My Brother, My Brother And Me - MBMBaM 399: Stink Bar

Episode Date: March 26, 2018

In this episode we go searching for Clues with our magic dog, to help solve a case that's been cold for years. The mail never fails, nor does our crime-busting expertise. Suggested talking points: New Steve, Toys 4 Us, Dirty Dorothy, Silent Driving, The Prankroscope, Time Crimes

The McElroy brothers are not experts, and their advice should never be followed. Travis insists he's a sexpert, but if there's a degree on his wall, I haven't seen it. Also, this show isn't for kids, which I mentioned only so the babies out there will know how cool they are for listening. What's up, you cool baby? It's a new place, and the girls, do you want it? Just say, hey, I want it. Just say, hey, I want it. Hello everybody, and welcome to My Brother, My Brother Me, an advice show for the modern era. I'm your oldest brother, Justin McElroy. I'm your middlest brother, Travis McElroy. I'm that sweet baby in 30 under 30 media boy Griffin McElroy.

I've got it. The next branch of the expansion of the McElroy Brothers franchise, we of course are going to appear in the Trolls 2 film coming out in April 2020. We've got that already sort of locked down. That's in the back. That's in the back of the podcast. It's practically in the can. We didn't mention this. We've got any episode of that show if you want to listen to that about how we're going to be in Trolls 2. But that is then and happening. That's already in the books. The important thing is that you don't rest on your laurels. It's the future past participle. It will have already been done. We're basically in Trolls 3 at this fucking point. Yeah. Well, with the continuity and the story and shit, you know?

Yeah. We do. For what I'm talking about, we do need to sort of watch on the profanity for a little bit because my thing is a couple of weeks ago, Nickelodeon announced that he's coming back. Who? Blue. Or she. Blue's a she. Blue's coming back, folks. And that's the important thing that we want to talk about here. Blue of Blue's Clues? Blue of Blue's Clues is coming back and they're looking for New Steve. Yes. So you see sort of where I am talking about now. They're looking for New Steve. Now, I know what you're saying. Joe is already New Steve. Well, that's that's fine. But Joe is Steve too. Now they're looking for Steve 3. The third Joe's out. Joe's been out since 7 when the show was canceled. But yeah. They solved the case.

Blue got all the clues. They solved the murder. They finally caught the murder that we're a Blue's family. And now we're back for a new run at Blue's Clues. And who's the new Steve going to be? And I submit it is us. The McRoy brothers. Now, when you say you submit, did you actually take any steps of the secret like vision board? You submitted it to God and the universe and stuff? I feel like I'm using all my sort of like God and vision quest, praying that energy I'm using on trolls too currently. I want Nickelodeon to do this one because it's going to make them a lot of fucking Dosh. Okay, Justin, what do we what do we just say? What do we just say? Yeah, again. Double damn it. All right, we'll just have to replace them with like. Yeah,

every time we cuss in this episode, I'll edit in the mail song. Probably you won't, I would think. No, because in the show, it ended up being four hours long. It's a long ass song. It's a long butt. See, there it is. It's a long. It's a very long. Here's the mail. It never fails. It makes me want to admit that when it comes, I want to well see we got a little soon to start this. But let's start the negotiation with Nickelodeon. We will cut it back to one F word per episode. Yeah, we will. We will restrain ourselves to one F per episode. And sometimes we'll hide it. We'll do it real quiet and fast. And so the kiddos may not be like, here's the mail. It never fails. Fuck, it makes me want and they may not even get that it was there at all. Now one problem

that I found with this one with Steve quest, there, there are three boys on this show. And they're on this one. There's three. Oh, you know, I never think of us as separate people. I know. But there's there is three boys and only the Steve, the Steve is the one is only the one boy. So, huh, so wait, we're going to have to solve that first. Do you think I get old lead twins thing? No, let's see who's going to be the best Steve. I'll be blue first and Travis, you be Steve and Griffin, you be a clue. Okay. Whenever you're ready. Oh, I'm a skull on the ground. What's that? What's that blue? A vicious murder. What do you smell blue? Seaman. Oh, no. Someone got seaman on the dang skull. Someone got seaman on the on the fucking skull. That's my one. There's your one.

Okay, very good. All right, now I'm Steve. I was about to have a big dramatic monologue about how my parents were killed. And it's, and this is bringing back too many memories. But then I was going to CSI that stuff and like, you interrupt me too soon. I had a monologue memorized. Oh, great. We'll go ahead and perform that now. I'll give you complete silence. Thank you. Oh, no. I don't want this. The seaman. It reminds me of that terrible day in that alley. Yeah. Okay, we're done. When that person tried to mug my parents Yeah. And killed them. And on that day, I became Steve. I became the thing that scared me so I could scare villains. Steve. Have a bad man. You looked in the mirror and you're like,

what scares me? Well, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve flew into the room. I found the Steve trapped inside that old grandfather clock. If I found it, fell into the old Steve Gutenberg cave behind our house. There were Steve's everywhere. Chocoblock with Goots. Steve's. And on that day, that's when I became Steve. Okay, that's very good. Griffin, do you want to try being the Steve and I'll be a clue and Travis, you be blue? Yes, I'm going to be the reboot blue though. Okay. This feels okay, but do you saying that makes you think that this is going to be sort of a Travis led skit? What? How dare you, sir? I do like three classes at UCB. I'm ready to yes and you. I'm going to build you up. It really feels like it's going to be a Travis skit featuring Griffin. To be fair,

my blue is going to speak English, but I will do basic blue. I will be a basic blue. Let me try. All right. Hey, you kids want to learn some maths? Today, we're going to be talking about multiplication. Hey, stop it. Get out of here. I'm talking and teaching the kids about multiplication. Dog? Dog, I will not with you again. Not today. It's math day. It's math day, dog. You get, get, get. I love you. I love you, but get. It's math day, not dog day. That's mine. I'm done. Okay, that's very good. Yeah, it's like he's very focused, mine is, and he doesn't have time to. Oh, wait, hold on. Fuck. Okay, great. Thank you. Justin, you want to play? Yeah. All right. Who wants to be? I'll be dog.

