Wonderful! - Wonderful! 338: String Cheese is More Acceptable for Adults

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Griffin's favorite vehicle for croutons! Rachel's favorite museum-friendly munchies! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Wo...rld Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 [♪ Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And
Starting point is 00:00:04 Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And
Starting point is 00:00:08 Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And
Starting point is 00:00:12 Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And
Starting point is 00:00:16 Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful.
Starting point is 00:00:21 This is wonderful, a show where we talk about things that's good we like, we're into. Which is a lot of things, it turns out. Sometimes I this is wonderful. This is wonderful, a show where we talk about things that's good, we like, we're into, which is a lot of things, it turns out. Sometimes I go to wonderful.fy, a database of all the things we talk about, and it's like over a thousand things.
Starting point is 00:00:33 There's a lot of things in there. And it's like, I like over a thousand things, I guess the two of us combined. Yeah. Like around, like probably like six to ten. And some of those we only like enough to talk about for a few seconds at the beginning of the show. It still gets added to the registry though.
Starting point is 00:00:45 Yeah, I guess so. So when someone's like, hey Griffin, what do you like? I can be like, I will take you to a website that has all my interests. Icebreaker games for me at corporate retreats would be so easy, because I'd be like,
Starting point is 00:00:57 what do you wanna like go down this list? If the picture of the boy is on it, that's me. I like that thing. Oh yeah. Do you have any small wonders you'd like to talk about before we get started with the main course, the true dish? Oh, okay, I'll say this. I'm worried that I'm gonna take credit for your good work,
Starting point is 00:01:18 but you organized our children's cup shelf. You started this. I came downstairs this morning. You woke up before I did, as you so often do. And I came downstairs. You act as if I have a choice. No, that's correct. You do have, you don't have a choice.
Starting point is 00:01:35 You have a gust. Small Sun insists that I am with him for at least a few minutes in the morning, every morning. Well, he wants nothing to do with me. I come downstairs this morning and you have pulled out every cup and bottle from our like drinkware shelving. And it's sitting-
Starting point is 00:01:51 Specifically, this may not be uncommon for families with children, but there is a section of your kitchen that is dedicated to children's cups. Yes. And ours had become just a real pit. Just a disaster of mismatched lids and bottles. It was full and yet somehow never had the thing
Starting point is 00:02:11 that you needed it to have in it. So yes, you had pulled it all out. And then you got up because Gus needed your presence. I think he just came in the kitchen and he was just like, Come in the living room. Come in the living room, leave the kitchen. And so I stepped in and it took like 20 minutes. This is the thing, right?
Starting point is 00:02:29 Like we've been talking about that for a while. And it felt like it probably wasn't gonna take very long, but the first step was to get everything out of there. And that itself seems daunting. So I just did it and then it took you like 10 minutes. And then we're done, and then it's done, yeah. And now it looks great. It looks so good in there.
Starting point is 00:02:44 That's my small wonder. I'm gonna say, I feel very nervous bringing this as a small wonder, but I want to talk about it. And I certainly don't want to do it. Your incredible sexual prowess. My sexual prowess is somehow only getting better. We've been watching Too Hot to Handle again.
Starting point is 00:03:03 Okay. You just made a face like, I can't believe you wanna talk about this show in the air. Well, one, it is always risky to talk about a reality show before the season has ended. Yes, that's true. And then two, this is one of those shows that if I was in a room full of fancy people
Starting point is 00:03:19 and they were like, what do you watch? I would not admit to this. Here's the thing though. This show has changed dramatically. We, Rachel and I have a lot of frankly, pretty erudite things to say about the reality TV landscape and that- And how it has evolved and changed.
Starting point is 00:03:37 How it has evolved and changed and how Netflix has sort of their own flavor that they bring to it. Their own way of making reality shows, there is a vibe and a pace and a- The way they cast feels very specific to a Netflix reality show. Exactly, and then the level of reality presented
Starting point is 00:03:56 in that reality show, like Netflix has a, I would say a pretty low bar for that, that defines sort of, it differs show to show, but in general, there's a lot of clearly pretty scripted confessional content of like, Lana, are you out of your mind? What? Like the absolute pits.
