MBMBaM 758: Ostrichhood

We’re diving into some deep scientific thoughts this week, asking and answering the really important questions. Like is a small wolf just a dog? How many pounds can an ostrich hold? How many Olympic swimmers can Justin name? And does pepperoni-flavored water make for a more luxurious pizza experience? Suggested talking points: Analog Fountains, Dire Wolves were Made to Taste Of Dire Wolves, Prince Muscleton, Professional In-The-Water People, Caviar Bumps National Immigration Project: https://nipnlg.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 and Me, an advice show for the modern era. I'm your oldest brother, Justin McElroy. Oh, what up, Trav Nation? It's me, your middlest brother, Travis Vroom Vroom McElroy. And hey, it's me, your sweet baby brother, 30 Under 30 Guy, Griffin Built For Tough, McElroy. I want to ask you guys a question. Yeah. Get me up last night a little bit, not a super long time. Now, I want an honest answer. Clear your minds. And this is not- That's not, Travis, if that was the thing you just said to do, if I could do it, do you realize how much better my life would be? And I want to make this clear. This is not should or would, but could, can, human beings ride ostriches?

• 2:01Griffin McElroy?

  This kept you up?

• 2:02Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, because I realized my only point of reference for it was like, I've seen it like in movies or cartoons or something, I think.

• 2:10Travis McElroy?

  Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer?

• 2:11Travis McElroy?

  I mean, I think is a gentleman. Cowboy rides an ostrich. Which I assume, by the way, it's not seasonal, but that cowboy just doesn't know where to get a horse.

• 2:21Griffin McElroy?

  That's not.

• 2:22Travis McElroy?

  Can I clarify if ostriches are real?

• 2:24Griffin McElroy?

  They are, yeah, okay, big, big, big, big, big.

• 2:27Travis McElroy?

  I get confused with them in Pegasus.

• 2:29Griffin McElroy?

  And emu, emus, they're the same, those are the same animal and they should be reclassified as.

• 2:35Travis McElroy?

  Dodos? They're gone.

• 2:37Travis McElroy?

  They're gone.

• 2:38Griffin McElroy?

  Not as big. So this kept, this, this kept you up?

• 2:41Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, because like when I picture an ostrich and I think about the whole design.

• 2:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:47Travis McElroy?

  It doesn't seem like a human being should be able to.

• 2:50Griffin McElroy?

  I guess, that's not my, I guess that's, I guess my issue is like, when my, when my thoughts keep me up, they're usually more me centric. And less focused on the load bearing capacity of flightless birds.

• 3:04Travis McElroy?

  Oh, I have those too, Griffin, but I'm like, those are normal human thoughts.

• 3:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:10Travis McElroy?

  And then I have the ADHD brain thoughts.

• 3:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, maybe that's a.

• 3:14Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, sometimes my brain's like, how did fountains work before electricity? And that will keep me up for like four days.

• 3:20Griffin McElroy?

  Now that, can I say something, Trav? That's a good one.

• 3:23Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Griffin McElroy?

  The ostrich thing is like, is easily Googleable. The analog fountain thing is medium Googleable.

• 3:30Travis McElroy?

  Well, I'm 41 years old, Griffin, and I've processed through a lot of the good ones already. Now I'm down to the snigglefritz of, is it possible for an ostrich to support the weight of a ground?

• 3:42Griffin McElroy?

  A kid, a kid.

• 3:43Travis McElroy?

  A kid.

• 3:44Griffin McElroy?

  But no one's gonna let their kid in there with that, with that giant bird of prey.

• 3:50Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:50Griffin McElroy?

  No way. Um, it's good, it's a good question though, Trav.

• 3:55Travis McElroy?

  I looked it up.

• 3:56Travis McElroy?

  Oh, what's the answer?

• 3:58Travis McElroy?

  Apparently, one, this isn't gonna surprise you guys, a lot of ethical concerns about it.

• 4:04Griffin McElroy?

  What do you mean?

• 4:05Travis McElroy?

  Uh, that ostriches, like I said, are not, unlike a horse, which has, everything about it seems built to convey.

• 4:14Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, we've, well, to be more accurate, Travis, we've built horses.

• 4:19Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, built for, built horse tough.

• 4:22Travis McElroy?

  Built horse tough.

• 4:23Travis McElroy?

  But ostriches are not built for that, but apparently up to, and this is the most specific weight I've ever heard.

• 4:32Griffin McElroy?

  It's gonna be so much, so much lower than I want it to be.

• 4:35Travis McElroy?

  163 pounds.

• 4:36Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, actually, that may be, it would be tough. It would, there would be some lifestyle changes that I frankly am not like wild about.

• 4:48Travis McElroy?

  I don't wanna be out with the girls and have to think like, do I have that next piece of cheesecake? Or do I wanna ride an ostrich?

• 4:54Travis McElroy?

  Right.

• 4:54Travis McElroy?

  You know what I mean? I don't need to be around that kind of.

• 4:56Travis McElroy?

  Especially if you're right on the border, cuz this is 163.

• 5:00Travis McElroy?

  That's so.

• 5:01Travis McElroy?

  Like, that means they put 164 pound person on there and the ostrich crumpled.

• 5:06Griffin McElroy?

  Travis.

• 5:06Travis McElroy?

  Ostrich is like, fuck you.

• 5:07Travis McElroy?

  Off, off, off, off, off, off, off.

• 5:11Travis McElroy?

  Are you wearing like a heavy coat or something? This isn't.

• 5:15Griffin McElroy?

  It's funny.

• 5:15Travis McElroy?

  Take your keys out of your fucking pocket, man.

• 5:18Griffin McElroy?

  It's funny that, it's funny that you think that they started with 164 and didn't have to walk it down from like 215 and then they, they flew a lot of flags half mast in ostrich land during that.

• 5:32Travis McElroy?

  John Proctored it from 30 up, you know what I mean? Like, they just kept adding one pound people.

• 5:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, more weight.

• 5:39Travis McElroy?

  I do like, okay, well, let's make a boyhood style movie.

• 5:44Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 5:44Travis McElroy?

  Where it's, they start with like a 30 pound kid and every day as the child grows, they put it back on the ostrich. And they're like, are we cool with this one? Weight the kid. Okay, great.

• 5:54Travis McElroy?

  There's that, I do like that one, there's like a four minute long sequence in Curious Tale of Benjamin Button where he is de-aged enough where he has the physical capability to ride the ostrich and the mental capability to ride the ostrich, right? They line up and there's like a week where it's just him riding the ostrich. Like, four minutes of the movie is like, finally, those two, I stopped everything else I was doing in the story.

• 6:25Travis McElroy?

  And that happens at exactly the midway point of the movie.

• 6:28Travis McElroy?

  That's where you can go get, it says intermission at the bottom of the screen.

• 6:30Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Travis McElroy?

  Go get snacks if you want.

• 6:32Travis McElroy?

  You just, you just see the shot of this, him on the ostrich and it's a wide shot. He's far back there, just going back and forth.

• 6:39Griffin McElroy?

  I think we're overdue for a glow up. On these big flightless birds of the ostrich.

• 6:44Travis McElroy?

  Ostrich?

• 6:44Griffin McElroy?

  I think that we don't think about these guys a lot because they're played, but also because they're so gross and weird looking. Like their neck and head looks like a worm and then weight goes in their body is like fucked up. Like it goes, your neck goes into your side.

• 6:59Travis McElroy?

  Why do their feathers stop?

• 7:00Griffin McElroy?

  That's awesome. Why the feathers stop? There are a lot of great questions. Now, if we could give him a cute little beak and cover him in bright yellow feathers. Give him two big, two big, bright wings, long legs, a cuter sound that he makes.

• 7:14Travis McElroy?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:15Griffin McElroy?