All right. We're trying to share a clue. Oh my God. What's blue? What's wrong? I'm the Lego. Steve says something funny. All right. I'm going to draw a picture of a Lego in my notebook. No, a hospital. Please free me from this shit prison. Guys, I'm drawing. Give me just a second. Fuck. Oh, wait, I used yours. Sorry. Let Justin have his. All right. So that's fun. Yeah, Juse, I think this one's a real surefire dinger. Who do you think should be the steep? Like we should pick. We'll have to vote. We'll put a poll up. Yeah. Yeah. We can't decide this. We got to leave it up to the listeners. So if you look around on

the internet, you'll find a poll about which of us should be Steve. And then make sure to send those all to that poll to Nickelodeon. Yes. All right. I also have another branch for us, but we can talk about it later. But I think I've got an inroad at the Lifeway Christian bookstore stuff. Oh, nice. Yeah. We wrap about that later. We'll do it off the air. Perfect. This is an advice show where we try to help people. I'm recovering from a cold. So if you hear me drop off at any point, the coughs are rough today. They're rough and ragged. And I'm just hanging in there, folks. I'm just trying to stay alive. Oh, are we doing, are we listening to an ailment? I've got two torn ACLs.

I feel great. Okay. Podcast is too hard. Blew them right the fuck out. I don't feel bad. Griffin, what about your scholarship? Yeah, I'm worried about the scholarship, Trav. I don't think Purdue's gonna have me. What about your Steve audition? Yeah, I don't think Purdue's gonna have me on that one either. So as a result of my wife's employer strange bonus slash giveaway strategy, I'm in possession of $35 gift cards to a grocery store chain. And I don't know how to spend them. If I spend them all at once, I'll surely earn the score and are the cashier and

impatient customers waiting behind me in the checkout lane. If the checkout process is already stressful enough, any advice on how to use these gift cards in a respectful yet efficient manner, and that's from gotta get rid of these gift cards in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Y'all, I went to that combination, Babies Are Us and Toys Are Us over the weekend. I think it's going over there. Oh, have you seen 28 Days Later? Yeah. Wait, that's not the romantic comedy with... No, that's 28 Days with Sandra Bullock and Alan Tudyk. Talk about 28 Days Later.

I mean, I'm sure there's other people in it too, but those are the only two that matter. 28 Days Later is the sequel with zombies in it. Well, Alan Tudyk is a zombie and eats Sandra Bullock for the entire two hours. We go there to get that scene. We go there to get baby food because they got the choice selection. They got that gourmet shit, that wolf gang... They got that dank baby food. That wolf gang puck, genuine baby food that he cooks up in his kitchen full of.

And we pulled up in the parking lot and we're instantly like, oh no. And we went ahead with our mission because baby gotta eat. Baby gotta eat. You can't just give the baby a hamburger from a Wendy's. You have to give them the special stuff that a wolf gang's made for them. And that checkout process, folks were bringing out some gift cards from 1983 that they have just been chilling on. I watched somebody buy a stroller with approximately 15 gift cards.

It was horrible. It was a get out of line and just go start over someplace else. Nomadic sort of Oregon trail method of finding a good aisle. It was so bad. Please do not be this person. You have to find another strategy. To continue a conversation that Griffin started long, long ago on the show, it is only at those points when I seriously consider just shoplifting.

Mostly just to make it easier on the cashiers. Like, you know what? You're doing enough. I'm just gonna, I have this one thing. I'm just gonna take it. They're not gonna do inventory shoplifting. Yeah, yeah. Especially they're going out of business.

What are they gonna do with it? Going out of business and they got fucked over by the whole, the whole corporate sort of architecture of Toys R Us and Jeffery. He was in on it too. Like no, the execs got themselves a $14 million bonus just made sure to get themselves a little little, little phone taste, little taste of it. And then they like, I mean, I think you can check it back to the fact that Toys R Us belligerently didn't open a website for about 20 years.

Just like, nah, nah, the web's a flash in the pan. Kids are always going to want to come to the store. And then Jeffery did an interview. You can't ride a bike around the web. And this is from a former Toys R Us employee. If you're a Toys R Us staffer, it's about to lose a gig. I fucking hear you. Listen, it's not your fault.

I want you to leave that place with your head held high. You're great. If you have any training tapes there that you can steal for me, they were fucking hilarious. You can steal some of those. That would be glory. I mean, we know who's fault it is because Jeffery, it wasn't Jeffery. It was some executive in the company. But I think it's just sort of a shadow organization for Jeffery's dark machinations.

They did an interview where he did blame millennials for not having enough kids who buy all the toys. So thank you on that one. We made sure to get one in there right. Oh, that's three seconds left in the last round. Because Jeffery comes out swinging with one last punch at millennials for not buying enough toys. Eat my entire asshole, shithead giraffe.

Especially. Hey, Jeffrey, millennials don't need kids to buy toys. They buy toys for themselves. Buy them like wild. Okay, Griffin, I need you to clarify something. Take me inside a bit for a second. You seem to be getting pretty worked up about an interview you imagined that Jeffery the giraffe gave. It wasn't Jeffery the giraffe.

Like the CEO of Toys R Us or whatever actually said this. Actually said this. Said this thing. Said this dumb dumb thing. Oh, okay. Now I understand. Hey, it's because your website fucking sucks and you didn't open one for a hundred years. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Also adult toys. Adult toys. You have babies are us. You have toys are us. How about like sins are us? Here are the.

Don't go down that aisle, Derek. Derek, you stay away from the curtain dial, Derek. That's for mommy and daddy. That's toys for us. That's toys number four us. And there's a, there's a bouncer. It's a person in a big Jeffrey outfit. He's got a night stick because the kids are curious.

How is this person going to spend their gift cards? I mean, you could do it very slowly. Just every time you go into the grocery store, you burn, I mean, I think you could burn three, right? And not, and not be too much of an impediment, right? Three is fine. Three is still pretty bad. Three is still pretty bad.

