Wonderful! - Wonderful! 118: Butt-Shaped Fruits

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Griffin's favorite fighting format! Rachel's favorite sensual poem! Griffin's favorite complicated game! Rachel's favorite filmed mistakes! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://ope...n.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. This is a smart show podcast for intellectuals like myself and Rachel, a couple of real tea drinkers. What's your favorite tea? Mine? Hot.
Starting point is 00:00:34 Earl Grey. Hot. That's what Captain Jean-Luc Picard would drink on Star Trek. That sounded a lot like your Love Actually voice, actually, now that you mention it. Oh, Love Actually does happen at Heathrow Airport.
Starting point is 00:00:52 No, I meant the woman that says, I don't want something I need. Oh, okay. So there's a character in Love Actually that I like to imitate for Rachel because it's Rachel's probably favorite character. And it's the one who uh tries to uh seduce alan rickman's married character and that is she's so single-faceted why are we talking about this now i don't know she's so so wildly single like minded in this
Starting point is 00:01:19 like it's amazing she remembers to eat or use the bathroom because this is all that she thinks about and just every line she delivers in this movie is just full of dark corners for doing dark deeds and it's like it's alan rickman he's great but holy shit anyway smart show podcast smart stuff um uh we drink tea we drink tea a couple big real tea drinkers maybe i felt a little bit uh uncomfortable after the last episode when i brought um uh uh oh what was the one i brought where you made fun oh sky cookies well you know what no screw that biscoff is the smartest cookie that there is that is true the term some one smart cookie was written about biscoff so screw it we're still in the dumpster folks you're here in the dumpster with us we're a couple of real dumpster
Starting point is 00:02:08 mattresses and i hope you listen and enjoy today's episode of wonderful do you have any small that's just the that's the cold open we're gonna put that before the music do you have a small wonder um i you know just started seeing movies by myself you have a couple times like you never had in your life my entire life made it 37 years and didn't do it and then recently i have seen two films uh first little women second jojo rabbit both incredible and kind of premiere solo viewing experiences because they both left me quite weepy interesting it's nice to sit alone in the dark with my tears i think i saw um fast and the furious seven by myself similar weepiness i think yes or whichever one had the um tribute to uh no i was with you you were with me
Starting point is 00:03:06 because you did see me i did see you yes they caught me weeping uh i'm gonna say mole uh i just got back from a trip to houston and uh ate at a mole mole themed uh restaurant what was it was it called holy mole baby i made the same joke when I was there. Oh, of course you did, because we're soulmates. I love you. It was so good. I've had, like, you know, since moving to Austin, obviously before I moved here,
Starting point is 00:03:36 I shouldn't say obviously, you know, I lived in Chicago, and Cincinnati probably has got mole in places, but I'd never had it before I moved here. Yeah, but they put spaghetti in it, so. They do, they cover it. And it's really, it's like so good. It's like my, it's one of my favorite edible fluids. There's a rich, there's a richness to that.
Starting point is 00:03:51 And this place had like 13 different kinds of mole. And they were all so, so, so, so good. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love mole. Do you, I think I go first this time. Oh, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:04:03 Well, let me think. Yes, because i ended the show with sky cookies which means i must start with something classy please do so i was in houston for the royal rumble okay so that's what i'd like to talk about is the royal rumble format i don't want to talk about the WWE as a franchise because kind of stinky. There's some stink in there that I don't necessarily want to dive into the rich, rich history of that stink. The Royal Rumble as a sporting entertainment format is about as good as it gets. It is just about the best sort of way that wrestling can be presented, can be consumed, can be performed as an entertainment sport. Can you explain just very briefly the difference between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania for me?
Starting point is 00:04:54 The Royal Rumble is, think of it as the penultimate sort of major event in the wrestling year. WrestleMania usually happens around April. And so the Royal rumble sort of sets up the big storylines the winner of both the men and women's royal rumble events uh the individual royal rumble matches get to fight in a championship match at wrestlemania so whoever wins the royal rumble is going to wrestlemania that is the whole conceit of the event uh i have been to wrestlemania before uh and this was a this was way better because the royal rumble is a very powerful powerful event i should say i am not like a
Starting point is 00:05:38 huge wrestling fan especially these days really since henry was born i feel like i've kind of uh dropped off quite a bit from I used to just like watch all the pay-per-views I've never been one to watch all the wrestling programming in any given week because there's like seven fucking hours of it and I'm going to say wrestling a lot I am using it interchangeably with WWE although there's a lot of other wrestling franchises that uh my friends the minskers uh will tell me about pretty regularly. All elite wrestling sounds hot. We've got to get down on that.
