MBMBaM 783: Spidey Spaghetti

We here at MBMBaM strive to be on the cutting edge of culture, and this week we're breaking out all the stops. We've got everything from rare Dirty-era Christina Aguilera collectible ducks, innovations in the novelty popsicle industry, and a brave and bold new concept in brand eating: dipping chicken tenders in sauces. But before we dig in, we have to ask... do YOU like Wendy's? Suggested talking points: Every Bear a Citizen, Tank Town For Kids, Burner Ducks, The Episode the Music Died Border Angels: https://www.borderangels.org/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The McElroy brothers are not experts and their advice should never be followed. Travis insists he's a sexpert, but if there's a degree on his wall, I haven't seen it. Also, this show isn't for kids, which I mention only so the babies out there will know how cool they are for listening. What's up, you cool baby?

• 1:10Travis McElroy?

  Hello, everybody, and welcome to My Brother, My Brother, Me and Advice Show for the modern era. I'm your oldest brother, Justin McElroy. What is up, citizens of Trav Nation? It's me, your middlest brother and brave leader, Travis "Big Dog Wolf Wolf Vroom Vroom" McElroy.

• 1:24Griffin McElroy?

  What's up, Trav Nation? It's me, your sweet baby brother, 30 under 30, Built for Tough Griffin McElroy. I'm not sure, guys, if I'm even allowed to be doing this right now.

• 1:33Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, dude, you should be taking the day off, propping your feet up like all of our government employees. It's anarchy in the USA. We have no government. Fear not.

• 1:42Griffin McElroy?

  Fear not. Not the worst, like, obviously, bad in a lot of ways, but considering...

• 1:46Travis McElroy?

  Bad in so many ways.

• 1:47Griffin McElroy?

  So many ways.

• 1:48Travis McElroy?

  Serious, but for the joking of the show.

• 1:49Griffin McElroy?

  But for the joking of the show, I'm just saying the government's not been great lately.

• 1:53Travis McElroy?

  Well... You're welcome.

• 1:55Griffin McElroy?

  Certain, certain parts of it.

• 1:56Travis McElroy?

  Trav Nation, I'm, I want to use this platform to extend the offer.

• 2:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 2:04Travis McElroy?

  Uh, of, of encompassing what you guys call the United States of America.

• 2:10Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Um. Let's just go down, let's just go down the list, Trav Nation, because I really, you know, help would certainly be appreciated. We've burned a lot of bridges lately. Um, the folks down on Capitol Hill.

• 2:22Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Griffin McElroy?

  And the White House, actually, I should say primarily, they are also.

• 2:26Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Griffin McElroy?

  So, all the, and the courts, so the, the parks are closed.

• 2:32Travis McElroy?

  We'd open those back up.

• 2:33Griffin McElroy?

  How?

• 2:34Travis McElroy?

  Uh, just unlocking the gates mostly.

• 2:38Griffin McElroy?

  You don't think you'd get in trouble doing that?

• 2:40Travis McElroy?

  Well, we'd start paying the employees, so then who, who's gonna, who's gonna stop us?

• 2:47Griffin McElroy?

  That's cool. Yeah, no, you can definitely do that.

• 2:50Travis McElroy?

  Every bear is actually a citizen of Trav Nation automatically.

• 2:54Griffin McElroy?

  Every bear, you said?

• 2:55Travis McElroy?

  Every bear.

• 2:56Griffin McElroy?

  That's cool.

• 2:57Travis McElroy?

  Even the weird ones. The one that I need you to focus on, Trav, and you, Trav Nation, because it is the one that I hate the most about the shutdown, I think, is that our beloved air traffic controllers will continue to work.

• 3:12Griffin McElroy?

  Uh huh, right.

• 3:13Travis McElroy?

  But will not be compensated for that work. That's the exact headspace I want them at, baby.

• 3:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 3:20Travis McElroy?

  I want them, I want them ragged, bum tired.

• 3:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Travis McElroy?

  And broke. And, and broken, angry. Here's my plan for that. I'm gonna start. Thank goodness. Yeah, I'm gonna start paying them, and I'm gonna hire more of them, and I'm gonna give them breaks? And comfy, like, stuff in there. I'm gonna redo a lot of the stuff.

• 3:45Griffin McElroy?

  That'll do it, man. No money.

• 3:47Travis McElroy?

  I'll get the Property Brothers up in there, and have the Property Brothers fix.

• 3:50Griffin McElroy?

  Like, make the tower cute. That's cool.

• 3:52Travis McElroy?

  Fix all their shit, give them race car beds.

• 3:54Griffin McElroy?

  That'll fix it. That'll do it.

• 3:56Travis McElroy?

  Tell me the next 10 words, and I'll drop out of this podcast right now. You know, Trav, it's like, sounds nice. I gave you a lot of words, Justin. But how you funding it?

• 4:05Griffin McElroy?

  He's gonna help out to land in the planes. Travis, break off a little bit of how that sounds, if you were in the tower.

• 4:10Travis McElroy?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, little to the left, little to the left. Oh, yeah, you got it. Now kiss those wheels on the ground, smooch them right down. That's a good plane kiss.

• 4:21Travis McElroy?

  That kind of thing.

• 4:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure. That kind of thing, for sure. That ought to get our boys in the mood down safely.

• 4:26Travis McElroy?

  What I'm gonna do, Justin, to raise the money to pay for it? I'm gonna sell the tanks. Now, I know what you're wondering. No, I'm not gonna sell them to other countries. I'm gonna take the bullets out of them.

• 4:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, good, smart. The bullets are so big in the tanks.

• 4:42Travis McElroy?

  I'm gonna take the bullets out, so there won't be any bullets available. Don't get it twisted. And then, just gonna sell them to American collectors. I think that there's gonna be a real market for these things. We could put them in parades. Um, just put them all over the place. Let kids drive them if they want to. Maybe set up like an amusement park area with a corn dog.

• 5:03Griffin McElroy?

  Tank Town for kids with corn dogs.

• 5:05Travis McElroy?

  Tanks, yeah, you can drive the tanks around.

• 5:07Griffin McElroy?

  The tanks shoot corn dogs out super fast. That's cool.

• 5:09Travis McElroy?

  And I'm gonna let tribe nation citizens pay a dollar each per vote to vote on what we're gonna name each tank.

• 5:16Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, Trav, can I talk to you over here for a second?

• 5:18Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Griffin McElroy?

  You notice how uncomfortable Justin is talking about political?

• 5:24Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, man, here I am talking about selling tanks.

• 5:26Griffin McElroy?

  What's that all about? I feel like we're over here having a good time talking about Tank Town. Obviously, it's a fucking horrifying situation 100% of the time all around the world.

• 5:32Travis McElroy?

  What, Tank Town?

• 5:33Griffin McElroy?

  But like, it's our jo- it's our job as jokesters to say things like a tank that shoots corn dogs. Justin's over there looking like he has diarrhea and he doesn't know what to do about it.

• 5:44Travis McElroy?

  No, I was thinking. I got lost in my own head for a second.

• 5:47Griffin McElroy?

  Because of all my good ideas? Because of how good the ideas were.

• 5:50Travis McElroy?

  It was when you were gonna get rid of all the tanks.

• 5:52Griffin McElroy?

  Now, get rid of-

• 5:53Travis McElroy?

  Start thinking about-

• 5:54Griffin McElroy?

  Sell.

• 5:54Travis McElroy?

  Sell them.

• 5:56Griffin McElroy?

  Good.

• 5:56Travis McElroy?

  This part's important.

• 5:58Griffin McElroy?

  Good collectors.

• 5:59Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, and you said you wouldn't. Okay, here's what happened. Tanks can neither be created nor destroyed, so I can't get rid of them.