  And we have chocobos and we have them be, um, you know, boutique? These are, this is a boutique mount. Uh, all of a sudden, I think ostriches are going to be back on top. Still going to have the ethical concerns of

• 7:29Travis McElroy?

  Yes.

• 7:30Griffin McElroy?

  riding, riding on them. Um, which if you didn't know, every Final Fantasy character is under 163 pounds.

• 7:36Travis McElroy?

  Yes.

• 7:36Griffin McElroy?

  That's just the way it works. Um, fucked up that that's part of it, but.

• 7:40Travis McElroy?

  This actually dovetails into something nicely that I like. Current events that I'd love to take your guys' time.

• 7:46Griffin McElroy?

  We're all low now. We all like this low life.

• 7:48Travis McElroy?

  You know, we brought, no, this is good. This is conversational. Do you know we brought back dire wolves?

• 7:54Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, Joe Manchinella is pumped about it.

• 7:56Travis McElroy?

  Joe Manchinella is pumped. A lot of people are pumped about this. Let's talk, cause I saw George R R Martin, who if somebody's going to know from dire wolves, be this guy.

• 8:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Travis McElroy?

  I saw, I saw a picture of him and the story is we brought back dire wolves, which I, I will admit in my initial ignorance, thought that they, and this is why I had to ask about the ostrich guys, because I have completely lost track of which of these guys we made up and which ones we didn't.

• 8:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, man. It's a full-time, it's a full-time job keeping up with that.

• 8:25Travis McElroy?

  So apparently these guys were real. They were roaming around.

• 8:28Travis McElroy?

  Man, this, sorry, but just on that, Justin, my search bar today, it's unicorn day. And it pops up and says unicorn day. Were they real? And I didn't know that was a scientific question. Anyways, go on, Justin, bringing back dire wolves.

• 8:42Travis McElroy?

  Okay, thank you. So, uh, we did it. Um, so the headline is US company resurrects the extinct dire wolf, or some version of it. So here's the thing that's fucked, right?

• 8:54Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 8:55Travis McElroy?

  This company did not bring back these incredible, real Ice Age predators that roamed across the, the, the, uh, uh,

• 9:05Griffin McElroy?

  The tundra?

• 9:06Travis McElroy?

  The tundra, right? It, they, what they did was, this is, okay, this is, the company is calling them dire wolves, and is referring to this as the world's first successfully de-extincted animal.

• 9:19Griffin McElroy?

  Awesome.

• 9:21Travis McElroy?

  Outside experts are more cautious.

• 9:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Travis McElroy?

  Describing the pups as genetically modified gray wolves.

• 9:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 9:28Travis McElroy?

  Because the process used to create them involved editing the genes of the species to add dire wolf traits.

• 9:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Travis McElroy?

  So, and what they say is, what they say is, and the thing is that we, this is a quote, "We define de-extinction success as bringing back the functional ecological traits that made dire wolves unique contributors to their ecosystem, and our dire wolves are an example of that." So here's what they are saying.

• 9:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Travis McElroy?

  "We found wolves, and we glued some shit to them."

• 9:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 9:58Travis McElroy?

  "That makes them a lot like dire wolves."

• 10:00Griffin McElroy?

  We painted them.

• 10:01Travis McElroy?

  And we're calling this a W in our book, and George R.R. Martin was like, "Fucking good enough for me," and Joe Manziel was like, "Sounds good." So I'd love to get a counterpoint of, "Fucking don't do this. Are you crazy?"

• 10:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 10:16Travis McElroy?

  Wolves are killer, right? We love wolves.

• 10:19Griffin McElroy?

  Love wolves.

• 10:19Travis McElroy?

  Wolves are so, do you know how safe wolves are for us as a, as a people? Wolves are so safe that they don't keep statistics on wolf attacks. That's not, because they just,

• 10:29Griffin McElroy?

  They're chill.

• 10:29Travis McElroy?

  Don't.

• 10:30Griffin McElroy?

  Like, they get it.

• 10:31Travis McElroy?

  Why are we gluing things onto them to make them worse?

• 10:35Griffin McElroy?

  Well, because we won wolves. Like, we beat wolves. We figured out everything about wolves, and they're not a threat to us anymore.

• 10:43Travis McElroy?

  So we're nastying them up?

• 10:44Griffin McElroy?

  Getting it spicy.

• 10:46Travis McElroy?

  Well, giving them a little mohawk, you know?

• 10:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 10:48Travis McElroy?

  Giving them like, big, it says, in the story, it says that these are, uh, um, bigger.

• 10:56Travis McElroy?

  Then gray wolves would be at this time. This cuz of the stuff they did to them.

• 11:02Travis McElroy?

  Sure.

• 11:03Travis McElroy?

  Man, I don't know if we want to make really big wolves.

• 11:07Travis McElroy?

  This is what I learned.

• 11:08Travis McElroy?

  I feel like things are on a rough enough trajectory that we don't need to make huge wolves.

• 11:13Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, sure. This is what I learned from the documentary Jurassic World. When they were like, we brought back dinosaurs, but we get that that's not enough. So we fucked with the genetics of this dinosaur to make it better at eating people and hunting you and killing people. And I look at them and I go, you know what would be better? Smaller dinosaurs that I could keep in my office in like a fish tank and they're perfectly happy. So Justin, to your point, bigger wolf, no, no, no. No. Give me small wolf. And now I'm saying it, that's a dog.

• 11:47Travis McElroy?

  It's a, that's a dog.

• 11:48Travis McElroy?

  That's a dog.

• 11:48Travis McElroy?

  Also bad. We don't want to mess with them, right?

• 11:52Travis McElroy?

  Dogs?

• 11:54Travis McElroy?

  Wolves.

• 11:54Travis McElroy?

  Okay.

• 11:55Travis McElroy?

  They're fine. I don't want them more scary than they are. By the way, on the Facebook post that George R R Martin put up where he's like, we did it, mission accomplished. He's in front of the big banner. We did it. Dire wolves are real. At P S, not a single comment, by the way, miss the irony of

• 12:14Travis McElroy?

  George R R Martin, living to see the unextinction of dire wolves before he's finished publishing his book. Like the extinct creature beat him to market.

• 12:25Travis McElroy?

  Right.

• 12:25Travis McElroy?

  And of course, that was all the comments cuz that is the most important thing about this is that he has not finished the book series. That's the number one thing.

• 12:33Travis McElroy?

  I will also say, man, this feels like if I needed to do some like serious housework and instead spend an hour like reorganizing my 3D printer filament. And then I was like, mission accomplished. And it's like, hey, do you think bringing dire wolves back from extinction was like our number one?

• 12:54Griffin McElroy?

  I will say you never know which scientific developments lead to the next. If creating these huge nasty turbo wolves, in some way, they're like, and in doing so.

• 13:05Griffin McElroy?

  So cancer gone. Now all of a sudden I'm lis- now I'm listening.

• 13:11Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, these wolves eat cancer.

• 13:13Griffin McElroy?

  These wolves eat cancer out of the air.

• 13:15Travis McElroy?

  I used to think I have a generalized anxiety disorder and now I've learned that I'm just good at worrying about stuff before other people realize they need to.

• 13:23Griffin McElroy?

  You're a trendsetter dude.

• 13:24Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I'm ahead of the game on this one, guys. Listen, I was right about Trump and I'm gonna be right about dire wolves. But you still have a chance to do something about the wolves, right?

• 13:34Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 13:34Travis McElroy?

  Come on.

• 13:34Griffin McElroy?

  Now, what is that juice? You tell me now. Cause it seems to me like the horse is out of the barn and by horse, I mean giant wolf is out of the barn. And if it's, if it's us against them, I'm not comfortable with the optics of that.

• 13:48Travis McElroy?

