Dumb People Town - DPT Mini - Myq Kaplan - The Great Pizza Detective

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Myq Kaplan joins Daniel, Jason and Randy for a Friday episode of Dumb People Town! Daniel brings the story about a couple who is trying to help a local pizza restaurant but didn’t get what they were expecting. 

Skypains Avenue Hey townies, welcome to another episode of Dumb People Town. Population you. Population Kaplan. Mike. Population Kaplan. Mike Kaplan. Hey, buddy. How are you? Happy to be here, living in this town with you. I know.

Well, you live in this dumb town with us, but you're a very smart human being. We have always loved you. The fact that we, and I just went back and looked at a stand-up set of ours from 2009, which is right around the time we recorded our half-hour specials together at John Jay college.

We were paired with you and that made us so happy. And then simultaneously scared because your special was filled with so many jokes, like set up punchline set up punch. It was so good. We were downstairs getting made up, watching your set, just dying,

laughing. And we're like, we don't have enough punchlines. God damn it that's what we said well and that was before you were working together as a team right you were only doing like one person at a time one person does five minutes then the other person does five minutes yeah that was a bad format a lot of opposition comedy they're weird together working together you can have as many punch lines as i have on my own that's what we learned here's the

deal you got a new project. We're going to talk about that shortly. But first things first, we've got to get into this dumb world. I mean, the world is still dumb, Mikey. We can be quarantined, but it's still dumb. I believe it. Right. So we're going to jump into a story sent to us by our awesome fans.

And the four of us will try and make some sense of it all. Please. our awesome fans and the four of us will try and make some sense of it all please uh this was sent in by victor gran doom scroller he changed his uh name but his handle stays the same and he's been crushing it during this time of isolation thank you victor gram doom well it's mr at jake groaney yeah groaney groaney yeah one one more time so thank you so much. Okay, you ready for this? It's fun. They ordered pizza to support a local business during the pandemic, but Chuck E. Cheese showed up instead. God damn it, Chuck E. Cheese.

Have you ever been to a Chuck E. Cheese? I think I certainly went to, if not my own, but many other kids' birthday parties when I was yesterday. You have a mustache now and that feels like it does look great. I got this mustache at Chuck E. Cheese. How many

tickets was that mustache? I won all of the skee-ball. All of the skee-ball. I remember going to Chuck E. Cheese so much when I was a kid and it was just consistently of my mom being like,

Danny, get out of the ball pit. We're leaving. Get out of the human habit trail. You know, like there's a thing where you climb up in the habit trail. The one in Eagle Rock doesn't have a ball pit. Neither has a ball pit or habit trail. Yes, it does. It does not.

Yes, it does. Ooh, this is that early opposition comedy they were doing. I have not seen it. Oh, man. Maybe I haven't been there in like 10, 12 years. And I've been there recently a lot. And I ain't seen nothing. They serve beer at Chuck E. Cheese.

By the pitcher. So here's my question. In a post-corona world, will we be able to go to Chuck E. Cheese? I don't think you can possibly go to a Chuck E. Cheese. Like, I didn't trust the people there before. We will have to each have our own home ball pit. That's what we do now. That's right.

It's a win-win. Home ball pit might actually work. But the idea that, like, Chuck E. Cheese was probably never cleaned in the first place. No, you're touching a bunch of stuff that a bunch of kids who are sick are touching, and then you're going and eating pizza. Its motto is, its logo, it's mascot. That's the word I'm looking for. It's mascot.

It's a rat. It's a rat. It's run by a rat. The rat was the delivery system for the plague back in the day. Oh, yeah. All right, so they ordered pizza. They got Chuck E. Cheese. Yeah, they got Charles Escobar cheese okay damn it kendall neff thought she was supporting a local business when she and

her husband ordered food saturday evening the pizza the pizza shop listed on grubhub as pasquale's pizza and wings seemed independent at first its menu offers those items and little besides a cookie pizza and canned sodas. Hey, Pasquale. Hey, I like the cookie pizza. Yes. The Oaks, Pennsylvania resident was preparing for another night in and something cheesy, and her husband was craving wings. On first glance, they assumed the restaurant with no reviews at the time was a small business.

There's your red flag. There's your red flag. No reviews, Mike. If you are ordering food from places with no reviews, you live life on the edge. Right? They didn't even ask their friends and family to leave some reviews

to pre-order the restaurant as we often do with our albums. Get it up on the rankings a little bit. Get some yelping. This is the best pizza place that my grandmother, I mean, strangers have ever had. Exactly. Right.

