Wonderful! - Wonderful! 169: Boom Boom Hockey Daddy

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Griffin's favorite offbeat comic! Rachel's favorite hard sports shot! Griffin's favorite theme song makers! Rachel's favorite tracking! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https:...//open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources: https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatter   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. It's a show for lovers. We're finally saying it. This show's for lovers. And if that doesn't describe you, you know, that's okay, I guess.
Starting point is 00:00:35 And can I say, you don't have to have a partner to be a lover. Oh no, I'm talking about people who just love. Who just do love hard and. Love wet. You know what?
Starting point is 00:00:49 I almost said that. That was bad. And then I was like, that's too much. I'm not going to. We're both kind of. We are. Like they would say in a sort of problematic, like late aughts, like pop song that got a lot of radio play. We're broken in the same beautiful ways.
Starting point is 00:01:09 This is wonderful. It's a show where we talk about things that we like, things that we're into. It's a Valentine's day spectacular. Oh yeah. A lot of big plans for you. Loves chocolates. I thought about doing a Valentine's day themed thing and i didn't
Starting point is 00:01:27 didn't come up with anything that i felt good about which maybe you did i shouldn't i didn't even think about it okay fantastic but the thing i was tempted to bring valentine's like exchange cards that you did in like elementary school. I feel like that was the... Valentine's exchange cards. Well, there's not a good word for it, right? I know, you're right. It's not, I think that's what they're called because it's not like a... It just sounds like a Subway stamp coupon. It is essentially all it was. I mean, when you got one of those from your friends,
Starting point is 00:01:59 usually tucked into a big envelope that you had taped to the front of your desk or something like that. We're not talking about a full blownblown hallmark size card we're talking about a little piece of paper maybe there's some smarties glued to it or something but it's gonna have you know stretch armstrong it's gonna have mighty max it's gonna have the power rangers now there is a whole like diy empire like via pinterest on like making these elaborate like pun-filled valentines for your child and i see a lot of this okay uh and i don't know man when i was a kid i just i just wanted alph on a valentine yeah i mean for me it was pokemon and that's easy there's a lot you can like just literally just like, I choose you.
Starting point is 00:02:45 Yeah. And that's, you really don't need anything else. From Griffin. From Griffin. I choose you. Do you have a small wonder? Why don't you go first? I just did.
Starting point is 00:02:55 Oh, that was it. Yeah. You said like, I thought about. Oh, okay. Well, that was my small wonder. Oh, you really tricked me. Uh-huh. Okay. My small wonder is going to be just working in bed i guess
Starting point is 00:03:09 interesting i i so when i started working from home i was very much like i'm going to sit in this office chair at this desk yeah and then i was like you know know what, maybe I'm going to just like, maybe I'll just not sit in the office chair. And then slowly as the pandemic has continued, it's like, maybe I'll just sit in bed. And this might be sad. No, man, free your mind. But works for me. Sure. Super comfy.
Starting point is 00:03:42 The bed is good for that. I'm always saying that about bed my first thing this week if i may yes uh is a beloved uh comedian not just by me but i think by pretty much everybody uh who ever heard his work it's mitch hedberg is who i'm going to be talking about first this week um because I saw somebody on Facebook post like some quote of his, of which there are so, so many quotable things that Mitch Hedberg said,
Starting point is 00:04:11 that I was like, oh, I should talk about Mitch Hedberg. And looking into him made me really kind of realize like what an actual impact his work had on sort of how I think about comedy, specifically how it can be benign and still like very funny. Like it can be, it doesn't have to be, I listened to a lot of standup comedy.
Starting point is 00:04:33 I watched a lot of standup comedy growing up. This should come as no surprise to anybody who has listened to our work before is like we grew up ingesting a lot of works of comedy but like even though the the folks who i idolized got mean from time to time or there was some sort of edge to their work that was either sort of a little harsh then or has certainly not aged particularly well or they followed the kind of the like the the standard tropes of stand up comedy, right? Like the storytelling that like you can kind of follow beat for beat and know exactly where it was great. But even then, like compared to Mitch Hedberg, like there was it still got a little bit a little bit mean from time to time. So Mitch Hedberg was a comedian who was active in the late 90s and early aughts.
