Pizza Hut 4 with Neil Campbell and Mitra Jouhari

This is a head gum podcast.

Want to watch this episode?

Check it out on our YouTube channel by going to youtube.com/slash doughboys media.

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In an early table setting sequence of the 1995 techno thriller The Net, star Sandra Bullock is shown logging on to the website pizza.net to order home pie delivery.

It's one of those depictions of near-futurism made to look quaint by the actual future.

Bullock, as Angela Bennett, types in her order with a computer keyboard and views the confirmation on her CRT monitor in Angelfire adjacent web design.

Back in the 90s, the decade when many of you young fucks listening to this were born, only about one in three U.S.

households owned a PC and only about one in six had internet access.

Yet still, online pizza delivery wasn't just the domain of a sexy sci-fi computer programmer caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse that functioned as a neoluddite morality play.

In fact, in 1994, a year before The Net showed why you shouldn't bank on Dennis Miller's acting chops, an actual website launched that allowed actual humans to order actual pizza, provided you lived in its sole test market of Santa Cruz, California.

The site, developed by the world's second-largest pizza chain, was called Pizzanet.

Lose the dot, it's cleaner.

Its crude grayscale interface, designed for early web browsers that couldn't render inline images, presented a text menu and a web form where users could type in their pizza preferences and address.

Payment was cash on delivery.

The movie The Net, which released the same year muscle nerd cue ball Jeff Bezos created Amazon.com, included a bullock monologue that could have been a description of what Amazon and all e-commerce would become.

Quote, they knew what I ate.

They knew what I drank.

They knew what movies that I watched.

They knew what cigarettes I used to smoke.

They must have watched on the internet, I don't know, watched my credit cards.

Our whole lives are on the computer.

That prescient insight now conveniently extends to order history on your choice of countless pizza delivery sites and apps.

But the OG, Pizzanet, is still hosted in archive at its corporate parents' URL.

This week on Doughboys, we return once again to Pizza Hut.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants.

I'm Tiger Weiger, along with my co-host, Count Oreolock,

the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell.

Yes.

Little Nasferatu nod.

Yeah,

which the only thing I know about that is that he has, doesn't Count Orlock have a

big hog, you told me?

I would call it unremarkable.

Unremarkable?

They show his hog, but it's like medium.

It wasn't enough of a choice.

It's like

right in the middle of the bell curve.

And it's like, it would have been funny if they had like a really small hog, or like it would have been like, you know, maybe also funny or kind of spooky if he had a huge hog or just a weird hog, but it's just like kind of unremarkable.

With Mitch potentially having Draculitis, I thought you should have a proper Dracula name.

Love the podcast.

Everyone involved with it is fantastic.

Keep up the excellent work.

Matt, the mail carrier in southern Oregon.

Matt, I say to you, keep up the excellent work.

Yeah, thank you for carrying the mail.

Thank you for carrying.

I'm carrying the mail.

What a noble pursuit.

That includes our guests today of people who are doing a great job.

I think that that's.

I guess you're doing a great job.

Wages, happy 4th of July Eve.

Yes, we're recording this episode.

It'll be out one week from today.

We're recording it on the eve of 4th of July, and we're saying the head gum.

Uncle Sam is getting prepared right now.

Yeah.

And Aunt Sam.

Does he have, is Aunt Sam?

There should be an aunt.

There should be an Aunt Sam.

Would you say, is it his wife?

Yeah, aunts and uncles have the same name, right?

Or is it just, oh, yeah, or is it just, yeah, is it just like his, or is it sister?

It could be a sister.

It could be a sister.

Could be a sister.

There's not enough lore to Uncle Sam, I feel like.

Wait, how about both?

His wife and sister?

Yeah, incestuous thing.

On this day in 1776,

the founding fathers are kind of plucking quills out of crows right now.

I need something to sign with tomorrow.

That's how they had to run out and

pluck a quill from a crow?