  What I'm saying is. I'm joining up. What I'm saying is, and this is just us three, right?

• 13:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Travis McElroy?

  No one's listening. Three. Maybe it would be nice. Maybe we could use a boost as a people, as a species.

• 14:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And re- re- and re- extinct them.

• 14:06Travis McElroy?

  The dire wolf, like victory over the dire, like, like we could use, it's a little win, right? It's a Pyrrhic victory for sure. If there are any dire wolves listening. I understand that we domesticated you guys into dogs. You can domesticate me as a pet. I don't want to die. I will turn, I will turn coat so hard.

• 14:24Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, Travis is on, firmly on team dire wolf then.

• 14:27Travis McElroy?

  You flipped. Okay, that's interesting. No, if they're listening, if they're not listening, Justin, I'm totally on your side. But I don't know how powerful these bad boys hearing is. So if any dire wolf can hear this.

• 14:38Griffin McElroy?

  If you're in the fucking settings menu of the wolf genetically speaking, you could probably crank a lot of different kind of heuristics all the way up to top apex.

• 14:48Travis McElroy?

  I'm just saying, if they can hear this right now, I'm on your side, dire wolf.

• 14:51Griffin McElroy?

  Now, now, now.

• 14:55Griffin McElroy?

  Can we genetically modify the dire wolves to make them big enough to ride? I wanna, I'm, dire wolves? That's so 2000 and late. You know what's so 2025? Wargs. Give me a warg any day of the week. I'd love a warg that I can ride around on. Cause guess where the warg can't bite? The guy on his back. And it's not gonna be ethically bad because we're gonna make the wargs love it to be ridden and they can carry so much more than 163 pounds.

• 15:22Travis McElroy?

  But don't make them love it too much.

• 15:24Griffin McElroy?

  Thank you.

• 15:25Travis McElroy?

  I don't want it to feel weird that I'm doing it. Was there ever a dire ostrich? There could be, Justin. I'm a film student at a local community college and I have a part-time job working in a bookstore on the weekends. Recently, I've discovered one of my coworkers is also interested in film and enjoys writing scripts. I was so excited to hear this as we could use more script writers in the program because most people focus on wanting to direct or operate the camera. Only problem is he only writes fan scripts about He-Man. How can I convince my coworker to write other characters, or at least, the very least, switch the characters' names to non-copyrighted ones? That's from scripty in SC.

• 16:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 16:03Travis McElroy?

  Well, guys, I think what this person is asking us to do is to create our own, right now, to create our own Creative Commons.

• 16:13Griffin McElroy?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:14Travis McElroy?

  He-Man.

• 16:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Travis McElroy?

  For the public imagination.

• 16:17Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, because you don't want to cut He-Man out. I think many movies, maybe all, would be made better if He-Man was there. Not necessarily destroying things, smashing through things, punching things. Like, think of, like, most movies are made better by The Rock being in them, a large man with powerful muscles commenting on things.

• 16:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 16:37Travis McElroy?

  That He-Man could be that.

• 16:39Travis McElroy?

  Well, what about, uh, names? I mean, right off the bat.

• 16:45Griffin McElroy?

  Boy Guy.

• 16:46Travis McElroy?

  Boy Guy. Muscle Champ.

• 16:48Griffin McElroy?

  Muscle, what was that?

• 16:49Travis McElroy?

  Muscle Champ is not as good as Prince Guy.

• 16:52Griffin McElroy?

  Prince Muscle Champ is pretty cool.

• 16:54Travis McElroy?

  Prince Muscleton.

• 16:55Griffin McElroy?

  But he's not, he's not, that's two, two different guys.

• 16:58Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, Prince Muscleton would be his normal.

• 17:01Travis McElroy?

  I actually think it's even better if no one guesses that Prince Muscleton is actually...

• 17:07Griffin McElroy?

  Boy Guy.

• 17:08Travis McElroy?

  Boy Guy. Why is he a boy? That's not like a part of the He-Man.

• 17:12Travis McElroy?

  You know what? Inclusivity, they/them. Just call them they/them.

• 17:17Travis McElroy?

  I don't know. I don't know about that.

• 17:19Griffin McElroy?

  But it's not following the convention of he-man.

• 17:22Travis McElroy?

  They person.

• 17:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, but that doesn't sound great.

• 17:28Griffin McElroy?

  Boy Guy, however, I think drips off the tongue and I think gets you close enough to the sort of original syntactic.

• 17:34Travis McElroy?

  Okay, Boy Guy.

• 17:35Griffin McElroy?

  Idea.

• 17:36Travis McElroy?

  Prince Muscleton.

• 17:37Travis McElroy?

  But Boy Guy, I've heard it too many times now and started to feel like, ah, real girl's girl kinda deal. Like, ah, he's a real boys guy.

• 17:45Griffin McElroy?

  When that one lady wrote the Fifty Shades books, those started out as Twilight.

• 17:55Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:55Griffin McElroy?

  Fanfiction.

• 17:56Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Griffin McElroy?

  And then they turned into the best selling sex books that have ever been released and made three bonerific film adaptations out of those. So who's to say that this is not gonna happen for their He-Man script?

• 18:11Travis McElroy?

  When Griffin says sexiest book, he's not counting Go Tell a Watchman by Harper Lee. Just wanted to clarify.

• 18:16Griffin McElroy?

  No, yeah, I haven't read that one. I do understand the erotic nature of it is boiling.

• 18:21Travis McElroy?

  Man He.

• 18:22Griffin McElroy?

  Stalding hot. Man He. Manny.

• 18:26Travis McElroy?

  Manny.

• 18:26Travis McElroy?

  Manny.

• 18:27Travis McElroy?

  Manny the Muscle King.

• 18:29Travis McElroy?

  Me hand.

• 18:30Griffin McElroy?

  This was not sort of the question.

• 18:33Travis McElroy?

  What they wanted.

• 18:34Griffin McElroy?

  I don't.

• 18:34Travis McElroy?

  What is the essential nature of a, of a, of a He-Man story? It's man hides muscle.

• 18:41Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 18:42Travis McElroy?

  So what are some other muscle hiders?

• 18:44Travis McElroy?

  Fight skeleton.

• 18:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I don't really, can I say something? Put lump this dude in with Snoopy. I have no feelings about He-Man. What the fuck so ever?

• 18:55Travis McElroy?

  You missed that generational.

• 18:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I did. By about 25 years. It's, that dude is so fucking old.

• 19:02Travis McElroy?

  That's not it.

• 19:03Travis McElroy?

  Okay.

• 19:03Griffin McElroy?

  He's pretty old and he has a bunch of weird friends and a big purple cat and it's like, you lost me.

• 19:10Travis McElroy?

  And here's the thing, here's what I will say that I enjoy about old school He-Man and his cat. You had a big muscly prince in a tight, tight fit, making it clear he was a big muscle prince. And the big muscle prince had a pet tiger.

• 19:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Travis McElroy?

  And then he would become He-Man and his size did not change at all. And his tiger got armor and everyone's like, who the fuck is that guy?

• 19:38Griffin McElroy?

  Who is that? Who is this?

• 19:39Travis McElroy?

  This is, what is?

• 19:40Travis McElroy?

  I think there needs to be more of that.

• 19:42Travis McElroy?

  It's absolutely fair. Absolutely.

• 19:46Travis McElroy?

  The Tiger Cringer is what you're is the name of the tiger. And the tiger also gets more brave with the armor, but it's like.

• 19:54Travis McElroy?

  So would I.

• 19:55Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, me too. Like, you know, like Cringer is scared. Like, give him the fucking armor. So he's not scared.

• 20:01Griffin McElroy?

  That you take the armor away from him ever.

• 20:03Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, Prince Muscleton has the sword. Like, he could at any point be like, lop someone's head off. Like, he has no reason to be afraid.