Like a magic trick where you're like, what? And just kept pulling them from different pockets all over the person. Oh my God, Travis, that would make their ramability with my shopping cart full of baby food so much higher. If you did it well, I think the cashier would enjoy it at least. Like, how many more can there be? And then in the last few years, look, I'm square in the eye and say, that's it. Oh, shit.

You got 30 gift cards. Yes. The cashier isn't going to care. I've watched extreme couponing. The cashier don't give a shit. Unless they got a break coming up and that, you know, go ahead and ask, but they don't care. They're leaving at five regardless.

Even one customer, 20 customers, no skin off their nose. So the person you got to worry about, like from a society point of view, is the person behind you in line. Here's what you're going to do. You ready for this? You go ahead and use 10 of your gift cards. But you give the person waiting behind you. There it is.

One of them. There it is. You say, listen, I'm about to do something annoying, but I'm going to give you this gift card. It's five bucks. If you would just kick it with me for like five to seven minutes while I use these crazy gift cards, this wild number of gift cards I've collected, then you are also going to benefit.

So like, we're all going to win here. That's good. They got a spring in their step. Oh, five bucks off? I could buy myself a whole box of gushers or something. Sure. Gushers don't come in boxes. What you just said is wild.

And the other wild thing you said. Excuse me, the six-pack, 12-pack, and 20-pack of gushers packages are all collected in one single collected box. As much as you might like up in them and just have packages of gushers strewn about your home, like some sort of pack rat, the gushers are sold in boxes in grocery stores. That is fair. You did say something wild and that the cashier won't care about this situation.

I don't know if you've ever seen an episode of Extreme Couponing. But every episode of Extreme Couponing is also in secret, an episode of making a murderer. Because when somebody comes to these people and says like, here's 50 coupons, get to work, this is your next hour, and you are not going to know how to handle this situation. And you are definitely going to think that I am fucking taking the house on this one. And that you will definitely get fired if you scan in the wrong shit. And that you will definitely get fired because you have given me all this toilet paper for free.

The look in those people's eyes is one of just like, it's just complete murder, just absolute murder. So you have to find a way to, maybe first of all, let's talk about the science of these cards. If you just rub them all together real hard, does the money go from one to the other? Probably not, right? Well, you don't know until you try, Griffin. Or what if you tape them all together into one bigger card?

Tape them all together, try to swipe them all through once. I mean, I think this is what Bitcoin actually is. Is there some way for you to slide it through a dongle and now it's Bitcoin, and then you take the Bitcoin to the Sam's Club? Can you use Bitcoin at Sam's Club? They love it. Yeah, they love their cryptocurrencies. Yeah, I mean, you could just also go there.

I don't like to use cryptocurrency because it seems too spooky to me. Yeah, I don't know anything about it except it's got crypt in there. Yeah, I mean, they're covered in cobwebs and spiders, and each one has a little ghoul inside of it. And I don't fuck with that. But can you go like to a store like right when it opens and say, here's $35 gift cards. I would like to use these to purchase $150 gift card.

And then you're done. And then you're free. It's going to be a bad morning. And don't get me wrong, it will take an entire morning, 9 to noon. But maybe you give a few to the employee. That's insulting, I feel like maybe. You got to throw them away. It is not worth it.

There's no suggestion we can give you that it's better than throwing them in the garbage. Melt them into some kind of beautiful statue and just know that it is inherently worth $150. Oh, yeah. And then it's a protest statue against the Toys R Us. And it's the giraffe. But he looks like a big idiot.

Morgan Davieson in this Yahoo, keep it wavy, Morgan Davieson. It's Yahoo Answers user Carol who asks, How come Dorothy's dress never got dirty all the way to Oz? Huh. Got some answers on this one, but it's an interesting concept. This is a young woman. Lives on a farm should have been dirty before the whole thing, before this whole zany improbable adventure even got started.

Also got caught up in a tornado in Kansas. That's dusty work, friends. She should have been just sort of coated in a thin layer of grime before she even rolled up. And then the scarecrow would have been like, Well, my brain or what? Whoa, you got a little dirt on you. You're cooler.

You're cooler. What's going on? But then certainly as she traipsed through the poppy fields and the dirt zone, the dirt village, and muddy swamp. And the candy cane forest. The candy cane forest and like the tropical river. Oh, God.

Can you imagine the candy cane forest, the debris on one of those candy canes? John Drop Lane. You don't actually see the monkeys hurling their own feces, but we do have to listen. It's implied. It's implied. I think by the time she shows up to the Emerald City,

her and her squad of companions should just be yucky. Well, they are. There's no other way. I'm sorry. I have to save us from tweets. They are. They go through a whole cleanup process at the Emerald City.

There's wash, wash, wash, scrub, scrub, scrub, a couple of. It's crazy. There aren't a lot of movies where our characters arrive at the paradise that they've been pursuing. And the very first thing that has to happen is like y'all stink like shit. You cannot even be in our whole thing right now until we.

Yeah, you're so disgusting. Oh, hey, this is Utopia and you all are doodoo. Yeah, you like can we talk to the you can talk to no one. You can talk to this brush. Open up because you are so black right now. I can taste your sweat. You have been walking through this wonderland for days and I can taste the sweat on you and on the Tin Man, which is wild.

Did trees throw apples at you and then maybe some monkey shit on you? What are you doing? What are you doing here, Dorothy? I love the Lord of the Rings movies for so many reasons. Also, just looking at Orlando Bloom puts me at ease. Yeah, they're so long. They're very long and you get a lot of snaps I ever had. Lot of bloom out of those features.

That's not to say the Lord of the Rings movies are boring. Just one time I went to a late night showing I fell asleep in the middle of the first one. It was the third time I'd seen it. And I fell asleep and I slept so good. But here's where I look. Into the trilogy. Climbing Mount Doom.

Little Samgy and Frodo. Samgy and Frodo. Samgy and Frodo. These two boys are so fucking nasty. Do you remember? Covered in grime and stink. And I can feel the stink through the film, through the celluloid. I know these boys reek and I know they're fucking filthy pigs.