Oh, my God.

You know what?

Thank you to those founding fathers.

What a country they created.

What a legacy.

Yeah, I think there should be.

I say Uncle Sam is probably the worst of the.

Is he worse than Easter Bunny?

Like, where would you put him?

Is Uncle Uncle Sam worse than the Easter Bunny?

I think, yeah, probably yes.

He's a military recruiter.

That's not

great.

I want you.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't mind his fit.

It's kind of fun.

Yeah.

It's like a fun costume, but I think Easter Bunny is more fun.

How about, like, I guess, what, like, what else is in his tier?

Like, Tooth Fairy?

Tooth Fairy is not attached to a holiday, though.

Do you know in London it's Uncle Sam-wise?

Do you know that?

Hmm.

From Lord of the Rings?

That's

that's why

I was just trying to make it seem like there's other Uncle Sam's across the globe, and there's not.

He really lends himself to stilt wearers.

That is true.

It's not a lot of other costumes where you're like, yeah, the stilt guys love the.

You're looking at it and you're like, that makes sense for some reason.

So maybe that does move up a notch.

Would you say he's worse than Easter Bunny?

I think so.

Yeah, he's probably worse.

What's the day's think?

Worse than Easter Bunny?

Yeah.

I mean, the military recruiter thing alone.

That's true.

It's just so jingoistic, right?

And it just is, you know, it's not a great look.

Not bunny rules.

Yeah.

Easter bunny's fun.

Easter bunny doesn't rule.

It's kind of fun.

Okay.

Yeah, it's candy for you to find.

Uncle Sam never hit candy for me.

That's true.

I also think that just like the laying eggs aspect of the Easter Bunny is a fun bit of lore.

Uncle Sam doesn't do that, I don't think.

Easter Bunny, though, wasn't he voiced by Russell Brand?

That is true.

That's not great.

Yeah.

And Uncle Sam hasn't had a Pixar-type movie yet.

Is he married to Betsy Ross?

I think maybe he was married to Betsy Ross.

They were just hooking up.

Okay.

And George Washington was into it.

Sick.

Those three,

those are probably, those three together would move up my fictional character chart.

Yeah, nasty ass

sliding around.

Wags, how are you?

Are you good?

I'm hanging in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How about you?

Good.

I went and saw Broke Back Mountain the other night.

How did you think?

I love that movie.

I'd never seen it before.

I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Yeah, great film.

It was great.

It's very sad.

It's really sad.

It's really, really sad.

It's one of the only movies that's ever made me cry.

Yeah, great.

Love you to tears.

Yeah.

It's great.

I'd never seen it.

I had never seen it.

I've found humanity and then just gorgeously shot.

And I went to an 11 p.m.

showing at City Walk.

Yes.

That is a late Broke Back Mountain.

Yeah.

Is it packed?

Yeah.

You know what?

It was.

Wow.

That was the crazy thing.

It was like a pretty, it was a pretty packed theater.

And then there were two people who were like, I moved my seat because there were two people who were talking the whole time where I'm like, a 20-year-old movie, you're going to talk during the...

Like, why are you kidding me?

It wasn't to this dude, Ennis, was it?

Was it?

No.

All right.

Yes.

No, it was.

You were moving closer to see that.

What are these guys saying?

They're on the screen.

They keep talking.

I got to move my seat to try to hear them better.

Jack Twist and Ennis

something or other.

Del Mar.

Ennis Del Mar, yeah, yeah.

My roommate and I, at one time in New York, looked up on YouTube Broke Back Mountain Gay Moments because we wanted to watch them kiss.

Less than you would think.

Less than you think.

There is not a lot to get horny over in the movie.

No, I thought there would be like, I thought it was going to be like a 20-minute long compilation.

There is a very, like, there's a very horny.

Yeah, it's not,

it's like maybe five, maybe not, not even five minutes.

It's very short.

It was short.