Starting point is 00:05:33 And he had this really incredible, unique style of delivering these one or two liner jokes in this deadpan sort of stoner fashion. He specializes in a type of joke that I did not know there was a word for until I was doing this research today. And it's a word that I'm absolutely obsessed with now. Paraprostokians is the name of this. I've never heard this. Yes. They are jokes with two halves, the latter of which is unexpected and sort of reframes
Starting point is 00:06:02 how you think about the first part of the joke. Groucho Marx was a like huge figure. Shot an elephant in my pajamas. Yes, exactly. So like for, for example, probably Mitch Hedberg's best known joke is I used to do drugs.
Starting point is 00:06:17 I still do, but I used to too. It's like the perfect sort of formula. I i feel like for what what the kind of style of joke that he worked in and there's such a like fearlessness to it because i feel like there are comedians that have probably thought of a good line like that but then they feel like they have to build a whole story around it because they are afraid to just come straight out with the punch line but uh but he cultivated this like method of just acting on a stage that made it sort of make sense that he just stood up usually not stood up his style is
Starting point is 00:06:53 usually wearing sunglasses on stage usually seated and usually staring straight down at the floor which is something i really like about mitch heberg is like he was very open about having stage fright and uh his earlier comedy was not like this like it took him a while to get to this place where he was comfortable doing comedy the way that he did comedy really really well and and and people fell in love with him and i really appreciate like seeing somebody lean into their own sort of personality to develop their onstage persona. And that is what Mitch Hedberg did. He would just stare at the ground and just absolutely just slay up there. He was just beloved.
Starting point is 00:07:36 He was the comedian's comedian. Like that's a very, I don't know, trite phrase, I feel like. If it's true of anybody, it was true of Mitch Hedberg. And very sadly, he died of a drug overdose in 2005, which I remember really very clearly they announced his death on April Fool's Day. And I, like many other people, thought it was just like a really sick joke, although it did not take a second thought to realize like that's not really the style of joke that he worked. He's not much of a pranker.
Starting point is 00:08:13 Well, yeah. And he was also pretty open about his issues. Hugely open. Substance abuse. Yeah. He was on the Howard Stern show, I feel like a couple months before he died, speaking very openly like, yeah, I use heroin, but I have it totally under control and I use it for its creative effects. He had a heart defect his whole life, which they think contributed to his death. But I think that the way – it wasn't just important for me. I feel like the way he dealt with absurdity in this benign way really, really influenced comedy for a lot of people of our of our generation.
Starting point is 00:08:56 And the thing that kind of made it click for me is somebody wrote about how if Mitch Hedberg had been on Twitter, like he would have dominated, like he would have been an incredibly powerful force. Not that I think that Twitter was necessarily a place that he would have shined, but he was a shit poster. Like he was a comedian shit poster of the highest caliber and- So concise too. Like, I don't know what his editing process was but
Starting point is 00:09:27 i have to imagine he just refined and refined and refined because it was very clear that there were no extra words and anything yeah exactly and it made i don't know it made i feel like in some small way like watching mitch hedberg made me and a lot of people who try to be funny feel more comfortable with being like with being absurd and having that be the sort of defining characteristic of your comedy and not like. Here's some here's some brutal takedown of X, Y or Z. Yeah. Or you don't have to be super big you know i feel like there were a lot of comedians you know in that time period that just had really big loud like raucous personalities and this was the opposite of that um i don't have anything else except some really really good mishetberg jokes so i'm they're like really perfect for quoting like i don't
Starting point is 00:10:25 remember many jokes but these are so because of how bite-sized they were like they're pretty easy to remember uh my friend asked me if i wanted a frozen banana i said no but i may want a regular banana later so yeah uh wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy all day i'm against picketing but i don't know how to show it oh god uh if you're if you're flammable and have legs you are never blocking the fire exit uh i got a parrot the parrot talked but it did not say i'm hungry so it died yeah i just love mitch headberg i feel like it's easy to sort of write him off looking back as just like this stoner comedy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:11 I think. But I feel like actually if you look at what people find funny today, he is a titan. What's your first thing? My first thing is the slap shot. Oh, yeah. We have been watching a lot of hockey. So much hockey. This hockey season is different in any number of ways, much the way that a lot of professional sports have been.