Starting point is 00:06:10 But anyway, I'm talking about the Royal Rumble for the WWE. If you've never watched it before, the Royal Rumble match is two opponents enter the ring, and then every 90 seconds, another contender enters the ring until 30 people have entered the ring. And the only way that you can be eliminated is if somebody throws you over the top rope and your feet touch the ground oh that's it those are the those are the rules there's no pinning right so there's none of that like oh he's got him one two oh he kicked out it's if you get thrown out of the ring like dj jesse
Starting point is 00:06:43 jeff that's it. If your feet touch the ground. The feet touching the ground is important because Kofi Kingston, I have shown you, and we definitely have watched a Royal Rumble before, and I showed you Kofi Kingston where he did some, like he like walked back. They do this like floor is lava routine where they like hop from like item to item to not touch the floor. He's grown up a bit.
Starting point is 00:07:02 He was the champion for like, I say he's grown up. I mean, WWE has given him like more storylines. So actually this time he didn't have a skit, which was heartbreaking. Naomi did in the women's Royal Rumble. She like fully jumped
Starting point is 00:07:14 all the way to the barricade between the ring and the crowd and then built a bridge out of like a big placard thing on one of the commentators tables and walked across it. That's great. It was so fresh, but that's it.
Starting point is 00:07:27 Right. And so there's no confusion to it. If you don't follow wrestling, you still know when somebody's out because they've been, they are big and they've been launched out of a ring to the ground. That is very good to watch. It is. I don't watch like wrestling programming,
Starting point is 00:07:45 not only because there's seven hours of it a week, but also because, especially in like a non-pay-per-view format, the matches are so long and there's so much talking and there's so much business and there's so much stuff and there's so many like big,
Starting point is 00:07:57 cool spots where they do sweet ass flips and dope stunts and then they'll lay on the ground for five minutes. Yes, there's a lot of recovery. I get it. That's good. I don't want them to hurt themselves i mean that but it the matches are so long sometimes yeah royal rumble every 90 seconds something new new entrance nobody knows who's going to be in the royal rumble nobody knows the order that people are going to come out so like the 30th person could win because they have the fewest number of people to eliminate ostensibly this
Starting point is 00:08:25 time the big gimmick was uh brock lesnar who is the big big boy the big strong former uh mma champ jimmy johns right jimmy johns man yes went out first and then just proceeded to throw the next 10 guys out of the ring basically as soon as they got in there uh which sucked except it was really sweet when he got chucked although shinsuke Nakamura died for our sins there, which is heartbreaking. That is the tricky part of this Royal Rumble, is that if you have any faves, you can't guarantee you're going to get to spend any time with them, because they may just... They may just get launched. One foot in the ring, one foot out immediately. But you never know who's going to be in it.
Starting point is 00:09:06 year the big uh thing was edge came back who was like a like attitude era wrestler who retired like 15 years like a long ass time ago uh came out looked great uh started a new feud uh it was it was hot it was great but like one time i was watching it and drew carrey came out fucking drew carrey came out one time yeah he got pretty pretty much squashed right away. But hey, that's Drew Carey from the TV show. Shaquille O'Neal came out at, I believe, either a Royal Rumble or a Royal Rumble-esque event during WrestleMania. And it's just like, oh, there's Shaquille O'Neal. And then you remember like, oh shit, he's a big fella because he's actually doing pretty good out there. Do you get any surprise cameos like that? Mostly they were either like NXT, which is like the development league, like wrestlers.
Starting point is 00:09:56 There's a guy named Keith Lee who made his WWE debut from NXT who seemed fucking radical. But no, I think it was mostly like sort of uh referencing uh wrestlers of the past i've talked about the men's royal rumble mostly here the women's royal rumble was also like totally totally radical naomi was great there's a um nxt wrestler named bianca belair who had like an incredible run um this is it though right like i don't follow wrestling but coming out of the royal rumble like i know about sort of like drew mcintyre's arc because i watched it in a single event that's all i need gang it's like a little magazine it's like the toys r us big toy book of big wrestlers because
Starting point is 00:10:37 it's like i like that one and i like that one i don't have to watch seven hours a week of them yeah having not okay storylines most of the time yeah it's an ideal way to consume a very very goofy thing and uh i like it even even uh even though i'm not a big wrestling watcher these days uh i think i didn't even really watch wrestlemania last year you're saying that a lot and i think it's okay it's okay well no i'm following that up with saying i will watch the royal rumble every year until i die because it is a it is a just completely entertaining event um and i had a ton of fun with it went to houston with some friends stayed there did you get a soft pretzel no the bathroom situation at the minute made park was a absolute catastrophe.