Their own employees should definitely have boosted it. But again, this is what happens. This is how you know or you should know that, yes, a family-run restaurant would have all of their friends. Sure. If Pasquale's was a family and they had the Italian restaurant, The Pasquale family that came over from Sicily, Italy. You know how you go to an Italian restaurant and order wings? That should have been an indication. Hey, it's a nice wing.

I like a football wing. And so the idea that tells you it's part of a larger conglomerate. Right, or at least steer clear of it. I'm not trying to like... I put this in the same context as comedy clubs, and Mike, you know this as well. When you're on the road, the clubs that are run best

are the clubs that are owned, like there's like two clubs, or three of them, and they're owned by the person who is in attendance most nights, and so it's a ship. They care about it. They care about it.

They're there. When you get into a giant chain, it's like, I They care about it. They care about it. They're there. When you get into a giant chain, it's like, I don't know who's running this place. I really don't know. Would you guys buy... At a giant chain, if they do it this pizza restaurant style,

it would be like a comedy club, like an improv or a funny bone, but then just putting on the website, be like, it's the old funny shack. No reviews. Get your wings, your jokes winged at you's the old funny shack. No reviews. Get your jokes winged at you.

Your old funny factory. That's right. Get your chicken fingers and hummus. Support local. They're really trying to pull on that support local heart strength. They're trying to trick you. They're trying to trick you because they know if they put Charles E. Cheeses at

the top of it, boom. No one's buying it. Who's going to order that? I don't think that the four of us, nor anyone listening to this, would buy anything online that had zero reviews. I think that is... Yeah, but Dan, Google is the grand equalizer. If you say pizza, and you Google it, and it just says Pasquale's comes up

first, you're like, all right, I'll try it. Well, it says, at first glance, they assumed the restaurant with no reviews was a small business trying to weather the pandemic and they wanted to support it. No reviews equals no stars. It turns out. No reviews, but it also was one of the first ones that came up.

They had massive search engine optimization in operation. That's right, but no reviews. How could no reviews? Again, that is an incongruency that these people should have figured. I don't want to blame the victims here. No, they're definitely, they were being tricked by a giant corporation trying to trick them.

The trickster, like if you get tricked by the devil, you know, you're still better to be tricked by the devil than to be the devil. Exactly. Thank you. It turns out the Grubhub listing, so that's where they were looking was just solely on Grubhub listings, was for a virtual restaurant operated from the Chuck E. Cheese in Berwyn. Berwyn Pasquale is the pizza-making character in the franchise's lore and animatronic shows, according to the Chuck E. Cheese wiki, which also is a thing we all know. Okay, so you should never have to go deep into the lore of a restaurant in order to know if you're being screwed, right? Unless that lore is the restaurant in Denver

where they do the diving shows. Have you ever been to Casa Bonita in Denver? They do cliff diving shows. I don't think I have. There's also a man in a gorilla costume that they trace. Don't they chase him and try and catch him? There is. There's an old Black Bart character.

Our joke, which was in our stand-up, which we did in Sklars and Stripes, which is on Amazon. Audible. Audible. Our joke was that they say it's authentic Acapulco-style cliff diving. Authentic, yet every diver is a white kid from the suburbs. Right. So yeah, so this is the only job in America where white people have stolen Mexican people's jobs. And we're all just okay with it. And everyone's growing up. Go ahead, Mike. Go ahead, Mike. What were you going to say?

I like it. I like it. And I feel like here's what maybe happened is perhaps this wasn't even supposed to be a restaurant. It's like when there's a phone number in a movie that actually goes somewhere because they set it up for fun. Like if you're playing the video game of Chuck E. Cheese you're like, oh look, there's a restaurant, a virtual restaurant in the world of this restaurant. There's a fake kitchen in here.

Somebody called our fake kitchen looking for pizza. I guess we send it to them? Yeah, I guess we make it. We gotta make it, I guess. I have a picture here of Pasquale in case anybody was wondering what he looks like. I mean, take. Jay, if you wanna. Jay, please describe Pasquale.

You'll for sure. And let Mike take a look. All right, Mike, do you see that? Oh yeah, I think I got it from the sound of, the tone of your voice that you just made. I mean, he is like, take Mario and Luigi and say they aren't racist. Stereotypical enough.

Now, this is not a recent reference, but also very like welcome back. Cotter vibes. Yeah. Is it Dave Kaplan? Gabe. Gabe. Dave. Dave Kaplan is a Chicago sports personality.