Starting point is 00:11:36 I would say the NHL has done a fairly good job of keeping things above board. Yeah. I mean, they're taking a lot of precautions. like yeah things yeah i mean they're taking a lot of precautions uh they basically split the league into like four mini leagues essentially and are keeping everybody kind of sequestered yeah there are fewer games you play the same team a few times in a row uh just to kind of minimize travel and exposure um there are all these rules around it but it's still you know there's some hiccups there the blues are now four games into an accidental six-game series with the Arizona Coyotes. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:10 And these boys do not care for each other anymore. Maybe those first couple games, they're like, all right, guys, let's just play clean out there. And now they're like, oh, here comes fucking, here comes Schwartz again. Fucking get him. The last game we watched, literally the game started with a fight. Like 10 seconds in. Yeah, the players. Over some beef that happened two games ago.
Starting point is 00:12:30 Yeah. Yeah. But one of the things there has been a lot of, particularly the Blues players, have been doing a lot of slap shots. And, you know, it just, obviously it depends on the goalie and the team you're playing, but it is a very effective way to get the puck in the net. I like learn, I have learned a lot about the different types of shots and they are, there are some cool ass names like wristers and one-timers. Yeah. So the, the snapshot is, is kind of what they call like a wrist, like a fast wrist shot.
Starting point is 00:13:04 Yeah. Is kind of what they call like a wrist, like a fast wrist shot. Yeah. There's also a version of the slap shot that I particularly like called the one timer. Right. Yes. So let me go back and just say what a slap shot is. So it's the hardest shot that a player can shoot. is raising your stick up to about shoulder height or higher, and then just slapping the ice behind the puck and using your weight to bend the stick.
Starting point is 00:13:31 So it stores energy like a spring. Oh, interesting. I didn't realize that was happening. Yeah. And sometimes this can be tricky because of that huge windup. Right. Yeah. Like people know it's coming.
Starting point is 00:13:43 Yeah. You are telegraphing it as much as Right. Yeah. Like people know it's coming. Yeah. You are telegraphing it as much as possible. Yeah. So the one timer is more effective in some ways because you don't allow the puck to stop. So this, this, it's like a very challenging shot, but if somebody passes the puck to you instead of steadying it and then winding up, you are just ready. So as soon as it gets into your little field of vision, you are swinging the stick before it has even stopped. It's the raddest thing that can happen in hockey.
Starting point is 00:14:18 Yeah. The Blues have used this a lot for, I think, a few reasons. One, Arizona's defense is so great. They can't get in close. Yeah. Yeah. That if they stopped the puck and started to wind up, somebody would knock them over immediately. And also the goaltenders are very good. And so the one-timer is more effective because the goaltender doesn't necessarily have time to prepare. Yeah, yeah. Like they are following the puck the same way we are, and they're trying to like figure out where it's going to be. And by the time it gets to that player, it's already on the way to them. It's what I really like about hockey is like, there's so many different ways to score a goal, but usually it breaks down into let's get a bunch of guys really close to the net. And then just
Starting point is 00:14:52 like everybody just start hitting that puck as, as soon as you see it, just start sort of trying to chip it, chip it right in. Or if they won't let us do that, let's just fucking hit it really very, very hard directly at the goal and and see what happens so there there is somebody that is credited with the invention of the slap shot obviously this is a tricky thing to track yeah who's the first person who's like i'll just hit it pretty hard i'll just really get my stick back uh and so you know what's strange and i don't i don't know the history behind this but a lot of these slap shot players that are particularly good at this technique are the Montreal Canadiens.
Starting point is 00:15:30 Oh, wow. And I don't know if that's because it's a very old team. She's been around for a really long time. Yeah. But when you look at some of the players that have been most famous for this or having particularly hard shots, they're all Montreal players. Oh. So this is Bernardernard boom boom
Starting point is 00:15:46 geoffrian fuck yeah one more one one more again i'm not exactly sure how to pronounce his last name it's unfortunate because it really slows me down yeah the best part uh bernard boom boom geoffrian okay sounds good he um he was doing this like way back in the beginning. And he was so good at it that supposedly in 1956, when the league mandated that a power play ended after a goal was scored, it was because of him. Oh, okay. It used to be that if you got that power play for two minutes,
Starting point is 00:16:22 which meant you had more players on the ice. It would go the full two minutes. Just the full two minutes, no matter what. You could score and score and score and score and score. So players like Boom Boom could get, you know, two, three, four goals. Yeah. And so that's when they made the rule, supposedly, in the 50s while he was playing. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:42 Like, all right, if you get a goal, it's over. You play enough games where it's like 16 to nothing at the end of it. It's like, well, maybe something should change. The other thing that I wanted to talk about briefly is the hardest shot competition. So this happens every year at the All-Star Skills Competition.