Starting point is 00:11:26 And so at a certain point, I just started to stop, put things in my body. Except for the last event, which was the Men's Royal Rumble, where I did have a big margarita. And it was a fun time for everyone nearby. What's your first thing? Oh, we should also say that if any wrestling enthusiasts are listening to this, they should check out Tights and Fights. Tights and Fights, yes. I have not listened to their coverage or their discussion of the Royal Rumble, but I'm excited to. What is your first thing, though?
Starting point is 00:11:56 My first thing is a trip to the ring, but not the wrestling ring. It is a trip to the poetry ring, by which I mean Po the poetry ring by which i mean poetry corner by which i mean here comes robert frost holy shit robert frost back out of retirement? And his catchphrase that he says, which is, let's get chilly. And then he blows snow in their eyes. Yeah. And they fall over.
Starting point is 00:12:36 Anyway, what's up? Actually. Is it Frosty Fresh? No, it's not. You got it? Oh, dang. No, but it is Rita Dove. And I imagine there could be a wrestling nickname made out of that.
Starting point is 00:12:50 Oh, yeah. You know, because the dove is like the sign of peace. And maybe she brings peace to the rest. No, never mind. That's not. I know you haven't watched a ton of wrestling, but they don't typically go that route. I think Bailey has that market corner oh yeah bailey apparently she's dark bailey now that's okay anyway we cannot talk about wrestling any more than we already have okay rita dove has been in the poetry and just general like writing game for over 30 years now.
Starting point is 00:13:25 Um, she's born in Ohio. Uh, she went to Miami university, um, and then got an MFA from Iowa writers workshop. She was the U S poet laureate in from 1993 to 1995. Uh,
Starting point is 00:13:40 and at 40, she was the youngest poet. Oh, wow. That's great. In the first African American poet laureate. Oh, wow. That's great. And the first African-American poet laureate. Prior to there being a poet laureate, there was another position that was called something else,
Starting point is 00:13:53 at which point Gwendolyn Brooks held it. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a technicality. It's a lot there. She has received 28 honorary doctorates. That's too many. That's too many. There's not a wall that's gonna look good there's it's got to be a load-bearing wall to hang 28 honorary doctorates up off you
Starting point is 00:14:13 think she introduces herself as dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dove yeah probably every time. It probably sounds a lot cooler when she says it, though. Or read a Dove, PhD, PhD, PhD, PhD. Yeah, something along, yeah. She has not only written poetry, she has also published a book of short stories, a novel, and a play. Currently, she is the professor of English
Starting point is 00:14:44 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Super cool poet. Yeah. She has a lot of musicality or work. It's actually interesting. Her and her husband are very passionate ballroom dancers. I thought you were going to say lovers. And then I'm going to be like.
Starting point is 00:15:01 Probably that too. Hey, come on now. and then i'm gonna be like probably that too hey come on now um yeah she is apparently like performed in showcases with her husband as a ballroom dancer hell yeah she sounds radical uh and you can kind of see that that that musicality as i mentioned and somebody actually wrote about it emily newsbaum in the new y York Times said that, for Dove, dance is an implicit parallel to poetry. Each is an expression of grace performed within limits. Each an art weighted by history, but malleable enough to form something utterly new.
Starting point is 00:15:35 That's great. That was a really nice way of describing it. That's the thing I think that really is appealing to a lot of people about poetry is that there is some structure to it you know and so you can kind of be creative within that structure much the way that you can in a lot of other art forms um like dance so i wanted to read a poem of hers that i really really enjoy and this this one's jam-packed um there's like not a lot of lines here, but each image is, is kind of incredible.
Starting point is 00:16:07 Okay. I'm listening. Uh, the poem is called flirtation. After all, there's no need to say anything. At first, an orange peeled and quartered flares like a tulip on a wedgewood plate. Anything can happen. Outside the sun has rolled up her rugs and night-strewn salt across the sky.
Starting point is 00:16:29 My heart is humming a tune I haven't heard in years. Quiet's cool flesh, let's sniff and eat it. There are ways to make of the moment a topiary, so the pleasures in walking through. Ooh!