Starting point is 00:04:18 But we fell off of it like two seasons ago. I am enjoying it from that perspective, from the perspective of like, I made the comparison to wrestling, because it's like, clearly this is all a work. Like a lot of this on Too Hot to Handle is a work. And they know exactly who they have been cast to be. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:40 And there's also this year, there's a whole economy. Yes. Like they have a whole ecosystem they've created with very specific rules. And it's interesting. It reminds me a lot of, gosh, what was the show we watched that had that whole fantasy reality and they had to like collect things?
Starting point is 00:05:01 Oh, New World. New World. It reminds me a little bit of New World in the sense that- I don't know about that. New World is one of the finest reality shows ever made. And this is garbage. There's a whole like currency and it gets changed
Starting point is 00:05:14 and people have different amounts of power. It's- What are you, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm talking about like, for example, the happy hour menu. Yeah, so- Which I won't go into detail about. There's a bad Lana now. The little AI robot Lana that is usually like-
Starting point is 00:05:28 And you find this out episode one, so it's not a big spoiler. Lana will be like, no kissing. But then bad Lana will come out and be like, you guys should kiss. You guys should totally kiss. Also from what I can tell, nobody gets eliminated, and so now there's a new limbo they go to.
Starting point is 00:05:45 Yes, well, you don't get eliminated. You leave if you're unsuccessful at finding love, or if you break the rules too many times, but that shit never happens. That hasn't happened yet. Anyway, I genuinely don't wanna get too, I wanted to talk about Too Hot to Handle from the lens of like, I am enjoying it from a,
Starting point is 00:06:04 this is a polish, like not great reality TV show, and like a lot of decisions are made in Too Hot to Handle, in the things that people say, in the storylines that they pursue, and you know, so on and so on. And it is kind of fun to like try and figure out those decisions that they're making
Starting point is 00:06:25 before they make them. It is, yeah, it's been enjoyable. Yeah, I appreciate it. And Netflix is pretty good about this, typically. They will kind of keep a lot of the key elements, but every season they'll add like a little new twist. Little twist, little something something. And I'm enjoying it.
Starting point is 00:06:42 The circle is in my opinion, still the gold standard of Netflix reality. And then I would probably say Love is Blind. And then I would say like below that is Too Hot to Handle. But there's really not much on right now guys. Survivor's not on, hockey's not on. Like it's fucking, it's rough out here.
Starting point is 00:07:04 But Too Hot to Handle is here for me in the dark times. And I do think we're probably gonna drop it as soon as we find something better. But for now, thanks Too Hot to Handle. I go first this week. You do. I wanna talk to you about a crunchy friend that I adore. And before I do that,
Starting point is 00:07:21 I've never done this with a segment before. I'd like to start off with a trip back in time with a little history journey that we came up together. So it's 1924 and Italian immigrant and restaurateur Caesar Cardini is working at his restaurant, Caesar's in Tijuana, Mexico. Things are booming, place is popping. He opened the place to attract American tourists
Starting point is 00:07:47 who were like wanting to party during Prohibition. And so they would just scoot on down to TJ and they would get silly with it. And that is the scene here on the 4th of July, 1924. Big, huge crowd has come down and he is running out of supplies. Supplies are running low. He doesn't have enough food to keep up with everyone, but customers keep coming in. So what does Caesar Cardini do? He improvises. He goes in the kitchen shelves, he grabs whatever
Starting point is 00:08:18 ingredients he's got. He grabs some romaine lettuce, some croutons, some lemon juice, some olive oil, some eggs, some Worcestershire sauce, some anchovies, some garlic, some Daine lettuce, some croutons, some lemon juice, some olive oil, some eggs, some Worcestershire sauce, some anchovies, some garlic, some Dijon, some Parmesan, some black pepper, and then he heads out on the show floor, and by show floor I mean restaurant floor. But it really was like his theater, because he added some theatrics, he's like,
