correctly because I do fuck that up a lot.

He's very particular about that. He'll correct you. In Montreal. That's why his family came down from Canada to New York. Yeah. He was Le Hois of the Juspeur Rear Festival in Montreal. Nut tijerie. Casey, our engineer and studio and MR producer both said positive things about spits.

Casey, you love spits. Yeah. I do frequent spits. Frequent it. Yeah. I hang out on Hillhurst to live in the area. That's where we went today. The Los Feliz location.

Yeah. But it's like because it's got a bar feel. You can just like hang out there and have a drink. Yeah. I pop in with a few friends. We have a couple beers. Very pleasant. I had that open air concept.

Yes. Yeah. It's interesting where chain restaurants have gone where the old days like the kind of bar and grill feel is like a TGI Fridays or a Chili's, this big enclosure. Right. You know, that's got like a big kind of sports bar area. And now they're kind of like, okay, we'll do this more open air thing that's more just about like, you know, kind of a casual hangout.

Again, akin to a gastro pub. Emma, same thing. You're a fan of spits. Yeah. I love spits. I used to go there all the time when I first moved to LA. It kind of has, if I remember it correctly, it kind of has like a secret garden feel. Like there's a lot of, like it feels like you're sitting in someone's garden eating

food sort of. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So they're really doing a lot to kind of like hide that it is a chain. And I think people kind of are sometimes surprised by its sprawl. Casey just kind of rubbing on his face that he goes there with friends and like has a good

time. Doesn't do it for work. Doesn't do it for work. Yeah. How about this one? Someone get me a sock. Not socks. The cat.

Yes. Yeah. So Bill Clinton is nutted in this scenario. No, no, no. Okay, right. I got you. Well, cause also. He needs a sock immediately.

He needs a sock. He needs a sock. Not socks. The White House staff brings him the cat. Yeah. And he's like, no, no. Not socks. Yes.

Well, remember cause he got into trouble cause he had that press conference and he was like, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. We're like, wait a minute. They're like, hold on, sir. It depends on what the definition of nut is. You've seen the blue dress. That is the most famous nut of all. Yeah.

I think you're probably right. It's probably the most famous nut of all. I can't think of a more famous. I hope to meet it someday. A more famous semen stain in history. So we were there and the three of us went together. Mitch, this was your initiative. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was just thinking I'm sorry in my head. So, Mitch, this was your initiative. You were like, hey, we're going to record this afternoon with John while he's in town. Glasses are all steamed up from embarrassment because I said semen. And so you were like. You really offer Massachusetts.

I feel the same way. I don't think I would ever. I don't like to say Dicktown. I don't like to say semen. It's fine. Everything's fine. This is going great. People are going to love this.

But let's talk about spit. So we were going to, we're going to get it to go. We're going to eat it here at the studio. And then Mitch, you were like, you know what? It's nearby. Let's just eat there. And which is partly why we started late, but it's fine. I'm glad we ate there because it was part of the experience.

It was. I almost immediately regretted it when I got there and I actually got there before. We were supposed to be there at noon. I got there before noon and street cleaning Wednesday. So parking was close to impossible, which is weird for that part of Los Feliz, which there are restaurants and stuff nearby. Rustic wise. Great wings.

We've talked about you. Rustic before you've had the wings there. Of course. A couple of cool bars, but like more up the street is where the activity is. But, uh, so starting off like hard to park around there. We got it all squared away. I took the train like an eight minute walk from the station. So I was pretty.

It was a good mood. I, I, I move. I saw a Hodgman outside. He found a spot pretty easy. Yeah. Um, I drove, I had already circled around once and I saw Nick walking up and taking a picture of the exterior of the restaurant looking like a true lunatic. Yeah.

True. I mean, check my Instagram at John Hodgman to see the visual evidence. Um, we, so we, uh, we get in there. Nick, I've been here a lot. Here's my, here's my initial thought. I didn't, I actually didn't like spits the first, the first couple of times I had it and I love Mediterranean food. And I think of like when I'm thinking of good Los Angeles Mediterranean food, I'm

thinking like a nice fluffy pita and some, some chicken, juicy chicken kebab and hummus and, and, and, and, you know, like, uh, garlic sauce. And this is, this is places. Great. It is just, it's different from that. It's like, uh, the, the, the Donald wraps cat. There's a lot of cabbage in there. It's like, it's very much like a sandwich wrap.

Yeah. I don't, you know, I don't live in Los Angeles. It's great to be back and seeing you in person. But when I go, when I go for Mediterranean food in Los Angeles, same thing, like I wouldn't think of spits. Usually I'll go to their top competitor, FLEMS. We had a good FLEM combo too, actually. We did.

We had a good FLEM combo. We talked about the, the efficacy of prednisone treating over FLEM production. Which I'm taking it again. And I'm afraid of the facts. I said, we can't talk about this on the podcast. We can talk about it now. And now look where we are. We're back to it.

We're so out of material. Here's a question. Have you ever been spat on? Spits. Ooh. Like had someone spit on me? Has someone ever spit on you in contempt, you mean? I mean, that's kind of like that, right?

I don't think so. I have for sure. But this isn't Quincy, you know, back in the Quincy. That's an intense, that's an intense thing. Yeah. That's a real, wait, was it, was it like a, what happened? Was it a deranged person? Was it someone who was angry at you?

Was it an active bullying? It's kind of a Dennis Nedry situation. Or a, I think it was a surprise spitting. I mean, like, yeah, people mad at you, but I feel like that used to like happen. I feel like there was one friend in particular, one of the Quincy crew would think he'd get mad, he'd spit at you. Wow. Yeah.

Like into your face or at your shoes in contempt. I think it was just that, yeah. You know, it was, yeah, it was in contempt. I guess it's not, you can't aim very well when you're doing that. Yeah. And it's not, it's like, it's not. But let's just say for hypothetically speaking, it was like, so it would be like, Hey, what the fuck, man?

And they just like spit at you, like out of nowhere. Yeah. Wow. You guessed it. We'll have to bleep it out. No, come on. 100%. No way.

It was. That's so funny. I also think that people, I think that like it, like he wasn't the only person I ever got on by. I got spat on by a couple of people over the course of time. That's why I've never, I've never been spat on. I don't think I've ever been spat on. I'm not saying you've got spit on you.

Yeah. I've had like other people like spit, like, like it's like, I accidentally spittles coming or something or, you know. I've never intentionally spat at anyone. Yeah. No. But I've definitely accidentally spat on people by talking to them. Yes.

But my sister's a principal of a school and like spitting. It is truly disgusting. Yeah. It's not something you should name your restaurant. It's not something you should name your restaurant at all. And I'm amazed that these two young college kids. Yes. Have had such success.

I think it's testament to the food quality that people endure nausea in order to go eat the food. It's pretty wild success. This is one of the faster growing, you know. I'd never heard of it. I'd never heard of it. Yeah. I think that's one of the best ways to get into spits.

Here's part of my thought is that, you mentioned this earlier, LA has a lot of good Mediterranean. A lot of great Greek restaurants, a lot of great Armenian restaurants, a lot of great Persian restaurants. You know, there's just like, I mean, like, I'm thinking of like a local chain like Zanku Chicken or, you know, like a location shop like Atari Sandwiches in Westwood. If I'm thinking for something, it's like. Sidewalk Grill, we should be having a lot. Sidewalk Grill is a nice spot.

There are plenty of options, so I just would not think of going to spits. But that said. Hey, you're going to Glendale too? You got Carousel Restaurant? You got some of these famous, like Middle Eastern slash Mediterranean food spots. People who know that, you know, that style of food will list off, you know, literally like 20 places that are worth going to. Yes.

But I mean, all of the, I'm thinking as you list these places, like they're specific. They're specific, yes. They're from regions. They were probably founded by someone whose family is from that region, for example, whereas spits is obviously made by two college kids from one of them from Utah. Minnesota and Utah, yeah. So there's a, there's a, there's a, it's like an Asian fusion restaurant. There's an element of like appropriation and just sort of like, you know, kind of making

things palatable to people who maybe aren't as used to Mediterranean food. If anything, I feel like it represents the, the diaspora of these kinds of foods across Europe. Sure. Because they have their Berlin style. Do you say Doner Kebab or Doner Kebab or? I always thought it was Doner Kebab. Maybe it's Doner Kebab.