Starting point is 00:16:46 Mrs. Weiner! That is something. There are ways to make of the moment a topiary so the pleasures in walking through is such... That is real good stuff. So good. I'm so envious of this poem because I feel like it is doing a lot
Starting point is 00:17:10 of what I have tried to do in poetry, which is to very precisely create something that is so evocative that once you hear it, you never forget it. Yeah, that's incredibly good. That's one of the best ones that I have heard on this show. Yeah. She has written a lot.
Starting point is 00:17:29 I mean, that's not necessarily representative of all of her work. She's written a lot of historical poetry based on specific moments in American history. But I feel like that really precisely captures her talent, which is to just take a concept and make it so um sensual you know i mean if you're writing about fruit in a poem it's gonna it kind of and that's my guess my one criticism writing about fruit in a poem is kind of a sensuality shortcut isn't it well or in a painting you know fruit in a painting, you know, fruit in a painting. Yeah, that's true. Fruit and music. Well,
Starting point is 00:18:06 and let's just get into it. Let's just get into it. Okay. There's a lot of butt-shaped fruits in there. An apple, apple bottom, like it's right there on the tin. Peach. A plum,
Starting point is 00:18:14 I could eat a peach for hours. Cherry. Cherry is another one. Plum, right in my plums. Like it's all so sensual. Pear. Pear's kind of. Pear-shaped, like a butt like it's all so sensual pear pears kind of pear shaped like a butt like
Starting point is 00:18:27 it's all so buddy like it's all so fiercely butty and it's like why did it end up like that like what is it is it horny evolution is it horny intelligent design like someone something something happened with fruit that did not happen with vegetables. Because I've never looked at celery and been like, I wonder if I can fit my, you know what, on that. This might be saying a little more about you than about the fruit itself.
Starting point is 00:18:56 And actually, you know what? I forgot about gourds. But are gourds technically fruit or not? They do have seeds. They do have seeds. But I've never looked at a broccoloccoli and been like i have for eating it but not for the other thing so what's your thesis all fruit is made horny okay i'm not gonna argue i mean there's a lot of good points you made there
Starting point is 00:19:23 thank you melons yeah I'm not going to argue. I mean, there's a lot of good points you made there. Thank you. Melons? Yeah. Can I steal you away? Oh, no. We got sponsors. Oh, wait. Oh, wait.
Starting point is 00:19:41 It's a good thing. Sponsors are amazing. Especially Dashlane. Dashlane, I've talked about before, they offer a invaluable service for, you know, professional World Wide Web surfers like myself. Whenever I'm cruising around the information superhighway, I'm going to get my car in the Dashlane because Dashlane helps you fill out forms fast, remember all your passwords, and it keeps all your online data accessible and safe with an all-in-one app. It safely remembers and autofills all your login
Starting point is 00:20:10 and payment information so you don't get slowed down filling in your info across all devices. You can safely send passwords and secure notes, share streaming passwords with your family, send coworkers access codes, let visitors know your Wi-Fi password, and so much more. I don't know how many conversations
Starting point is 00:20:28 I would be able to get out of in this house by not having to tell everybody where our Wi-Fi password lives. Yeah. It would be incredible to just have Dashlane do that for me. And then I can talk about other cool stuff that I want to talk about,
Starting point is 00:20:43 like popular music. And the sensuality of fruit. And I am going to start talking about that a lot and if you want to start dashing through the internet and help support the show you can visit www.dashlane.com slash wonderful to start your 30-day free trial of dash lane no credit card required if you like it use the code wonderful at checkout to save 25% on your premium subscription. Can I tell you about our next sponsor? Yes, you may. It's Rothy's.
Starting point is 00:21:11 Rothy's is here. Four shoes on your toes. Cover them up, won't you please, with Rothy's. That's incredible. Did they pay you for that? It was actually, that's another Rita Dove joint um she said i could use it that's nice um i have four pairs of rothies now it's a real problem uh so i can basically just wear them every day all week uh and often i do she could dress two horses folks do you think about shoes that way when you look in the closet uh-huh about how many horses worth is it yeah yeah and i look at your pants like you've got 16 pairs of
Starting point is 00:21:51 pants that's eight horses we'd need to go out there and we need to go acquire um more more shoes the approximate 16 more a lot okay it's 24 shoes a lot of okay it's 24 shoes roth these are stylish sustainable comfortable washable really all-in-one pair of shoes they're perfect flats for life on the go uh playful designs add fun pops of color perk up every outfit while still looking polished and professional i have this like black pair that they have this little like gold thread woven through. And it's just like, it's like a little classy and sassy, you know, in equal measures.