Starting point is 00:08:37 I'm about to cook something that's gonna blow your guys fucking minds. Probably the whole time being like, God, I hope this is good. I'm putting a lot of gross shit in here. I really, I'm putting anchovies and Worcestershire in here together. This seems like it's gonna be gross,
Starting point is 00:08:50 but it's all I got. And my man makes a salad, it's a fucking hit, and the Caesar salad is born. So when you say your crunchy friend, you just mean the salad? The Caesar salad. Okay, I thought you were gonna talk about the crouton at first. I thought you were gonna do a whole segment on the crouton. I thought you were gonna talk about the crouton at first, I thought you were gonna do a whole segment
Starting point is 00:09:06 on the crouton. I could do a whole segment on the crouton, if you would like. When I was growing up and our mom was trying to get us to eat more vegetables, I would eat a salad occasionally at home, that would basically be lettuce, crouton, bacon bits, and ranch dressing, which is only, at that point, the meat outnumbers the veg
Starting point is 00:09:25 by a pretty significant kind of like ratio. No, I'm gonna talk specifically about the Caesar salad. Okay. Because I- I like a Caesar salad. That's what everyone would say about this. I'd eat a Caesar salad. If you're going through a menu-
Starting point is 00:09:42 Except for your brother, Justin. Justin doesn't party with a Caesar salad. If you're going through a menu. Except for your brother, Justin. Justin doesn't party with a Caesar salad. Too wet. Too wet. But if I'm going down a menu and I don't see anything that excites me, but they have a Caesar salad on the menu, I'll think about it.
Starting point is 00:09:54 If I'm in a salad-y mood, I'll go for a Caesar salad. This is a fun story actually for me. I have a particular relationship with the Caesar salad. I'd love to hear it. My parents took me to Toronto to go to the Hockey Hall of Fame when I was in middle school. And-
Starting point is 00:10:10 Didn't go to the beach very much. No. Went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. And to be fair, I was excited about going. Fuck yeah. But we went out to a lot of restaurants that were not kid focused.
Starting point is 00:10:23 Because it was more about like proximity and timing. And it was also the 90s. So internet did not feature prominently in our travel plans. No. So I went to a lot of restaurants and exclusively would order Caesar salads because there was nothing on the restaurant
Starting point is 00:10:41 that I was comfortable with except that. So that was my go-to every restaurant. I've never, I've eaten a lot of Caesar salads. I've never eaten a single Caesar salad where I finished it and been like, what was going on there? Boo. What the fuck?
Starting point is 00:10:56 That was so wild. It's like a Caesar salad. And I think that it accomplishes that because it has a lot of bold flavors that it kind of that because it has a lot of bold flavors that it kind of carries with it. It assaults your mouth with Dijon and Worcestershire and like pretty potent, it's a pretty potent brew, right? And so another salad that's more based on like
Starting point is 00:11:19 the seasonal vegetables, you eat that, that could go either way, but a Caesar salad is pretty much gonna be the same no matter what. You know what else? They're, to my knowledge, as I recall, there's no tomatoes in a Caesar salad. No tomatoes in a Caesar salad. And tomatoes, particularly when they give you
Starting point is 00:11:32 like a whole huge cherry tomato, and they're like, figure it out. Yeah. I don't love that. Sometimes they put raw onion in it, but it's not like shaved particularly thin, so you just, all of a sudden, you're just fucking Shrek.
Starting point is 00:11:46 Caesar salad does not fuck around. You do not get the sense of satisfaction with a Caesar salad of like, I have made a good choice today because it's romaine lettuce and a bunch of garbage. Yeah, I was gonna say, is the only vegetable in it romaine lettuce? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.
Starting point is 00:12:05 But it's the original sort of recipe called for it to be, it was just like a big leaf of romaine lettuce that they dressed with all of this stuff. And then you're supposed to sort of like pick it up by the stem and come on, come on. Oh, okay. Which is fun. I like a hand salad.
Starting point is 00:12:19 That's crazy. What are you doing, man? I just, it's a funky flavor that goes good with any protein, is another thing that I really like about it. I typically rock with a chicken Caesar salad, but it's always good. It always hits the spot. It always tastes like a Caesar salad.