Gabe Kaplan. It says here. It's kind of like Gene Shalit. It's just. It is very Gene Shalit. Yeah. It's just funny. It's just funny that is very Gene Shalit. Yeah. It's just funny. It's just funny that my reasoning for choosing the place

and being a small business that needed our help kind of backfired, Kendall Neff said. It did. On the Philadelphia subreddit, she posted a text exchange with the delivery driver who confirmed that he picked up Pasquale's... From Chuck E. Cheese. Yes, from Chuck E. Cheese. Neff also provided a receipt showing Pasquale's from Chuck E. Cheese. Yes, from Chuck E. Cheese.

Neff also provided a receipt showing Pasquale's address as 270 Swedesford Road, the same address of the Berwyn Chuck E. Cheese. I love that she became Matlock halfway through this story. Yeah, she suddenly became like a crazy... I'm breaking this wide open. Okay, so here's the test exchange. I'm going to read it for you guys

between the Grubhub delivery driver who does not work for Mr. Pasquale, who also doesn't exist. This is your Grubhub driver, Richard. I left your order outside of your front door. Thanks. Kendall replies. You're welcome. Enjoy your meal. Although they wrote mail.

Enjoy your mail. And have a great weekend. You two also just curious. Here's where it starts. Here's where I get. She had to dig in. Was this food from Chuck E. Cheese? Yeah. And then he says there was a Chuck E. Cheese store, but the windows had the wing restaurant on them. Hold on a second.

I was curious too. There was a Chuck E. Cheese store? When has it ever been considered a store? Mike, what is going on, Mike? You know, like the gift shop of Chuck E. Cheese? Oh, yeah. That's right. There is a gift store. Mike, what is going on, Mike? You know, like the gift shop of Chuck E. Cheese? Oh, yeah. That's right. There is a gift store. But don't you love that he says

the windows had the wing and restaurant on them? I was curious, too. So Chuck E. Cheese went as far as to put decals on the windows. They just seem like they are now a pizza and wing restaurant. They just want to be like, what? Then he sends a new message where he wrote, it smelled good. And then she writes, ha ha,

it is good, but it's totally the Chuck E. Cheese pizza. My husband said that the chef character at Chuck E. Cheese is named Pasquale. By the way, this is a lot of texting going between two people. I'm like, if I'm not her husband, I'd be like, are you into this guy? Jake from State Farm?

What's going on? If I may, it seems to me that what's happening here is like this person tried the food and was like this is definitely chucky cheese's pizza because that's all we've been eating up until up until the pandemic we've been chucky cheese every night now we're like we should support a local business hey is this also chucky cheese it's like the worst we're right back where we started from. We can't get away from it.

They're in the lamest episode of Black Mirror. Yes. Blackish Mirror. Have they made that episode? No, that's really fun. They should, Blackish Mirror. We should write that as a spec script. She says, so she goes, it is totally it.

Pasquale is the character. I think they made up this secondary restaurant for takeout now that they can't be open this is such a long text exchange to which the grub hub delivery driver responded sneaky sneaky lol i get it though you know what i mean which is you know what i mean which felt like them continuing the conversation but also trying to end it yeah like all right i got more stuff to do and and then she does she texts him dot dot dot i'm lonely yeah you up what if she is starting this is the beginnings of and her wanting to have an open relationship with her husband anyway we're poly uh yeah so come on back whenever you want deliver what you know what if they all are kudos to them for finding love during this time. Agreed. No shade at all on my end.

None. The wings were nothing to write home about. There's some shade. The pizza. Wow. They're not picky, though. If someone was really snobby, they might not be happy with it, Kendall Neff said. So she's cool with her pizza.

I love that she needed to make a distinction between her and someone who's really snobby about pizza. Who in their right mind would eat chain pizza and not know what it was? Jay? You. Tell the story, Jay. All right. And this is, by the way, our friend Derek Lipkin, who listens to this show. Great guy.

Friend up in- Derek Lipkin, who loves to point out whenever we get something wrong. Yeah. Derek Lipkin, who I love so much. I love him and his wife and his baby. Scarborough Corrections Department. He is one of the most wonderful people in the world. He also, I feel like, gets off a little bit on how many times we get things wrong.

Get it wrong or the feed's not working. We should call him Derek Actually Lipkin. So he said he wants to create a drinking game that whenever you're listening to Sklabo Country, whenever Jason and I go into Carson voices, that is bizarre. That is wild. You have to drink whenever Jason tells the story of Domino's, which he's going to do right here. So the very short story, which no one on this podcast or anyone in my universe knows is this, Mike. I went to a three-year-old's birthday party

when my son was three, my oldest child. So I hadn't been to a lot of these birthday parties before. It was at a beautiful house. I'm in the kitchen. Someone brought out a pizza on this beautiful marble sort of circular tray. And I reached over and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to eat like three or four of these pizzas. And so I grabbed a piece of pizza.