• 6:05Griffin McElroy?

  That's important to know.

• 6:06Travis McElroy?

  I could sink them in the ocean and make reefs out of them for the fishes.

• 6:10Griffin McElroy?

  Cool.

• 6:10Travis McElroy?

  That's a good idea. Yeah, that would be fun.

• 6:12Griffin McElroy?

  What's your hangup, Juice? About tanks?

• 6:14Travis McElroy?

  Oh, no, it's just when Travis started talking about not selling the tanks, I started talking, thinking about that time and Superman went and scooped up all of our weapons and threw them in the sun. Really, part in Superman 4, a lot of people don't talk about it, but

• 6:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:29Travis McElroy?

  in Superman 4, Superman scoops up all the nuclear weapons on the planet.

• 6:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Travis McElroy?

  Which he knows about. This, this, he, yeah, X-rays, okay. So he gets all the nuclear bombs on the planet and then he throws them in the sun.

• 6:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Travis McElroy?

  Do you think-

• 6:46Travis McElroy?

  I mean, Superman's great and indestructible. We love it. Yeah. Do you think he talked to any science guys about that at all? And because like, I'm not a bombologist for sure. Yeah. But like, it does seem wild that he just kinda made that call. Do you think too, when he landed back and he was like, I got rid of all the nuclear weapons? Like the science guys and stuff were like, oh my God, you got rid of all the nuclear weapons? And all this stuff to make more nuclear weapons? And he was like, oh shit.

• 7:13Griffin McElroy?

  Oh no.

• 7:13Travis McElroy?

  Um, I'll be right back. I got a good get.

• 7:15Griffin McElroy?

  I get it on the middle. I think Supes probably did some back of the napkin math. According to they might be giants, a million Earths could fit inside of one sun. And a million nuclear bombs can fit in one Earth.

• 7:26Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Griffin McElroy?

  So that's like a Google bombs. I think it would take quite a lot to blow up the sun. But it would have been nice to know if he had done like a press conference beforehand, even shortly beforehand, like, hey, I'm Superman. I'm gonna take your bombs. There's nothing you can do to stop me. I'm gonna throw them into the sun. If you happen to be a sunologist and you know stuff about how that could be disastrous for the whole solar system, hit me up. And he has like a public.

• 7:51Travis McElroy?

  Right now, I'm gonna pick them all up. I'm gonna park them on Saturn as a placeholder. And then when you guys tell me it's cool, I'm gonna take them to the sun. If we wanna do them one at a time, just to see how it goes.

• 8:03Griffin McElroy?

  I think is okay. We'll do 10 at a time. If there's like a crazy flare, I'll be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yowza!

• 8:10Travis McElroy?

  Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. It's like, yeah, it's exactly the fireworks procedure.

• 8:13Griffin McElroy?

  Superman, Superman, hi, Jeff, Jeff, Daily Planet. Couldn't you just throw them anywhere else in the whole gal- in the whole universe?

• 8:20Travis McElroy?

  No, because if he throws it, so, that wasn't if he throws it and he doesn't throw it far enough, so it comes, it falls back down.

• 8:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 8:26Travis McElroy?

  To Earth. And also, you know, like Doomsday's out there and Megazord, all the other Superman bad guys. And they could collect those things up, you know what I mean? He could hit the Guardians of the Galaxy with that. Then where are we at? Yeah, you gotta be careful with that. Um, Captain Planet told him to do it and he was like, yeah, let's do it. This is a.

• 8:47Griffin McElroy?

  It is a bad idea to talk about this considering that it is, I mean, four or five days before the episode comes out while we record this. We don't know what the situation is. I did see Mike Johnson on the news this morning. That absolutely fucking showed penis wrinkle up on a stage saying, if the Democrats don't get it together, we're gonna have to start laying off federal workers. You hate that shit, don't you, Michael? Michael, that's your least favorite.

• 9:12Travis McElroy?

  Start?

• 9:13Griffin McElroy?

  Boo! We hate laying off federal, fuck off, chowed nuts. Get him.

• 9:20Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, get him, Griffin.

• 9:21Griffin McElroy?

  I hate how much oxygen I share with that absolute fucking chowed wrinkle. Fuck that dude.

• 9:28Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Is he one of the big guys or what's up?

• 9:31Griffin McElroy?

  He came out, he was, someone came up to him and was like, hey, your president's embarrassing himself, man. And he's like, I didn't see the whole military speech thing.

• 9:40Griffin McElroy?

  Eat both of these nuts, Mike Johnson, you fucking chowed.

• 9:44Travis McElroy?

  Did he see the thing where Trump posted an AI video of himself saying a thing he never said?

• 9:50Griffin McElroy?

  Michael!

• 9:51Travis McElroy?

  I did it.

• 9:52Griffin McElroy?

  Didn't see that one.

• 9:54Travis McElroy?

  Did see it. No, I was watching, uh, the new season of The Bear. I know I'm a little behind, but I haven't been keeping up with current events. I only read Lamont. Isn't it Lamont?

• 10:07Travis McElroy?

  Uh, this is an advice show. I want to help you, the people. I collect rubber ducks. In recent years, this has become pretty common and they're popping up in more and more stores. As a result, when I mention my collection nowadays, I'll get a casual, oh, I have a friend who collects them too, or something casual like that. The thing is, I bet you've used casual twice in two clauses, my friend. I know exactly what your problem is with this new wave of duck collectors, huh? It couldn't be that they're casual, huh?

• 10:38Travis McElroy?

  The thing is that I've been collecting for about 15 years.

• 10:41Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck yeah.

• 10:41Travis McElroy?

  And have about three, I didn't even finish the fucking question I knew had your number. Not that exact number, I would have guessed 300 unique ducks. How can I casually assert my dominance as the inevitably superior collector? That's from Buoyancy Bother in Virginia.

• 10:59Griffin McElroy?

  We're, we're gonna have to put on the hat of someone who celebrates a sort of gatekeeping, which is not our usual position to take, but I do think, I do fully, fully understand why it would get your hackles up. My oldest says that he has a rubber duck collection because he gets a rubber duck every time he goes to the dentist. My friends, he has like nine. And then some of them are cool. He has one big glittery one. I like that a lot. That's a cool rubber duck. He's got a whole spot in his bedroom where he displays them. That's great. But come on.

• 11:31Travis McElroy?

  I don't know.

• 11:32Griffin McElroy?

  Three hundo.

• 11:33Travis McElroy?

  I don't, uh, listen, I'm gonna gatekeep gatekeeping for a second. I don't know that differentiating a collection versus I have several of those. That's more of like, let's, let's make words mean something more than it is gate. If you said, I like rubber ducks and you said, you don't like rubber ducks, I like rubber ducks because I have 300 of them. But if you're like, yeah, my friend collects those. And you're like, how many do they have? And they're like, five. It's like, no, they have several of them. But it's just like, everybody feels like a phony all the time, man. Not me.

• 12:11Griffin McElroy?

  That's true. Travis doesn't. Some people don't.

• 12:13Travis McElroy?

  Okay. A lot of people feel like a phony all the time. You don't have to do anything to make people feel like a phony, right? I understand the compulsion, but if you peacock a little bit, they're gonna fill in the.

• 12:26Griffin McElroy?

  It's a different bird. Travis is right on this one. It's a fully different bird. They don't even look anything.

• 12:31Travis McElroy?

  If you are ostentatious. Thank you. With your ducks, then I think that they're gonna fill in the blanks there. And they're gonna see what a, what a joke they are. They're gonna recognize themselves for the jabroni that they are. They're gonna know that your superiority there. They're gonna know the tip of the flying V, such as it is. Now, let me ask you this, Justin. Is there a scenario in which question asker is talking about, very proudly, their duck collection?