Starting point is 00:12:38 And unless there's something terribly wrong with the romaine lettuce, it's gonna be a Caesar salad, and it's gonna be good for you and you're gonna like it. That's basically how, unless you don't like Caesar salad, which is understandable because that list of ingredients has a few gnarly customers on it. That like, I remember that, do you remember the first time,
Starting point is 00:12:57 I wonder if it was after your Canadian love affair with Caesar salads that you found out what was in a Caesar salad, that it was like, yeah, it's got eggs and Worcestershire and anchovies and stuff. Yeah, no, I'm not convinced that is always the case. I feel like a lot of restaurants don't actually follow that recipe to the letter.
Starting point is 00:13:14 Interesting. I don't know. I mean, I will say it's pretty easy to put a certain kind of dressing on romaine lettuce and convince you that you have had a Caesar salad. I'm not 100% sure everybody's doing the eggs and the anchovies. Yeah, I feel like there had a Caesar salad, I'm not 100% sure everybody's doing the eggs and the anchovies. Yeah, I feel like there is a difference between,
Starting point is 00:13:27 I don't think I've ever made a home Caesar salad that has been particularly good, where I just put the Caesar salad dressing on it. Yeah, usually we get it in a bag if we're gonna do a Caesar salad. I feel like at restaurants, they probably do more shit to it in the back. I hope so, I hope they're doing more shit
Starting point is 00:13:42 than I do at home with my bottle of craft Caesar salad. It's prepared literally 10 seconds before it comes out to your table. Exactly. I mean, my man Caesar did it table side, which I really like, which I really appreciate. So Caesar salad, that was the story of its introduction. It proliferates throughout the US kind of slowly.
Starting point is 00:14:03 It starts with some mentions in West Coast newspapers. There's an excerpt I found on Wikipedia in 1946. There's a columnist named Dorothy Kilgallen wrote about the Caesar salad and wrote, "'The big food rage in Hollywood, the Caesar salad, "'will be introduced to New Yorkers by Gilmore's Steakhouse. "'It's an intricate concoction that takes ages to prepare "'and contains,' in parentheses, zowie.
Starting point is 00:14:26 Lots of garlic, raw or slightly coddled eggs, croutons, romaine anchovies, parmesan, they misspelled it, cheese, olive oil, vinegar, and plenty of black pepper. You know what I kind of love about the way you presented this is it sounds like everybody was there for the party of the year. Yes. And then what became like your signifier, like were you for the party of the year. Yes. And then what became like your signifier,
Starting point is 00:14:47 like were you at the party of the year, was like a, hey, you had a Caesar salad? And then they would like wink and touch their nose and be like, yeah, I've had a Caesar salad. So another thing in like looking at the history of the Caesar salad is like a big reason that it proliferated was because like Hollywood types would go to Tijuana and then come back and be like,
Starting point is 00:15:07 Hey guys, I'm the hottest guy in the country and I gotta tell you about these new salads. Excuse me. Can I speak to the chef? Yeah, I have a particular way that I would like my salad prepared and I'd like him to come to the table. Can I tell you something babe? That was prescient, what you just said. In 1937, there was a Paramount Pictures exec named Manny Wolfe who started to spread the recipe around restaurants in Hollywood, like the Brown Derby and other sort of like big name restaurants, which I aspire to that level of success,
Starting point is 00:15:37 where one day I can go around to local DC restaurants and be like, hey, start cooking this. There's no way not to be shitty though, if you're doing that. Oh no, but it's- Let me tell you how you're gonna do it, okay? What I say is gonna sound crazy, but you're gonna do it this way
Starting point is 00:15:50 and it's gonna change your life. Yes, no, I mean, it would be part of the being so successful that I could be the- That you could be terrible. That I could be terrible. That is really a reason why it started to spread. In the 1950s, it gets added to the menu of the Waldorf Astoria, where at that point,
Starting point is 00:16:08 it's kind of like widely adopted as like busy. Did America try and like co-opt it though? I have to imagine people started saying like, I invented this. So, like any sort of food I've ever talked about on this show before, there are multiple reports of like where it comes from. The Caesar Cardini story is sort of
Starting point is 00:16:25 the most widely accepted one. There's a little bit of juicy family drama because Caesar's brother, Alex Cardini, said that he is the one who kind of tweaked and perfected the recipe of the Caesar salad as we know it today, and that he would serve it up to his pilot buddies and called it the Aviator's Salad,
Starting point is 00:16:45 which is also, I think, a pretty strong name. If I was at a restaurant and I was like, let me get an Aviator. Yeah. That sounds cool. I'm also into that. Yeah. So the exact origins of it, it is not possible.