And I don't care if it's good or bad. I just am excited to be eating like hot cheese on bread and having like a clown entertain my kid. And I eat this and i literally i'm like this is the best pizza i've ever had it's like hands down the bet like the seasoning all of it so i go to this woman i'm like number one did you make this pizza number two if you didn't you have to tell me what restaurant this is from because and i took my phone out to put it in my notes and she's like it's dominoes fucking idiot you fooled me number one by putting it on a marble slab i don't put it all on me presentation but i'm gonna tell you dominoes so dominoes was so dominoes you know they had this

like pro-life thing going for a while and i'm like do i have to re like because i love this pizza so much do i have to now recalibrate when i think a child is a child? I don't know. That's how good the pizza was. What were you going to say, Mike? Two things. 100%, you were taken in by the nice house. You were tasting the nice house. There've been studies, they show, we're drinking water from the same tap or hose. If you're told that it's from a glacier or from a pristine stream from somewhere. And this is $7. As much as the water you think it costs, your brain actually tastes it better. So you're just a human victim to the trickery of science.

And the other thing I just wanted to say real quick is the woman clarified the wings were nothing to write home about, yet they were certainly something to write someone about. Reddit. Very true. Number one. And number two, who is the type of person that when they are away from home, like in Iraq or somewhere. Or no, just anywhere.

Anywhere they have to write home about wings. Yeah. Because they're that good. I mean, it would have to be really like the greatest thing since sliced bread. The first time sliced bread came out, you'd be like, I gotta tell you, right now also, we are all at our home, so there's nothing

to write home about. That's your journal. But think of pre-pandemic. Like, honey, where are you going? It is 11 o'clock at night. We've got to go back to that. I need to get a postcard right now. I have to write home about these wings that I just enjoyed. You were totally on point, all of you guys, though,

about Jason eating the ambiance. Because Kendall Neff went on to say, it is automatically better tasting food when surrounded by tokens and tickets. There you go. Unfortunately, Pasquale's online menu doesn't offer the option to order the pizza. This is the coolest. What I'm about to say to you is possibly. Let's hold it and we'll take it after the break, shall we?

Well, we have a break built in here. We can do it now if you want. We can do it now if you want. I love that you say you have something that's the coolest. Okay, we'll take a quick break. When we come back, I will tell you what I have discovered through this article is the coolest thing about Chuck E. Cheese. Okay, Mike Kaplan is with us. We're going to take a quick break. This is D back, I will tell you what I have discovered through this article is the coolest thing about Chuck E. Cheese. Okay.

Mike Kaplan is with us. We're going to take a quick break. This is Dumb People Town. Don't go nowhere. Stick around. Make a sound. There's more Dumb People Town. Hey, guys.

Welcome back to the show. We got Mike Kaplan with us. He is a great follow on Twitter. Just one of the best joke writers out there. And tell us what you got that people can go out and consume right now of yours. Sure. Depending when this is in your life, if it's May 8th, 2020 or after, there's a new album. It is.

This drops tomorrow. We're recording on a Thursday. We'll drop it on Friday. So yes. Then my new album called AKA, my latest stand-up comedy album, is available all the places. Thanks for downloading, listening, streaming, sharing, not even listening, but rating and reviewing it, buying all the copies, sending them to your dad or mom for Mother's or Father's or Non-Binary Parents Day, whatever it is.

It's called AKA. It's my favorite album that I've ever created. I think it's the best comedy I've made. So if you've ever enjoyed my comedy before, it's even better. And if you haven't enjoyed it, it's even better. Well, I'll say this, that for our fans, again, right now, people are saying, what can I get into that is new? People are asking us for suggestions all the time, and I know you get it too, Dan. This is one of our favorite comics out there, just a brilliant joke writer.

And if you're saying you're the most proud of this comedy album, I cannot wait to listen to it. So this is anywhere you get comedy. A.K.A. The Mike Kelly. Did you do it at our friend Blonde Medicine? Did you do it through Dominic? Blonde Medicine is the label. We are label mates.

We are. I. We are. You can go to our lead. I love that label. Wonderful. Blondemedicine.com slash AKA or slash all the albums on there. Check them out.