• 12:58Travis McElroy?

  And then one of said jabronis tries to steal a little bit of that limelight of like, yeah, I also do that.

• 13:05Griffin McElroy?

  No, if they, if they frame it like, no big deal. I also do ducks.

• 13:09Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, everybody does that. That's when you have to drop. That's when you should, okay.

• 13:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Travis McElroy?

  There is one pretty good option here, and that is to have a bag of 20 to 30 discreet ducks on you at all times.

• 13:21Griffin McElroy?

  Burners, not your faves.

• 13:23Travis McElroy?

  Not your faves.

• 13:24Griffin McElroy?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 13:26Travis McElroy?

  You need to be able to toss them on the ground and walk away. That's, that's how good your collection is.

• 13:33Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:33Travis McElroy?

  These are literal trash to me.

• 13:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Travis McElroy?

  This is not, this is gravel.

• 13:36Griffin McElroy?

  Hold up like a special limited edition, like Christina Aguilera, like, uh, Dirty Era, sort of like cross promo record launch duck. And they're like, you're like, pretty cool, huh? And they're like, holy shit, where'd you even get that? You say, and you crush it in your hand, you throw it in the garden, you say, doesn't matter, I have 30 of them.

• 13:51Travis McElroy?

  I got 30 of them.

• 13:52Griffin McElroy?

  I have 30.

• 13:56Griffin McElroy?

  I want your ducks all over my floor.

• 14:01Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I, I. We're probably the first people to make that. Sometimes it feels like I feel an energy in the room. And it's like, we're definitely the first people to ever make a rubber duck collection based Christina Aguilera dirty joke.

• 14:13Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I feel like after we do it, sometimes we take like two beats.

• 14:17Griffin McElroy?

  We take a breath. That was cool.

• 14:19Travis McElroy?

  For the historians to write it down.

• 14:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's like to clip it. Awesome.

• 14:22Travis McElroy?

  Clip it out.

• 14:23Griffin McElroy?

  Clip that chat.

• 14:24Travis McElroy?

  It makes it easier for history to find it. When history is find, trying to find it later, the big ones.

• 14:29Griffin McElroy?

  There's little parentheses around the joke.

• 14:30Travis McElroy?

  They go a little parenthetical, a silent parenthetical.

• 14:33Griffin McElroy?

  And that was when they changed everything.

• 14:35Travis McElroy?

  That's one of the times when they changed everything that week.

• 14:38Griffin McElroy?

  This was the episode, the music died. We'll all remember. Um, I think a great solve for this, and this is one that you can use for so many fucking things that you want to use as a conversation starter, or a subtle means of displaying your superiority in your duck collection, is set it as your desktop on your phone, your wallpaper, whatever you call it. People call it different things in different countries. Um, your desktop wallpaper on your phone. Make it all of your ducks. People are going to see that because it's bright and colorful. They'll be like, wow, it's a lot of ducks. You say, thanks, they're mine. Do you want to see more photos of them? Don't tell me about your friend. They'll be too embar- they'll know if they see it, they'll know that it's not appropriate to bring up their friend.

• 15:23Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I just feel like if you've already dropped a bag of 20 to 30 discreet ducks on the Griffins, it's just a whole lot of.

• 15:30Griffin McElroy?

  Well, mine, if you think about how many times you're doing that a day, they only have 300 ducks, so they could pull off this gambit approximately 10 times.

• 15:38Travis McElroy?

  You are, you have to go back for your boys. You gotta give them, you can, you can. Ducks fly together, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, you can drop them in a flourish, but ducks fly together.

• 15:49Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, man, holy shit, though. I almost think because of my prioritizing avoiding uncomfortable social scenarios, it would be worse to have this be public information. Because do you know how many fucking scrouddy row, basic ass, canary yellow rubber ducks you are going to get sitting on your, you come in, they know it's your birthday, they put a basic ass rubber duck, like, enjoy, what the fuck am I gonna do with this? This platonic ideal of a rubber duck.

• 16:21Travis McElroy?

  There is an early level of intervention, though, where you set that up like, listen, I love receiving ducks if, if they are like appropriate for the collection. And now you've given your coworkers or friends like the hunt, right? Where they're gonna bring them like, what about this one? I've done it, this one is special. And when they get the approval on that, that's when it feels so good. And it's like, yeah, that's worthy. You nailed it, that's great.

• 16:50Griffin McElroy?

  If you had a big rubber duck collection, wouldn't you want to display it in like a huge, like hook a duck rotating aquatic display? Like you would have a whole room in your house and you walk, people would walk in and you, they're just going, like they're not sitting on a shelf collecting ducks.

• 17:07Travis McElroy?

  Oh, yeah, they're like in a ring of moving water.

• 17:10Griffin McElroy?

  They're in a ring of moving water, like a carnival game. But these are absolutely not child's prizes. These are adult collector's items. That would be so cool.

• 17:18Travis McElroy?

  Man, I hate the use of the word adult before things. It just is, I think it's been ruined for me. The second you say adult collector's items, I'm like, ugh.

• 17:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Travis McElroy?

  What's up with these ducks?

• 17:29Griffin McElroy?

  They are, they are, they are butt ducks.

• 17:33Travis McElroy?

  I, I love popsicles and I was thinking about maybe bringing some to work as a delightful afternoon snack. There's a freezer and the popsicles are individually wrapped. What's the etiquette on bringing these treats into the office? For context, I'm specifically speaking about the frozen treats on a stick.

• 17:52Travis McElroy?

  Not the flavored ice in a sleeve or ice cream. The flavor would most likely be fruit flavored. So no bomb. Thank you.

• 18:00Griffin McElroy?

  You're really building this fucking plane while you're flying it, aren't you?

• 18:03Travis McElroy?

  These are important details, though.

• 18:06Griffin McElroy?

  They are important details, you know what? Maybe it would be better if you said-

• 18:10Travis McElroy?

  What the fuck do you think bomb pops taste like?

• 18:13Griffin McElroy?

  Bomb pop, give me a, it's a kadoosie. Give me a fucking, a push pop, maybe that would be unconventional. I might, I might-

• 18:19Travis McElroy?

  They're all fruit flavors. There's two kinds of flavors. I know, but Justin, you have to recognize in a professional setting. You see Derek from accounting bust out a flute flavored popsicle. Sorry, sorry, you said flute, so we have to stop. Well, it's playable, like those candies, you know, like Tootsweets from Chitty Chitty Bing Bing. Fuck, I'd destroy a Tootsweet right now. Yeah, we all would. And, uh, but it's, you see that and it's like, now that's almost a professional affectation. I see a bomb pop. I'm like, that's a child working an adult's job.

• 18:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, what's the adult? I guess there are like those fucking fancy chocolate ones that you see where they like really drizzle on the, that, that good chocolate stuff.

• 19:04Travis McElroy?

  But it's not an ice cream one, girlfriend.

• 19:05Griffin McElroy?

  You're right, it's not an ice cream, it's a fruit flavor, you're right.

• 19:08Travis McElroy?

  There is the ones, we've tried to do this where it's like, hey, there's pieces of real fruit inside. And like give those to our kids and our kids are like, what do you think I want out of a popsicle experience? Because the father business is not it.

• 19:19Griffin McElroy?

  It's not the world's hardest strawberry, I'll tell you that much.

• 19:22Travis McElroy?

  It's just like the gap between, it's like, the biggest gap in the world is the gap between how kids think they feel about smoothies and how kids really feel about smoothies.

• 19:32Griffin McElroy?

  For sure.

• 19:32Travis McElroy?