Starting point is 00:16:57 I think the fact that a lot of people think that it was a salad that Julius Caesar made speaks to the fact that maybe this is not a topic that people spend a lot of time thinking about. But I did today to do this thing I'm doing right now in front of you. It does remind me of like when restaurants name sandwiches after like supposed celebrity guests.
Starting point is 00:17:23 It's like calling it the aviator salad is your way of saying like, you know who likes the salad. Yeah, pilots. Fancy pilots. Like, you know who likes the sandwich? Billy Crystal. I mean, I think in the 1920s, if you meet a pilot, that's probably it.
Starting point is 00:17:40 That's probably a thrill. That's like me as the president. I feel like I'd still be a little thrilled to meet a pilot. I don't know. I don't know. Just a job. Just a job. There's a lot of people- Just a job like yours.
Starting point is 00:17:53 No, it's different from mine, but that doesn't, but we both do equal service, I would say, to our country. To our country. Yeah. Hey, can I steal your way? Yes. Thanks. MUSIC
Starting point is 00:18:13 My name is Jordan Crushiola, and I love movies. But you know what I might love even more? Talking about movies. And the directors, actors, and writers that join me every week on Feeling Scene love to talk about movies too. Like our recent co-host, the writer and director Justin Simeon. And I love the premise of your show, Feeling Scene. I think that's kind of always my goal when I'm making something. Nothing touches my heart more than when someone comes out of my movie and says, oh my god I never
Starting point is 00:18:39 thought I would see myself. So hang out with us and geek out about watching movies, making movies, and the ways the movies we love speak to us directly. You might just start asking folks around you, hey, what movie character made you feel seen? We're doing it every week at MaximumFun.org. The greatest generation has been going for more than eight years.
Starting point is 00:19:03 And if you've been greatest gen curious, but have never taken the leap, we recommend exploring your Greatest Gen Curiosity in a safe, fun environment with partners you can trust. And right now is one of the best times ever to become a new listener. That's because we just started covering a new series, Star Trek Enterprise, one of the horniest and weirdest editions of Star Trek ever released. This is your chance to ease into the greatest generation lifestyle.
Starting point is 00:19:32 The greatest generation now covering Star Trek Enterprise, the one with Scott Bakula every Monday on MaximumFun.org or in your podcast app. Okay. My wonderful thing is also a food item. Oh, cool. in your podcast app. Okay, my wonderful thing is also a food item. Oh, cool. But perhaps not something you would see in a restaurant. Okay. In a similar vein to the week that I brought string cheese. Yes.
Starting point is 00:20:03 Or did you bring string cheese? I'm pretty sure you brought string cheese. Okay. Or did you bring string cheese? I'm pretty sure you brought string cheese. Okay. This week I am bringing the fruit snack. Yeah, man. It is simple. Tough to beat. My approach to the fruit snack is very similar to string cheese, although I think string
Starting point is 00:20:16 cheese is more acceptable for adults to eat. Yeah. I will say the reason I love the fruit snack is that my children like it. Yes. It is not a messy food. It is not a messy food. It is not a messy food. Like if I am in an environment where I kind of know my children aren't supposed to be eating like an art museum, I can give them a fruit snack
Starting point is 00:20:35 and I don't think I'm gonna get any dirty looks from the security guard. No. Because they know that fruit snack is not gonna create. It's not gonna melt. A whole crumble mess on the floor. It's not gonna leave a residue on their little hands. Yeah. It's a fruit snack. Yeah. And mess on the floor. It's not gonna leave a residue on their little hands. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:45 It's a fruit snack. Yeah. And so I did a little research on the fruit snack and came upon what is called the fruit snack wars. Similar to the chicken sandwich wars. Yeah, dude. This is, my mind is reeling right now because like there's a brand of fruit snack
Starting point is 00:20:58 that we buy now that I can't, I don't, I can- Welches. Welches. Yeah. Just straight up classic fruit snacks, fruit shapes, fruit flavors. Relatively new to the scene though, my research. But that's what I'm saying is like, back in the day, you would go to the grocery store and there would be
Starting point is 00:21:15 80 million boxes of fruit snacks that were based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or- Exactly. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is one of the first like character ones that I found. So I remember that it wasn't quite as homogenous as it maybe is. Not that you can't get TMNT fruit snacks out there,
Starting point is 00:21:32 but I feel like the Welch's thing has really cornered the market. Yeah, yeah. According to their website at least, they have been the number one fruit snack since, well, maybe not since 2001. Welch's fruit snacks launched in 2001 and now claim to be the number one fruit snack
Starting point is 00:21:50 brand worldwide. A rough estimate. How many bags of these bad boys have you torn down since we had kids? Me, personally? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually ate some today because I got really excited as I was preparing this.