Doner is what I say. That's, I always say, but whatever it is, I'm sure we'll get letters, but you know. Doner is, I want to say into this reindeer. Uh-huh. Right. So. Right. So that's helpful.

That's helpful. So maybe Doner is the way to do it. It might be Doner. Whatever it is. I mean, and we learned when we went there that, uh, they don't stand on ceremony when it comes to the authenticity of these products. 100%. No, they're not.

They have a Euro and then they have a Doner Kebab and I always thought that those two things were basically the same. And I'm probably I'm wrong, but like, I know in Canada, if you get, if you go to a Doner place or Doner places, they call it there, you'll get a, but we call it Doner. Yeah. Just Doner. So we asked Doner, is it reindeer Doner or is it? It's Doner.

Doner. It's not Doner. It's Doner. No, Doner. Doner is like someone who like donates to a cause. Or an organ. Or an organ. Yeah.

Doner. Maybe just Doner. It could be. I don't know. Well, I mean, I think that's just a French Canadian pronunciation of, you know what I mean? Right. It's like this, I mean, people say gyro or Euro or Euro or whatever it is.

Yeah. Or gober or gobear. Gober, gobear. I mean, let's call the whole thing off. Yeah. When we went up to the counter and I said to the woman who helped us, it was very helpful. Doris. Doris was an absolute delight.

Doris, same name as my grandma, as my nana. I told you guys at our table, I told you guys that Doris, I said, that's the same name as my nana. And then on the way out, we say, bye, thank you Doris. And Mr. Hodgman here said, it's the same name as his name. And I was extremely embarrassed. And you know what? She had a great response.

She was like, it's the same name as a lot of people's names. It's a great grandma name. It's a great grandma name. Or I mean, you know, or even a great, great grandma name. That works there too. I mean, it goes back. It's a terrific name. Great contemporary name, a classic.

But Doris was terrific and she, if that's her pronoun, just rolled her eyes and said, we make no distinctions here. Yes. There's a Doris hero, donor, donor, it's just whatever. Exactly. It's all interchangeable. You can have anything with any protein you want. Yeah.

They're not worried about authenticity at all. Well, Doris Griffin, my nana. And I had an uncle Peter. Oh boy. Oh really? Did you have a dog named Brian? There was a dog. He had a dog named Brian.

This is extended family. So you're probably, I'm just guessing you had a cousin Stewie. I had a cousin Stewie. All right. This is all New England. It's all starting to track. So Doris helped us out. You ordered the counter.

They bring it out to your table. Weirdly, their system has, and it kind of just speaks to sort of like the, everything there is like a little, it's a little try hard, but it's fine. It didn't really bother me, but like, you don't have numbers. You have letters. So our letters were OP. OP. So they were going to bring it out to OP.

Original poster. Yes. Or overpowered. Oh. Yeah. It's another way. Yeah. It's a little bit, but on forums.

On forums. Absolutely. Original poster. So they were, they're bringing out to OP and we'll start with our apps. We got a street cart fries, which are the description is that our famous fries topped with garlic, aioli, feta, onion, green pepper, tomato, olives, and pepper and chinis. And we got half a regular fries, half sweet potato fries. Those Doris suggestion.

We also got the doquitos, which were like a Mediterranean to keto. It's lavash bread that's got, that's stuffed with chicken. And then it's just got a bunch of the same sauce on top of it. Well, this should have been a street car named desire because these things were fantastic. They were. Yes. Street cart named desire. Fuck.

Street cart fries. Well, I say street car. Yeah, you did. There's a thing called street car named desire. No, that's what I meant. That's what my reference was. Right. Well, you should have been a street cart named desire because they were, they were fantastic.

But Emma, do you want to clean that up in the edit? So we just use Mitch's second take there. I mean, it was the same as my first take. Okay. Okay, great. Fair enough. It's your birthday. It was the same as the first take.

Street cart named desire. It was all very tasty. Very good. I like, hey, I'll say this, that garlic aioli, I think was delightful. I really like that sauce. And there was a lot of it. They were really drizzling it heavy. But you know, the fries that I had that were smothered with it, they were well fried.

They were crispy. And then, you know, there's just a very flavorful sauce. It is the same, you know, array of things that are smothered on top of it for both dishes. All the smothers are kind of the same. Yeah, yeah. So there's like a street cart fries. That's right. And then there's a street cart donair sandwich.

And it's the same ingredients minus the fries. Yeah, different form factor. And I thought the dokitos were nice too. I thought they were more of a novelty. Like I'm not sure if I need to get the dokitos. The dokitos to me were the loser of the bunch. Yeah. I tossed in those fried pita chips the last minute.

That's the other thing we got. Yeah. What do you think those fried pita strips? You know, here's what, here's the thing. And this is kind of what Hodgman was saying. I got those fried pita strips on top of my salad. So I was like, that's kind of redundant with something I already have in my, in bowl form. Yeah.

I do like the side of hummus for dipping, but I just felt like those were unnecessary. I thought the hummus was quite good. Good hummus. Yeah. I was quite surprised. And I would say, to me, the stars of the show were all the dips and condiments. So many dips. Yeah.

Wait, you asked for some tzatziki. We also got, what else did we get on the side? Zog. What's that? Zog. We got a zog. Was it zoug or zog? It's zog, I believe.

Z-H-O-U-G. U-G. Zog or zog? Zog. Zog. Zog. Might have been zog. Whatever that sauce was, that was delightful.

And then we got like a, like a spicy red sauce. That's a green spicy sauce. Yes. I'm not familiar with them. They also had a harissa. A harissa, yes. In a pump that you could take little, little vats of it back to your table. I like a harissa.

A harissa. And I had to specially request their Berliner red sauce. Right. That's what, that was the spicier sauce. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. A tangy red spicy sauce that I really liked. And I had to request it because, you know, they're basically everything is modular.

And so there was the street cart donair wrap. Yes. This is what the both of you got, which is, did you both get beef and lamb? Yeah. And this is a garlic aioli with alvash chips, romaine, cabbage, tomato, onion, green, green pepper, cucumber, and satsuki. Right. And then there's the Berliner.

Did you just read the Berliner one? No. And I missed it. Oh, right. So that's, that's, that's the same protein, but with feta roasted corn, cabbage, slaw, sumac. I really liked, on the website, it didn't say cabbage slaw. It said cabbage claw.

They didn't fix it. I liked cabbage claw. That's cute. Yeah. And this Berliner red sauce, which is this tangy sauce, which I presume if you get a donair or a Jiro or whatever kind of kebab that is the equivalent in Berlin that they put this on there. The point is we were getting a lot of food and it felt like to me one thing that we should

do is try to sample as much of the food as possible. Yeah. And, and so I had intended to get the donair, the street cart donair wrap, but then Mitch said that he was going to get that. So I said, Mitch, we're getting a lot of food. If I ordered the Berliner donair wrap, maybe we could go have season. We could try them each and Mitch said no. Yes.

Mitch refused. Yeah. To share with me. Okay. So this is true. This is true. I'm going to say this. And I could have gotten them.

I could have gotten the Berliner and ate it all myself. Yeah. But I really wanted that street cart. Here. I really, you know, I dare say I even desired that street cart named desire. Here's, here's, here's my, here's my thought. The best part of the experience was saying, Mitch, can we split this? No.

Yeah. So no. I didn't. Then there. First of all, I always share with you. I had. I want what I want. I want all.

I said street. I already knew what I was getting going in. I said street cart donner. I didn't realize that you were going to, you were going to get the same thing. So that was the one that appealed to me the most. So I said street cart donner, but I didn't know that that wasn't your, I didn't know that you had that. It's not like you, it's not like you knowingly scooped my order.

So I had no idea about it. So I said that and I, and I got, and I got that. I was fine with that. I got that with beef and lamb. And then you, then you said to me, you said, Hey, do you want to share? Share this with the Berliner donner. Yeah. If I get the Berliner donner, we, how about we like split it half and half?

And I said, if they cut them in half nicely and it's easy, we could each have half. And I said, and then I said, okay. And then I went, hmm. And then you go, it seems like you don't want it. And I said, you're right. I don't want it. It is the truth. I didn't want as corn in it.