Starting point is 00:17:02 And typically these shots are like over 100 miles an hour fun boy howdy i would love to stand in front of one of those the thing that i kept thinking about is how like a big defensive maneuver when your team is shorthanded because of a penalty is a lot of players will throw their body down on the ice to block a shot and with a slap shot that's easier to do because you see the player wind up and you're like oh they're gonna do it that just gives you more time to be like i'm going to be fucked up after this this is going to hurt my body so you have like a full second and a half of like i'm going to die yeah i will say hockey players are almost entirely covered.
Starting point is 00:17:46 Almost. But there are definitely parts where the coverage is not there. Yeah. And yeah, they will just throw their body on the ground in front of these shots. Yeah. Sometimes repeatedly. And they are going very, very fast. From what I could tell, there is a record for the slap shot it's 108.8 miles per hour it's a
Starting point is 00:18:11 boston bruins player um that's so that's so fast there is somebody from the american so there's the national hockey league and then i guess there's the american Hockey League, and then I guess there's the American Hockey League. It was bested at 109.2 miles per hour. The guy who had the previous record, the 108.8 from the Boston Bruins, Zidane Ochara, is 6'9 and 250 pounds. Yeah. Just an enormous man. Destroy me, Daddy. Get on that fucking ice and blast me with a 108-mile
Starting point is 00:18:47 puck. Daddy, please! Fuck! There have been other shots that have been recorded faster, but the skills competition is very specific. Like, here's the distance you stand at. Here's how we measure it. So they typically use
Starting point is 00:19:04 that measurement as opposed to others there may be faster shots a shot coming at you from a seven foot gentleman at over 100 miles an hour i would argue is the scariest shot that could come in yeah there has not been a scarier shot how would you goalie how are goalies not just like i'm fucking leave go ahead go ahead because i have other games to play i'm not ready for my career to end because you punch a hole through me well that's what i was looking at because you know like in the 50s when i was talking about uh our friend boom boom yeah not everybody was wearing helmets you know like that was a time period where even the goalies like we're just kind of you know
Starting point is 00:19:41 they're wearing maybe like the little jason like face mask but they're not like you know really investing in some helmets and i can't imagine it just feels better hockey just feels better without all the oh come on babe come on it's so hard to breathe with the mask it's so hard to breathe we don't need it boom boom just decapitated a guy all right actually you know what it feels better to wear the helmet i've decided recently yeah so yeah i wanted to i wanted to bring the the slap shot i mean my my preference is for the for the one timer right uh but uh it all kind of starts with that slap shot that huge wind up and in the case of boom boom it ends your life with the slap shot um hey can i steal your way yes oh jumbo tromps oh okay all. I got nervous there. Can you read this first one?
Starting point is 00:20:46 Yeah. This is for Tevin, and it is from Crystal. Happy early, late, maybe on time anniversary. We've been dating for seven years, and it's crazy how well we jive together since we met selling at Anime Con in Vegas. We survived a whole year of quarantine in our apartment, so there's nothing we can't do together. Here's to many more years together with a bunch of penguins. That, I mean, listen. Quarantine's been tough for everyone. And, you know, we complain because of our little rascal that keeps us on our toes.
Starting point is 00:21:21 But being quarantined with a bunch of penguins? I read Mr. Popper's Penguins. Those little guys are up to no good. Well, and so loud. Loud. That's, you know, I like a penguin. I like to see a penguin move around. I like to see him swim.