Starting point is 00:22:28 They're also made from repurposed plastic water bottles. So you can feel good about it. You know, it's like, I'm not just looking sharp, you know, I'm saving the world. One shoe at a time.
Starting point is 00:22:37 Check out all the amazing styles available right now at Rothies.com slash wonderful. That's R O T H Y S.com slash wonderful to get your new favorite flats comfort style and sustainability these are the shoes you've been waiting for head to rothys.com slash wonderful today have a message for lauren and it's from kathleen who says howdy lauren i love you so much and i have no idea where i would be in college without you you have introduced me to this sweet sweet family and they have almost become a personality trait of mine at this point. I cannot wait to be real life adults in the next year, but also I wish I could live with you forever. Anyways,
Starting point is 00:23:14 gig them and whoop and stuff. Oh, I wonder if they're Texas A&M folks. Is that what that means? That's like an A&M thing. Is whoop i don't know but i know that i don't know if other places gig but i know that a&m gigs well uh i mean get them go get them big texas oh yeah stomp the other team they're not us that's what they like to say. Stomp the other team. They're not us. We're Big Texas. Can I read the next personal message? Uh-huh, you may.
Starting point is 00:23:53 Have I intimidated you? A little bit, yeah. With my Big Texas energy? You know me. I'm not a sportsman like you. Not like me. This message is for Laura. It is from Alex. Laura, you are my most wonderful thing, my favorite weirdo.
Starting point is 00:24:06 You are the strongest, funniest, best woman I know. Your laugh is magic. Your smile is my joy. I am so lucky to spend my life with the wonder that is you, and I hope that hearing this message fills you with some wonder of your own. You deserve it all. I love you all the time, every day. Every day.
Starting point is 00:24:25 Lift me up, love. Lift me up, love. Lift me up, love. Lift Floyd and Alex up, love. Every day. Up and down. Seeing Griffin McElroy do Dave Matthews' karaoke is a life-changing experience, and it's made me
Starting point is 00:24:45 who I am today. There it is. Sometimes if I consume a lot of food in the presence of Griffin, I will find new ways to say that statement specifically so that he doesn't respond
Starting point is 00:25:02 with his Dave Matthews. But I'll find a way to sneak it in there. I'll be like, oh, I am so full from the food I consumed. I ate too much. Hey, J. Keith. Hey, Helen. I hear you have a true-false quiz you want me to finish. I do.
Starting point is 00:25:16 Here we begin. We host a trivia game show podcast on the MaxFun Network called Go Fact Yourself. True. Correct. The show is all about celebrity guests answering trivia questions about things Jake Heath enjoys. False.
Starting point is 00:25:30 We sometimes don't talk about baseball or cats. Thank God. It's questions about things they enjoy. Next, we bring on surprise experts every episode. True. Correct. Final question. It's just the two of us sitting alone with these guests.
Starting point is 00:25:43 False. Correct. We have a live audience at the angel city brewery see you can hear go fact yourself every first and third friday of the month and if you don't listen you can go fact yourself true tell you about my second thing please do my second thing is uh a wild one i am surprised that i'm talking about it uh but i got kind of into minecraft and i never thought that uh i would experience this again it came out in like 2009 originally which is 11 freaking years ago uh and i played it back when it came out because like
Starting point is 00:26:20 all the like gaming people were talking about it, about this weird sort of like voxel based, like cuboid, like crafting game. I was like, Oh, that sounds neat. And so I played it for a while. I dip in over the course of maybe like a year,
Starting point is 00:26:38 I would just like check in every now and then. And then I stopped for a decade and then it ended up being like the only game that every child plays and how also like the next generation of uh computer programmers and shit are like using to learn stuff uh and it's the biggest game ever and i like completely just sort of ignored it or just occasionally watched it from afar but then this week i was looking for something to play on switch i was like i'll get that i opened up my own like server and like put out a code for it and said hey everybody let's i'll hop in this and let's see what happens and like after a week of that i was like oh now i get
Starting point is 00:27:14 why people enjoy this game because it's a really it's a really special kind of uh thing uh how much do you know about like minecraft i mean i know that there's like a little pickaxe and that you're like building stuff and that a lot know that there's a little pickaxe and that you're building stuff and that a lot of people will make little houses or fortresses and stuff. I don't really know what happens beyond the building. Interesting. I mean, it is mostly about the building,
Starting point is 00:27:37 but there's a lot of other stuff that... Most of the stuff beyond the building is what has been added to this game in the last 10 years that I wasn't necessarily aware of. I should mention that one of the stuff beyond the building is like what has been added to this game in the last 10 years that i wasn't necessarily aware of uh i should mention that the one of the co-creators of the game uh is a real premium shithead uh but he has been like more or less bought out from the property at this point uh so you know good riddance uh it's it's you make stuff right there are little the the basic loop can be summarized as this. You start out, you have nothing.