Cause it has corn in it. I didn't really want corn. Corn upsets my tummy a lot of the time. Right. So I just, I didn't want it. And then the fact that he has to follow up, I feel close enough to Hodgman that I could say, you know what? No, I don't want it.

I don't want, I didn't want it. I know what I'm teasing you. And that's absolutely fine. And the truth is I could have just ordered that Berliner myself. It's got Berliner red sauce, feta, roast, corn, cabbage, law, sumac, cabbage, claw, excuse me. Plus cucumber, tomato, onion, tzatziki, fried, lavash strips, wrapped in lavash bread. It's all the same thing.

Yes. Yeah. It sounded gross to me too, man. It sounded gross to me too. So I didn't, I didn't, I don't blame you at all. The garlic aioli fried lavash chips, romaine, cabbage, tomato, onion, green pepper, cucumber, tzatziki. Here's the thing.

I've had, I've done them at a training dinner, which is hummus, olives, feta, romaine, cabbage, tomato, onion, green pepper, cucumber, tzatziki. A lot of things. A lot of things. All of them are kind of close. The zesty feta one is, is pretty good too. And that has like some pepperoncinis in it. Um, that's my favorite one, the, the, the, the, uh, the street card Donner and I, and

I, and I've, I've tried them all. I've, I've, I've now eaten at this place a lot. When I first went, I was like, what is this? I don't like this place. Yeah. And then once you kind of get used to spits and you want to order, I think it's a diet. So Hodgman, I did feel bad because I was trying to set, I was trying to set you on a different one.

And then, and then I, it was good. Here's the thing, Mitch. I was, you know, I was, I was poking at you a little bit there, but the truth is, and this is, this is true for everyone. When you go to a restaurant, get what you want. There you go. Someone says, could you share half of this with me? Think about it.

Do you want to? And if it's true, then yes. But if you don't want to say no. Today was a day I just didn't want to. I wanted that. You wanted the street cart. You desired street cart. I desired street cart.

And we both got it. And we got two street carts. And you know what? I think it was the right. I think it was the right move. And I, and you were right to stand up for yourself. Thank you. And, and, and, you know, also, you know, I, I daresay I was right for noticing you kind

of weren't into it. That was I right. So you did not just say no, you're right. So, but was it right of me to flip tables and all of that? Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit of it over.

When you went over to the game zone and you grabbed the Jenga and just started hucking at people that was not, don't just do whatever you want. And it's weird that like previously I was like, I've never spat on someone. But as you know, I started saying, oh yeah, this is spits. This is spits. Spitting at people left and right. Yeah. You kind of have to.

Yeah. And, and so I apologize for that. No, you don't, you don't have to apologize. Nothing to apologize for. I, so I got the Donair salad, donor salad, and I got that with falafel. I got a vegetarian entree. That was a salad. I thought it was a bowl.

Well, this is the thing. It's, it's kind of in that liminal space between salad and bowl because it had a lot of starch in it, but it was not like the, it was not, you know, because I had like garbanzos, it had lavash chips, but it was not like, okay, there's a layer of like rice or something that makes it like a proper bowl. It was still very salad-y, I would say, but it, but a salad with a lot of starch in it. I was the falafel. Uh, more like fall.

Good. It was pretty good. I think it was not. It's not called falaf bad. Falafel isn't falafel, it isn't, there's no bad at the end of it. Fall awful. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, here's what it is. Here's what I'm going to say. No, I feel like a fool. How dare you.

It was fine. I think it was, I think it was pretty good. I think it was, you know, I've had better falafel. It had a decent amount of, of, of Christmas to it. It was not too dry, which sometimes you get that falafel and it's just like a total dry and this one had, you know, it, it was certainly helped by the ample amounts of, of zitsiki and lemon herb dressing that it had, but I think it was, it was a pretty decent falafel. Uh, I think.

Falafel is funny because also one of my favorite seasons, fall. Fall. You're a fall fan. I'm a summer guy. I mean, that's, I mean, those, the summer rays. What, what, what do you consider summer here? Like May through August. Right.

So you're including the August and September, which are. Yeah. It starts to get really hot in August, but August is also like, it's like both me and Natalie's birthday months. So like that kind of has like, again, there's oftentimes a vacation involved. So, you know. When's the last time you went on a vacation in August? Uh, you know, recently, in recent years.

Oh. No, I think we went last year. Did you really? We went on a little getaway last year. Yeah. Where'd you go? Yeah. I went to Ohio High, California.

Not far. Oh, I want to talk to you about Ohio. I've never been there. Lovely. Off mic though, if you don't mind. Yeah. That's fine. It's, it's, we'll save it for off mic.

Anyway, we had a lovely time there. I need to know. Yeah. I need to know as well. No. I think it's a, it's, it's a very, you know, it's, it's a really cloistered sort of. It's got kind of like the, the, the hippie hideaway feel, but also kind of like the resorty feel.

Right. It's, you know, it's a nice place to spend a long weekend. Okay. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Anyway, and also for a place that's like an hour and change away from LA, it feels like a different world, which is the main appeal for me.

Awesome. It like, it's, it's like even more so than going to like Santa Barbara or something. It was like, okay, I'm really feel like I'm in a different part of the state. Anyway, I had a lovely time there. But yeah, I like summer. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about falafel. Yes.

And we're talking about this donor salad. This is a. What's Gober's favorite season? Here's the thing. You ask him that. Yeah. And he has this like weird, like abstract answer of like, what is a season? Yeah.

You're like, Jesus man. Yeah. Come on. Just say like winter or something. Yeah. Don't get all philosophical on me. Don't get all like first year, you know, philosophy major student on me, but that's like what he does.

Right. Yeah. And then when you get like, when you boil it down to it, he just like, finally, he'll be like spring. Like you'll finally get spring on him. Okay. That was, yeah. I had to do was say spring.

Have a 10 minute like. And also like. Spring. Spring is the worst season. Spring is the worst season. Yeah. Spring is the worst season. Spring is the worst season.

It's fucking boring. It's the. It's. It's the horniest season. I think spring is pretty good. The entire. Every. The whole earth.

Is horny. The people on it. The nature in it. Everything is, you know, I'm talking about in our hemisphere. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is a good point. Spring is tops.

I think I go summer, spring. I love winter. I love winter. I'm a winter man. I don't like this cold weather. I thought, I thought you loved fall. I love fall. Yeah.

I love fall winter. You change your tune. Fall, winter. Summer used to be my favorite. Robert himself over here. Yeah. As a boy, as a boy, summer was my favorite. Yeah.

No school. Yeah. And Los Angeles is just different because it's, it's, I mean, it is hot in studio right now. It is hot. It's warm. Yeah, but it's February. And that's what I'm saying.

It's like, who cares? Like winter out here is fine. It doesn't matter. The earth is over. Forget it. Yeah. That's a big issue. Yeah.

But, but for me, fall good, like you said, and then. So the falafel was crumbly. It wasn't crumbly. It wasn't too crumbly. I think my big issue with this is. Spring. Do you mind if I bring it back around to the. No, no, no.

Hold on. Fall, winter, summer, spring. That's my ring. So you say fall, winter, summer, spring. I say basically, not, not the exact reverse order, but I would say summer, spring, fall, winter. Also in him saying it's horny makes me like it less. Yeah.

I like spring less. Hotchman, how do you. I'm not, I'm not particularly comfortable during spring, but I, I acknowledge that it's horny. Yeah. How do you, how do you rank the seasons yourself? Why? I don't know.

We're doing, it's what we're doing. I guess, I guess, I guess I like, I like summer best. Hell yeah. I like summer best and then fall and I like them in order. Summer, fall, winter, spring. Here's the thing. When I was on the East coast and you didn't come to Connecticut to meet me. Right.

In New Haven. We were going to. Well, it's not that I didn't just not show up. I chose not to. Yes. Right. Okay. There's still a few places we didn't get to when we were down there and Louis's lunch

is one of them. And I really want to go to Louis's lunch. You know, I'm being, I would like to, I would really like to go to New Haven with you. Let me know. It'd be a blast. If I can come. I'll come along. You're not going to come along.

I would come along. You'd have to get in an airplane. If it's like, time to some, or other time I'll be over there. Hold on a second. Yeah. I'm going to say this right here. We end our tour. We're doing a tour.

We end our tour. Yes. In Boston. Yeah. Really? And Connecticut is what? How long of a ride is it? An hour and 30, 90 minutes?