Starting point is 00:21:35 But you get a couple rowdy rock hoppers. Loud guys. Loud guys. Here's a message, and this one's for Alyssa, and it's from Gabe, who says, Happy most recent major event, my love. Each moment of the last four and a half years with you has been wonderful. You made this year easier by playing games, watching shows, and crafting together. If I haven't gotten impatient and done so already, I want to use the podcast that makes
Starting point is 00:22:02 me think of your lovable, goofy, sweet personality to ask, will you marry me? And I like to leave a pause there for the answer, because it's, you know, a lot of times it's like, Maybe we could do another
Starting point is 00:22:20 pause, because maybe Alyssa was, Alyssa was shocked. Okay, you're right let's put let's do a moment and there's a reaction yeah it's a moment of silence but for love
Starting point is 00:22:29 unless it already hit they got impatient and already happened in which case is this is just dead air unless Gabe submitted this and then immediately asked it was like never
Starting point is 00:22:42 mind congrats Alyssa and Gabe yeah that's a pure never mind um congrats alissa and gabe that's a pure that's a pure good love four and a half years it's good it's a good you know it's a good time to uh let your your loved people know that you love them absolutely so good work good work gabe welcome thank you these are real podcast listeners, not actors. What do you look for in a podcast? Reliability is big for me. Power.
Starting point is 00:23:13 I'd say comfort. What do you think of this? That's Jordan Jesse Go. Jordan Jesse Go? They came out of the floor? And down from the ceiling? That can't be safe. I'm upset.
Starting point is 00:23:29 Can we go now? Soon. Jordan, Jesse, go. A real podcast. Can't remember the last time I was as excited for a segment as I am for my second segment. Are you ready for it? This is one that spiraled wildly out of control. Wait, you didn't let me answer.
Starting point is 00:23:50 Oh, sorry, sorry. Yes, I am ready. This spiraled out of control as I was researching it, okay? And I want to walk you sort of through the process. We, like a lot of people, have been watching WandaVision, which is a Marvel sort of, it's telling a story, but it's also a send up of sitcoms and specifically their theme songs.
Starting point is 00:24:12 So watching this latest episode where they've kind of reached the 80s era of sitcom themes, I wanted to talk about the theme song To Perfect Strangers, titled Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now. Oh my gosh. You know more about this theme song than I strangers titled nothing's gonna stop me now oh my gosh you know more about this theme song uh than i would expect for someone who never really watched the show never watched a
Starting point is 00:24:31 fucking episode of perfect strangers i definitely watched perfect strangers i don't know why exactly it ran forever it ran for i think eight seasons this show went on for a long time meaning america heard the theme song to Perfect Strangers a lot. I'm not going to play it, but I will sing it. It's the one that's like, standing tall on the wings of my dreams. It's that one. Gives me chills. It goes for a long time.
Starting point is 00:25:00 It's a long song. To be fair, all theme songs on the that time period did yeah like if you are somebody that has watched quantum leap and he's watched the original theme song start to finish very very long yeah perfect strangers was weird because it didn't use a lot of clips from the actual show it was essentially a music video of the two main characters just walking around together just well even before that, it's like you see Cousin Balki in his village saying goodbye to his family,
Starting point is 00:25:31 and then he gets on a truck headed for the U.S., and then he's on a ferry driving by the Statue of Liberty. Kind of like Fresh Prince in a way. Kind of like Fresh Prince. And the theme song is uplifting and powerful and has a pretty righteous few harmonica solos in there that are just like fully iconic so i was like okay this song's great probably not enough for
Starting point is 00:25:56 a whole segment but hey i wonder who wrote this song the song was written by a writing duo of jesse frederick and bennett salve and these two came together in the mid 80s they had eventually individually had some success writing music for tv and movies jesse frederick had done a few like film scores uh bennett salve had been the music director for a few sitcoms like Mork & Mindy and Happy Days. But when these two got together, it started a movement. It started something important. First off, Perfect Strangers. They wrote the theme song for that. Ran eight seasons. People heard a lot of Frederick and Salve during those years. 1987, Miller Boyette was working on another ABC sitcom production, and they returned to Frederick and Salve.
Starting point is 00:26:50 They were like, hey, we need a new theme song for this sitcom, and we want it to really pop off. We want it to be about achieving your dreams and about the love of the family. And they were like, let's see what we can do. Went into the studio, came out with, you want to guess? I mean, you said family family so i'm tempted to say growing pains no but that's oh that's a good guess growing pains i don't know if they did i didn't i didn't find that out but it was everywhere you look for full house oh my gosh
Starting point is 00:27:16 everywhere you look everywhere there's a heart there's a it's fucking good that's incredible you know like there are very few theme songs i can sing start to finish and like so far whatever happens predictability it's incredible it's really really good that's another sort of iconic theme song right and people loved it and that point you know two two is a pattern at that point people are saying okay these two they're gonna write you an upbeat lyric heavy song about love and family and chasing your dreams there's some apocrypha about full house i did not know uncle jesse's character was originally uncle adam and he was also a comedian living in san francisco which like that version of the show sucks shit uh but then they in in rewrites, got turned into like a cool rocker uncle and got renamed Jesse.