  Kids are obsessed, because we had a lot of, we had a lot of cartoons that were in their age that were like, trying to popularize, you know, healthy eating, right? Like, you gotta eat smoothies. Like Daniel Tiger like went ape shit for it and they love, conceptually love smoothies.

• 19:49Griffin McElroy?

  Well, that was, he was doing protein, he was protein packing, because he wanted to get huge, like his dad, he wanted to get huge, like his dad. That was the whole thing where the, do you remember the, like the chunk of episodes where the lion moved into town and like took? He like walked up to Daniel Tiger's dad and like fucking punched him in the face and then took his house. Took his house and his wife and his watch and it's like, his dad is like, "The powder's not gonna call it, Daniel. If you want real gains, you gotta eat a gazelle." So they, he had to protein pack on. Do you remember that? It was the one Prince Wednesday did die. He died from the lion attack.

• 20:23Travis McElroy?

  Kids don't like smoothies. That's all I was gonna say. I, I can't. Where you guys have popsicles? Cause I, I, guys, I bring these flavored treats out to the pool. My kids love them. I can't, I don't like any popsicles.

• 20:39Griffin McElroy?

  That's, that's, I understand that. They give me a tummy ache weirdly. Especially the ones in the plastic sleeve. It's just like straight sugar water.

• 20:47Travis McElroy?

  You say weirdly. They contain carbon, so I don't understand why it is weird that they give you a tummy ache.

• 20:52Griffin McElroy?

  I will fuck absolutely with a Philly swirl. Sometimes those come in cups with a stick, but they do make them in popsicle forms. Those are so lit. Justin, you don't.

• 21:00Travis McElroy?

  People, people, Philly swirl people, please make a box of the cotton candy ones. You only put two in there and it's ruining my life. Please.

• 21:08Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, it's my least favorite, but for the kids, the kids gotta have it.

• 21:13Travis McElroy?

  Hey, as long as we're on this, I see you all out there, popsicle makers, day animals, all y'all. You know, you got one good flavor and one shit flavor and you do combo boxes to get that shit flavor out of the warehouse. Cut it the fuck out.

• 21:28Griffin McElroy?

  Cut it out. We're on to you.

• 21:29Travis McElroy?

  And stop putting people they like on. Stop putting people they like on flavors they don't. I'm tired telling my kid, I can't give him Olaf's horseradish crunch.

• 21:43Travis McElroy?

  My son Jeremy despises horseradish, so I can't buy it for him.

• 21:47Griffin McElroy?

  You don't like spaghetti. I'm not getting you, I'm not getting you the ragu with the battle bus on it, dude.

• 21:53Travis McElroy?

  Getting Spidey spaghetti. You don't like Spidey spaghetti yogurt.

• 21:57Griffin McElroy?

  You hate spaghetti. You love Spider-Man. He won't make it taste good. It won't taste how Spider-Man feels to you to see him.

• 22:09Travis McElroy?

  I know the spaghetti's like webs, but it doesn't, it doesn't translate.

• 22:13Griffin McElroy?

  It doesn't, it doesn't taste good.

• 22:15Travis McElroy?

  I can't make the pasta look more like Spider-Man. There's only so much I can make it look. I know it fell apart with your spoon, sweetie. You're supposed to.

• 22:23Griffin McElroy?

  It's supposed to.

• 22:24Travis McElroy?

  You're supposed to eat Spider-Man.

• 22:25Griffin McElroy?

  I like it, cause I like spaghetti, but you don't. I get to enjoy Spider-Man's flavor, but you don't, because you don't like it.

• 22:35Travis McElroy?

  And I bought the, I bought the family-sized pack of it, because we both thought it was gonna be a thing. And we committed to it.

• 22:45Travis McElroy?

  Now, watch me eat it. Um, you gotta label your box of popsicles, first of all. But you also gotta know that what, with individually wrapped popsicle, you are creating a very stealable situation. It's one of the more stealable foods.

• 23:00Griffin McElroy?

  Anything individually wrapped in like a box of more than four, you could, you could totally lose one of those just to, just to theft.

• 23:09Travis McElroy?

  Shrinkage.

• 23:10Griffin McElroy?

  Shrinkage is what they do call it. Um, what if you made your own popsicles? This is a fun summertime activity, and it's not really summer anymore, but it is fun to make a popsicle. And then no one's gonna really go after those. And I think if they see you eating them and they see like little herbs and shit floating around in there, it does lend it a certain, like, I don't know, veneer of adulthood.

• 23:36Griffin McElroy?

  Wow, you guys fucking hated that idea.

• 23:38Travis McElroy?

  No, I liked it so much.

• 23:40Griffin McElroy?

  You despised that idea.

• 23:42Travis McElroy?

  I was picturing in my head, Griffin, when I'm, anytime we talk about like an office behavior outside of any nor, like, regular established procedures, right?

• 23:51Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 23:51Travis McElroy?

  I start to think, and how does this translate to, oh, that's Tom, the blank guy, the office blank guy.

• 23:59Griffin McElroy?

  The office popsicle.

• 24:01Travis McElroy?

  The office popsicle guy, okay, I can see it. He's every day, 1:30, he has a popsicle to get him over that hump and make it to 5 o'clock. We love that.

• 24:10Griffin McElroy?

  Probably good.

• 24:11Travis McElroy?

  Bespoke popsicle guy, who makes his own like basil lemonade.

• 24:18Griffin McElroy?

  I think that's cool. I think that's kinda cool.

• 24:21Travis McElroy?

  That's what I'm trying to determine. I'd get into it. Okay.

• 24:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 24:25Travis McElroy?

  I, uh, I think we might have a solution to this problem. Uh, from Wheeling, West Virginia with our own budget saver. That company is the company behind Twin Pops.

• 24:38Griffin McElroy?

  No way.

• 24:39Travis McElroy?

  Twin Pops might be just the thing. Cause imagine anytime someone goes to the freezer.

• 24:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Travis McElroy?

  And they come out with one, you have a little bell.

• 24:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 24:50Travis McElroy?

  And it's like, ah, ah, ah, hello?

• 24:52Griffin McElroy?

  Kach, kach.

• 24:53Travis McElroy?

  What are we here?

• 24:54Griffin McElroy?

  You will not get much work done. You will be what primarily watching the kitchen to see if someone comes out with one of these pops.

• 24:59Travis McElroy?

  But when they come out, it's like, ah, splitsies.

• 25:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 25:03Travis McElroy?

  You know, two for, there's two there. One for me. Thank you. One.

• 25:07Griffin McElroy?

  One for.

• 25:08Travis McElroy?

  One for me. One, one for, one for.

• 25:12Griffin McElroy?

  Two for, one for.

• 25:13Travis McElroy?

  Two for, we're splitting.

• 25:15Griffin McElroy?

  Two for has one for me.

• 25:16Travis McElroy?

  We're splitting them.

• 25:19Griffin McElroy?

  Have you ever tried to split one of those in a clean half? Not doable. Twin pops are, we should get up to Wheeling, cause we could, we could probably access that factory.

• 25:27Travis McElroy?

  You need perforation.

• 25:29Griffin McElroy?

  Just a little perforation, please. That's all I'm asking.

• 25:32Travis McElroy?

  I had, get a, get a daughter, get a daughter that cries if you do it wrong. You'll learn. You'll get a real, you'll get fucking, I got, you know, no shit. I got Martin Yan's crazy butcher knife. Above my, my stove for when my kid wants a twin pop and I can't deal with the breakdown and I need perfect, that perfect precision. That perfect boreage. We don't talk about the weird.

• 25:55Griffin McElroy?

  Degrees of, of carbon steel.

• 25:58Travis McElroy?