About two hours. Two hours. Two hours. 90 minutes, two hours from Boston. New England states are like California counties. Yeah. It's absurd. It's so tiny.

So it's not a big deal. Yeah. You can drive down Louis's lunch. The creator of the burger. I've heard about this. Yes. Are you doing a show in New York? Where I live?

Here's the thing. We got shows in Washington, D.C., New York City. New York City. Where I live. And in Boston. And that's where there'll be a little mini tour. The dates and venues have not been announced. That's very exciting to hear.

Yeah, but yeah. And you'll have guests on. Well, of course I have guests. Well, when you're in New York, tell Carl and Javis that I say hello. Hodger, we would love to have you. I don't want to invite myself on any shows. You're not inviting yourself. We were going to ask you anyway.

I would come and watch the show. I would have a great time. We're going to have an internal discussion. Honestly, if it so happened, right? Can I be honest with you? That I were now to guest on the New York show. The audience now is thinking, oh, we could have had Gabriel and Carl or both of them. And they would murder me.

And then my children would have no father. I'll say this right now. And they would be right. No. They would be right to do it. We're going to have an East Coast guest for, like our plan is like, oh, we haven't even discussed it. We're going to guest, we're going to have on the show yet, but we're like, we'll have

someone from the East Coast because we usually fly someone out. But then we were talking, Mitch, and we remembered that Gober moved back home. So that is an option for us from New York. He said he could do his one man show to open for us. He's going to get the crowd hot. People want Gober. I understand. Gober, honestly, I just would like to hang out with you.

I don't want to be a guest. Gober opening up with characters from around the world could be pretty great. Yeah. I mean, it kind of canceled. One time out, one time I was eating at a hotel and Michael Shannon came and sat down because he knew one of the people that I was eating with. And I was like, oh, hey guys, can I sit down? And he has kind of a weird high pitched voice like Weigar or David Lynch, giving these 30

foot tall Sasquatch man and scary. The freaks of show business, Weigar and David Lynch. And he, and I, I mentioned that I was, I was after I was in LA. Yeah. And then I was heading to Chicago to do a show and he goes, Chicago, well, that's my city. I said, oh yeah. He said, when are you going to be there? I said, well, it's next weekend, Friday and Saturday, I'll be there around that time.

I'm like, oh, okay. Where are you doing it? I'm like, I'm doing it at the second city stand up venue called the up theater, I believe. Oh yeah, I know that place. That's great. I'm like, what's happening? Yeah. Right.

That's wild. What's going on here? He said, Friday, you said? I said, yeah, okay. Michael Shannon, I don't want to be presumptuous, but do you want to take it to the show? And he goes, oh, I'm not going to your show. Hey, do you want this newspaper? And then he walked away.

That's pretty good. Wow. That was great. And a free newspaper. I did get it for your newspaper. You were a lock to be in the New York show and then your season answer was kind of bullshit if you want my opinion. Hey, here's an idea.

Why don't we go from New York to Boston? I don't mess up your stage on any of these places, but we record an episode at Louis Lunch. I mean, I love that idea. It's Colin Weigar's bluff big time. He's going to not be happy. I'll go to Louis Lunch. All right.

Supposedly, that's where they invented the hamburger sandwich. I've heard this. I've also never had Johns of Bleecker in New York for pizza. Can we take the train to Connecticut? Yeah, of course. Of course we can. Oh my God. That's great.

You take the acela train. Oh my God. I'm in the United States. I'm in. Yeah. Hold on to your headband. Louis Lunch. They make great hamburgers.

Yeah. Invented the hamburger sandwich I've heard. Yeah. Hold on to your headband. Look, we got to get to our review. But I'm not going to go there with you. You guys want this newspaper? We'll be back with our fork scores for Spitz right after this.

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We are here with John Hodgman. Hello. And hey, it's time for our final thoughts on spits. So Hodgman, a veteran of the podcast, you know how this will work. We're going to go around, each give our final thoughts, if you will, our clothing arguments, by veteran, you mean I've been honorably discharged? That's right. I've earned a pension and hospice eventually.

Right. Yeah. But I thank you for your service, no longer required. I understand. 100%. And then end up by giving your fork score from zero to five, your thoughts, your review of spits. So I thought the atmosphere was, I mean, I'll use the parlance of the youth, a little

try hard, a little fakey, felt a little fake fun to me. I thought the game zone felt a little fake fun, even though I would have played a game of Scrabble with you two and had a great time. I loved the airiness of it. It did feel, it felt welcoming, even though it was fakey, it had a little bit of air port restaurant vibe, you know, like those 100%, you know, like you're walking, you're walking through the terminal and there's a, there's a fakey farm to table restaurant over there.

And then there's a fakey French bistro on the other side. Right. That's what this felt like to me. Could do worse in an airport though. I would enjoy the setup. I would love this in an airport. And I honestly thought the food was pretty good. I went, when, before I started to dig in, I don't want to spoil what you already spoiled

earlier in the episode, which is, you liked it. Yeah. You were like, this place is a little try hard, but the food, I gotta say, I'm liking, I'll let you go on. I was very excited because I hadn't dug in at that point. Yeah. I did not agree with you 100%. I found the, the, my rap, um, and I don't know if you had the same experience, Mitch,

because you had the exact same rap you may remember. I found it to be a little under seasoned. I thought the food quality was all very good and there was a ton of stuff going on in there with the shredded this and the added that. The textures were all terrific. I just felt it was a little under seasoned, but you know, the sauces were amazing. The Harissa, the juke, the, the Berlin or tangy red sauce, the tzatziki, um, I didn't put hummus in mine, but once I started dipping that stuff in that sauce is it came, it came

to life. I would have been very happy in an airport terminal be eating this before boarding with the, with my boarding group. Yeah. Cause I'm no longer diamond medallion. You're no longer diamond. Now that I'm diamond medallion. I lost it, Mitch.

I lost it February 1st. I got my bag tags the other day. Congratulate. Congratulations. And are you still in the, you can still get in the, the, the sky lounge, right? Just get in the sky. Well, if Mitch is there to sign me in, I don't know if it'll ever happen. Oh, you people disgust me.

It's disgusting. I know. Look, you've got. You're like, you're Mr. Diamond, you've got stairs. You don't have time for me anymore. Diamond Jim. Diamond Jim.

This is, this is, this is, this is very sad to me. Yeah. Well, I had a good look. I just, I haven't been doing as much traveling and Delta extended my diamond medallion status through the pandemic, not just mine, but I think a lot of people they sort of maintain that just to keep you going on the game. They did everything they could for me. Short of inviting me to join Delta 360, the invitation only status program.

Whoa, wait a minute. I didn't even know about that. Yeah. Well, I hope, I hope someone at Delta is listening because I would accept that invitation more like staycation. But the point is, the point is I, I can, I can live with them. Did you not hear that? What's that?

I said more like staycation land. Now available in paperback. Uh, uh, I, I would enjoy, I would enjoy this if I couldn't get into the sky club. Yeah. To set up their delicious sky broth and other foods. I always do a banana. I'd do some sort of drinking a banana. That's good.

That's very healthy. Yeah. Yeah. Take a couple of bananas. Hydration, some vitamin, whatever it is that they do, I guess. Anyway, I would have been very happy eating this food. And I was very happy eating it today. I thought the hummus was pretty spectacular.

I thought all the sauces were great. And if I wanted some more spice, I could have gotten up and gotten some salt, but I didn't feel like it because I was having a good time with my friends in a cool environment where maybe some Jenga is going to go down. Uh, your fork score. Oh, right. Um, one to five, one to five, one to five, one to five. What that?

It's been a long time. It's been a long time. By the way, when you do them, the, uh, munch madness. Bowl, that's right. Bowl. It's just bowl. It's just bowl. It's not the bowl bowl.

Like much madness 2023. The tournament of champions bowl. It's not the, it's not like the super bowl, the bowl bowl. We threw a lot of ideas around and we landed on bowl. There was a good one. It was that the super bowl. And then I think that Emma, this was huge. Emma's pitch was a super bowl and then Colin, the world series of bowl.

Yeah. Just asking for a trademark in Fringe Riddle lawsuit. Superb bowl. And then the world series of bowls. Wasn't that, wasn't that the, yeah, that was good. Well, when I went with just the very creative bowl, bowl with a lot of options. I like it. It's fine.