Yeah, Dominic Del Bene who runs that label is just one of our favorite people in the business. Top shelf person. Fantastic. Okay, we're going to check it out. AKA Mike Kaplan

and it's M-Y-Q Kaplan. That's how if you're looking it up and you're typing in M-I-K-E, you could also type in Pasquale's, and maybe that would come up too. Speaking of, M-Y-Q. Now, there's a thing that Chuck E. Cheese does that I found out in reading this article. They do not do this with their new bullshit Pasquale's restaurant. What do they do? And why they are not doing it is beyond me, because if there's anything people need in their life right now, this would be one of those things. Which would be? It says it's automatically better the food is when surrounded

by tokens and tickets. Sure. Unfortunately, Pasquale's online menu doesn't offer the option to order a pizza box that turns into a mini skee-ball game, and Chuck E. Cheese actually does. I have a picture for you here. It is a pizza box you can order that turns into a skee-ball game. This is great. If you're a pizza place and you have the option to send this to people in your home, That is the coolest thing I've ever seen.

If Chuck E. Cheese is like, Hey, guys, we know you can't come get sick at our restaurant slash play area anymore. Why not get sick on our pizza? We're going to send you the food, and we're going to bring a little bit of Chuck E. Cheese to you. How cool is this skee-ball? I would play this. Yeah. So why are they –

You can do a drinking game with your roommates. And by the way, anybody who has kids just loves the idea of them playing a ball game at the table. Yeah, of course. There's an article that they linked to about the Ski Ball Pizza Box. I'll read it really quickly. They've released a new pizza delivery box that transforms into a home version

of the Alley Roller Ski Ball Game. The Alley Roller Pizza Box comes with any medium or large pizza delivery order. Does it come with a ball? It includes three Chuck E. Cheese themed game balls. What? And you can get it from over 500 locations by ordering via Grubhub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats. Dang, shouldn't have gone to Pasquale's.

You can also get unicorn churros with any large pizza delivery order placed. I'm going to ask you guys, just out of fun, how much do you think it costs to add unicorn churros to your Chuck E. Cheese slash Pasquale's delivery order? All right, Mike, you're our guest. You can go first, Tig, which is the slot between me and Jason, or third in terms of guessing. I'll go first. Okay. $7. $7.

To add Unicorn Churros? $4.99. Okay, $4.99. $8.99. $8.99. Yep. You can add Unicorn Churros to any large pizza delivery order when placed via DoorDash or GrabHub.

Before you say it, Dan, I'm going to say this. Before you even say it, I am going to be disappointed one way or another. There is no way that I'm going to ever say this is the exact amount they should charge for Unicorn Churros to be added. I will be like, this is way too little or it's way too much.

The total amount to add Unicorn Churros is $1. That is too much. That is way too much! Oh man, what a good bit. $1 for your... Come on, this is made out of true unicorn horn. We'll get out of here in this last little bit.

In the original story, delivery groceries have seen a spike. Sure. Yeah, but they have struggled to keep up the demand, so people are trying to do this. For Neff and her husband, the delivery services have helped them stay safe during the pandemic, as they are home with their 25-week-old daughter, Millie,

who was born unexpectedly on Halloween. Don't feed your bitch. All right, you're in New York, Mike. Where are you? What part of New York do you live? Park Slope, Brooklyn. Okay, so, I mean, how are you handling it? There are so many people in New York.

Are you staying in? Are people out? Are they walking around? What's the vibe on the ground in New York right now? My girlfriend and I are in for the most part. I live a block and a half from the near park, and I go into the park and stay on paths away from people once in a while. But mostly I'm in, and everybody outside, most of the people have the mask vibe down.

You move away, you move out of the way, you have the knowing glance. It's nice. There's a silent solidarity. Yeah, I think that's good. Well, that is our story, friends. Just be careful. If we've learned anything here, is that number one,

Mike Kaplan has a fantastic new comedy album called AKA, and everyone should pick it up. Number two, don't ever order food from a place that has zero reviews. The end comes up first in your search. I mean, they're lucky that their baby wasn't stolen, right? You know what I mean? That could have gone many different directions.

Many different. That's right. Many different. Mike Ablin, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I can't wait to listen to your comedy album, Dude, You're the Best, and keep making great stuff. Thank you so much for having me

in the dumb person town in dumb person world. Yeah, dumb people town is a state of mind. It is. God damn it, it's happening everywhere. And look at me.

Look at me getting the name wrong. I'm so dumb. Yeah, look, I didn't expect you to get it right because you're too smart. Thank you, Mike Kaplan, and oh shit, we got to get back to work.

Stick around. Make a sound. Hunker down. It's Dumb People Town.