And I love it because it's like, now that's fantasy. Now I'm taken away. They would get filthy, nasty, dirty, eating raw fish with their friend Golem. Just filthy, stinky, gross, pustules of boys. Stinky, gross, nasty pigs. And I love that and I love it. Orlando Bloom, they never get him dirty.

And I also think that's a good creative choice from Peter Jackson because I think they did put the stink makeup on him. And Peter Jackson was like, nobody's gonna fucking believe this. I want that actually in every movie. The effect that they do in Lord of the Rings when it's like they cut between dirty ranger man and then the elves and the elves are glowing.

They are transcendent and it cuts back to dirty man. And then it's like, and it's like, just very clearly like this person has not been stinking themselves up for the last 24 hours. There's no way to communicate the stink through the film. And I think that smell of vision is a bad joke. And I think that stink lines, we reference that in virtually every episode

of every podcast we do. What about just a filter? Like just a brown filter? Oh, a stink. Well, the whole movie kind of has a stink filter on it already. Get it off, stunk so fucking bad that in order to communicate it, they had to kill him and then change his name. He's like, they're like, hey, it's get off the grid.

Don't call me by my stink name. Might have a new clean boy name that I want you to call me by. Get off the white because I smell great and I'm not filthy anymore. They had to make a plot point out of how much that dude stank from his tobacco smoke. And his big fight with the fireman. Adventure dirt.

Don't you always think by the end of a James Bond movie, James Bond probably smells like shit, right? It's fucking stinks. Absolutely. So many of these characters, we don't talk, don't get me wrong, he probably still has a hint of aftershave and like deodorant and cologne and stuff. But also like he's been tied up.

He's been sweating. He's been fighting people in like the mud and dirt and stuff. He probably underneath his veneer of grooming stinks like shit. Let me hit you guys with this. I just had a killer idea. The McElroy Brothers movie UI. And this is a UI that we will put on the movies. And not as like a fun thing that you get

and you download it and you listen to it later, like Rift Tracks. I'm talking about this is baked into the cinematic release. And it shows a stink meter on the screen that fills up as they go along. And we can do this with other stuff too. You can drop it back down if there's like a scene of them like washing their hands or like washing their... On that scene, you know, that always happens where it's like,

oh, I'm so stressed out by these terrorists or whatever. And they go splash water in their face. It just drops down like 5%. The stink meter goes down a little bit. And then like we can have like kind of pop up video like implied between these two scenes, they change clothes. And that or I and the Lord of the Lord of the Rings. These two boys are climbing up the mountain

and they're crying because they love each other so much. And their stink meter is all the way fall. And imagine the... Sorry, I'm getting checked up thinking about it. The emotional impact knowing these boys stink so bad. And the journey they've gone through together and the way they support each other, it's powerful. And they still hug.

And they still hug even though they stink like eight kinds of shit. And then... I think that would make the end of Die Hard even more sort of moving because if you watch Die Hard as soon as... Before Hans Gruber even hits the ground, Holly basically is like enveloped John McClain in the most passionate embrace. This motherfucker has been crawling around a dirty building,

bleeding everywhere. His tank top literally goes from white to green by the end of the movie. It is kind of the first stink meter. It's his tank top in that movie. It's like a lit mist has the stink like shit. There's just no... The only movie I've ever seen actually...

The jerk deals with this, I guess a little bit. When Bernadette Peters reunites with Steve Martin, she tells him he fucking stinks. And he needs to go sit in a different car. Thank you. Thank you, Bernadette, for being brave enough. And then you watch a movie like Hope Floats. And that stink meter never, never really...

What if it started off high and you're like, oh, it turns out this whole time, Harry Kane Jr.'s character stank like shit from the beginning of the movie on. I think it's just love the whole time, but it is there letting you know these characters do not stink. What about if like in Phenomenon, right? Like, oh, it's amazing.

John Truffle's character can like levitate stuff, but also he does stink like doo-doo. And it's just things that we don't know, things we never knew about the characters that gives them a much richer story. And then what you do is with all kinds of meters, you're gonna have full blown Sims moodlets on the screen where it's just like a horny meter.

And that one's going up and you're like, uh-oh, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes. And hungry meter. Hey, why is Hans Gruber being such a dick? Oh, he's hungry. He hasn't had a stink sugar. You see John McClain shoot three guys and then his horny meter goes up and it's like, damn, John.

Hey, Johnny? He's climbing through the vents and you're like, oh man, this seems really scary, but his horny meter is off the charts. And it's like, the end in the small vent makes you very horny, John. Oh no, Gruber's gonna kill Ellis. John?

Hey, John? What's up, dude? Oh, dude? I'm trying to kill him. Whoa, oh my god. His hog is wild right now. John? Oh no.

As Hans Gruber is just falling to his death, it's just getting higher and higher and higher. It catches him. He hits him to Hans. Like, I was the kid. That's why I did all of it. Hans Gruber hits the horny meter on his way down and bounces off.

That's so great. Oh my god, we can include this in every film. And then Die Hard 8, he's fucking tied to a chair or whatever, and there's a room full of bad guys, and he's like, you're outnumbered, and he breaks the ropes and like, okay, you broke the ropes, now what?

And he reaches down, and he grabs the horny meter in one hand, and the stink meter in the other hand, and he kills him all with it. And it's like, you can do that once in like, Hot Sharks Park Tois. Like, in the scary movie 13, like, you do it once before the whole convention's like, yeah, we get it, we've seen that before.

Fuck. It's so good. Anyway, let's take a quick break right now to hear from our sponsors. In a little segment we like to call The Money Zone. Hey, I wanna talk to everybody about Blue Apron if you would mind me talking about Blue Apron

for a little bit. Yeah. They're really cool. They deliver you boxes, and the box has got stuff in them, and you use that stuff to cook meals, and I've used it for a while, and it taught me how to cook, and that's a very valuable skill that I treasure,

and so I treasure Blue Apron, and the meals are very, very tasty, and I like it just a lot. You open a beach box, and it's like, what's even in here? I don't know, except you do know, because you pick it, you can pick it from a list of recipe options.