Starting point is 00:22:02 Yeah, I'll tell you what the problem was. You were cleaning out our pantry area and left all the fruit snacks on the counter. Every time I walk into the kitchen, I'm like, oh, a fruit snack wouldn't be bad right now. They were only on the counter for like 12 hours. Yeah, it was a chewy 12 hours for yours truly, a juicy 12. So the fruit snack, the history of it is like, inextricably tied to the fruit roll-up.
Starting point is 00:22:28 Okay. Which I didn't really realize fruit roll-ups came first. Yeah, I mean that makes sense, right? Because that's sort of the most primordial state that chewy gummy fruit can take. Yeah, because like the first first was like the fruit leather. Was this like dehydrated fruit that was like a trail snack that people would take when they were like camping, walking around. I like fruit leather.
Starting point is 00:22:49 I know you do. I didn't, I forgot. We haven't gotten fruit leather in so long. No, we haven't, because I think you're the only one in this house that likes it. I personally do not very much. Okay. But I remember that.
Starting point is 00:23:00 I remember before we had children, we used to buy fruit leather. I did like that. I remember it because my friend Leah made that joke. What? My friend Leah really fixated on the fact that you were five years younger than me. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:12 And I was talking about fruit leather and she's like, oh yeah, kids love that. And kind of a suggestion that you were a very young man. Okay, well that's hurtful, but it's, I guess if the shoe fits. What were you gonna say about fruit leather? Can we get some? Oh, I mean, if you are going to be the only one eating it.
Starting point is 00:23:30 I'll put them here in my desk. I'll have a little desk drawer with fruit leather in it. Documents on one side, fruit leather on the other. Okay. Yeah, so fruit roll-ups, fruit leather, all kind of started in the late 70s. The concept of fruit snacks started in 1975. General Mills was developing a new fruit filling
Starting point is 00:23:58 for a cake mix and then kind of just got- Just started eating it. Gotten jazzy on it, and revised and then went to test markets in 1979 as fruit roll-ups. What a victory they snatched from the jaws of defeat, because if you put a fruit roll-up in as the filling of a cake, that textural experience makes me wanna yards.
Starting point is 00:24:21 Yeah, I'm sure, I mean, I don't have that detail, but it does kind of seem like that's what happened, in the sense of like, we're trying to make one thing and we ended up with another and then we just improvised. Yeah, sure. So, what ended up happening is that the fruit snack that I'm speaking of today didn't really pop off until the 1990s.
Starting point is 00:24:47 Yes. In between, in 1986, there was a group called Fruit Corners that came to the market with all of their fruit roll-ups and introduced something called Fruit Wrinkles. Fruit Wrinkles? Ah, fruit wrinkles. That sounds like something you would say when you're like, you are a very, very puritanical person
Starting point is 00:25:10 who just like did bad on their golf drive. I do like that a lot actually. You shanked your drive and you're like, ah, fruit wrinkles. Can we remember that from our Max Fun pin? Yeah, ah, fruit wrinkles. Oh, fruit wrinkles. So from 1986 to 1995, fruit wrinkles were on the market.