  I've gotten so good at eyeballing, splitting a drink into two cups. Like, I'm like, mm, I'm, I bet it's to the micron, you know what I mean? Like, I could.

• 26:09Griffin McElroy?

  We got a pizza delivered earlier this week and something happened to it en route and it showed up. And when we opened the box, it was like half squished into like one half of the box. It was a tragedy. A lot of the cheese had just like come off almost all the slices that had all kind of like squished into each other. It was a horrible situation. And Gus is so picky about his pizza. If he sees any sauce through the cheese stratum, he will not, he will not fuck with it. So this is me in the fucking kitchen hovering over this pizza mush, trying to create a solid layer of cheese coverage on one of these reconstructed slices.

• 26:50Griffin McElroy?

  And then like putting it in the, in the broiler for a second to try to melt the cheese. Cause if he knows it's patchwork stuff, he's not gonna fuck with it.

• 27:00Griffin McElroy?

  The most degrading moment of my entire life.

• 27:02Travis McElroy?

  Aw Griff, aw Griff buddy.

• 27:05Griffin McElroy?

  And then of course, you know, me and Rachel had to eat the slop because the kids got the slices.

• 27:09Travis McElroy?

  You gotta eat the slop. That's parenthood.

• 27:12Griffin McElroy?

  That's dinner, baby.

• 27:15Griffin McElroy?

  Can we go to the man?

• 27:16Travis McElroy?

  Oh dang it, Griff, I was gonna say it and then.

• 27:19Griffin McElroy?

  I technically didn't say, I said a series of syllables.

• 27:21Travis McElroy?

  Can I tell you what's wild? I'm already there.

• 27:24Griffin McElroy?

  Laurel.

• 27:24Travis McElroy?

  Shit. I'm in the money zone. Travis, who's in there with you? You too. No.

• 27:31Griffin McElroy?

  Travis, those are, Travis, that's not us.

• 27:33Travis McElroy?

  What? That's not us.

• 27:34Griffin McElroy?

  Travis, get out of there.

• 27:45Travis McElroy?

  You know why I like doing ads for Squarespace genuinely? Why? Why? I like, I like a sponsor that is all about creation. That's what Squarespace for me, it is a creative tool. You got a project you wanna do. You, you don't know the best way to get started. A website is a great place to get going and I love. I bet that if Squarespace was around at the dawn of time, God would have used it to create the earth.

• 28:10Griffin McElroy?

  Probably with the, with these like best in class templates. Absolutely he would have.

• 28:15Travis McElroy?

  But he, the, the problem is that they're created by world-class designers and I don't think. There were any world-class designers before God made the earth. Okay, that's the first thing he would have made then, the designers.

• 28:27Griffin McElroy?

  In the beginning, there was designers.

• 28:29Travis McElroy?

  You all take it from here?

• 28:30Griffin McElroy?

  The word was designers and the word was with designers. Thank you so much Squarespace.

• 28:35Travis McElroy?

  Oh, there's more.

• 28:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah, you gotta say more about it, about it, or else people are kind of a little bit confused still.

• 28:41Travis McElroy?

  They, uh, you, you can use these websites, they're not just vanity things. You can use them to sell stuff. Um, you could, yeah, you could use them to sell your products if you want. You could use it to organize events. Whatever you want to do with a website, Squarespace makes it really easy. Head to Squarespace.com slash mybrother for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code MYBROTHER to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. I'm ready to launch right now into savings. Whoa. With Rocket Money.

• 29:10Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck.

• 29:11Travis McElroy?

  Imagine Rocket Money is like a defense system with little rockets targeted at your unused subscriptions. And when those unused subscriptions try to hove into your bank account, it's like pew, pew pew pew, pew pew pew pew. And it takes those unwanted subscriptions out, takes them down.

• 29:32Griffin McElroy?

  That's a, that's a little violent.

• 29:33Travis McElroy?

  Wow, it's such a violent way of thinking about it, isn't it?

• 29:35Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know if Rocket Money would like that, like for me.

• 29:37Travis McElroy?

  I was thinking more like the Space Invaders video game, you know, and not like, there's no gore. There would be no gore, Griffin. Is that what you're concerned about?

• 29:47Griffin McElroy?

  So you're like, you have like your, your fart PM deluxe subscription that your son signed you up for because his fingerprint, I guess, is close enough to yours?

• 29:55Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 29:55Griffin McElroy?

  And it, it zaps that, but there's, but no blood or anything bad comes out.

• 29:59Travis McElroy?

  No, no, no, no, no, just pixels, just pixels.

• 30:02Griffin McElroy?

  And then I don't have to pay $6.99 a fucking week because Rocket Money helped me out and now I'm like saving beaucoup bucks every year and meeting all my financial goals.

• 30:10Travis McElroy?

  Wait, beaucoup bucks? Are you serious?

• 30:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, man, beaucoup bucks. It was beaucoup bucks a week. Uh, Rocket Money also, it shows you all your expenses in one place and it helps you, you know, lower your bills and reach your financial goals and grow your savings and they have over five.

• 30:24Travis McElroy?

  I feel like a grown up.

• 30:26Griffin McElroy?

  Like a grown up. They've got over 5 million members that have saved over a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all the app's premium features.

• 30:36Travis McElroy?

  So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash my brother today. That's rocketmoney.com slash my brother. Rocketmoney.com slash my brother.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  Pokemon, Insecure, Love Island, Paramore. What do all these things have in common? Black people love them. That's where Black People Love Paramore comes in. We're a pop culture podcast taking a funny look at the common and sometimes very uncommon things black people love. From asking why so many black kids were secretly emo to debating whether Beyonce is underrated. Hint, she is. We're getting into all the things that make us feel a little bit more seen. Get it? And yes, everybody's invited. No matter your niche, we have room for you. Listen to Black People Love Paramore on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get your podcasts.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Hello?

• 31:37Speaker 05

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• 31:40Speaker 04

  No, I'm sorry. No sales calls. Goodbye.

• 31:42Speaker 05

  It's a multi-award winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long.

• 31:47Speaker 04

  I don't know what a Josie Long is. And anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time and even worse, my mother's time. She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old. She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on. Yes, the orthopedic ones. I don't want that to carry you home again, do I?

• 32:05Speaker 05

  Right. Well, if you were looking for a podcast.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, mother. This is musical theatre, not a Parisian bordello.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  Simply go to MaximumFun.org.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother, mother, not that hat.

• 32:21Travis McElroy?

  All right.

• 32:25Travis McElroy?

  Okay. Wait for the next segment to begin, because I got a spot right now.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  That was so cool.

• 32:33Travis McElroy?

  I want a butt, squad.

• 32:37Travis McElroy?

  I want to, munch squad.

• 32:43Griffin McElroy?

  All timer intro.

• 32:46Travis McElroy?

  Welcome to Munch Squad. This podcast is a podcast profiling the latest and greatest in brand eating. That was a little bit like when Frampton runs like the tube from his mouth and do his guitar.

• 32:56Griffin McElroy?

  Talk box, baby.

• 32:57Travis McElroy?

  And he talks through it.

• 32:59Travis McElroy?

  Do you feel when I hear?

• 33:02Griffin McElroy?

  That was a really good Peter Frifft and Top Box impression, Travis.

• 33:06Travis McElroy?

  Thank you.

• 33:08Travis McElroy?

  Who knew? Okay. I can never do it again.

• 33:11Griffin McElroy?

  Never again?

• 33:11Travis McElroy?

  It's rare that, uh, uh, almost it's rare that like an entire movement can be summed up in one image and it's even rarer that I would do that in an audio format, but.

• 33:26Travis McElroy?

  Huh?