Shorter than I wanted.

Jack.

Jack nasty.

I love that movie.

The first, the second time I saw it twice at theaters, and the second time in Fairfax, Virginia,

some probably teenagers got up, screamed the F word, and walked out.

Oh, no.

Like, you paid.

Like, yeah, they seem to have maybe have been brought there by their girlfriends.

I see.

Oh, no.

So they want to show how straight they were.

Yeah.

That's insane.

I mean, I was thinking there was a lot of like, I was like, there are so many, the country was homophobic just 20 years, very homophobic.

I mean, still homophobic, but like 20 years ago, it was like, man, broke back mountain.

You see?

Like, it was like so much Jay Leno shit.

Right.

Like, hacky broke back mountain jokes.

And I was, I was shocked that it was only 20 years old.

I thought it was like before the millennia, but uh, oh, the annie prue story probably predates the millennium.

That's that is true.

Thank you, Neil.

You call him the source material.

Uh, I like that.

That's a great book of short stories, too.

Wyoming stories.

Wow.

I don't read it.

Check it out.

It's good.

Four or four and a half out of five to put it into the letterbox scoreboard.

That's what I would say.

Four or four and a half.

Four or four and a half?

Yeah, it's good.

Would you say four or five?

But I also don't do star ratings.

Yeah, that's the way.

I mean, you shouldn't.

What's a five if you're going, if that's a four and a half?

I mean, it's close to a five.

I haven't thought about it that much.

I don't know.

It was really good.

Four for me is really the four or four and a half is great for me.

You're a tough grader.

What about blood, sweat, and beers?

Five.

What'd you give?

What did you give the new mission impossible?

Four.

Okay.

All right.

Four.

Yeah.

Four for maybe four and a half.

I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

Yeah.

There is one.

There is that.

The first hookup is horny.

It is there.

It is like in the tent.

In the tent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if they're, if, if you look, if you search first hookup,

you'll find some good stuff.

Oh, I know.

I did.

You didn't say that the result was incomplete.

I just said I wanted more.

There should be more.

I'm sure there's some extended footage.

You can probably reach out to Ang Lee and try to find some footage.

You got the real footage.

Emma, let's hit him with a drop.

It just reminded me that I thought of a Secret of the Ooze parody song.

Hold on, I can maybe think of it before the end of the episode.

I'll try to think on it.

Several months later.

I just remember what that parody song was.

You just remember that?

Yes.

Let me just say this to any potential droppers out there.

If you can stitch together Mitch trying to remember that parody song and then him thinking of the parody song just now, that will be a drop.

You get the drop.

One eternity later.

Slash is not a shredder.

And I guess that's why they call it the ooze.

Do you remember I was trying to remember it?

That sucks.

And you have to hear you be unfunny for a minute and a half.

It was only 30 seconds.

Oh, well, it felt a lot longer.

You know what?

Opposite of the horniness from Brokeback Mountain.

I wish there was less of that and more of the hooking up.

Hi, Dofam.

Almost a year after Wager's request on the Munch Madness Taco Bell round three episode with Tony Charlene Ramos.

Here is Mitch trying to remember, stitched with him remembering his that's why they call it the ooze parody.

Shout out in the Dose Cord to

Totoro for helping find the request episodes in the Drop Kings Drop Labs channel for feedback.

Cheers, Thomas.

Wow.

Laten tickles in the Dose Cord.

Funny we bring up Totoro.

Am I saying it incorrectly?

No, no, no.

One of our guests, I know one of our guests is a huge Totoro fan, and I don't, I think our second guest also is, if I had to guess.

Yeah.

are you and you're a totoro fan yeah that's the celebrity I get uh confused for most

drops at birdfuck.com oh yeah drops at birdfuck.com our guest today returning to the show but for the first time is a duo from Digman new season out July 23rd on Comedy Central right after South Park Neil Campbell Meet your Joe Harry.