I'm with it. When I hear it though, you know what I think about Mitch? Who's that handlepin bowling? New England's own handlepin bowling. It's rules. Why has he never done it? I can't imagine how bad I'm going to be at it initially. Cause I'm like, I'm such like a learning curve for any sort of physical activity.

It's much more challenging than 10 pin bowling. I'll have you know. Yeah, that would take me a little bit. You don't have a heavy ball, which is kind of helpful. The heavy ball, I'm doing the heavy ball because like I'm strong enough to deal with the heavy ball on me. And you know, the distinction, one of the main distinctions is the candlepin bowling is named for the pins.

They look like candles. Yes. And when you knock them down, the machine doesn't clear them out. So you can use what's called the deadwood to ricochet off. Like if you can hit one to go spinning off to knock down others. He's going to stay a little while this time. We're going to get a candlepin ball. All right.

Exactly. Anyway, when that comes around, I'm thinking it should be, you know, rating on one to 10 candlepins. Okay. I love that. I'm just, I'm just, it doesn't have to be that. I'm just offering you that to reject. Uh, I'll say, um, say, um, four, four forks.

Very good score. Great score for forks. Solid. All right. Spoon man, Mediterranean food. Is it me? Is it one of your favorite types of food? It is.

Why is the Holy Trinity for me is, uh, uh, the Mexican, Italian, and Mediterranean. Got it. Uh, Italian kind of falls into that category. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? Unless you're talking about Northern Italian, which is very different. I'm talking about, you know, I don't really think about that place too often, but I'm thinking of the whole boot.

The, give me the whole boot from Ted, from the whole boot, from ankle to toe. You're thinking red sauce, pasta, pizza. You're thinking like the Italian, American, Italian, American, Italian, American, American. Yeah. Yes. So, but so not, I know that, you know, we could get like octopus and salad or whatever would be Mediterranean.

Yeah. You know, but we, we, we know what you mean. We get it. That's why, there's no hummus in Sicily. That's what I'm saying. There's no hummus. That sounds like a great book, by the way. Um, that, so the new travel book of travel.

S.A.s by humorous John Hodgman, there's no hummus in Sicily. You got your, like your, this is fresh air. Yeah. Your other photo, like your arms crossed and like one eyebrow. Man, if I did a, if I, if Vacationland had been a bunch of S.A.'s traveling through Sicily and it was called, there's no hummus in Sicily, I'd buy myself some stairs. I think, I think I'd be so rich.

I think you would have been able, I think it would have been a, I think you, I mean, it's still a possibility. Hey, Vacationland's a good book, but it's no, there's no hummus in Sicily. Now, you know what's going to happen to some angry Italian guy, he's going to fucking email it and say, there's plenty of hummus in Italy. What are you talking about? He's going to be fucking pissed off. This is where I don't want to be associated with that slur, right?

This is, this is very close. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going over into, to gober territory. This is very much like a show. Yeah. Uh, characters of the world. This character. Well, he starts in Italy and you're like, okay. Okay, this is too bad.

All right. Maybe he's Italian. I don't know. And then he's like, now I'm heading East. And you're like, oh boy, hopefully to Russia. No. Oh boy. Oh boy, gober.

We love you. We love you. Um, we love you. We do love you. Uh, anyway, I was one of the top three for you. Gober's got, he's got two kids. He's got two kids. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. There was one that he was like, yeah, he was like really quiet about the second one. It's with a different lady too, of course. I'm just going to quick, make a quick call to a professional colleague to let them know I'm going to be very late. Is it Dave Matthews?

You know, I still have the voice memo. I still keep the voice memo of, of you that you sent to Dave Matthews. Yeah. Dave Matthews sent to you about me. Yeah. I was, I was actually going to go meet Dave Matthews for coffee and invite you to come with us as a surprise, but I just got a text from saying, I can't wait any longer.

I'm like, we were supposed to be wrapped up 20 minutes ago. Sorry about that. I don't care. I just don't want to hear about Gober. I'm here all, I'll stay all day. Where am I going to go? I got nothing. Oh, excuse me.

Also, by the way, up here on who March 24th, I got that. But between now and then I'll stay here in the studio. Wow. There's also Gober does like, he's like, he's like, oh, now I'm in the South pole. And we're like, what are you doing? That's a character from around the world. Yeah.

Cold guy. I was like, maybe are you like, are you a research scientist or something? And he's like, like, no, he's just, he's just cold. Now I'm Keith David in the thing. John Carpenter is the thing. That would have been a take. Like that would have been like he would have, oh, I'm saying something, but no, it wasn't even that.

It was Vager, which at the end is Keith David. The thing is, you know, you don't know at the end of the movie, if either one of them are the thing. Uh, one of my favorite, oh, I know the answer. Do you really? Oh yeah. Oh, he said it before, right? Has any said it or no?

John Carpenter told me personally. Wow. Is that true? Yeah. He told me personally who the real thing is. Wow. That's amazing. I said, isn't the whole point for it to be ambiguous?

And he said, no, there's one thing. And it's. What can you say? And we can believe it out. No, cause I can't say it cause it's bullshit. God damn it. I believed you. God damn it.

I believe you too. One of my favorite movies. We're going to have such fun in Connecticut. We're going to have such fun in New Haven. Um, tell you what. Well, I was almost missed. I know someone who works at the Yale Daily News. We can get in there after hours.

Uh, I'll be a blast. Oh, um, I might be feeling sick after Louis lunch. Um, I, so, okay. So look, the thing is one of my favorite movies. Metatrain and food is one of my favorite foods, Mike's. Um, I, I love it. I eat it a lot. It's also one of the things that I order a lot online because you can also

feel decent about what you eat a lot of the time. You're not eating anything fried. And here it's a little, it's a little bit more of a pub fast food thing. There's, we had a plate of French fries. We had to keep to Keto's and there's the fried pita chips, which I do enjoy. I like those. I like those fried pita chips quite a bit. Um, I wasn't impressed with the wraps the first time I went there, but that is

till I found out Zog or Zoog or Zog or whatever it is. I would really suggest you stop saying Zog. Zog seems wrong. The old before Zog. No, it's, um, that's a white supremacist term. Oh, no. Okay. All right.

So I, that's all I'm going to say. And I only know it from the movies. I'm not a white supremacist. Oh, yes. I'm reading it right now. It's an acronym. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

Now you tell us, but you know what else it is? It's a TV movie from 2018. That's what he's referring to about a keen, but accident prone dragon. Who goes to dragon school? That's a lot of that's what I was talking about. And the dragon discovers at when he goes to dragon school that there really is qualitative differences between race. I had no idea that that was a term.

Zoog. I'm going to say from here on out. Oh, yeah. Zog, Zog, Zog, until I found Zog, I loved Zog. Uh, a huge fan of, of this, it's just a sauce delivery mechanism. Why? Cause we've talked about this before. Yeah.

And, and, and when you're putting on to Zeke or, or Zog. Uh, I'm having a blast. I, I really liked that lamb and beef combo. I've had the chicken. I've had a lot of, and you know what, they have a fine Greek salad. If you do the wrap and a salad, you feel pretty good for lunch. It's not a bad lunch. Um, I gotta go.

Look, the place is a little try hard. I was going to try to be like, uh, I guess mid is not. I said that earlier. I don't know if that's the right word, but, uh, I don't know if I would call sitting down at that place, like my cup of tea. Sure. Would younger people call it daddy or whatever? Maybe.

I don't know. That's weird. Cause you suggested it. I did, but I did want to go in there. I do want to sit down and eat together. I thought it'd be nice. It was, I have, I have the full text thread that went back and forth for quite a while. It did.

But you know what, as Mitch was trying to convince Weigher to go to it and Weigher's like, why do we have to just eat it in the studio, like monsters? Yeah. I thought it'd make our lives easier and then, and then you said, no, let's do it. And then I was like, I'll just, I'm for whatever option provokes the most resentment so we can talk about it on the pot. Right. Let's see in the break room in front of all the hunks and in the dark, we're in

there like fucking trolls. Oh, excuse me. I just need to grab my protein powder. So what's up? Well, what's the stinks in it? Yeah. I'm recording the hunk casting a little bit. You guys going to be out of there by three?