• 33:27Griffin McElroy?

  We've made it. Yeah.

• 33:28Travis McElroy?

  Looks like we made it. Can I say?

• 33:32Griffin McElroy?

  We need to say what is in.

• 33:33Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. So this is. Trav. What? Drop it. What we as a modern day human beings might at first mistake for a Wendy's sign.

• 33:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, big Wendy's sign up in the sky.

• 33:46Travis McElroy?

  Though admittedly without any of the excess stuff on it, just the Wendy's picture. And then where it would say Wendy's, it says tendies.

• 33:56Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 33:56Travis McElroy?

  And there's a godlike beam of light shining upon it from the heavens.

• 34:01Griffin McElroy?

  There's a weird number of God rays in this picture. They basically just swapped the W with a T. And you can tell that's what happened because the kerning is like fucked up. Like you can tell a W was supposed to go there, not a capital T.

• 34:13Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 34:14Griffin McElroy?

  But it says.

• 34:14Travis McElroy?

  This is the headline. Without context, though, I just want to say tendies doesn't read like chicken tenders to me. So much as like, we're gonna treat you tenderly here at Wendy's.

• 34:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I could see that.

• 34:28Travis McElroy?

  There's the headline, guys. A new chicken era dawns at Wendy's. That's the story. From.

• 34:36Griffin McElroy?

  We are still cleaning up after the last chicken era. The fact that a new one has settled this quickly sucks.

• 34:43Travis McElroy?

  Has already begun. This is gonna confuse the future paleontologists who dig up all these chicken bones.

• 34:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure. There was a whole extinction event that they're not even gonna see.

• 34:54Travis McElroy?

  Wendy's fresh, never frozen square burgers holds deep roots in chicken too. With its spicy chicken sandwich arriving in 1995, a good 24 years before the so-called chicken sandwich wars enveloped the category on social media. But. USCMO Lindsay Rikowski and the team recognized more pressing trends swirling in recent years. Guys, we're eating a wild amount of chicken. We can't get enough of this stuff. That's the thing. And they cannot sell enough of it through the traditional method. Hence.

• 35:27Travis McElroy?

  Tendies.

• 35:28Griffin McElroy?

  What is that, Justin? Cause so far it just looks like they're announcing they photoshopped a sign.

• 35:34Travis McElroy?

  For Wendy's, Radkowski says, the brand had two choices, as is often the case when a trend elevates into a frenzy. It could race to join in, or it could watch, learn, and arrive to market on its own terms.

• 35:51Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking great. It's so cool for a restaurant to put out a press release saying, we're smart.

• 35:58Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Griffin McElroy?

  We are very.

• 35:59Travis McElroy?

  These other dummies rushed the market to make money off the trend. We waited until the trend started to die down. And now we're gonna try to scrape up all the money that's left.

• 36:10Griffin McElroy?

  The fix, the leavens.

• 36:12Travis McElroy?

  Radkowski says Wendy's spent more than a year, quote, probably closer to 18 months on development of the COVID vaccine.

• 36:22Griffin McElroy?

  You don't have to correct, you can fix that in the press release.

• 36:25Travis McElroy?

  You. Yeah, I, no, yeah, a hundred percent. They should know exactly how long that they did. This is a news story, though.

• 36:31Griffin McElroy?

  Did you say on the development of the COVID vaccine, Justin?

• 36:36Travis McElroy?

  I was just reflecting on how it was a similar timeframe.

• 36:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Travis McElroy?

  To create the first COVID vaccine. These tendies will kill COVID.

• 36:46Travis McElroy?

  I. In laboratory conditions. Yeah. Uh, Wendy's involved franchisees and tested through a couple of markets. In addition to flavor and appearance, it wanted to pilot tendies.

• 36:58Travis McElroy?

  In the real world, guys, they took 18 months to come up with.

• 37:01Griffin McElroy?

  To change the one letter, yeah.

• 37:03Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. They got six sauces, Wendy's signature, sweet chili, scorching hot, creamy ranch, honey barbecue, and honey mustard. Can we not have a little bit more originality in the sauce department, guys? 18 months to come up with what?

• 37:19Griffin McElroy?

  Tendy.

• 37:20Travis McElroy?

  What? They could have just spent that time going to the Los Angeles Convention Center, trying the chicken tenders there, which are my favorite chicken tenders I've ever eaten.

• 37:29Griffin McElroy?

  Really good chicken tenders.

• 37:29Travis McElroy?

  And just recreate those.

• 37:31Griffin McElroy?

  Just make those.

• 37:32Travis McElroy?

  Returning to the broader theme for Wendy's, Radkowski says, "It would have been easy to look around and observe the chicken surge." And maybe smart, maybe we should have done that.

• 37:41Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe a good idea.

• 37:42Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, we don't know.

• 37:43Griffin McElroy?

  Uh oh.

• 37:43Travis McElroy?

  Fuck. Wendy's wanted to begin the process with customers, quote, "Why are they eating more chicken now than they have?" And as we started to do the work on our menu more recently, as we were looking at the next chapter for Wendy's, staying modern, relevant to younger QSR customers.

• 38:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Travis McElroy?

  As we've refined our consumer target. So that's why it's, and then she says, "Simply core menu or innovation, quote, 'We've done a lot with chicken.'" Extremely sinister.

• 38:15Griffin McElroy?

  No doubt, for sure.

• 38:16Travis McElroy?

  So sinister. Most of which we couldn't tell our priest about. Let's put it that way. Yeah, it's a evil, there's a wickedness there. "We're really known for flavor," she adds. "So when we thought about what's out there right now, the choices consumers have and the unique place we believe Wendy's can carve out, it wasn't only about the tender itself, but the sauces became a huge part of the conversation." And really where we saw a lot of excitement when we did work with the customers. If, if you didn't get excited about honey barbecue at this point, I don't know what to tell you.

• 38:53Griffin McElroy?

  You're on a whole nother thing than, that I want to get on your level. That's cool.

• 38:57Travis McElroy?

  I was on TikTok today and I saw an ad for Garbage Pail Kids books written by R.L. Stein. That just happened, right?

• 39:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Travis McElroy?

  And you want me to get excited about honey mustard?

• 39:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And even that, I assume just a very small reaction from you. Like, that's what it takes to get you to 10%.

• 39:16Travis McElroy?

  Interesting. Can I say that? Honey mustard?

• 39:19Griffin McElroy?

  To be nuttin' over honey mustard is crazy.

• 39:21Travis McElroy?

  So far from this press release, what I have gathered is they spent 18 months determining that people like to eat chicken tenders with sauces.

• 39:34Griffin McElroy?

  I literally still do not know what the news is here. What is the action item for me as a consumer of Wendy's?

• 39:41Travis McElroy?

  Well, I mean.

• 39:44Travis McElroy?

  I did clarify that the entirety of the story was contained within the image and I was not, I mean, tendies, guys, tendies, they're tendies. They have chicken tenders, they decided to not make them taste like shit and people like dipping them in stuff.

• 40:01Griffin McElroy?

  They didn't have a press release. They didn't have chicken tenders before? They didn't? These are new chicken tenders?

• 40:07Travis McElroy?

  I can't, I can't do that with confidence.

• 40:10Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't fucking, I didn't know that. So like, who gives a shit, Wendy's?

• 40:15Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, Griffin, but then, but so, um, they go on, they go on, there's many paragraphs. Here's another quote from Radkowski. You think about a portfolio. What? How do you maximize reach and grow coverage with consumers and have things that are very unique and distinct to Wendy's? By having honey mustard. One example is sweet chili. Wendy's could have unveiled a sweet and sour sauce and stayed pedestrian, she says. But this presented a chance to unroll an updated take. Shots fired. Intensity and balance and it's relevant to a Gen Z category that floss to sauces. Floss to sauce. That floss to sauces.