• 20:09Griffin McElroy?

  But the tiger can't put the armor on.

• 20:11Travis McElroy?

  Sniper assassins from Skeletor could kill Cringer like from assassin's bullet 100 yards. No problem. Grayskull window shatters. Cringer's dead.

• 20:21Travis McElroy?

  Cringer is also just wheezing off of He-Man's power.

• 20:25Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 20:26Travis McElroy?

  Cringer can't be like, I'm freaked out by the power of Grayskull. I have the power.

• 20:31Travis McElroy?

  It's dark. It's 2 AM, right? I'm like, I want to go to CVS, but it's like late and I don't want to get like, I would just like the armor, please.

• 20:39Travis McElroy?

  He has to ask like Prince Adam, like, hey, could you He-Man out? So that I get the reflective and Prince Adam's like, no.

• 20:48Travis McElroy?

  He said, he said, I'm in the shower.

• 20:52Travis McElroy?

  I know, but I've got to do stuff.

• 20:54Travis McElroy?

  Griffin, that took you so long to laugh at. You really did miss out on He-Man.

• 20:58Griffin McElroy?

  I had, I did. Yeah. I don't know who he is and I've been pretending for a really long time.

• 21:03Travis McElroy?

  Like years?

• 21:04Griffin McElroy?

  Like years and years and years. I don't know fucking anything about him. I think in the entertainment economy we find ourselves in right now, I cannot comfortably say that writing about He-Man exclusively is a bad idea because it does feel like it's time. Like, if I don't know who this fucking dude is, that's a huge market potential for He-Man. If it, maybe it kicks ass. I don't know. It seems pretty busted. It seems like a semi nude royal man who transforms with a magic sword, like, and he has a tiger. Like, that's what it seems like to me.

• 21:38Travis McElroy?

  We all saw the Masters of the Universe movie together.

• 21:42Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, when I was a zygote, I don't remember it. It's old, old, old, old, old.

• 21:47Travis McElroy?

  The only thing I remember is it being the first time I ever saw a post credits scene.

• 21:52Griffin McElroy?

  Oh shit.

• 21:52Travis McElroy?

  That then, uh.

• 21:54Travis McElroy?

  Skeletor comes back out.

• 21:55Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, then from that moment on, when Clint McRae would take his sons to go see a movie, we did not leave.

• 22:00Griffin McElroy?

  In case Skeletor comes back out. Yeah.

• 22:02Travis McElroy?

  And can I tell you, Skeletor never came back at the end of other movies.

• 22:06Travis McElroy?

  No.

• 22:06Travis McElroy?

  Which I think would have been a wild, but breathtakingly artistic choice.

• 22:11Griffin McElroy?

  Sure. Sure, sure, sure.

• 22:13Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Into Marley and Me.

• 22:16Travis McElroy?

  It's Skeletor.

• 22:18Griffin McElroy?

  You're kidding me. The dog, you, the dog dies, Christ almighty.

• 22:23Travis McElroy?

  I sat through the whole thing.

• 22:26Travis McElroy?

  I'm, I'm attending a friend's wedding soon and learning that a former Olympian will also be attending. This person is semi-famous, yes, multiple gold medals and competed in swimming. What are some good ways to strike up a conversation with Michael Phelps? And that's from admire, American admirer. No, it doesn't say that. I don't know who it is. American admirer in Apple, up, Appalat, Appalachia Cola?

• 22:55Griffin McElroy?

  Cool.

• 22:56Travis McElroy?

  Okay. There's no way it's Michael Phelps, right? Cause no one would describe Michael Phelps as semi-famous.

• 23:01Griffin McElroy?

  Probably not Phelps. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that they would say like, he's, he was an athlete. He won 90, he won 90 gold medals. It's like, well, that leaves us just with the one option.

• 23:12Travis McElroy?

  So we got, there's a lot of options. We're not gonna be able, I'm looking here, multiple golds. Other than Phelps, it could be Mark Spitz, Caleb Dressel, Matt Beyond, we, Ryan Lochte, right?

• 23:24Griffin McElroy?

  We don't know.

• 23:26Griffin McElroy?

  Some of those, some of those.

• 23:26Travis McElroy?

  Caleb Dackey, Jenny Thompson, Amy Van Dyken.

• 23:30Griffin McElroy?

  Some of those.

• 23:31Travis McElroy?

  Dana Volmer.

• 23:32Griffin McElroy?

  Some of those maybe don't brush up to. Maybe some of those, like you see Lochte, maybe you keep him, you keep him over.

• 23:38Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, keep it locked down.

• 23:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:41Travis McElroy?

  I don't think you can be a former Olympian. I think once an Olympian, always an Olympian.

• 23:46Travis McElroy?

  Well, yeah.

• 23:47Travis McElroy?

  Compete at that level. I think that you never can turn the competitive thing off. I'd be worried at a wedding.

• 23:55Travis McElroy?

  How am I gonna beat these people to the buffet? You know, is there gonna be, is everything gonna be a competition? Like, oh, I took the biggest bite of cake. Like, great. Ryan, very good.

• 24:06Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, that's a problem.

• 24:06Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, not everything's a competition, Ryan.

• 24:08Griffin McElroy?

  You will have an advantage based on sort of your, cause I'm assuming it's not a, like, an aquatic wedding.

• 24:17Travis McElroy?

  No, I'm sure they would have mentioned.

• 24:18Griffin McElroy?

  It's not a wetting. It's a wedding. And so like, you will, you will have the sort of terrestrial edge. They may be able to take you in the water, absolutely, but they have spent so much of their life in the water that like their bone density is all fucked up. And you will be stronger and faster than them on land. Pretty much guaranteed.

• 24:36Travis McElroy?

  If it's one of those things where it plays out like a hilarious America's Funniest Home Video where like the bride falls in the water. They're over a lake. Oh no, big windy or whatever. Oh, falls, the guy trips.

• 24:47Griffin McElroy?

  That doesn't sound funny.

• 24:48Travis McElroy?

  I know, right? But they're always on there. There's a whole episodes.

• 24:52Griffin McElroy?

  Every episode of America's Funniest Home Videos, a bride falls in the water during her wedding?

• 24:57Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, man.

• 24:58Griffin McElroy?

  And, uh, and an Olympian has to jump in and save her.

• 25:00Travis McElroy?

  The many layers of taffeta pull her down to the briny depths.

• 25:04Travis McElroy?

  Unless an Olympian is there.

• 25:06Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, you watch someone die in every episode of AFV.

• 25:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I bet if it's your wedding and your, your spouse, your new spouse falls in the water and starts to drown. That feels pretty bad. And then an Olympian, a handsome Olympian jumps in and saves her. You're like probably 99% like, oh, thank Christ. Oh, thank God, my beloved, my beloved. But then there's also part of you that's like, it would have been cooler if I did that.

• 25:29Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Griffin McElroy?

  It would have been cooler if I was the one who jumped in to save my new wife.

• 25:33Travis McElroy?

  And I had to take that into account.

• 25:35Griffin McElroy?

  Not good swimming, not good swimming, not at all. And I, also I knew that Phelpsy was here. So like, I kind of figured he got me and he did, which is great. Um, and I'm again, so stoked.

• 25:47Travis McElroy?

  Cause it would be more embarrassing if you jumped in first and then Phelps jumped in after you. And Phelps saved your bride and then you were like, I guess I'll swim back.

• 25:58Travis McElroy?

  No, no, no. Phelps would save you on the way. And it's like, Phelps, I didn't need. He's like, no, it's fine. I'm already out here saving your new wife. I don't mind to save you too.

• 26:08Travis McElroy?

  It's not an extra trip for me.

• 26:10Travis McElroy?

  It's no problem.