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and then I started thinking about the stink meter on seven. Oh, my God, it'd be off the charts. They would need a second stink meter. It would be, like, stink meter, and then right below that, just be, like, I don't know, guys. It was too big. The limit break stink of your head.

Limit break, yeah. Some did an omni slash of the stink. I want to tell you about stamps.com. Do you? Yes, I do, because it brings all the amazing services of the U.S. Postal Service right to your fingertips. Listen, I'm lazy.

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with a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus postage and a digital scale. Just go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top, and type in my brother, all one word. That's stamps.com and enter the code my brother, all one word. Friends of Zero Life become a little mundane. Yes.

And join us for a bit of the arcane. Whoa. The mundane and the arcane is a homebrew D&D 5e podcast focused on expansive world-building, intensive role-playing, and very good puns. Now, I hear what you're thinking. Blah. But trust me, maybe it'll be good.

Have your imagination tickled by a tickled dungeon minstrel. That was fucking black, dude. Clever girls and troublesome twins with sticky feet. Sticky fingers. No, the joke there was that we used to do that. Also do one of these. What? Yeah, sure.

Like we did, yeah. We used to, we used to do D&D podcast. But I'm telling you, that was the joke. It was like, because we used to do one. Oh. You know what I mean? It wasn't a great joke, but there'll be better ones on the mundane and the arcane,

which you can find anywhere that you find fine podcasts. They come out every other Wednesday. Do they? They do. It says it here. Geez, you swinging a miss, bud. Our boy is sickly. I know.

I'm trying to, I'm hanging in there. Give me another shot. Please put me in coach. No, I'm going to read this next one. I don't trust you anymore. This is Jumbotron. It was for Anna Whiteside and Michael Watson. And it's from Loretta and Atticus who say,

And there's a translation here, but I don't think we need to read it because I feel like folks really sort of got the nug of that one. But I'll do it anyway. Translation, happy two-year wedding anniversary and thank you for feeding us so much. We are both overweight. Now here's the weird thing. Loretta and Atticus are their kids.

Yeah, they're feral. No, these are two kitties. And I think these kitties are beautiful and I think love the skin you're in or the fur that you're in. And that's all I have to say about that. Please don't talk about skinning cats, Griffin. You're the one who did that, so. What?

There's a message, the next message is from Kelly. It's from Maureen. It's not from both of them. So it's two, it's two one. We are really firing on all. Don't say we. Don't say we. I'm bringing my fucking A game 100% batting average

and you two are just dropping the ball. Do you want to start the episode over again? I mean, Miller's brother, this is for Maureen. It's from Kelly. Hello, beautiful. Happy two-year anniversary. I'm so lucky to be your girlfriend. I wouldn't trade a moment of our time together.

Thanks for putting up with my haunted doll collection. It's hard to believe that by the time the brothers read this, we'll have seen them in person at least once. Lots of love, Kelly. LOL. You say you wouldn't trade a moment of your time together. That's fine. But what about for these eight rubies?

And I hold out eight magic rubies. Not the magical rubies, Griffin. That's our family's inheritance. I will take your most precious day. It shall be mine. Taste the rubies. They're real. They're staddles.

Tastes like rubies, don't it? My name is Adam and I love story break. I'm Megan and I love Madinda. What really first got me into the show was the idea of creating a whole story out of a very simple concept. Super love haunted doll lots. I just wanted to see what they come up with next. I realized I was listening to almost every podcast you guys put out.

But when I realized I was consuming almost everything you produced, I felt that it was like unfair of me not to give you something because you were giving me so much. Honestly, Maximum Fun, they get me through my work week. It makes me laugh every day nearly getting several car accidents. But that's, that's, that's on me. These are listeners just like you and they support story break and my brother, my brother and me with a Max Fun membership.

The 2018 Max Fun Drive is April 2nd through 13th. And if you want to support your favorite shows too, it is the best time to sign up or upgrade your membership. Just tune in starting April 2nd and we'll give you all the details. Um, here's another question. I, man, we only did one question last time. Well, we talked a long time about the stink UI on movies. Well, I'm going to stop feeling bad about stuff like that because honestly,

like that's valuable. That's, that's valuable. Like that's where our, that's where our profits are going to come from. Do you know what I'm saying? Like that's something. Are you talking about like our question to minute ratio? We need to get that as low as possible. That's where the profit comes from.

Because we're only spending money on one or two questions in episode now. You know, it's got low overhead. Yes. Like those we have to pay so much for, and the fewer we use, the better, um, the better it is. I work in a job where I'm often traveling for long periods of time with my boss in the car. I'm not a chatty guy. So this office means long stretches of time where we sit in silence. I'm actually okay with this, but I still feel like I should probably do something about it.

How can I make our drives more interesting without jeopardizing my career? That's from taciturn and transit. Well, maybe there's something about that. Maybe there's something you could both listen to. You would enjoy both sharing and enjoying. This is literally it. This is why we, this is why we do what we do. This is why we do the thing we do.

Are you talking about like a book on tape or? No. No, I'm not. Because there's some good like Star Trek novels. There's one I think all about the Q Contemnium that dad made us listen to once. Sorry, can you just say that word one more time? The Q Contemnium. You know.

Yeah. Yeah. There's the Red Rising series. New one of those, Iron Gold just popped off. Fourth one in that series. It's great. They got four different sort of there. No.

Podcasts. Just get a podcast. Listen to it. Find some shared interests and enjoy it together. And then afterwards you make a little conversation about it. It's possible though. It's why we do what we do. Like I take this very personally.

Like this is the whole getting people out of conversations is the main thing that we did. Whether it's a conversation that you will have with yourself in your brain and can't stop having no matter what or conversation that you have with someone else. We are there to have the conversation for you. So you don't have to have to do the heavy lifting. That is why we are here every single week for you to avoid chatting. But this is the question. The question I have is when you say sit in silence.

Do you mean literally? Do you like no music, no podcast, nothing on? Or you just mean that's going and you feel like you should be talking? Because you are worried about nothing. If music or a podcast or something is playing, that's what you do. You say music, but is there anything more touch and go than when you get into somebody else's car and they're like, I'm going to turn on some tunes.