Starting point is 00:28:07 You're in this big, randomly generated world. You see a tree, you punch the tree to get wood that you then can turn into a wooden pickaxe that you can use to get stone that you can use to make a stone axe. And now it's faster and better. And then you can cut down trees faster and get more wood. And it's sort of just about like, you know, acquiring stuff to make more stuff. That's basically it. But there's a lot of other wild shit going on that they have added since the game came out.
Starting point is 00:28:35 So like they added a whole sort of agriculture update where now you can farm and you can create a ranch where you breed animals and, you know, shear sheep for their wool that you can dye and put into a loom and weave into different sort of things. The big thing, and I think the reason that it is such a big thing for STEM, is that one of the updates added a thing called Redstone, which essentially lets you create circuitry. which essentially lets you create like circuitry it lets you create um basic sort of programming systems like uh and or uh like gates um and you know it starts off with fairly basic stuff like that but you can also use it in tandem with a bunch of other stuff and make actual like computers you can make actual from something as simple as like a calculator to something like really complex like a music synthesizer using just stuff inside of minecraft uh and seeing all that stuff and seeing like being actually inside of this thing that i've kind of watched from afar kind of knowing that it was turning into something weird i didn't really appreciate it until i got into it and also got into it in this uh you know online
Starting point is 00:29:46 world that has been populated by so far like really chill people making completely buckwild shit uh in this in this this realm is what it's called and every time I dip in I walk in and it's like somebody's made a 40 foot high high Bart Simpson. That's pretty good. Somebody made one of the first features in this realm called Good Town was just a museum of dirt where they showed off some of their favorite dirts that they have. I had a horse and I named him the mayor
Starting point is 00:30:17 and then he died and I let everybody know about it. And then next time I logged in, somebody had built me like a whole stable with new horses new mares that i could choose from uh and i recognize that's probably not everybody's experience but it's like uh the last time i played this game it was this completely other thing right it was this like thing that started a fire that made this entire new genre of crafting survival games that like now there's dozens and dozens and dozens and hundreds of uh and it is a really unique experience to come back to it after no joke almost 10 years
Starting point is 00:30:51 of not playing it and it is like just something else like it is it is something huge and complex and inscrutable uh but like kind of with when played in the right like circumstances with the right people like kind of magical like kind of amazing and i think as somebody who like you know covered the games industry professionally for for over a decade like it is always such a like neat satisfying experience to have that kind of awakening onto like having a thing that you wrote about without barely understanding to like a thing that you are now sort of engrossed in and finally having the context of like, oh shit, like this is why every kid likes this game.
Starting point is 00:31:32 Like this is why everybody plays this game. And it's, I don't know, I'm having a lot of fun. It is cool when you think about like kids being into it, that it is like more constructive than destructive you know i feel like a lot of games are built around this idea of destroying things and i feel like minecraft seems more about creating which is kind of cool it is cool it is like a and and also like no joke from a uh the the like stem teaching perspective like i think i have a broader understanding of why it is a valuable tool for that um when i was a little kid i uh we had q basic on our computer which i think everybody
Starting point is 00:32:11 had if you had windows uh and it was just this like programming language that wasn't used by a whole lot of stuff but it taught you like the basics uh so it was literally like the 10 print hey what's up and then 20 go to 10 so it would just say hey what's up what's up what's up what's up yeah uh but i like learned how to use it but that's like all i had i didn't know how to like yeah any visuals i would just do like text-based choose your own adventure games and stuff like that if i had something like this back then like i would have been so deep in it so why do you think it's so addictive? Like, why are people so like compulsive about it? Because that loop that I described,
Starting point is 00:32:46 punch a tree, get the wood, turn the wood into an ax to make a stronger ax to cut down the tree faster. Repeat that infinity times. Like repeat that one concept of getting stuff to create cool shit, but also to facilitate the easier or more productive getting of future stuff okay uh that
Starting point is 00:33:08 loop is like really very very very compelling and it's compelling pretty much instantly like as soon as you make like your first thing you have now seen what is the big thing like the big hook for this game and it will just sort of sink its teeth into you like right away it's not like people will play the game for a couple hours and be like i don't get it and bounce off like you get it and then it just keeps kind of revealing itself to you if you if you keep like peeling back the layers uh it's a cool game and i hope that the this world stays cool for a while and doesn't get just like completely you know carpet bombed by some sad weirdo i mean you could say that about the real world too you could say that about the real world
Starting point is 00:33:52 too that's true do you hear my second thing please my second thing is bloopers i love these things they did it wrong they fucked up um i i you know when dvds first came out oh yeah it's the first thing i look for man is that gag reel there i gotta see that gag reel did you i have to ask this my first exposure to bloopers because again like rachel said wasn't really a thing that you could get on a lot of stuff except at the end of jackie chan movies where you just see his reel of being horribly horribly injured but we had a cassette tape a vhs cassette of mst3k bloopers that i feel like it like was on the store and like everybody who bought vhs's from them like had it we had the whole set and i watched that bloopers tape like so many fucking times. When I was six, I did not get most of it.