• 41:01Travis McElroy?

  Something else Wendy's noticed, and guys, this one is really gonna trip you up. They noticed through research and hands-on tests where customers, again, with a spotlight on younger cohorts, like to mix sauces and make meals more personal. They combined ranch with scorching hot, for instance. Whoa. That mixability, it really leads to endless ways you can create flavor with Wendy's sauces. And that was in mind when we thought about how the sauces complement each other within the lineup as well.

• 41:35Griffin McElroy?

  That's cool.

• 41:36Travis McElroy?

  So then, you had a good think about like, but what if they mix creamy ranch with fat? What if they mix creamy ranch in there?

• 41:48Griffin McElroy?

  Originally, all of our, all of our sauces were sort of chemically repulsive to each other. Like, oil and water, they would not actually mix, but we realized-

• 41:57Travis McElroy?

  One of them was baking soda and vinegar, and guys, that was a mistake.

• 42:01Griffin McElroy?

  That was not a good sauce.

• 42:03Travis McElroy?

  Wendy's signature is Wendy's signature creamy sauce with hints of black pepper and hot sauce. I mean, credit to them, I'm not gonna put that in my body. Like, I don't know, do you guys thi- okay, okay, I have a, I have a big idea for you. Okay. They recently did a very-

• 42:18Griffin McElroy?

  You gotta get this fucking picture of chicken tenders off my screen, Jesse. It is making me hungry as a wolf.

• 42:23Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, the, the, uh, uh, they did a Wendy's, uh, Wendy's promotion recently with Win- Wednesday, where it was like a bunch of wild sauces, and they were all colored, so you couldn't really tell what the sauces were, and you had to kinda guess.

• 42:36Griffin McElroy?

  And they had names like, like, blood from a, from a dog.

• 42:39Travis McElroy?

  Dog, here's my theory, this is my fan theory. Uh, I think that those are all the sauces that they made for tests. And then they were like, fuck, no, this awe is too crazy, we can't, well, let's just keep, let's just keep the normal ones, okay?

• 42:53Griffin McElroy?

  They didn't like mummy piss, guys, they did not like mummy piss. We gotta get rid of that.

• 42:58Travis McElroy?

  I told you we should have done Chipotle mummy piss.

• 43:02Travis McElroy?

  That's where the youth cohort is at. Chipotle mummy piss.

• 43:07Griffin McElroy?

  These young freaks like it spicy. They don't care that it's piss, they don't care that it's piss, it's the spice that they crave.

• 43:15Travis McElroy?

  There's a reason Wendy's dropped six options instead of one. Red Koski admits it's a crowded space, but being distinctly Wendy's in a sea of fast food options is nothing new to the brand's marketing ethos. Yeah.

• 43:28Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 43:29Travis McElroy?

  Like- None of that means shit. Like, those are just words, those are words put in an order that our human brains ascribe meaning to, and yet say fucking nothing. Guys, hey, speaking of, would you like a full quote about why it is called this?

• 43:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 43:45Travis McElroy?

  Because you are probably wondering about it, right? Like, how could you? We like to have fun. And it doesn't have to be super serious.

• 43:53Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 43:54Travis McElroy?

  No. Our name so easily lends itself to a nickname for the product.

• 43:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 44:00Travis McElroy?

  And the way we're gonna talk about it is our tenders are so bold and juicy and crispy and the sauces are so amazing. You're going to want to know them on a first name basis.

• 44:12Griffin McElroy?

  This is beyond, I think AI wrote this and it's putting me in a headspace of like, maybe it's all like, maybe it's all AI matrix, human battery. And I'm asleep and cause there's, there's simply no way a human, a human being got a hand on this particular ball. That is a profoundly wild thing to say.

• 44:31Travis McElroy?

  I've never been eating any food and thought, I gotta know this food's first name.

• 44:38Griffin McElroy?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:39Travis McElroy?

  Do you want to hear a sentence from the boss of Wendy's about the people that made up the Wendy's?

• 44:43Griffin McElroy?

  Chicken tenders?

• 44:45Travis McElroy?

  I can geek out on some of what the team went through. She says of the ideation process. It takes time and we had conversations once we knew what was happening competitively. We said, we're not gonna rush it. We're not gonna change our launch date. We're gonna do it our way. The, the boxes don't say tendies, they say Wendy's. I don't ever want to go there again.

• 45:08Griffin McElroy?

  Did it take them 18 months?

• 45:09Travis McElroy?

  That sucks dude. I don't ever want to go there again.

• 45:13Griffin McElroy?

  Who is, can I ask a serious question? And we've talked about this, obviously on my squad a lot before.

• 45:18Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Griffin McElroy?

  You're plugged into the QSR space. How many, just rough.

• 45:22Travis McElroy?

  Unwilling, unwilling captive.

• 45:24Griffin McElroy?

  Just rough estimate, how many major news publications, how many verticals are out there covering the QSR space? That would need the help of a full press release to write the story Wendy's has chicken tenders now.

• 45:38Travis McElroy?

  QSR is not, it's not just for marketing Griffin. It's about, it's a historical document, you know what I mean?

• 45:46Griffin McElroy?

  So like three or four, maybe top publications? Okay. So this is a job for someone is to write this whole thing.

• 45:54Travis McElroy?

  The whole thing.

• 45:55Griffin McElroy?

  For those four places and you. That's crazy. That's like, uh. Really bespoke service journalism.

• 46:03Travis McElroy?

  It's really wild that they're doing, it almost feels like vanity journalism, like we'll, like we'll name a star after you. You know what I mean? Like, we'll do a, we'll do a, a long feature story about how you came up with tendies.

• 46:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I can't, I can't stress.

• 46:18Travis McElroy?

  It's like, I think this is just so they have something to frame in the offices, right? You've shared the details here with us, Justin, and I once again have to reiterate a little bit of telling on themselves. Once again, 18 months spent, people like chicken tenders dipping in sauces, sometimes they mix them. And have you ever noticed that Wendy's sounds like tendies? Yeah, so the, I want to look at the packaging real quick. I know Griffin, can you just clock, if you just look at the packaging?

• 46:45Griffin McElroy?

  They don't do, and I gotta say, pictures of chicken tenders without dip are repugnant to me. I, this does nothing for me.

• 46:52Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, it's really rough. It's really rough. They need to be dipped in something. Looking at them, uh, by, by, by the way, this is a core product offering.

• 47:00Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, they're having a picnic out on a picnic table. They've got their fries sort of splayed out and it looks like the fries are just raw dogging it on the picnic table.

• 47:06Travis McElroy?

  And they don't want you to look at the fries. Don't look at the fries right now. We're sorry the fries are touching our picnic table. Let's go.

• 47:12Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy, man.

• 47:12Travis McElroy?

  Uh, so you look at the, the, the packaging there, the details work down to packaging. Tendies come in vessels built for dunking with a dip. It says vessels? Vessels built for dunking. That's a submarine. A submarine is a vessel built for dunking.

• 47:29Griffin McElroy?

  Take upon yourself this sacrament. Take the vessel, the empty vessel.

• 47:34Travis McElroy?

  In a way, my children, we are all vessels meant for dunking. Come get baptized. It's got a dip cup, cup, cup, dip shop, ding, ju, it's got a dip cup, cut out that holds sauces. Quote, it's a reflect, it's a reflection of how consumers want to eat.

• 47:54Griffin McElroy?

  I feel like I'm looking in a fucking mirror. Yeah.

• 47:56Travis McElroy?