And in that moment I am suspended in the fear dimension. Because I don't know what the fuck they're going to put on. Because it's not ain't going to be mine. Ain't going to be my music. And the inverse is maybe the fear dimension inside the fear dimension is the sunken place of just like, hey, put something on. And it's like, do you like chip tunes? And not only that, I also guess that when it comes down to it,

listening to music is rarely a passive thing with another part. It becomes performative so quickly of like, I am enjoying. See how much I am enjoying this. I have a friend named Badkins. And I remember distinctly he was at our place in Chicago when I was living there just visiting. And he was like, my roommate had a record player with like an AV hookup. And I had my iPod or whatever plugged in.

And he was like, hey, play something. And I was like, OK, my friend Badkins is kind of a music fishinato. Let's see what I should put on. And I put on what I was most recently listening to, which I think was one of those old team teamwork mashups. He takes like cool game music and then puts like hip hop and stuff over it. And I put it on. And he was like, oh, this stinks.

And I was like, this is the first time that I've ever been like in a situation where someone is like, hey, put on some music. I put something on. And they were instantly like, you picked, you chose, you chose wrong. You picked wrong. This is Badkins. My the first time I ever went on. And this is more about us than the Smurls really.

But the first time I ever went on a road trip with them, they didn't turn on the radio because they were. And I and it took me a while to understand like no while why no one turned on the radio like literally before you pull out of the driveway or engage the parking brake or anything like you just disengage the parking brake, you just get a turn on the radio. Nothing. Like they didn't turn it on at all. And eventually I realized I looked around and sort of dawning horror as they continued to chat

idly and not turn on the radio that the plan was to chat idly for the entirety of the journey. No, where's the buffer? Where's the buffers? Where's the buffet? I mean anything. I gotta have my tunes, man. How am I supposed to jam back here? This doesn't exist to me.

Maybe this is about us because like even now when Teresa and I get in the car, even if we're going somewhere five minutes away, I won't move the car until like a podcast is playing or music or something. And she's like, we're gonna be down five minutes. And I'm like, yes, that is five minutes of my life. That's five minutes of crushing nothingness. Music's my soul, dude. I've been thinking about it.

Music's my fucking heart and my soul. Thank you. I mean, I live for the tunes. I just like podcasts, I guess. I've been re-listening to Magic Tavern. Started at the beginning and in like a week, I'm setting five episodes in and that drive time, hey, that drive time, that's time when I can be accomplishing my listening goals.

You know, that's time for me. They can buy a fucking Jumbotron. There's much free advertisement at UT. Well, I was on an episode of it. Okay. Here's a yahoo. Here's a yahoo that's sent by Lauren McGregor. And if this is too similar to one we did last week, please just let me know.

I can't remember last week's episode. Okay, yahoo answers user Brianna asks, how did the person that invented the microscope think of the microscope? Whoa, we have the one last week that was how did the person who invented the clock know what time it was. And I'm just so curious, I guess, about inventions. And this one really drills down into it. And that somebody invented the microscope.

And then... It's like they looked at something and thought, I want to see that bigger, but I'm not going to move my head closer. Yeah, it's like somebody made a telescope. And they were like, this lets you look up at the stars, but it makes them real big in your eye. And you're like, well, I want to do that for my blood. That's something like that.

What I assume is that they got a telescope. And they're like, this looks at big stuff that's far away. And they looked at a slide that they had prepared. And why did someone know how to prepare a slide before the invention of microscopes? Don't worry about it. So they just got the telescope, they turned it upside down. And then they looked at it and they were like, well, this is nothing. And nothing happened.

But they were like, but there's something like this that we could definitely make. But they had to know that there was something in there. So like they had a slide with blood on it. And they were like, I bet this is just full, little guys. I bet this is full of shit. Look at it. I bet there's like little guys in there. I'm going to call them amoebas for no reason.

I bet that following the invention of both the telescope and microscope, there was a lengthy period of time of trying to convince somebody that it wasn't a prank if you put your eye up against it. Like it probably was like, yeah, look through this. I'm not going to look. I'm going to look through that. And like something's going to poke me in the eye or there's going to be something in there that's like spooky.

No, thank you. I'm like, no, really, look in it. Whoever invented the microscope the day after definitely invented a prank microscope that you look through it and it's their butt. Has anyone ever asked you to look into something and you've thought this is probably fine? No, there's always a fear moment. They've probably invented the prank microscope first. Yeah.

And people were like, no. Like that's not like it's obviously a prank of some sort. So they had to invent the microscope then we forgot to build the setup. Yeah. Yeah. It's like they had the punchline first. They're like, well, we got to have something we're pretending that it is. What if we can like look at cells closed or something and then they did.

And you know, telescope gets invented. Probably a week later, microscope gets invented and a week later after that, some dude named Jeremy or something was like, I got a new one and it's called the middle scope. What's it do Jeremy? It lets you look at middle sized stuff. It's got the one for big stuff in the heavens and like moon. And then we got the one for blood and amoebas and stuff.

But what about like a nice shirt? Don't have one for that. I'm Jeremy. This is my middle scope. And it's basically just a toilet paper tube. And it doesn't make things bigger or smaller. It helps you focus on them a little bit. It really lets you dial in Travis.

I also think probably the person who invented the telescope, when they saw somebody be like, I invented binoculars. And it's like, you just taped two of mine. You taped two of mine together. You asshole. Well, here's a three-eyed binoculars. They're trinoculars. One million dollars please, Pat in office.

Oh, you don't want this one. Okay. What about a quadroscope so you and a friend can get cheek to cheek and really check out some birds? Really get up in those birds. Find out, do you think the person who invented the magnifying glass was mad at the person who invented the microscope? I was like, I did this already.

I did this already. We finished this. Fat chance amoebas. I don't think so. Oh, there are? Well, fuck. Well, shit. I don't know why I did that.