I cool. There wasn't for you though to sit there. You decide on, on, in reflection, you wouldn't go there. Cool. You guys are going to be out of there by three. Cool. We'd like to freeze it down for a little while. Oh, sorry.

My hog is hanging out of the bottom of my basketball shorts. Jesus, it's scraping across the ground. Anyway, a bunch of hunks here. Um, but you know what? I'm sure those hunks would enjoy it. I think they would have a good time at, at the restaurant. Yeah. Casey, you enjoy sitting there having a beer.

It is, it's a true. It's a nice friends. Yes. Yes. Friends. I do sit there with my friends. That was established. A good open, they got big open windows.

It's good, especially nowadays. Uh, they were playing, uh, they were playing the cure when I got in there. It was really cool. They were playing some cool music and then they, and then they dropped. They, I mean, they, there were some cranberries that were played. They did two princes by, uh, two princes. That was a mood. It was a good nineties playlist.

I'm going for, I can't go below four. No, that's exactly how I feel. And I, I don't know if I can, I don't know if I go four and a half, but maybe 4.25 forks. That's what I'm doing. Or forks one time. That's right. So with both of your scores, again, it falls to me to determine whether or not

this is on the outside looking in, or actually welcome to the club. That is the golden play club. It's true. And we're going to, we're going to see if that happens right now. We're going to see if that gets into the, the sky club, if you will, of dough boys, the exclusive on clearly rubbing it in for the finest of chain restaurants, really rubbing it in. I agree with both of you that this is kind of a little bit more fast foodie.

Then, you know, just like a, like it's not as health forward as I kind of expected. Like, like even my salad was a little bit indulgent. Uh, for instance, the garbanzos, not being proper garbanzos, but being deep fried, like they're like crispy and they're, they're like little, you know, they, they get like the texture of wasabi peas and they're a little greasy. And the, the, the, the, the pita is also fried. It's, it's just like some unnecessary frying on when we came in was like, I love that place.

You can get a salad on top of fries. Which is kind of great. It is cool. But you can add fries to pretty much anything on the menu. Hang on. You want to hear me make what might be my most dough boys joke of all time? Please. Please.

You referred to this restaurant as try hard. I might argue that it is fry hard with a vengeance. That's really good. That's really good. You know what? Another one that I made that I, that made me think of the dough boys when I was on tour, what's that you have a Disney plus, you know, the Star Wars show Andor my opinion, Andor, why not both?

It's unfortunately too funny to be a dough boys joke. That's stupid. That's good. That's good. But still hasn't seen Andor. I'm trying to get a watch and why not both? Yeah. Why not both?

My question. I got to watch Andor. I'm going to watch Andor. Really good. Andor is great. It's really good. I'm going to watch Andor. This I think is kind of the, of a microcosm of make up your mind.

Andor make a statement. Yeah. The, the microcosm of the vibe within spits, their bathroom had a sign up in, instead of like, where it normally has the gender marker that has a, a, you know, silhouette of a man, silhouette of a woman, silhouette of a, like person. Yeah. Of a, just a generic, generic person, you know, the, yeah, person, a wheelchair, a baby, an alien, a creature with two heads and then a Spartan, a Spartan

warrior with a shield and a spear and a helmet. And it says underneath it, whatever, just wash your hands. Which is like, okay, that's an inclusive message. That's nice. The Spartans were well known for their inclusivity. Exactly. Yes. Historically speaking.

But it, but it's also like, just like a little, like, a little exhausting, you know, a little cringe, a little cringe. Yeah. And that's kind of how the, what the overall vibe of the place is, but the service was great. Doris was an absolute delight, a very helpful and I think it's a, it's a decent value. You know, we got a lot of stuff and we didn't completely break the bank. You could get yourself a lunch for $15.

It's not, not bad. It's quite filling. Quite filling. It was quite filling. Yeah. A lot. Doris said we did a good job ordering too. She said, you guys did a great job with what you got.

I said, well, Doris helped. She, she did, she definitely helped. And I, you know, I think it was a perfectly capable Mediterranean salad that was like a tier above what I would have expected. So for that reason, I say, it was like full acceptable. Not full awful, very much acceptable, very much. I say to Spitz, welcome to the golden four forks. We are at ballpark buds here.

We are, we're kind of at a hand holding club. We're the only one who's, I was, I'm almost, I mean, I kind of was on the edge of my seat literally, but only cause I'm sliding down in my own sweat. Can I ask, uh, John, before we get to our segment, you, I was curious about your shoes and you said, we're going to save it on the podcast. So can you tell us about your shoes? I'm wearing some sneakers, which I've put up on the coffee table, like a real asshole. No, this is great.

It's a power move. Uh, and I apologize for that. They are there and I get no sponsorship for this. Hoka, H-O-K-A, I thought that they were Hoka. The whole, the company name is Hoka one one, but I've been told that that's incorrect. It's actually Hoka One One. And there, and I, I got some of them, uh, when I was, uh, traveling, I needed some new sneakers and I went into a cool shoe shop and there are a bunch of cool

sneakers around and I saw these and I said to the very cool young person, what do you think about these, uh, sneakers? And they said, my dad and his friends swear by them. I'm like, all right, yeah, to complete the cycle of humiliation. And I now must buy them. They're very comfortable and they come in very cool colors. These are some that I got as a gift for the holidays. Yeah.

They look great. Hoka One One. This is not a, this is not a plug for them. A plug would be please watch up here on Hulu, March 24th. It's a really good show. Everyone in it is terrific. Check it out. But what were you, what was the other thing you were going to ask about?

You were moving on. Oh, that was, you're moving on to the new segment. Move on to the segment. Yeah. Yeah. Before you do though, I just want to say, you call this restaurant, a little try hard. I would say that it's maybe, and this is my pun chip.

I would say that it's maybe fry hard with a vengeance, co-starring Justin Long, my friend from the ads. Oh, there you go. He's your friend from the ads. He's your friend from the ads. He was great and barbarian. Oh my God. He was so great and barbarian.

That movie is terrific. What a, what a pill. Drop King, our buddy, Robert Persinger, saw it five times in theaters. Just absolutely loves it. Jesus, Drop King, what the hell? Happy birthday to Drop King. Happy belated birthday to the Drop King. Does he have a disorder where he can't be surprised?

He like the movie. He can't remember when things surprise him. Nick, after your whole bathroom spiel, I can assume that you're playing Hogwarts Legacy, is that correct? There's two bathrooms and that's it, what it's supposed to be. I never really cared about Harry Potter. It feels like a little private schoolie to me, doesn't it? Very much so.

It's fucking from the UK. They're class obsessed. I prefer the story of Zog goes to the races. Well, look, that was our review of Spitz. Oh, I remember what I was going to say. Spitz more like swallows. Wow. But it's good.

With a Z on the end? With a Z, yeah. But it's good though. But it's good. I guess that's good. I'll put it in the intro. Hey, I got a food stuff. We're going to decide if it's worth putting in your mouth.

It's snack or whack. Whack said it, he said, is Spitz going to be on the outside looking in? A song from the play The Point that I was in as a boy. It's National Tootsie Roll Day. And as of this episode's release. And so I have a Tootsie Roll for each of you. I have not had a proper Tootsie Roll, one of these big boys. I'll take one and pass it down.

Great school style. Thanks, buddy. Welcome. Thank you. So these are the long guys. Thank you, buddies. It's nice to see you. Aw, how delightful.

All right, the long boys. Yeah, these are like the five inchers. And they're squared off. I forgot the Tootsie Rolls are not, they don't roll. No, they do not roll. They're squared off. Emma, do you got to take on, on Tootsie Rolls? Are you a fan?

Um, I, Tootsie Rolls are one of those things that like, if they're around, if someone has a big bowl of Tootsie Rolls, I will eat them all day long and I won't be able to stop myself, but it's really candy. I choose. Yeah. It's like, I think it's just like, it's like chewing on gum almost. It's like just like an oral fixation. It's just like satisfying to eat.

I don't know why. Do you ever get the big boy, the full size? Uh, yeah. Sometimes I like the little nuggets. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm normally associated with the tiny little ones. These, these big ones are, are a rare. I haven't had one of these in forever. I feel like the big ones are harder to chew because they're so intense to bite.