Starting point is 00:25:25 They were basically soft jelly beans with the texture of raisins in a variety of fruit flavors. Oh, disgusting. Okay. I'm down to clown with any fruity food. That does not sound great. A raisins, I would say, not known for their strength
Starting point is 00:25:41 on a textural level. Also, 1986, Fruit Corners 1987, Sunkist came out with their own fruit snack that coincidentally was soft and pellet shaped rather like a jelly bean. Amazing, okay, they're figuring it out. That's when we got to Sunkist Fruit Gems, Sunkist Fruit Gems, Sunkist First Fruit Snacks,
Starting point is 00:26:06 and then early 90s is when General Mills hit the scene. In 1992, your friend and mine, The Gusher, came to the market. Ooh, in 92. Yeah, and this was a bold time for television marketing. The Gusher commercials, I feel like when I think about the 1990s and I think about what the media landscape looked like, I think a lot about the Gussher's commercials
Starting point is 00:26:33 where kids could take a bite of a food so juicy that their head turned into a giant banana. Their head turned into a giant watermelon. Like, it happened. Yeah, no, it's like, it's weird how strong those commercials are in my head. Uh-huh. But I'm gonna bring up something that I don't know if you will remember.
Starting point is 00:26:52 Okay. In 1990, Betty Crocker had a fruit snack called Shark Bites. Yeah, that sounds familiar. You remember this? Yeah. The commercial was just when you thought it was safe to eat fruit snacks. Here comes Shark Bites, a feeding frenzy of fruity fun. All right. The commercial was just when you thought it was safe to eat fruit snacks. Here comes Shark Bites, a feeding frenzy of fruity fun.
Starting point is 00:27:08 All right. And they were shark shaped, including hammerheads, tiger sharks, and a fan favorite, the great white shark pieces. Yeah. Everyone can't stop talking about the great white fruity sharks. Those lasted until 2016 when General Mills eliminated artificial flavors and colors from their products. Yeah, what's left?
Starting point is 00:27:30 It's just a bag of dust. So shark bites had to go. Although I have heard that shark bites are back. Interesting. This kind of nostalgia craze that is happening with a lot of our childhood snacks now. Shark bites apparently you can still find out in the world. I remember for all of the, for as much conflict
Starting point is 00:27:50 as there were in the fruit snack wars, as many brands and franchises got a hand on the fruit snack product ball, I was not especially picky. I just wanted fruity snacks that looked like my dudes I liked. And whether, I didn't swear by the TMNT fruit snacks, I would eat a fruit shark, I would eat a just straight up gym if that is the direction it went,
Starting point is 00:28:15 because it was all pretty good. Yeah, I mean fruit snacks are all pretty similar. Yeah. What varies tends to be like the shape. And the gumminess, like some of them have no. Well yeah, and how like sticky it similar. Yeah. What varies tends to be like the shape and then. And the gumminess, like some of them have no. Well, yeah, and how like sticky it is. Yeah, right. Yeah, and then we mentioned 1998
Starting point is 00:28:31 is when Welch's came to the scene. This is when we're talking about making them with real fruit. Yeah. Although it should be noted, and probably not surprising, fruit snacks are not in fact healthy because there is a tremendous amount of sugar
Starting point is 00:28:45 What? So if you are eating a fruit snack, please do not consider that as a serving of fruit for your day Um because go ahead We don't care do what you do what you want Uh, so in 1988 they were imagined 2001. 2001, they were out in the world. That is currently what is residing in our cabinets today. Today? Ultra portable, keeps forever, not messy.
Starting point is 00:29:15 You can fit like 10 in your bag because inevitably, at least with our children, they never eat one small bag of fruit snacks. My only complaint about Welch's fruit snacks is that they only have like seven fruit snacks in each bag and that is an insult to me and my children. The only other bag you can get is like at the airport, the one that has 400 fruit snacks in it, which is too many.