Thank you both so much for being here.

Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so happy to be back.

Is that a turtle on your hat?

Yes.

I love it.

I got it at the Long Beach Aquarium gift shop.

Oh, there you go.

I remember when the Long Beach Aquarium was built because I grew up in the area and it was like, there was a time I was like, this is a boondoggle.

What are they building this for?

But then you go down, there's a lovely aquarium.

Great aquarium.

It's so great.

Is that what the aquarium was going to be?

There was a general, I remember in the Long Beach Press Telegram, the local paper, there was like some opinions that were like, hey, why are we building this thing?

This is a waste of taxpayer money.

What are we doing this for?

It's like, there's so many aquariums already.

Why do we need to compete with Monterey or whatever?

But then they build it and it's like, it's great.

It makes a lot of sense.

Really cute.

Great gift shop.

Did some damage.

Went immediately after across the street to Bubble Gumps and ate shrimp.

Felt disgusting to do that, but really good.

I wonder if there's an underground tunnel from the aquarium to Bubblegump.

That would be sick.

They still have otters there.

See any otters?

Yeah.

They're really cute.

Otters are cute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, yeah, there's the aviary, right?

With like bird and like a bird will come land on your shoulder.

Yeah, I didn't go in because the line was so long, but I did see the birds.

Pretty cool to see a bird.

The one of the, the song, the parody song was, I guess, what I call the ooze in a turtle hat.

There's a lot of connections going on.

Which there are connections all over.

I just wanted to say there's some connections going on.

And also, a bird landing on the shoulder.

I know a rat jumped on your shoulder once at UCV.

A rat jumped over my shoulder.

Oh, okay.

I was,

this was the rear bathroom in the,

like the end of like the dressing room.

uh that like that not open to the public and it was a morning because i was the artistic director at the time it was like my first couple months on the job so it's like 2008.

And I went there to sit down and do my business.

And I kept hearing like a skittering kind of noise.

I was like, what is that?

And then

a rat jumped over my, as I'm sitting on the toilet, a rat jumped from behind me over my shoulder,

arcing, and then landed on the floor in front of me and like ran.

And the door was closed.

So it was like stayed in the bathroom with me and just like hid behind the trash can.

And I went, whoa.

And I was still, I had to finish up.

And then

I believe you told me this, but didn't it jump on your head and then it controlled you to wipe yourself?

Yeah, yeah.

I think I was good.

Yeah.

And I sort of like fell in love and it taught me a lesson and stuff.

Yeah.

No, and then I, you know, I reached over and like.

opened the door and then it ran and then turned and went straight up the wall and into like a hole in the wall probably leading into birds kitchen where We're probably starting making a meal.

Damn, I would cry.

Yeah, it was pretty terrifying.

It was like the size of a brick.

It was a big

boy.

That rat's now, it's on a Harold team now.

Yeah.

It's really good.

Long Beach down by the pier, they got the Long Beach Aquarium.

They also got the Queen Mary.

It's docked there.

You can walk around and it's haunted.

You know how I feel.

Yeah.

They should sink that haunted ship.

More like Queen Scary.

Yeah.

And then there's also the Howard Hughes' actual boondoggle, the Spruce Goose, which is on display under, yeah, I actually maybe they moved it, but for a long time it was display under a big dome there.

Uh, a lot of fun big wooden plane that he flies in the aviator.

And let's not forget the hotel that we faked as being um a Mexican resort for Jake and Amy's honeymoon in Brooklyn, 99.

Of course,

I was down there filming for a few minutes.

I wonder what Kyle Murphy was doing during all that

by working for his nefarious uncle.

My mom watched that episode, and it was the very, well, this was before we had video.

It was the first time she'd seen you.

Wow.

And she texted me.

He is cute.

Nice.

Dreamy.

Mrs.

Weiger.

All right, easy.

I know.

I know you're taking.

Making me blush over here.