I like the little like single, single bite size. Let's be honest too. They look nasty. They look nasty. They look like shit. I mean, they look like they look like shit. Tootsie Rolls always Halloween bag ballast for me. Like just like if I accidentally got one, I was mad.

Let me tell you something. I'm kind of liking that bite. It's very chewy. And that's a big issue with me. There's just that chewy, that, that ooey gooey, so soft and chewy texture. It's sometimes a little much. I'm just hoping that it'll melt in my mouth because I know if I actually chew down on it, I'm going to have that in there for the next five days.

I hate having stuff stuck in my teeth. It drives me nuts. It is. But flavor wise, it's not as bad as I remember. Yeah, it's a little, I mean, I feel like mostly what you're taking, what you're tasting. I'm looking at the ingredients here. I think most of what you're tasting is like oil and sugar.

It is. It's a chewer. It's not very chocolatey. I'm sorry to be talking this way, but I just don't want to chew down. Cotton candy, sweetie go. Let me see you tootsie roll. That's the song. Right.

Um, a good song is a good song is a great song is a great song. Is it a great snack? I'm going to say this. I could take it or leave it. You know what, the roll never bothered me anyway. There you go. I'm taking her leave it. I that I took a small bite.

Yeah. And I'm saying this on the dough boys. I'm looking right at camera three. I'm never going to have any tootsie roll again in my life. This is the last time you're going to go to the grave without another tootsie roll. Yeah. Easily, easily. I first of all, it's probably going to happen and soon second of all, I had no

desire for this and this did not spark it. I mean, it's what it is. It's exactly what it is. I should have taken a second bite. It's a classic. It's a classic. I feel like a dog that you gave peanut butter to. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think this is a. I had a I had a I had a fractured molar removed. Oh my God. I still got a hole there where because they're waiting for it to heal up before they put in the fake the fakey. I could put a chunk of this tootsie roll in there and it'd be there for two years.

They call me tootsie roll tooth, Hodgman. They would call you that. They would. Well, I said it on a very popular podcast. I think the I agree with you that I never need to have another one of these again. Like I like I might have another one of these again some day, probably for some bullshit, you're not brave enough to rule it out with me. I don't you're not going to join the no more roll club with me ever.

All right, fine. I will never have another tootsie roll again in my life. Yes, I don't need this. This is, you know why? Cause I like this as a kid, but as an adult, this is fucking wack. I don't need it. I'm, I'm swearing off of tootsie. I don't need, I don't need this.

I don't need this either, camera three. I have, I have my friend, Nick and I have my health for now. And I have God or whatever. I don't need you tootsie roll. Get out of my life forever. Goodbye. Wow. I feel like I should take another bite of this.

No, don't make. No, we made a, we made a pact. Oh, that's it. This is that. No, I know I can't, I can't believe you. To your pact, I'm going to quote George HW Bush. Not going to do it. I am.

I am going to have a tootsie roll again, especially the flavored ones. I think the flavored ones are fun. What are the flavored ones? There's like strawberry, strawberry, right? Right, right, right, right. They're kind of gross. Yeah. Yeah, kind of are, but they're all gross.

It's, look, it's, it's like kind of Americana to me in some way. I, I tootsie roll is like fun. These big ones are hard to, my jaw was hurting. It's too much chewing. I have to say that these were, this was, I will say this is the best tootsie roll I've ever had in so far as it's hot AF in here. And they are basically melting. Cause the ones I remember from Halloween night were really dense.

I was wondering, but did you just have, did you have weak child teeth? That's what I wondered too. Did I have weak child's teeth? That's what I'm saying. Like, cause I remember that week. Did I have weak child's teeth? Wow. You didn't share your sandwich with me.

Now you're, now you're, you're dissing my teeth. You were talking about your molar issues. I think maybe you had sheep fucking the little weak child's teeth. Boy. I'd never thought I'd see the day Mitch would, would turn heel on me. Start bullying me rather successfully. My tootsie roll fell out of my hands. My tootsie roll is all over there.

The spell is broken. Everyone, the tootsie roll is on my lap. Mitch is no longer a bully of me. It does look like a turd. Yeah, it's disgusting. Oh, no, it didn't leave a stain on my pants. Need to washing anyways. Um, how did it, how did it feel to be destroying me though?

You were, I was, yeah. I mean, it felt like, it felt like that might have been on. I'm saying me too, as a child. Oh, okay. I remember it was like hard to eat. It was hard to, it was hard to eat. And yeah, I had weak, I had weak children's teeth. I will eat a tootsie roll again.

I was a weak tooth. And you know what, you, I feel like you were slightly a weak tooth. Um, you were right. That's why it hurt so hard. Sweet tooth, twist of metal, the summer. Um, I'm going to go with snack. Wow. Wow.

Two, two wax one snack. I don't even think you could ever describe this as a snack because to me, it's too sweet for a snack. Yeah. I can't imagine having this for a snack. Like, hmm, I'm feeling a little, uh, peckish. I'm going to have myself a giant, a giant turd like tootsie roll at my desk. More of like a, a, a treat it or beat it.

And I'd say beat it right out of here. Right. Yeah. Beat it. Will you say beat it? But you say treat, treat it, treat myself to a tootsie roll. I mean, you're not going to get these all the time. It's a light snack.

It's an American classic. It's an American classic. I just like, as an adult, I have no reason to ever eat this again. And I won't. Wow. I'm, I said it and I meant it. I don't know whether I'm going to be checking in on you. I mean it.

I'll get rid of this thing soon. But you still have it in front of you. Yeah. But I won't be for long. Don't stop, you know, don't use that as a crutch. Throw it away. I will. When we're done recording, I will.

When we're done recording. Uh, hey, happy tootsie roll day to all who celebrate, uh, just like a restaurant by your feet. You know who's celebrating today? Gover. Oh my God. Remember he was like, there was a time where he was like, he's like, he's like, Oh, I survive on ramen and tootsie rolls.

We're like, why? Yeah. I was like, why? Yeah. You're, don't you come from a rich family? Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. You just like LARPing is like a starving student because you want to like beat,

like you want to seem authentic. And also why tootsie rolls? Like I get the ramen is like a meal thing. That's like a classic thing. Yeah. But like tootsie rolls throw it in the mix didn't really make any sense. Yeah. Anyways, we love the guy.

Well, and then you like, if you look at the back of, of, uh, of the tootsie roll rapper, it says tootsie roll industries as subsidiary of Gover Pharmaceuticals. And then it all starts making sense. You remember that guy that we all knew together and we knew him for so long. We're like, this guy, you remember this guy, he was like, I'm someday I'm going to be a member of the U S house of representatives. And we're like, no way, Louie Gohmert. That's right.

Yeah. I remember this guy. What a guy. Yeah. Let's save that joke for love it or leave it. Good for him. He's doing great. And then there was that girl that we all went to college with.

And she also said, I'm going to be a member of the house of representatives. And we said it's not possible. Yeah. Lauren Boebert. I remember this. Remember Boebert. We were, and we were, as far as college was go, we were, the four of us were inseparable.

Hanging out on the quad. Oh yeah. B.Y., Hodgman, and Boebert all in college together. Right. Dining hall. Hey, just like a restaurant value feedback, that's up to the feedback. And we have a voicemail today. Emma, if you want to queue this up for us.

Hey, Bill boys, this is Wesley from Atlanta. I've called in the past and I got nervous and hung up. Wow. A big fan of ET, the extraterrestrial. I run a Twitter account that's all about ET. And my question is, if you were trying to befriend an alien, a nice friendly one, what kind of candy would you use to lure him or doesn't have to be candy? What kind of food would you use to lure him into your home?

Like Elliott famously used Reese's Pieces and ET was a big fan. So, what would you use? Thanks. This is a great question, Wesley. Oh, we have a sad follow up. Um, Wesley died a fright after it got released, which is really sad. Well, he gave his all. Yeah.

At least he won out with me. Thank you for your sacrifice. Remember Boebert was really cool too, back in the day. People change. She's like Boebert, like Doe Bart. And we were like, that's funny. That's funny. That's like Simpsons.

That's right. She's making cool references. And then Goebert fucking Mencied it. Yeah. He started doing it as act. Or like, that's not your joke. And he's like, what? It's like, it's my joke.