Starting point is 00:29:35 Split the diff, guys. And one thing I have noticed is that fruit snacks, when left in the open air, tend to get very hard. But that's another benefit because then, when you're picking them out of your car seats, because your kids, they're so easy to just grab. They crumble up some Doritos, that's your whole fucking day trying to pick that
Starting point is 00:29:53 out of the fine leather of your automobile seats. But a fruit snack, you just, easy. Can I ask how you feel about a fruit snack as a Halloween candy? Here's the thing. I don't think fruit snack is candy. I don't think fruit snack is candy. But a gummy bear is candy, right?
Starting point is 00:30:16 Gummy bear is candy. Fruit snack is not candy. I don't know why. Couldn't tell you. It's the fruit, right? Like there's something about your brain that's like, well, candy is candy, but this is a fruit snack. If I go to the, okay, at the movie theater,
Starting point is 00:30:35 they always have fruit snacks. Like I feel like that is always available at the concessions. Do they? Always, always. I don't even see them. I don't even see them. My brain is not registered. What I also have available to me is real candy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:47 And fruit snacks isn't real candy. It's a bit more responsible, a bit more buttoned up, and a bit more straight-laced. I wanna go eat some fucking fruit snacks. I will tell you though. So I was preparing this segment, got really excited about fruit snacks, went and grabbed a little bag for myself.
Starting point is 00:31:06 Yeah. Did not really enjoy it. Was it, are they stale? Are they old? What's the, what's the problem? It's just not what I, it's not as good as what I remember them being. How long has it been since you've eaten fruit snacks, baby? I'm saying when I was a child and had limited access to fruit snacks, I
Starting point is 00:31:20 remember them being exceptional. Our oldest child is seven years old. Are you telling me that you have not eaten a single fruit snack in the entire time? I can probably count on one hand the number of fruit snacks I've eaten in the past few years. That's so wild.
Starting point is 00:31:37 Yeah. Our brains work in some different ways. I will eat a lot of their snacks. Yeah. But I'm not as enticed. You're working your way down the list of snacks that are kind of like- I will say a lot of their snacks. Yeah. But I'm not as enticed. You're working your way down the list of snacks that are king's like. I will say we got some gushers recently
Starting point is 00:31:49 and those are as good as I remember. Those shits rock, man. Those taste so good. They taste so crazy. Gushers taste so crazy. They have a sour apple kind now that our son got excited about. And that is a delight.
Starting point is 00:32:03 Knocks it out of the park. I think I've done Gushers, maybe. Maybe I haven't done Gushers. Gushers you said- You definitely talked about them. I don't know if you've done a whole segment of Gushers. I have to talk about Gushers. They're really important to me. One of my inside out brain islands is Gushers Island.
Starting point is 00:32:16 And when I have a fight with my dad, Gushers Island starts to turn gray and fall down. Hey, thanks for listening to the show. We do not have audience submissions this week. We are sort of getting caught up on recording. So it's only been a couple of days since we recorded the last episode and tragically our inbox is mostly spam at this point.
Starting point is 00:32:36 So if you have something you wanna send in for us to consider and talk about here at the end of the show, go to wonderfulpodcastatgmail.com, send in just a brief description of something novel that you enjoy in your day-to-day life, and maybe we'll read it here. Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for these for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description.
Starting point is 00:32:57 Go check out our merch over at mackaroymerch.com. We've got some shows coming up for Mabim, Bam, and Taz. You can find out about it at bitly slash McElroy Tours. Kind of into like coming to Indianapolis and Orlando and Atlanta and Portland and a bunch of places. So go check out that link if you wanna get tickets. I think that's it. I think that's it.
Starting point is 00:33:21 I'm still gonna go eat fruit snacks. Like you didn't dissuade me from eating fruit snacks. I've eaten so many of them since we had kids. So many of the fruit snacks. Yeah, I mean, gummy is an important texture for you. Gummy is a part, is a food, it's part of the triangle now. I'm chocolate all day, but I'm a real Cathy.
Starting point is 00:33:38 Ah! Yeah, that's what I say. I just called the food pyramid the triangle. Health is important I say. I just called the food pyramid the triangle. Health is important to me. Money won't work it out. Money won't work it out. Money won't work it out. Money won't work it out. Music Music
Starting point is 00:34:24 Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.