• 26:10Griffin McElroy?

  And then you start to think, did Phelpsy engineer this situation in some way to cuckold me on my special day?

• 26:18Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Griffin McElroy?

  And the answer might surprise you.

• 26:24Griffin McElroy?

  It's no, it's no, he probably didn't do that.

• 26:26Travis McElroy?

  He doesn't need to.

• 26:27Griffin McElroy?

  Doesn't want to, probably.

• 26:29Travis McElroy?

  Okay, I'm just saying that if he did want to, I don't think Michael Phelps would have to engineer an elaborate scheme to impress other people.

• 26:40Griffin McElroy?

  Did you guys ever know an aspiring Olympian growing up?

• 26:44Travis McElroy?

  Yes, I took, I took wrestling classes from Olympic wrestler Ken Chertow.

• 26:51Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, that's right.

• 26:52Travis McElroy?

  Fuck, yeah, I forgot about that. Man, I haven't heard that name in 20 years, Ken Chertow.

• 26:57Griffin McElroy?

  That man oversaw a spar that I had with my friend Steven where he busted my nose, gave me a bloody nose.

• 27:04Travis McElroy?

  Not Ken Chertow, Ken Chertow didn't bust your nose, did he?

• 27:07Griffin McElroy?

  No, Steven did.

• 27:08Travis McElroy?

  Okay.

• 27:10Travis McElroy?

  And all I know about Ken Chertow, as far as like bringing up wrestling to him, seemed like what he was about. But it was in wrestling class, so I think that that tracks.

• 27:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah. I have a, I had a friend who was a swimmer and like had Olympic dreams and swam every day for lots of time a day. And like had the bleached hair and all the stuff that comes with like being a professional in the water person. And that must be a frustrating set of skills to possess and not be able to do anything with, uh, like in most of the earth. In most of the earth that you walk and most of the places that you go in any day to day. You gotta be thinking the whole time like, gosh dang it, if only this Home Depot was underwater. If this was an underwater, if this was an underwater, um, you know, grocery store, then my skills would be like, I would be kicking everyone's ass here, no problem.

• 28:01Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, but Griffin, when you're like Usain Bolt and you reach the shore, as you've been running across the entire country and you're like, now I have to stop and turn around. Right? Because most of the earth is covered with water. So while the day to day, I agree with you. But as far as getting around, Michael Phelps can hit the ocean and swim to Europe.

• 28:21Griffin McElroy?

  What is the most practical Olympic sport? That's going to equip you with skills and obviously you're going to say running or something that's like, yeah, of course, because we all do it, but that's not funny.

• 28:32Travis McElroy?

  Shot put? Because you throw stuff. I mean, the ability to throw stuff that's heavy.

• 28:36Griffin McElroy?

  I throw more than I swi- just looking at my D and D verb set at my text parser adventure game set. I throw more than I swim guaranteed.

• 28:46Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Griffin McElroy?

  Guaranteed.

• 28:47Travis McElroy?

  This is a real, this is, okay, so I think there's two, there's two viable answers, right? It's the triathlon, the biathlon.

• 28:55Griffin McElroy?

  That's cheating.

• 28:56Travis McElroy?

  No, no, no, it's not cheating. It's about two very different approaches to life. Triathlon is run, swim, bike. Biathlon,

• 29:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Travis McElroy?

  by contrast, is ski and shoot.

• 29:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Travis McElroy?

  So this is like, which, which is your approach?

• 29:11Travis McElroy?

  Tag yourself.

• 29:12Travis McElroy?

  Which are you? Are you the kind of person that shoots someone, that skis away from the problem? Are you the sort of person that just keeps running?

• 29:20Travis McElroy?

  I'm a ski and shoot. If I'm being honest, the downhill is doing a lot of the work.

• 29:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I'm pretty sure it is cross country. I don't think they make them.

• 29:28Travis McElroy?

  That's really, now, Griffin, important distinction.

• 29:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 29:31Travis McElroy?

  Because for my life, it is about shooting at something and then slowly inching away while everyone watches me.

• 29:37Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 29:38Travis McElroy?

  It's not a fast, thrilling.

• 29:39Griffin McElroy?

  As sick as it would be to turn it into sort of a rifle based downhill jam, that would be fucking sick, actually. Get the skis out of there. We snowboard. We snowboard.

• 29:49Travis McElroy?

  The shot in midair. All shots are midair.

• 29:52Travis McElroy?

  Snowboard and paintball would be wicked awesome. I'd be so into that. Oh, now I'm picturing it.

• 29:59Griffin McElroy?

  So don't talk to them about swimming. They probably don't want to talk about swimming.

• 30:04Travis McElroy?

  Not talk to them. If they bring up swimming.

• 30:07Griffin McElroy?

  If they bring it up, fine. If they, but they're not going to fucking bring it up, man. There's no way they're going to bring it up unless it's a, like a swimming pool wedding, which is cool that, I don't know why those don't exist.

• 30:19Travis McElroy?

  Oh, but Griffin, what if it's a gray area where like you're getting some punch with them? And they're like, man, this is a pretty deep punch bowl. And you're like, okay, are they hinting at they want me to say something about, bet you could swim in there. Uh, no, there's no way they want me to say that. But they brought, they're looking at me. They're looking, they're still waiting for me to respond and their eyebrows are getting higher on their forehead. And they, uh, should I say something?

• 30:46Griffin McElroy?

  They'd be like, hey, do you think that this wedding venue has a floor like the gymnasium? And it's a wonderful life that is splits open in terms of, like, if you're a professional swimmer, you gotta be keeping your head on a swivel. Like, I wonder if this floor of this, uh, of this building splits open to reveal a pool underneath that we can all jump into and have the time of our lives and tell, our dad had a stroke? Oh, no. Like, we gotta get out of here.

• 31:10Travis McElroy?

  How, but that was a very unique experience to kind of one person in It's a Wonderful Life. It wasn't like a third of those people swimming in the pool had to scramble out.

• 31:19Griffin McElroy?

  I would say George Bailey's dad having a stroke affected that whole damn town, Travis.

• 31:23Travis McElroy?

  Fuck, Griff, you're right. I missed the point of it.

• 31:25Griffin McElroy?

  You missed the point of it entirely.

• 31:26Travis McElroy?

  Hey, do you think that the kid who opened the floor faced jail time criminal charges for? No, it was a fucking prank, dude. Calm down. Now, I'm tired of you trying to-

• 31:37Griffin McElroy?

  When he closed the floor and gooshed all those people, um, that was a fucked up part of the movie. But, you know, Capra's got a sick mind. I don't need to see a picture of Coach Kincherto, Jeff. I don't know why you thought I needed this.

• 31:51Travis McElroy?

  I will say it is unfortunate that Kincherto's website lists some of the wrestlers he has coached, and Travis is not listed. So that is, I will say that is unfortunate. Probably because I was very bad.

• 32:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah. But that's not your fault.

• 32:03Travis McElroy?

  The Kincherto system, though.

• 32:07Griffin McElroy?

  Think of all the practical skills you got from the Kincherto system, Travis.

• 32:10Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 32:14Travis McElroy?

  Let's take a break. Okay? Money's on. Let's go.

• 32:25Travis McElroy?

  Justin Griffin.

• 32:27Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Travis McElroy?

  I want to start a website.

• 32:31Travis McElroy?

  Okay.

• 32:31Travis McElroy?

  And listen, I know I have big dreams. I know I do. And my dream for a website is that it would be beautiful, that it would let me maybe sell products and my time, that it would be very user friendly, that it would have cutting edge design. But here's the thing, you guys know this, I'm an idea man. I'm kind of a blue sky kind of guy.

• 32:53Travis McElroy?

  Barely think.

• 32:55Travis McElroy?