Cause I say it. It's like, that's not how it works. And that's kind of where Boebert started going, right? She, she was like, this is a betrayal from someone I thought was a friend. And yeah, she's just sort of thinking about the caller's question. Uh-huh. You know, I think that if you're, it's got to be something in the Reese's Pieces form factor.

Yeah. If you're going to leave a trail, if you're trying to tempt a thing into a house or a lab, so you can alien autopsy it, I suppose that's another reason you might want to. Jesus. Well, look, think, I mean, look, think of what we could learn about the universe and ourselves. That's true.

If we just tore that alien's body apart. Why does he turn gray? We need to figure out why he turns gray. Right. Exactly. I, I, so, but, so that's my feeling. So I'm Reese's Pieces. I think works.

Hmm. I, I think if you can get the rights to use M&Ms, I have, I would go with Reese's or Reese's, how do they say you say it? Reese's, I think as a pro is how it's supposed to be pronounced, but Reese's is a regional is Reese's. Okay. And then there are people who say Reese's, Reese's, that's what we did. Reese's, right.

I, you know what I do? Reese's peanut butter cup. You know what? Cup after cup, a trail of cups. Trail of cups. I'd follow that to your door. Yeah. It's better than, look, pieces are Reese's, Reese's pieces are okay.

Well, give me the peanut butter cup. Yeah. I don't want one great flavor that goes great on its own. I want two great flavors that go great together. Chocolate and peanut butter. Yeah. Give me that, give me that strong tasting peanut butter and chocolate combo. You're going to, you know what, there's going to be more than E.T. at your door.

You're going to probably get a bunch of aliens there. You're going to, you're going to, you know what I mean? Alf, the whole gang is going to be there if you put Reese's. The spaced invaders, they might show up. That's what I'm saying. I might do a line of dry gin martinis. That's not bad. I think the, this is, you know, I'm thinking again about just luring an

alien in and I kind of feel like, you know, you never know. Sometimes, and I had, who knows what the, the biology of extraterrestrials, but like, I know like a lot of non-humans. That's why we got to tear them up. I, that's why we got to tear them open. See what makes them tick. Uh, the, but. And I'm not even talking about using a scalpel or anything.

Just hands. Well, depending on how big they are, you might be able to do that. But if they're like, not V-sized, you're going to need a bone saw. Jesus. No, gigantic. Oh, that's, that's true. Yeah. Okay.

I was thinking like a little one. No. Yeah. If they're like a little like gray, you might be able to like disassemble them with your hands, like a, you know, like a forest creature. Yeah. Yeah, but we'll see. Okay.

So you're luring them in with what? I think I'm thinking fruit by the foot because it's all like it's one continuous piece. So you can kind of unspool it and sort of, you know, reel them in. And then also I know dogs and cats who are, you know, friendly and associated with animals, with, with people like, you know, they can. You're saying you're going to have to put them up for Wally and Irma. Yeah.

But they had, they can't give them peanut butter or peanut butter. Yeah. I mean, Wally and Irma wouldn't eat it, but if this attracted elf, that's also an issue for all Wally and Irma. So. Alfie is a cat, so I'd have to break his neck, as I've said before. Um, but I also feel like, you know, a lot of a, especially. Can I tell you something though?

His, his, just so you know, his neck, it's really a wrist. Wow. What do you think about it? Yeah. Alf. Alf's neck is a wrist. Alf's wrist. Someone's, someone's wrist.

I don't want to blow your mind. I never, that is, that is wild. Yeah. It makes me upset, honestly. When you're really thinking about what's going on in there, anatomically, it is a little, it's a little upsetting. You know, what's funny is that I wrote an odd, like I wrote a story, like my experiences with gober and I like, and I wrote it and I spent like years on it.

Just so you can't use this. I'm going to call for a loud. It took me years to write it. And then I, I gave it to my manager titled Mac and me. And then I found out that there was a, there's a movie called Mac and me called Mac and me and that's, that was, so I was like, forget it, just forget the whole thing. I just tossed it out.

Well, your manager was like, you could retitle it. Yeah. And I was like, you know, you're like, you put your foot down. You're like, that has to be this time. It has to be Mac and me. I have not seen the famous E.T. ripoff movie Mac and me. Is there a Reese's Pieces equivalent in that movie?

I fuck. I want to say it's McDonald's McDonald's French fries. I think there's a whole thing where they go to a McDonald's restaurant and it's like basically like a five minute ad for McDonald's in the middle of the movie. I bet McDonald's or any French fries would be more effective in luring. McDonald's French fries is a great, great answer. Here's the thing, the cool down factor. Well, but, but here's the thing, like a lot of, a lot of, in particular, like the

candy we have in America that are super processed and, you know, laden with additives, they're just like so sickly sweet if you're not used to it. And I could see like aliens who may be, you know, if you're coming from like a Pandora-like planet where you, you're not less, like processing your food super heavily that then like, it might be just like aggressively sweetened and chemically if you're giving them a piece of candy. So yeah, something like a French fry might be a little bit less processed and a little bit more palatable.

Well, then why not a line of plums or delicious peaches? There you go. Nature's candy. There's some fruit down there. That's probably what, you know what? The aliens would probably like that the most. Yeah, give them some fresh fruit. I might even like, like some raisins.

Give them some raisins. That sucks. I know. That's, I mean, you're right, but that sucks. I know, but that's science, Mitch. It's not always fun and games. It's true. Sometimes you need raisins to lure an alien in so you can cut it open.

Stem to stern. If science was more fun and games, maybe I'd be in a different field right now, but instead. Here we are. Here we are. Yeah, here we are. Uh, let us know what, what food or candy specifically you would use to lure aliens out there.

Hashtag chew F O. We'll share some of our favorites. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, email us at doughboyspodcast.com. We'll use a voicemail like, uh, Wesley did at eight, three, zero. Go dough. That don't be scared. Don't be scared.

Four, six, three, six, eight, four, four. Don't be scared. The worst that could happen is that we make fun of your question. Um, eight, three, zero, four, six, three, six, eight, four, four. And to get the doughboys double or weekly bonus episodes, join the golden or platinum play club, patreon.com slash doughboys. And hey, chat with us and doughboys snack pack on Spotify live. Hang out chat with us every Thursday at eight 30 PM Eastern.

Listen live on Spotify. John Hodgman, uh, everyone go ahead and check out up here on here on 24th and also on Hulu, all 10 episodes of Dicktown. That's right. By me and David Reese are still there and, and we, and you can go just to have a whole night of Hulu and unlike the podcast, it's our podcast. It's funny stuff. Yes.

It's good. Oh, that's very good. And the judge, John Hodgman podcast. Thank you. That's all my plugs. Awesome. Check all that out and still available in paperback medallion status. Check out my new book.

Might have to pull that off the shelves. Don't, don't, don't order. Don't ever order hummus in Sicily. Medallion is what it was. What was that book again? Medallion status true, true stories from secret rooms. Got to pull it off the shelves. Oh, because I'm not diamond.

That's what I'm saying. Oh my, oh my goodness. Uh, also, uh, if you guys are leaving for something to listen to, Mitch and I are going to be appearing on the go, go, go bird cast. Um, it'll be the episode will be out as of this episode's release. So check it out. And do you remember what episode of Drew Carey we're doing? Um, we're doing, we're doing the, the one that was live.

Yes. That's right. The one they, that was aired live. It was actually kind of cool. Yeah. Uh, but like, yeah, they, they had like improv games in them. They'll love it. Just like prove that they were, it was spontaneous.

Yeah. That's good. Gober just like keeps saying like, like what Ryan's style should have said was this is like, you're not as funny as Ryan's style. Stop second guessing is improv choice in the middle of the scene. In the middle of the scene. He'll like interrupt it. Oh, that's so go bird.

And then we're going to get, we're going to like record it. And then he's going to be like, dudes, I lost your audio. Like this has happened before. This has happened so many times. I wouldn't be shocked if we have to rerecord it. Yeah. We'll see. Let me go over.

Anyway, check that out. And hey, check out John Hodgman on his actual thing up here, uh, which is on Hulu, March 24th. Hey, that'll do for this episode of Doe Boys. No next time for the Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya. Bye.

Want more Doe Boys? Check out the Doe Squad, our Discord server. Get access to that and the Doe Boys double over at patreon.com slash Doe Boys. Sources for the intro are in the episode description. That was a hate gun podcast.