Starting point is 00:34:49 Just puppet pieces falling off. Yes, literally. Just Tom Crow's eyeballs falling out. You mean Tom Servo? Tom Servo. Yes, I've combined them into one. Well, that's what we call the ship on the very active MST3K online forums. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:05 What's your username on that? Tom, well, TomRiddle69. But it's the same one I use for the Potterverse. There is actually a rich history to bloopers, which I was delighted to see. And I'm speaking specifically about the U.S. history to bloopers, which I was delighted to see. And I'm speaking specifically about the US history of bloopers. I know that there is a whole UK history of bloopers as well. Except they call them whoopsies, what-os, real cock-up. The term blooper was popularized in the 50s and 60s in a series of albums produced by kermit
Starting point is 00:35:48 schaefer entitled pardon my blooper what was kermit schaefer uh-huh mr schaefer i do not believe i will when put in that context the word blooper becomes a foul thing. It was a mixture of actual recordings of errors from TV and radio broadcasts and recreations. So I guess they would take documented bloopers and recreate them. Oh my God. Schaefer also transcribed many bloopers into a series of books that he published up until his death in 1979. Blooper books? So you could just open the book and be like, oh meant to say this but then he didn't yeah and then johnny carson
Starting point is 00:36:30 his belt came undone what whoa and it was so guys it was so freaking funny you had you guess you had to be there. In the 80s is when Dick Clark revived the bloopers concept for a series of specials on NBC called TV Censored Bloopers. Do you remember this? Oh, yeah, I remember those. Yeah. It was a weekly series from 1984 to 1992, co-hosted by Clark and Ed McMahon,
Starting point is 00:37:07 and then followed by more specials that appeared on ABC irregularly until 2004. I remember just kind of turning on TV and be like, oh, this is a surprise. It seemed like there was no regular schedule for these specials. However, there is a early, early history of bloopers, and this is delightful. 1930s radio broadcaster Harry Von Zell, who accidentally referred to then US President Herbert Hoover as Hubert Heaver during the introduction. Hubert Heaver is so good. God, I wish that was one of our presidents was Hubert Heaver. That should be your username in your blooper forum that you're in hubert heaver hubert heaver i bet there's a bunch of them already yeah probably uh a similar situation occurred decades later when then new president gerald ford was introduced as gerald smith which was the same
Starting point is 00:37:57 name as an american fascist leader from the 1930s yeah that one's not so much of a gut buster kind of a rough blooper there but see we became familiar with them i at least i did in the 90s sitcoms like fresh prince of bel-air and home improvement yeah in the closing credits yeah and then i feel like it's taken on a completely different shape now with the uh mostly like nbc sitcom blooper reel yeah like yeah you can find a lot of that on youtube so like parks and rec and the office friends arrested development there is one parks and rec blooper reel that i watch like semi-annually like i watch it a lot it's the one where andy throws the briefcase he likes it's like they steal a briefcase from like a genealogy center or something like that
Starting point is 00:38:43 and he knocks out a light tells him to throw it back. And so he just literally launches it towards the back of the room. And it smashes a light switch and breaks the lights in the room. And everybody's like, uh-oh. That's not going to be easy to fix. Apparently. I didn't know about this. And you might because you're more knowledgeable about this culture.
Starting point is 00:39:03 Star Trek produced many famous outtakes, which were shown at gatherings and have been extensively bootlegged. Oh. Do you know about this? No. But I'm not a, you know. Some maybe, you know, your people.