  I barely think, I only dream.

• 32:57Travis McElroy?

  Right.

• 32:58Travis McElroy?

  I don't know.

• 32:59Travis McElroy?

  No thoughts, only dreams.

• 33:00Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. No thoughts, only dreams.

• 33:03Travis McElroy?

  No dreams, only do.

• 33:05Travis McElroy?

  I'm willing to offer you guys each $500 to build me a website.

• 33:10Travis McElroy?

  Wow, Travis, that's unnecessary.

• 33:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I'll take it.

• 33:12Travis McElroy?

  No, no, no, shit, great. Justin, shut, Justin, shush.

• 33:15Travis McElroy?

  No, I am curious as to what Justin was saying.

• 33:17Travis McElroy?

  I was just gonna say this, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have blown up the spot, but Squarespace does make that really easy. Like, you don't need to pay a bunch of money. Squarespace can help you make a world-class website because they got templates. So you can, they'll give you the templates to make it look great, and you put in your photos, you sell your stuff. But it's gonna look good because they already had designers make it look good. You understand?

• 33:38Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Griffin McElroy?

  Do you know how tight money is for me, Juice? Do you know how big a change $500 would make in my life?

• 33:44Travis McElroy?

  I do, I do, Griffin, but you're gonna earn that the honest way because you can set up a business with a Squarespace website, sell stuff. Get your, you get your business going with this website. So you don't need to steal anymore.

• 33:54Griffin McElroy?

  I'll tell the boys that the reason that Easter is canceled this year is because I had to earn the $500 I so desperately need the honest way because Uncle Justin said I had to. And they'll, I bet they'll understand.

• 34:06Travis McElroy?

  This is good news for you then, Griff. I got a free trial offer. Head to Squarespace.com/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.

• 34:19Travis McElroy?

  See, now that I find myself with a thousand extra dollars, Griffin, I'll pay you $1,000 to ruin Justin's credit.

• 34:26Griffin McElroy?

  That should not be too difficult, if I'm being completely honest.

• 34:31Travis McElroy?

  Awesome.

• 34:33Griffin McElroy?

  Hey.

• 34:35Griffin McElroy?

  How am I supposed to cook a meal?

• 34:38Griffin McElroy?

  How am I supposed to cook a meal? Cause I, there's so much happening all of the time and

• 34:43Travis McElroy?

  Where do you even get a meal?

• 34:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, exactly Travis. Thank you so much. Certainly can't cook it because.

• 34:50Travis McElroy?

  Well, that's actually, that's weird that you guys are saying that because I recently have really been enjoying a lot of great dishes like Mediterranean sheep pan chicken or roasted salmon. Maybe even a low carb chicken and zucchini noodle salad.

• 35:02Travis McElroy?

  You know, Justin, it's that kind of attitude that makes me want Griffin to ruin your credit.

• 35:07Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I don't know why you keep bringing up my credit today Travis.

• 35:11Travis McElroy?

  Griffin and I are talking about how hard it is for us to like prep and cook a meal. You're like, I can do it.

• 35:15Griffin McElroy?

  I do it all the time.

• 35:16Travis McElroy?

  Well, no, no, no. I, I, it's Marley's spoon, guys. It's, I use Marley's spoon.

• 35:20Griffin McElroy?

  Oh.

• 35:21Travis McElroy?

  You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they got over a hundred recipes. You can choose the, the stuff that looks good to you, the things that you actually want to eat. And they make it really easy to, to, to, to make it. So you can make it at home, right? Delicious.

• 35:34Griffin McElroy?

  In my home?

• 35:35Travis McElroy?

  In your own house Travis.

• 35:37Travis McElroy?

  I don't have to go to someone else's house?

• 35:38Travis McElroy?

  The same place where you shower and sleep, that house.

• 35:41Travis McElroy?

  Someone else's house, you mean?

• 35:43Griffin McElroy?

  I appreciate that juice. I have pretty, a pretty refined palate, as you know, and the sort of foods that I require are maybe a little bit more elevated. So like these days I'm only eating like Martha Stewart's best bean and cheese enchiladas.

• 35:56Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, that's, yeah, that's Marley's spoon. This is, that's what.

• 36:00Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, you're kidding me?

• 36:00Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Martha, Martha's DNA is all over this thing. She is shepherding.

• 36:06Travis McElroy?

  I don't know about that, Justin. I don't know about all that, Justin.

• 36:09Griffin McElroy?

  I don't think you should say that.

• 36:11Travis McElroy?

  There's fingerprints everywhere.

• 36:12Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, man.

• 36:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 36:14Travis McElroy?

  She's not getting away with this one.

• 36:16Griffin McElroy?

  You could make.

• 36:17Travis McElroy?

  It's not, this is not in the podcast.

• 36:19Griffin McElroy?

  It is in the podcast. You can make a colony of new Marthas with Martha's best mac and cheese carbonara. Guaranteed. Lot of DNA on that.

• 36:28Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, there's, uh, express recipes that this has been nice because we've been, uh, starting to do more rehearsals at night for summer theater and there's not a lot of time to cook, but they've got recipes you can make in 15 minutes. And it's like a real, actual dinner, not fast food. It's something with a lot of nutrition in it that you feel really good about.

• 36:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yummy.

• 36:45Travis McElroy?

  Yummy stuff, guys. Yeah, this year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to marliespoon.com/offer/mybrother and use code MYBROTHER for up to 27 free meals. That's right, up to 27 free meals with Marley Spoon. One last time, marliespoon.com/offer/mybrother for up to 27 free meals. Make sure you use our promo code MYBROTHER so they know we sent you.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  Who's ready for some science?

• 37:17Speaker 04

  With sources and nuance.

• 37:20Speaker 05

  And some funny jokes from me.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  And some funny jokes from me.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  Let's learn everything we learn about science and a bit of everything else, too. From super heavy elements to super heavy pumpkins.

• 37:33Speaker 05

  From quantum physics to the history of swearing.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  As well as special guests like Tom Scott and Hank Green.

• 37:38Speaker 05

  And some funny jokes from me.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Me, Caroline Roper. Dr. Ella Hubber.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  And Tom Lum.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  So join us next time where we will learn about everything.

• 37:52Speaker 06

  Hey, are you playing a video game right now?

• 37:54Speaker 07

  Maybe you put on a podcast while grinding in an RPG. Or maybe you just don't want to hear that boss fight music one more time.

• 38:01Speaker 06

  Been there. I'm Maddie Myers.

• 38:03Speaker 07

  I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. We're the hosts of Triple Click, a video game podcast.

• 38:08Speaker 06

  A podcast you can listen to while you do other things.

• 38:11Speaker 07

  Like driving, or cooking, or playing video games.

• 38:16Speaker 06

  On Triple Click, we share our thoughts on the latest games.

• 38:19Speaker 07

  And breaking news out of the video game industry. And we also talk about other stuff besides games. So while you're doing something else, make sure to check out Triple Click. Listen on maximumfun.org or wherever you find your podcasts.

• 38:37Travis McElroy?

  All right. In my hour of need.

• 38:43Travis McElroy?

  I want a Munch Squad. I want two Munch Squad.

• 38:53Travis McElroy?

  Welcome to Munch Squad, this podcast, the podcast profiling the latest and greatest in brand eating. What have you prepared for us? Rather than say what we're going to be talking about, I'm going to show you guys, and the lead off is going to be how you react to it. Okay, great.

• 39:10Travis McElroy?

  Huh.

• 39:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 39:12Travis McElroy?

  Wait.

• 39:13Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck. Yeah, okay, so my initial just for me, Juice, it was, yeah, okay, fuck. So it was like.

• 39:20Travis McElroy?

  That is recorded for all of posterity.

• 39:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Travis McElroy?