Starting point is 00:28:07 And people said, well, that's based on Jesse Frederick, the cool rocker who helped write the theme song for Full House. It said have mercy a lot. It said have mercy. Apparently Elvis had a twin brother who died young whose name was Jesse, who is probably the actual inspiration for it. But anyway, September 1989, there's a new sitcom in the works. This one's a spinoff of Perfect Strangers, a fact that I forget anytime I think about this show.
Starting point is 00:28:37 Let's get Frederick and Salve back in the studio. This time we're gonna write a song about family, a family that loves each other. Going to talk about the bigger love of the family. That's right. It's Family Matters. As days go by, Frederick and Salve back in the fucking mix, crushing it again. Originally, the theme song to Family Matters was just It's a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.
Starting point is 00:29:05 They got six episodes in. They're like, no a different tone we need oc we need original content here in the studio you know how we talked about uh yacht rock a little yep i feel like i would watch a yacht rock about these guys yes writing these songs especially once they get into the 90s when they get to step by step. I thought maybe you were gonna. The same fucking guys. When you were talking about all these like family TV shows, I started thinking of all the ones. Step by step.
Starting point is 00:29:34 Oh, different every day. Do you ever watch that show? Fuck yeah I watched it. I found it terrible. Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, there was an episode where I think Skip was one of the characters and Patrick Duffy's character got in a very extended bar fight, like an extended pool hall brawl that lasted for like an entire between commercials block like just beating ass non-stop uh and i'll i remember that episode i remember very little else about it except for the incredible theme song yeah i will tell you i feel like step by step was a show where maybe i
Starting point is 00:30:19 would just watch the theme song and then turn it off. Yeah, usually that was when I would tap out. It's just like incredible to me. I never connected the dots of, hey, all these theme songs sound alike and maybe they were written by the same people. As you're singing them, I'm noticing the commonality, but I never really thought about it. It would take literally one second of thinking about it to put together, hey, maybe they were made by the same people. But I didn't do that until today when i was inspired uh 2016 also got the fucking band back together wow to uh work on a little project called fuller house oh okay where they worked on a new version i don't know that one fresh version oh you do because we've heard it before because they teamed up with the fucking queen of of reality carly ray jepsen oh to get together to make this hot version we did
Starting point is 00:31:15 fucking bennett salve frederick jesse frederick can't what can't they do i maybe do other things that aren't like incredibly uplifting sitcom theme songs yeah i mean the sitcom has changed a little bit so maybe you know maybe they're still willing to work and we just need to find them the right project iconic though iconic nobody does what they do better than they do it oh did you bring this because they're the new mbam theme song oh my god no i'm very excited about where we're at with the new mbam theme song oh my god no i'm very excited about where we're at with the new mpam theme song i don't know that we i don't they're probably they're probably you probably can't get a meeting yeah well on your show probably isn't family friendly enough for them they would not i bet
Starting point is 00:31:56 they have a high bar they would write a first draft after we gave them the log line of our podcast that would be like these three brothers are coming together your dreams are inside and then they would listen to an episode and be like we hereby cancel our contract do not use that sure you you laugh and you love and you learn along the way but the swears so many so many swears i would say the theme song that's in the hopper has big Salve Frederick energy. Oh, that's high praise. Yeah, it is the highest praise. What is your second thing?
Starting point is 00:32:35 I think my second thing is cool. Okay. Maybe not everybody does. Strong defense? It is package tracking. No, I mean, it's incredible it's it's it's incredible yeah it's an incredible development okay of of technology and logistics sometimes i i bring things that i feel like uh are kind of like uh scotch tape you know where it's like oh this is a really great
Starting point is 00:33:01 thing you know but do we have to talk about it? I remember like, you know, I didn't do a lot of online shopping when I was a kid because it didn't really exist yet. But I remember ordering things like out of magazines or something and then getting them four months later and like being like, oh, did I? What is this? I don't remember. But now it's like, I click on this thing and it's like, it's in Duluth and a gentleman named Brian, his truck. He's driving 54 miles an hour. Here's Brian's traffic record. Yep. You can be sure your package is safe.