  It's a reflection of how consumers want to eat. We want to enable a better elevated experience of a little perforation or a cutout for the sauce. I do like perforation. Those are things that take a little bit of time, Travis. An 18 month timeline in total. And then producing for 6,000 restaurants in the US at scale, training our system. We wanted to do it the right way. Which maybe wasn't the fastest. Derek said, let's get it out there and we fired him. This is what, which maybe it wasn't maybe the fastest as you think about some of our competitors and other things that have launched recently.

• 48:37Griffin McElroy?

  I'm looking right now at the Wendy's online website at the menu for placing a delivery or pickup order at Wendy's. And this particular menu item is found under tenders and you can get three piece tenders or four piece tenders. They don't even call them Wendy's tendies on the menu. The, the, this, I've never, I've never thought of this before. I never thought this of a press release, but it's lying like.

• 49:05Travis McElroy?

  It's lying, man.

• 49:06Griffin McElroy?

  The press release is actually lying and none of this is actually true or happening.

• 49:12Travis McElroy?

  The, so they, uh, they, the chain often frames their approach as quote, not outspending the other guys, but outplaying them. For D chess.

• 49:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, man. Don't tell us about that. That's the podcast game we've been playing the whole time.

• 49:29Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Be late to trends. Do them very poorly.

• 49:34Griffin McElroy?

  You see it everywhere from sass on social media to collaborations such as its SpongeBob Krabby Patty setup to the more recent Wednesday meal of misfortune, i.e. please take all these crony sauces. We don't know what to do. The landfill smells weird and we can't put anymore in the landfill.

• 49:52Travis McElroy?

  The landfill guy, the landfill guy said, we couldn't put anymore there. He said, no more. So we gotta, you gotta eat them, please.

• 49:59Griffin McElroy?

  He said rats have been crawling out of the landfill wrong.

• 50:02Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 50:03Griffin McElroy?

  Because of all the sauces.

• 50:04Travis McElroy?

  Like a cave system in Nevada where they said, we could store these things for up to 50 years, but. I thought he said they've been crawling out strong. So I do feel a little bit better. I feel a little bit better about wrong than strong.

• 50:18Griffin McElroy?

  I, guys. Delicious and smoky, but incorrect from a physiological sort of standpoint.

• 50:24Travis McElroy?

  This is the, I'll tell you the, how this ends because it really does go on like we will make it really fun and bring to life a craft that went into the development of the product itself, the experience, the sauces, so that people can experience it in a hands on immersive way.

• 50:44Travis McElroy?

  That's because the tendies locations are going to have a red carpet feel. There's going to be tendies. Restaurants, you say.

• 50:51Griffin McElroy?

  A red carpet feel.

• 50:53Travis McElroy?

  Tendies experience. It's a playful takeover approach.

• 50:56Griffin McElroy?

  Where are these gonna happen? Cause if I don't fucking see it, I am not gonna believe it.

• 51:00Travis McElroy?

  Probably California.

• 51:01Griffin McElroy?

  Man, they got all the fucking fun stuff, man.

• 51:03Travis McElroy?

  And probably, yeah. And one thing Ridkowsky wants to make clear, however, is tendies are not a fleeting moment in the product timeline.

• 51:12Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, okay.

• 51:12Travis McElroy?

  They're joining Wendy's central offerings and giving the brand another anchor to leverage a chicken category that's driving growth and occasions throughout the segment. And again, she says, that's why we took the time to do it right. To leverage our tenders. I wanna eat chicken tenders so.

• 51:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, dude.

• 51:31Travis McElroy?

  So bad.

• 51:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, not these, maybe, but like any, they're all psh, kinda the same.

• 51:38Travis McElroy?

  Well, there's a Popeyes by my house that I think I might order lunch from now.

• 51:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 51:44Travis McElroy?

  Thank you, Wendy's for making me think about Popeyes. Thank you, Wendy's, for reminding us about Popeyes.

• 51:50Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I got, I do need to, like, we can joke, but like, you guys still like Wendy's. You guys still like Wendy's, right?

• 51:56Travis McElroy?

  Not again, Griffin.

• 51:59Travis McElroy?

  Nice try.

• 52:01Griffin McElroy?

  Travis, Justin would've, I would've gotten Justin.

• 52:03Travis McElroy?

  I know, I know Justin would have, but I can see into the deep dark pit of your soul, sir. Thanks, Travis. I appreciate it.

• 52:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, baby. Let's wrap this, let's wrap this up. I'm tired.

• 52:12Travis McElroy?

  I'm Travis. Hey, thanks so much for listening to our podcast. I hope you're enjoying some, um, Wendy's chicken tenders. Griff, do you like Wendy's?

• 52:22Griffin McElroy?

  We got some new merch up in the merch store over at macrow merch.com. There's a Taz Hunger beanie, uh, with some rad eyeball design. It's gonna keep you warm and spooky in these cold and spooky months. And 10% of all of our merch proceeds this month will be donated to Border Angels, which, uh, offers services like educational programs, water drops in the desert, day laborer outreach, Familias reunite us, uh, immigration bond fund program, and shelter aid support in Tijuana to aid migrants and asylum seekers in need. Uh, it's again, macrow merch.com. And hey, we got a few more shows coming up. Not much, not many opportunities. Come see us. If you live in or around Salt Lake City or San Diego, we're coming up there and just like, I don't know, next week, I guess.

• 53:07Travis McElroy?

  Something like that. We've also got, the Taz show we're doing on that tour is going to be our 50th Taz live show to, to celebrate. We're doing a balance show with Erica Ishii is a special guest and Griffin is gonna be running that one.

• 53:22Griffin McElroy?

  Fun.

• 53:23Travis McElroy?

  Tickets are on sale now. You can go to bit.ly/macaroytours. Also, Champions Grove is coming back for its third year for Memorial Day weekend in May. Travis, didn't you say it was gonna be sponsored by Wendy's? No, and the tickets for that are gonna go on sale November 3rd at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. Get all the details at championsgrove.com or by following Champions Grove on Instagram.

• 53:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Hey, thanks to Montane for the use of our theme song, "My Life is Better With You." It's a great, a great, great album. That new album, "It's Hard to Be a Fish," all Montane's music is so great. I love to listen to it at home. It gives me a break from listening to Imagine Dragons on my sort of public house speakers. Juice, do you like Imagine?

• 54:17Travis McElroy?

  Griffin, do you have the Montane album on CD?

• 54:20Griffin McElroy?

  Do you like Imagine Dragons, Justin?

• 54:25Travis McElroy?

  Do we have a fear?

• 54:29Griffin McElroy?

  Justin looks like he's been killed. Justin looks like he's been killed in his chair.

• 54:32Travis McElroy?

  Do you have the Montane record on CD?

• 54:37Griffin McElroy?

  I just, I, yeah, I have it on CD.

• 54:48Griffin McElroy?

  I feel like not, I feel like not, okay. Travis, do you want it? Do, do we have a fear?

• 54:52Travis McElroy?

  We do.

• 54:54Travis McElroy?

  I'll read it. CD's nuts. "This year, I will live faster than my fear of witnessing a tense social situation in public and being approached by John Quinones after I failed to intervene."

• 55:06Griffin McElroy?

  That's fucking good and true and powerful.

• 55:10Travis McElroy?

  My name is Justin McElroy. I'm Travis McElroy.

• 55:12Griffin McElroy?

  I'm Griffin McElroy.

• 55:13Travis McElroy?

  This has been my brother, my brother, may kiss your dad, swear on the lips.

• 55:19Speaker 06

  It's better with you. My life, ah. It's better, it's better with you. It's better with you. My life, ah. It's better, it's better with you. This is true. Ah. It's better, it's better with you. My life, ah. It's better with you. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.