  Here's what I love about this image, Justin.

• 39:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, well, tell me about the image, Travis.

• 39:27Travis McElroy?

  There's like an upfront hit where it is such a weird consistency on a pizza. And I see the tin that says pizza caviar.

• 39:36Griffin McElroy?

  That's sort of the thing that caught my eye.

• 39:38Travis McElroy?

  Yes, and then in little print above pizza caviar is Pizza Hut logo.

• 39:44Travis McElroy?

  So that is interesting, Travis. It's you get hit with the initial feeling of how bad it is to look at this before you know what it is. And then you see that it's pizza caviar from the tin and that feels bad in a different way.

• 39:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Travis McElroy?

  Cause then you're despairing that you that this is the moment in history in which you are alive. And then you see the Pizza Hut on there and you're like, hmm, okay, I'm listening.

• 40:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Travis McElroy?

  Like, oh, I'm.

• 40:06Griffin McElroy?

  It used to be, it used to be kind of cool, like, I'm alive at the same time as David Bowie and Prince. That's pretty sick, but I'm also unfortunately lived long enough that now there's pizza caviar. And the image we are looking at, it does look like a fairly burnt up little personal pan pizza that is covered in what I could only describe as marinara dipping dots.

• 40:26Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. That's a really good call.

• 40:28Travis McElroy?

  I'm not a designer, like, I'm not, I don't claim to have an especially good, like, grasp on color theory.

• 40:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Travis McElroy?

  But the fact that they put this very red pizza.

• 40:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Travis McElroy?

  On a different red.

• 40:42Griffin McElroy?

  What looks like the cover, like the red leather bound tone. Yeah, something, something like that.

• 40:49Travis McElroy?

  It's a very aggressive image.

• 40:52Griffin McElroy?

  Challenging.

• 40:52Travis McElroy?

  Pizza Hut is putting an indulgent twist on the caviar craze sweeping foodie culture with the launch of pizza caviar.

• 41:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 41:01Travis McElroy?

  The first of it, yeah, man, caviar bumps.

• 41:04Griffin McElroy?

  Caviar bumps.

• 41:04Travis McElroy?

  Here's the thing, can you call a thing that has existed for, I believe, hundreds of years?

• 41:09Travis McElroy?

  No, no, no, no, no, this is a specific craze, Travis. Caviar bumps refers to putting caviar in your hand and letting your body warm it and then just eating the caviar like that. They're all the rage, or at least they were in motherfucking 2022, when the New York Times wrote caviar bumps are all the rage. So this is.

• 41:29Griffin McElroy?

  Coming in a little late.

• 41:30Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, a little late Pizza Hut on this one.

• 41:32Griffin McElroy?

  Also gross. Now it's tinned fish. Caviar bumps are out. Tinned fish is in in a major way.

• 41:38Travis McElroy?

  Now it's caviar lines.

• 41:40Travis McElroy?

  You gotta just snort the caviar straight up.

• 41:42Griffin McElroy?

  Right up there.

• 41:43Travis McElroy?

  This is a first of its kind innovation that transforms the fine dining trend into something completely unexpected. Yeah, I would say on paper, that whole sentence is true.

• 41:54Griffin McElroy?

  I thought you were gonna say unacceptable, which is also right.

• 41:56Travis McElroy?

  Also, caviar has been elevating some of the world's most beloved comfort foods with the unexpected high-low pairings popping up in upscale restaurants and gracing social feeds across the country. In true Pizza Hut fashion, the brand asked, why just place caviar on your pizza when you can reimagine it entirely? And create a bold new food category. Inspired by the rise of caviar bumps. Three years ago. Three years ago, these bite-sized pizza caviar pearls are made to taste like pepperoni and designed for dipping, dunking, and bumping. Thank God they're bite-sized. Can you imagine if they were bigger than bite-sized?

• 42:38Travis McElroy?

  I would say they're nostril-sized, if you want to be honest about it. I'm ready to do these beloved bumps.

• 42:44Griffin McElroy?

  Also, can you give me, and it's imperative that you give me the exact phraseology of designed to taste of pepperoni? What was that again? Hit me with that again.

• 42:54Travis McElroy?

  Exact, these bite-sized pizza caviar pearls, and again, I do want to touch on, it's an edible product. As my brother said, bite-sized isn't, they're very tiny. They are in no way bite-sized. They look like tapioca.

• 43:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Travis McElroy?

  The, these bite-sized pizza caviar pearls are made to taste like pepperoni. They're made to taste like pepperoni. Made to taste like pepperoni. So, they're not pepperoni. They're not made of pepperoni. They don't taste like pepperoni. The intention was there. The intent of this product is that the flavor is reminiscent of pepperoni. To bring our intent at inception. Yes. Our goals were pure.

• 43:37Travis McElroy?

  To bring it all back around, these are to pepperoni as current dire wolves are to dire wolves.

• 43:42Travis McElroy?

  Yes, Travis.

• 43:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Dire Wolves were made to taste of Dire Wolves.

• 43:48Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Griffin McElroy?

  That is a similar situation, yes.

• 43:52Travis McElroy?

  Crafted to replicate the look and feel of traditional caviar without the fish. Pizza Caviar delivers a bold, smoky, pepperoni flavor in a fun new form.

• 44:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Travis McElroy?

  And Pizza Caviar is the star of the brand new Pizza Caviar Bump Box.

• 44:14Travis McElroy?

  The more they explain it and like the process and the outcome, the more like alien it feels when they're like, "We intended to replicate..."

• 44:27Griffin McElroy?

  This seems like a joke press release, like a fake press release someone would write in a book written in the year 1990 about how shitty the future was gonna be.

• 44:37Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 44:37Griffin McElroy?

  And then it's being word for word kinda delivered.

• 44:40Travis McElroy?

  Let me show you guys. Look, look, look at this, look at this tab. Can you see this tab? Can you see what I've highlighted here?

• 44:44Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 44:44Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 44:45Travis McElroy?

  This is an asterisk after the first mention of Pizza Caviar. If you take the asterisk down, here's what it says.

• 44:51Griffin McElroy?

  So that's pepperoni flavored water and agar agar based caviar style pearls. That is my favorite Limp Bizkit album.

• 45:01Travis McElroy?

  Caviar, like pepperoni flavored water and agar agar based caviar style pearls.

• 45:10Griffin McElroy?

  Also so sick of them to get on the agar agar trend a good fucking maybe nine, 10, 11 years after the fact. And I, it's so, I mean, I'm more excited about this pepperoni flavored water. Let me just get that. You don't have to wily dufrain it, man. Just let me get it raw and wriggling, you know, just the juice for me, thanks.

• 45:35Travis McElroy?

  The Pizza Caviar, okay, so this is the Pizza Caviar Bump Box. It's a luxe, limited time twist on my Hut box, Pizza Hut's signature combo meal.

• 45:47Travis McElroy?

  The box includes one personal pan pizza and a choice of three plain boneless wings or fries, all topped with three. I, three wings are the number of wings you'll have.

• 46:01Griffin McElroy?

  What's the correct number of buffalo, what's the correct number of buffalo wings to eat with caviar? Because I think three actually sounds pretty right to me.

• 46:10Travis McElroy?

  Uh, yeah, that's a good, that's a good number. Um, one little tiny thing that they do want to mention, that I want to mention about this is that Pizza Hut's new product innovation pizza caviar bump box will be available exclusively at the Pizza Hut located at 932 8th Avenue in New York City from April 10th to April 12th from 4 to 8 p.m. was pies last.

• 46:28Griffin McElroy?

  I gotta go. It must be so fucking annoying to live in New York City all the time and just want to go to Pizza Hut to get a normal pizza one day. And yet they are always like, every chain is always doing the wildest shit and you are the lab rats because you live in a populated city where all these marketing firms are based. You have to suffer for that and eat these pepperoni pearls that are made of pepperoni water just because you live in the same city as the major marketing.