Starting point is 00:33:35 Press this button to see a webcam with Brian on it. You could go on an interactive journey. Use this chat feature to send him a little message of confidence and support. Right. So this became a big thing this holiday season. I mean, it was a big thing, I would argue, long before this holiday season. Yeah. So this holiday season, there was an estimated three billion packages uh in transit that's a 30 jump from last year yeah um but an estimated 2.2 million
Starting point is 00:34:14 packages were falling behind each day and this this became a real thing of like trying to figure out like how do i know whether or not this is going to get there in the time frame that I expected it to. Particularly clutch for all gifts for specific time-based holidays. Yes. So this actually, this system, before it was available to the public, it was launched in the late 70s. Wow. Which was kind of incredible. FedEx was the one that kind of started doing this.
Starting point is 00:34:43 And initially it was just a a way to improve efficiency and then in 1979 they started offering it to customers and you would call fedex it was a customer service line and you would call and and they would they would let you know kind of where it was okay just that kind of where it was. Okay. Isn't that kind of charming? Yeah. I guess I'm thinking about like what people were shipping in the 70s. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. At that point, it's more peer-to-peer, I imagine.
Starting point is 00:35:15 Like, hey, I just sent some gingerbread cookies to my grandson. Of course, back then, it probably took like... I just assume everything before the internet was just full-blown Oregon Trail, which I know it's not. I was alive before the internet for a great – Here's some hand-embroidered bell-bottom pants from your sister. I will send them to you. They will be there in one calendar year.
Starting point is 00:35:38 In 1980, FedEx began buying up towers and created nationwide wireless data and communications so that they could start tracking in a more effective way. In 1994, they launched FedEx.com, which was the first site to offer tracking information online. I love learning about early internet. I feel like we've talked about it a couple times now in the last few episodes of just like this was the first website that sold things on the website and it's like what yeah duh yeah i mean i have memories like we we're definitely the last generation to have memories of kind of what early internet was like yeah and i remember like using early internet but i don't really remember the option to buy things yeah like it was it was mainly a place where you would enter questions uh and get answers yeah ask jeeves or looking at like
Starting point is 00:36:36 cool pictures of final fantasy characters was about all i knew how to use it for. Or plain bejeweled. Even that was. Was that late 90s? That was, yeah. So the newest kind of innovation is the new follow my delivery feature. UPS rolled this out in 2016 where you can track in real time. And so this is kind of a huge, a huge innovation that has been stolen by companies like Domino's with their pizza tracker. Yeah. Of this idea of like, yeah, I know it's supposed to get here to today, but where is it in my city right now?
Starting point is 00:37:16 Right. Like this idea that you can like be like, oh, okay, he's turning down my street. Okay, let me put my shoes on and I can like be standing there when he arrives with the package. Right. It's kind of incredible. It is pretty wild. I think I like it better in the context of Domino's.
Starting point is 00:37:31 A little bit. The personality of it that you know, like kind of the artisanship that's going into it. Yeah. I'm a part of this. By observing this, I am making it real. This is quantum pizza. Yes.
Starting point is 00:37:47 I have found this really useful. This is a time of great uncertainty. And there is a lot that you... God, you sound like a press release for a fast food restaurant. I know. And as a listener of Munch Squad, I appreciate that my framing is pretty standard at this point. But I will say that getting that kind of confirmation of like, you ordered this, it will be here in four days between 3 and 6 p.m. is so reassuring to me. As a parent, there's a lot of shit that you yeah especially when we have a new baby we can be as
Starting point is 00:38:26 prepared as we want to be but there's going to be a thing yeah like and and it's it's reassuring to know that if we forget like oh we need like a little tub that goes inside the bathtub to like do baths and stuff we don't have one of those we can get one you know from somewhere yeah yeah i mean that that is part of it also like as it continues to be kind of unsafe to be out in public like being able to know that you can get something you need and when you're going to get it is is a very valuable thing yeah uh so yeah so i i don't know i just have a big appreciation for it it's also just kind of like a little fun adventure to be like, oh, hey, how did it end up in Minnesota? I ordered it from Oklahoma.