I should have put two of these together. At my office, there's a room called the wellness room. It's a small room near one of the break rooms that has a comfy chair and a lamp. I didn't think much of this room initially until I overheard my boss, a coworker, talking about how they knew someone who would reserve the wellness room for up to an hour

and use it to take naps during the workday. Oh, hell yeah. Now I'm incredibly interested in using this room to get in small naps during work days. I'm particularly tired, but I don't know how to go about getting more information on how to reserve the room. I don't want to ask my boss or any of my co-workers,

as I don't want to give the people in my unit the impression I'm eager to do naps during the workday, even though you totally are. Yeah. Help me, brothers. How do I get into this sweet nap room? That's from Overtired in Oklahoma. I mean, I don't know what the chart looks like.

You just got to use the chart. That's why the wellness room is there. The sort of corporate way of thinking about wellness is changing in a really positive way, where folks know that you got to take care of yourself. And they're trying to bake that at a cool, a cool modern workplace. With segues and cubicles that look like cabanas and stuff.

And so you got it. When we worked at AOL, we used to work at AOL a long, long time ago. They had a room full of nap pods. And the room was called NapQuest. And I got a big kick out of that. But how's it going, AOL? Very, very bad.

It does seem, it does seem. I think I would be afraid if I heard somebody talk about the wellness room and they were like planting rumors that you could use it for naps. Because the wellness room sounds like some more well-earned shit. Where I'm going to go in there

and then my eyes are going to be held open while I watch training videos about like committing my time harder to working better. And so like maybe the nap thing is just a lie that your boss said near your cubicle. No, the wellness room, nap freak. The wellness room is real and it's good.

And you got to just do it. And you got to own it. And you got to assert yourself. And you got to take those good naps. Somebody has already using it for that. It's not like you're breaking the wellness room. No, I know, but they're using it for one hour a day. There's lots of hours in the day, 24 hours a day.

No, but that's what I'm saying. Because it's not like you're cheating with the wellness room if you want to take naps in there. Yes, yes. Like someone's already doing it. You should feel free to take naps in it. Like if you say I want to take a nap in there, your boss would be like, yeah.

Yeah, that's literally why we put it there. And here's the thing about the nap room. No one's going to fucking wake you up. If your nap goes a little bit longer, your boss isn't going to come in and, you know, push your shoulder while you're unconscious and be like, hey, hey, sweet baby, it's time to wake up. Rejoin the workforce.

Hey, it's time to get going on your day. So if you sleep through the alarm and you make it a good three hour nap, I don't think anybody's going to say shit because it's the wellness room. This actually, this reminds me of a thing that I was working. No, I'll fuck it. I'll say it.

So we're going to Sears and it was near- Whoa, I didn't know you worked at Sears. Yeah, it was near- It worked at Land's End. It worked in the Land's End Department of Sears. It was near the end of my time there. And Griffin and I lived very close to the Sears. Like five minute drive.

And one day I looked at my coworker and Land's End Department was particularly slow day. And I said, we only get a half hour for lunch, but I'm going to leave and you're going to cover for me. And I'm going to be gone for like an hour. And then I'm going to come back and then you can do the same. And we just won't tell anybody. Oh, that's good.

And we did that. And the thing is, is like, the number of times I looked at my boss square in the eye and said, yeah, I just forgot the clock back in, but I was definitely here after a half an hour. They kept being mad at me, but also nothing came of it. And that's where I kind of learned that like rules are nothing. There is, there is no info. So just like, go take your nap, stay asleep, whatever.

Don't even set an alarm. And then come back and be like, I guess I must have slept. They, you won't get in. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. They'll care as much as they think they need to for a second. And then it will be over because nobody really cares all that much. Every office I've ever worked in has your right, except one person who does care a lot.

And they could be the wild thing about this person is they could be in any position. Yes, you don't know. As the newspaper worked at one time, she was the photographer. And she was the one who cared very much about everything that was happening at all times. Everywhere. There's one person like that at every job, I think. Yeah, I'll tell you one. It doesn't love it.

Is Mr. Tommy Smurl, he really, he really wants you to, he really, really wants you to make sure those time cards are legit, legit, like good, good time cards. Also at the movie theater in downtown Huntington, I won't name names, but they really want to make sure that those punch cards are really exact. And a couple of minutes late, don't do that ever again. I'll put you in the stocks. So it's not universal, like you said, Travis.

Tommy Smurl and the movie theater person really just want to ensure that no time crime. Tommy Smurl, great dude, but also time cop. But hard on time crime. Hard on time crime. And so just make sure if you do work at Tridata Incorporated, you are being not listening to Travis. Naps are important, though. They're good.

You have to take them. Carve yourself out a half hour, get your Pizzizz going, and just take that nap. You do need it. Go to HR, probably. They're in control of the wellness room, I would think. You're going to just find the chart where every day at like 12 is written on it like Dave Sesh for like an hour,

where Dave is going to get in there and have his Sesh. And you can just pencil in after it, Doug Sesh or whatever, whatever your name is. That's what you need. You need, I think, what has made my sneaking off from work and napping possible through all of my different retail jobs was I had a partner in crime. I had somebody that was like, you look out for me and I'll look out for you. I'll go take a nap behind the refrigerator boxes, FS by, and you do my work. And then you can take a nap behind the refrigerator boxes and I'll do your work.

And like you have to coordinate out a little bit. So I think that maybe that's what I mean when I say nobody cares. You just need enough plausible deniability. Man, it's also important to note that like after they do that once, they're dirty. And once they're dirty, they cannot bring you, you've got the juice on them. And even though they've got the juice on you, they can't bring you down. It brings you closer as friends and criminals.

Time criminals. Y'all ever watch The Office? Yeah. Yeah. It's on Comedy Central now 24 hours a day. That's funny. I don't think it's funny because I think Jim is very mean to Dwight. Yes, good.

Although I did have a really intense and detailed dream the other day that I was traveling with. Hey, Travis, let me stop you. I don't want to hear about your dream. But I was traveling with you. If you would do it, actually, that's you doing time crime on me and Justin. But I was traveling with the entire Office crew Griffin. Oh, well, I've changed my mind.

Now I gotta know. We were trying to check into a hotel. Taking nap on the middle of this podcast. But Michael hadn't reserved the hotel and it was all booked up. And it was me and Jim trying to fix everything. For sure. And it just didn't pan out in the end. It didn't pan out.