• 46:56Travis McElroy?

  It also must be such a huge strain on the infrastructure of New York City when something like this happens and there's just this flood of people rushing to New York City for these two days to get their hands on these pizza pearls. It must now such a strain on the city and its economy and everything. It must be so hard.

• 47:17Griffin McElroy?

  I will say it probably is easier than the average amount of difficulty to obtain pepperoni flavored water in New York City than it is that would be in like DC or any other.

• 47:30Travis McElroy?

  I wanted to draw your guys' attention to something else here in this press release. A luxe limited time twist on my hut box. Pizza Hut's signature combo meal. And we see the double asterisk here, right? So let's get, will you guys come down with me down the page here and Trav, will you read the, what's at the double asterisk?

• 47:47Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yes, of course. This is available, uh, April 10th through 12th. Oh, I look like you said, three boneless naked medium wings only. Availability, pricing and participation varies.

• 47:58Travis McElroy?

  Pizza caviar is pepperoni flavored water and agar agar based caviar style pearls.

• 48:04Travis McElroy?

  I shit you not, it's in there twice under both of the asterisks. They don't even want to take a fucking chance.

• 48:09Travis McElroy?

  Also, I can't stress enough, there's only one location listed and then participation varies.

• 48:16Travis McElroy?

  Tell me that this isn't an AI generated thing, guys. Please tell me it's not because there's no way that they have to specify you can only get three wings and also it's only available at this one restaurant?

• 48:27Travis McElroy?

  But participation varies.

• 48:28Travis McElroy?

  I came all the way here to be four wings.

• 48:30Travis McElroy?

  So I might go to that restaurant and be like, hey, this is the one location where you're doing the pizza bump caviar. And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, cool. Can I have some? And they said, yeah, we're not doing that shit.

• 48:41Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, or they said. Also know that we legally have to tell you the pepperoni flavored water and agar agar based caviar style pearls.

• 48:47Griffin McElroy?

  That is important for you to know. You can have it. It will cost you $300. It cost that guy like 20. Yeah. The pricing varies. We want more from you.

• 48:56Travis McElroy?

  Grow up.

• 48:57Griffin McElroy?

  Grow up.

• 48:57Travis McElroy?

  You want the caviar or not? You came all this way. It's pepperoni flavored.

• 49:01Travis McElroy?

  I'll take it. We knew you would, you nasty dog.

• 49:05Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I guess you have to. You can, I mean, I, I still don't understand if pizza caviar is available only at this location? Or if the pizza caviar bump box?

• 49:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no.

• 49:17Travis McElroy?

  Here's the other thing, Justin.

• 49:19Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:20Travis McElroy?

  If I were to add, let's say I get wild, I add caviar to a personal pan pizza.

• 49:25Griffin McElroy?

  Now, wait, what kind?

• 49:26Travis McElroy?

  Regular, regular fish based caviar.

• 49:30Travis McElroy?

  Not a pepperoni flavored water and agar agar based caviar style pearls.

• 49:35Travis McElroy?

  I'm talking your, your grandma's caviar.

• 49:38Griffin McElroy?

  Bog standard fish head.

• 49:39Travis McElroy?

  Right? I have added caviar to the experience, right? Flavor, experience, all that. If I'm adding pepperoni flavored caviar to a pepperoni pizza.

• 49:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:54Travis McElroy?

  All I've added is a slight consistency.

• 49:58Griffin McElroy?

  You've, yeah. You've turned it in, you've turned it into orbits.

• 50:02Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 50:02Griffin McElroy?

  But pizza, yeah, it's like, you love pizza. You know this flat, uh, this, this flat savory cake. It's going to drive you absolutely insane. Um, but what if we had little jelly balls, little boba pizza for you? Would you like that? Would you like that?

• 50:17Travis McElroy?

  Perhaps.

• 50:18Griffin McElroy?

  Probably not.

• 50:19Travis McElroy?

  Probably not. That's why we only did it at one restaurant because we don't have the strength of our convictions.

• 50:24Griffin McElroy?

  Give me an aerosolized pepperoni.

• 50:28Griffin McElroy?

  Please, give me.

• 50:30Travis McElroy?

  Give me a pill form of a pizza. It's 2025. I want to eat a pizza in a pill.

• 50:35Griffin McElroy?

  I want pizza pills and pepperoni sprays.

• 50:37Travis McElroy?

  Yes.

• 50:38Griffin McElroy?

  All day long.

• 50:39Travis McElroy?

  Caviar dreams.

• 50:40Griffin McElroy?

  Caviar dreams and pepperoni.

• 50:41Travis McElroy?

  And by caviar dreams, what I mean specifically is I want pepperoni flavored water and agar agar based caviar style pearl dreams.

• 50:51Griffin McElroy?

  So important, but we've been.

• 50:53Travis McElroy?

  My grandparents' vision when they came to this country.

• 50:56Griffin McElroy?

  They fought for this.

• 50:58Travis McElroy?

  They fought for this one.

• 51:01Griffin McElroy?

  We've been good boys and we deserve pepperoni spray.

• 51:06Travis McElroy?

  Uh, that is going to do it for us.

• 51:07Travis McElroy?

  I get that we don't get jet packs.

• 51:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 51:10Travis McElroy?

  But pizza pills.

• 51:11Griffin McElroy?

  Spray, please.

• 51:12Travis McElroy?

  Uh, we really appreciate you listening. We really appreciate you joining us. We hope you, uh, enjoyed this episode of our podcast because we tried our, our best.

• 51:20Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, this was our best and I'm sorry that that's true, but I hope you liked it.

• 51:24Travis McElroy?

  I have a couple of appearances we want to tell you guys about. We're going to be at Dragon Con in Atlanta in late August. So make sure you get, uh, the details on that at bit.ly for it slash McElroy tours. We're also going to be at the Harmony House Ren Fair. That is going to be on May 3rd. The exact times and, and specifics of that are going to be coming up, but you should, if you could be in Honey Town, May 3rd, we're going to be there as well as at, uh, Origins Game Fair in Columbus in June.

• 51:54Travis McElroy?

  We're everywhere.

• 51:55Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, we're doing some shows in Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio as well that have been announced. And, uh, some of them are Taz, some of them are Bim Bam. All the Taz shows are going to be Taz versus. And again, to get tickets and find out more about those shows, bit.ly slash McElroy tours.

• 52:10Travis McElroy?

  We've also got merch at the merch store. If you haven't checked it out, including a Mickey mackerel spinner pen and 10% of all merch proceeds this month will be donated to the National Immigration Project.

• 52:19Griffin McElroy?

  Um, thanks to Montane for these for a theme song, My Life is Better With You. It is an honor to use it. Um, and it's got some, it is a privilege. Montane's got some new shit, uh, popping and it really cranks. And, um, I congratulate them on their creative mastery.

• 52:38Travis McElroy?

  Journey.

• 52:38Griffin McElroy?

  Journey. Their creative mastery journey.

• 52:40Travis McElroy?

  There you go.

• 52:41Travis McElroy?

  As, as one says.

• 52:42Travis McElroy?

  Hey, I've got a fear here that I'd like to read. I'm sure, sure, sure. Okay. "This year, I'll be faster than my fear of belly buttons. Just because it happened in Neo, doesn't mean it'll happen to me." Absolutely, it could happen to you any day.

• 52:57Travis McElroy?

  My name's Justin MacRae.

• 52:59Travis McElroy?

  I'm Travis MacRae. They're real and they're coming.

• 53:03Travis McElroy?

  This is my brother, my brother, me, kiss my dad square on the lips.

• 53:38Speaker 07

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.