Starting point is 00:39:11 Shipping logistics is wild to me because it's like, here's this new MIDI keyboard you ordered. It's in Pasadena. And then three hours later, it's in Round Rock. And it's like, how the fuck did that what the how the fuck did that happen yeah here's some submissions from our friends at home lucy says i love to wonder at my honey bear by which i mean the classic bear shaped honey bottle this little fellow is a sweet friend and provides the optimal delivery method for honey time i agree i haven't seen one one better yeah i mean you could put it in a regular bottle but that's that's not fun no no and also
Starting point is 00:39:45 honey always gets weird and gross and crystallized before you can really enjoy all of it so you may as well have that happen inside of a cute little cute little guy yeah uh morgan says my wonderful thing is visiting the lamp section of a hardware store it's so bright and warm and feels like a mini little lamp theme park love this one that's good walking around lowes is such a soul-killing experience when you're like looking for one you know pvc pipe fitting and just cannot find it but then you turn the corner and it's like 600 lamps although it does kind of suck when you're looking for one type of lamp look at we i for ceiling fans and walking through that section and being like, this is too much. This is over.
Starting point is 00:40:28 Well, and also, like, I get the effectiveness of being able to see the fan in motion. Yeah. But then you're just, you're stumbling around, like, looking at the ceiling. It hurts your neck. Real life is happening down here. On the ground. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these four theme songs, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the ground. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these for a theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description.
Starting point is 00:40:47 And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFun.org. Check out all the great shows that they have on MaximumFun.org. Yeah, I am excited to watch The Flophouse just did a live show where they watched Teen Wolf. I bought myself a ticket and I'm gonna watch that. And treat yourself.
Starting point is 00:41:04 At my leisure. Yeah, I mean,, and I'm going to watch that at my leisure. Yeah. I mean, there's so many programs to enjoy. Go check out all this stuff at MaximumFun.org. We have other stuff at McElroy.Family, including merch and books and videos. You want to talk about your little adventure zone? Puzzles for the kids. A little adventure zone show coming up?
Starting point is 00:41:22 Yeah, we got a live adventure zone show coming. Next week? Oh, Jesus God. puzzles for the kids little adventure zone show coming out yeah we got a live adventure zone show coming next week oh Jesus God next week we're doing Honey Heist which is a bear based heist game
Starting point is 00:41:32 and we are doing a we don't know how it's going to pan out but in a choose your own adventure version of it where we'll have live polls
Starting point is 00:41:40 while we are playing we're gonna have Erica Ishii as a guest which i'm very excited for it's gonna be super fun i think a lot of people get intimidated because they're like oh i haven't listened in a really long time oh honey heist you don't need to know these are little bottle episodes i do need to remember i think oh that's right okay my character is a bear named the thomas crown affair after the movie okay yeah i need to i need to re-listen to the first honey
Starting point is 00:42:03 heist i think we actually have a video that yeah that summarizes that summarizes the events of the first honey heist if you want to get in but yeah you can get tickets to that at macroy.family i think it's next friday if that feels right to me but it's the 19th whatever day the 19th is i also want to give a shout out to those of you that are still on Facebook and looking for a wonderful podcast community. You can find our Facebook group. It's still listed under Rosebuddiescast, but it is exclusively – If you just search wonderful podcast, you'll probably get there.
Starting point is 00:42:35 It's exclusively wonderful podcast related, and there is a lot of great discussion that comes after these episodes. I imagine you will see a few television theme songs. Oh, I bet. In that group. I bet. I imagine you will see a few. Television theme songs. Oh I bet. In that group. I bet. I think that's it. God I wish we could go out with like. If we could go out with one of those.
Starting point is 00:42:54 And I'll just sing it I guess. One of those sitcom theme songs. What's the most. What's the powerful one. What would you do. I mean. So are you going to sing the whole thing. Or.
Starting point is 00:43:02 I might just do a bar. I mean I always. I always at the end whole thing or? I might just do a bar. I mean, I always, at the end of Full House, I always like that little scat part. You know what I'm talking about? No. Bibbidi-bop-bada. Maybe you just do that and then that'll be how we go out. Well, I just did.
Starting point is 00:43:19 Am I done? Well, do it hard. Do it good. I'll give you a second of silence and then you just do it fucking hard. Bibbidi-bop-bada. I love Frasier. Money won't pay.
Starting point is 00:43:33 Working all day. Money won't pay. Working all day. Money won't pay. Working all day. Money won't pay. Working all day. Money won't pay. Bye. Hey! Hey! Hey!

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