It's funny, dude. I love that shit. Stanley's doing his thing. Stanley's off in the corner doing whatever. I love it, man. More seasons. They're bringing it back. Loving that.

More of it, please. They're bringing it back and they need a new Steve. Good. Good closure. I love that, Travis. Thank you. Thank you. I like to book in.

Oh, so fun to book in. So fun to book in. They do like Ricky come back and does a guest spot on it. But then at some point he falls into a toilet. But in real life and flushed down. Bookending is better than having a good joke. Because that's just saying, like, remember from the beginning? Because it's better.

That's better and easier. Is this whole episode time crime that we did to our listeners? They can't get it back one way or the other. They got you listening. Yeah, we got you. Thank you for the greatest heist yet. Our greatest, most ambitious time heist. We next week is going to be the Max Fun Drive is going to be kicking off next week.

And we are so excited. We are going to have a, and it's also just happens to coincide with episode 400, which is going to be a buck wild. And that's next week, right, Griff? We're going to drop it next week. Yeah, so Max Fun Drive, if you're a new listener, it is an annual thing we do for two weeks. All the shows on the Max Fun Network are supported by members who give monthly to our shows to show their support and help us keep growing and trying to do new, weird stuff.

It is the best time to support our show. You'll feel awesome every time you listen because you'll know that you're a member of the network and you'll help us reach our goal of 25,000 new and upgrading members. Holy fucking shit. That's a lot. We need your help to get there. Okay, no fucking way. No, we'll get there with your help.

And we'll also have great pledge gifts at different levels. We have different pledge gifts coming down the pipe for you. Talking about stuff like exclusive bonus content. If you give $5 a month, $10 a month, you get a cool pin and each pin is like... Is that a pin, by the way, that my brother and my brother and me won? I am in love with. Yeah, it's designed by Megan Lin Nott. It's a stronger together, a 20-collaborating pin.

It's really good and you get a Max Fun Membership card. There's a bunch of gifts and we're going to go over those during the actual drive, which kicks off next week. But if you've never become a member of the network or you already are one and want to up your donation because you've been listening to more of our stuff or you've been a heavier listener of the shows, we would really appreciate it if you'd think about donating at maximumfund.org slash donate and support us by becoming a member.

We say we appreciate it and that is not nearly enough to show our gratitude for what you all have done for us in helping this thing that we started doing what like eight years ago become a career for the three of us. You've changed our lives with that and we call on you to just to help us keep growing. So that's next week and we'll have a very strange episode for you next week for episode 400, but we will also have more details on the drive then. Oh, and thank you to Megan for the kind words in the promo that we ran earlier. Again, Max Fun Drive starts next week, runs April 2nd through the 13th.

So I've got, let's do some plugs. I'm going to do them real fast. One, we have my brother, my brother and me and Adventure Zone tour dates up on macroishows.com slash tours. That tour is about 75% sold out. Like the whole thing on average is about 75% sold out. So don't wait to get your tickets. However, I will say the Houston show, which is coming up very soon. It's a little light. So here's the thing. I said, boys, come to Texas.

So I won't have to travel very far. And this is something that's very important to me is not having to travel very far. It's used to need your help to prove my thesis correct. So please go to macroishows.com slash tours. Also, we didn't mention this last week, we mentioned it on Adventure Zone, but we're doing a book tour for the Adventure Zone graphic novel here. There'd be Gerbilance, which you can pre-order at theadventurezonecomic.com. We're going to be doing, I think, four shows across the country in July.

And you can also find tickets for that. And those go on sale this Friday or this Thursday, actually, sorry, March 29th. And each ticket sale also gets you a copy of the book. So go check those out. And that goes on sale at 10 a.m. local to the venue, where the show is going to be. All of those, all the dates, all the locations are at macroishows.com slash tours. Go check it out. We're doing shows all over the country.

And there's dates listed from April to September. So go check that out. Yeah, it's going to be dope. Also, we have a new store for our merch. It's at macroishows.com. We got a bunch of new designs up there, some old stuff, too. We teamed up with DFTBA to make this store. And we're really happy with how it's looking.

And we're going to keep updating it just constantly with the new designs and stuff. And I think we've already got a couple of them that are going to be coming out pretty soon. And that's at macaroymerch.com. Also, I'm going to be at C2E2 in Chicago, April 6th through 8th. I've got a whole bunch of events, live shows, and signings, and panels. You can find all the dates and get tickets at bit.ly slash travisc2e2. All of the letters there are lowercase. And also, April 18th, Schmanners is the podcast that I do with my wife,

Theresa, about etiquette and stuff. It's going to be performing at Moontower Comedy Festival in Austin. You can find tickets for that and find out more information at bit.ly slash Moontower Schmanners. S-H-M-A-N-N-E-R-S. And hey, thanks to John Rodger for the long winters for the use of our theme song It's a Departure Off, the album putting the days to bed. It is so freaking good, you guys. And thanks to MaxFun.

Yeah, speaking of, I always like to encourage people, especially heading into the MaxFun drive, there's a whole lot of new shows on MaxFun. So many shows. But if you haven't listened to yet, you should go check them out, because we seem to be adding more and more every month, and they're all great. So go check them out. Uh, you know what, that final? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, this final then was sent in by Adrian Cowles. Thank you, Adrian. See how who answers user Erach asks. So why did Sir Isaac Neutron shoot that apple off that guy's head? Oh, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Travis McElroy. I'm Griffin McElroy. This has been my brother, my brother, me, kiss your dad, square on the lips.

Maximumfun.org, Comedy and Culture, Artist Owned, Listener Supported. In celeb news this week, the hosts of Lady to Lady took a break from hanging with today's hottest comedians, actors, and writers to sell a sex machine. Would they do with all that cash? Rent a party bus to go to Magic Mike Live in Vegas, of course. All of this on the heels of a salacious, sizzler session with home alone four-star French Stewart. Want to know what the f*** we're talking about? Tune in to Lady to Lady whenever, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Can you keep a secret? Neither can we.