Starting point is 00:39:16 Well, I'm a big, strong, muscular jock. This was more of a common thing for like kind of cast party sake apparently there was a cast wrap party for peter jackson's lord of the rings uh and partygoers had access to a gag reel which has never been released to the public shit is very common i mean there's a lot of like skull and bones like secret society shit around those movies yeah like all their little little secret tattoos they did the fellowship all nine of them got little secret tattoos so fresh um yeah so a lot of a lot of movies used to do this just for kind of internal purposes like
Starting point is 00:40:00 cast and crew and then now it's it's more of a thing you can see and then even like in animated movies now you'll see like a lot of like pixar movies will do gag reels at the end those weird me out those i don't like it's a little intentional a little heavy-handed i mean it's a computer animated product it's not only intentional it cost them like 300 million dollars to make each one like it's it's it's yeah it wears me out a little bit there are a lot of websites too that like capture uh movies where they maintain that the blooper reel is actually better than the film itself which happens a lot when you get like a lot of really funny comedians and really bad movies oh yeah i mean there was the whole like all the judd apatow movies had i remember because i had like the dvs of all of them because I was, like, obsessed in college.
Starting point is 00:40:47 Yeah. Where they would have the blooper reels, but they would also have the lino-ramas where it would be. Oh, just over and over again. Just improvised, just the same, like. Like, Anchorman has a lot of those, too. I mean, Anchorman had so many of those that they made a second movie out of. I forget, like, that that was a thing, but, like, I remember there was a version of that movie you could buy at best buy that it was literally just a completely different movie like it was just a completely different i didn't know that with like a completely different plot line
Starting point is 00:41:12 i may be misremembering this but like they had so much extra like shit from that movie that they made a whole nother movie out of it uh hey can i tell you i'm gonna watch i want to watch nothing but bloopers right now it's like you've got me you've you've stuck me with the bug uh here's some submissions from our friends at home okay caroline says my wonderful thing this week is adopting animals from a shelter i volunteer with dogs at a local shelter and i got to see how they change get confident and learn to trust humans during their time at the shelter and how happy they are when they leave with their new family bonus my boyfriend and i just adopted a six-year-old perfect soft soft orange boy cat named jarvis from the same
Starting point is 00:41:49 shelter oh that's so nice that's a good cat that's a good cat name and i wish you the best i wish you the best uh orange cat too is like good because that's what the fine garfield looks like and heathcliff you know people forget about heathcliff i swore i'd never forget about heathcliff but here i go slipping on heathcliff delaney says i live in ohio west of cleveland where corn is a big deal we have a whole festival devoted to it complete with three corn mascots and rachel these are those mascots. Oh, there's a candy corn.
Starting point is 00:42:29 There's a a cob corn and then there's a what I think is a popcorn but looks a little bit like a lamb chop from Lamb Chop's Singalong. And hey,
Starting point is 00:42:39 this is Griffin with my own sort of editorialization. They're all ghoulish and terrifying. I think they're friendly. They're all ghoulish and terrifying. I think they're friendly. They're all smiling real big. I think the corncob is friendly.
Starting point is 00:42:50 The corncob looks like the corncob knows how to party. The candy corn looks fucking dead inside and the popcorn has no right to like exist in its current state. Can people find this online or was this sent to us specifically? Maybe.
Starting point is 00:43:04 Just Google Cornfest, Ohio Corn Fest. Maybe you can find it. Anyway, Delaney adds, looking at these pictures now, I'm kind of surprised I wasn't scared of them as a kid. Nonetheless, I have so many fond memories of the Corn Fest and went every year going up. It wasn't summer without it. I will admit that candy corn is a little scary.
Starting point is 00:43:20 The candy corn is planning something. My demise. Yeah, the eyes are kind of off to the side. Yes, it's thinking about something. The corn also won't look you, the corn cob won't look you directly in the eyes. The corn cob is looking upwards at Jesus in heaven saying like, this is how you do me.
Starting point is 00:43:38 Hey, thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And hey, thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. thank you maximum fun i mentioned it earlier but if you are interested in wrestling tights and fights is a great podcast for you to check out on the maximum fun network yeah go do that immediately uh don't make me remind you uh don't make me tell you twice or else i'm gonna get you and i'm gonna slam you i've got a smell and i'm gonna getcha and I'm gonna slam ya. I'm gonna slam ya up into the ceiling tiles.
Starting point is 00:44:11 Okay, baby. That's the cutest thing I've ever seen.マリオ ワーキングオフマリオ ワーキングオフ マリオ ワーキングオフ マリオ ワーキングオフ マリオ ワーキングオフ Hey!

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