Neil, last time we had you on, we reviewed Salt and Straw, which we will be revisiting on an upcoming episode.

Amitra, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on Salt and Straw, the ice cream parlor.

It's never like my first choice.

Yeah, what is your first choice?

I mean, my actual first,

if I could have anything, it would be Graters, which is a chain in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Graters, Grators.

And they have huge chocolate, dark chocolate chunks, an incredible waffle cone.

Black raspberry chocolate chip is kind of the classic, and it's just incredible.

Sounds great.

Hometown ice cream chain.

Graters with a T or a D?

T.

G-R-A-E-T-E-R-S.

Graters.

So that's like my actual favorite, but really I'd like just like an ice cream truck soft serve is like my favorite.

Like a Dairy Queen

swirl.

How about McDonald's?

I like

McDonald's cone.

Yeah, I think that's like a good vanilla soft serve.

Sorry.

Don't be sorry.

I've had a few people recently be like, oh, don't you like, isn't magpies?

Does that stink?

And I'm like, what's with this?

Everyone's trying to get me to speak ill of ice cream.

I love all ice cream.

Yeah.

I'm like, I know.

Every one of these places, if I went there and I was like, ooh, I want ice cream and I I hot stuff, I was like, yes, that was good.

I kind of choose it.

We'll get into it with Pizza Hut, but it's kind of like what they say about

pizza, which is wrong, which is that all pizza is good, is actually maybe more true about ice cream, which is like, basically, like, even like the shittiest ice cream you get is still pretty fucking refreshing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm never matched.

Oh, I also love Mash D.

Malone's.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I've never been to Mash D.

Malone's.

Right around the corner here, huh?

You should definitely go.

I know.

I gotta go.

It's really good.

But I love like a rose water ice cream.

Yeah, sure.

Ice cream is like my favorite.

Any ice cream, I'll be happy.

But I'm never like craving salt and straw the way I would crave other ice cream places.

They have a lavender and what's the other element there?

Lavender and honey they do at salt and straw.

Not all ice cream is good.

The stunt flavors are bad.

Yeah, I don't love this.

I don't love stunt flavors.

I agree with you.

It's not necessarily every ice cream flavor, but there's not like a chain that I'm like, ooh, you know, right.

Or even a novelty.

It's something off of a truck.

Pretty much everything.

There's nothing I'm going to sneeze at.

I've been going to the pool and there's a little ice cream truck right there.

And I've just been getting like a swirl cone every day.

Oh my God.

Kind of the perfect day.

Yeah.

Sounds like a child.

That sounds like my childhood.

Makes me feel like a baby.

The ice cream I like the least.

I think that we've talked about the one that I like the.

I was hard on salt and straw for a while.

And then I do like salt and straw.

Yeah, me too.

Their chocolate brownie is really good.

Yeah.

It's supposed to have like chunks of brownie in it because I didn't have the unwet and I didn't get any chunks of brownie in the damn thing.

That's not it.

I had extra on mine.

That's flowing.

The ice cream place I think is not great ice cream is Coldstone.

I think that it's like sure.

I've actually been to a Coldstone.

Maybe once a long time ago.

Yeah.

I guess there's some ones that just aren't in my room.

There's good stuff at Coldstone if you order correctly.

I feel like I'd rather go to

a place like in the salt and straw tier than a Coldstone, but I do like Coldstone.

I also still, I like Baskin-Robbins.

And

I was just in at a Rite Aid that's closing in like three days.

So like all the shelves are empty.

It was like totally apocalyptic, but they had like a freezer full of thrifty ice cream.

I was like, man, I do like that thrifty ice cream they have there.

Yeah.

What are they replacing?

Let me guess.

Some sort of tech company?

Yes, Mitch.

I believe a tech company is going to be there.

It's the drug from the William Shatner novel Tech War.

Which I know from the sketch he did at UCB Theater.

Was that?

Oh, it was, oh, and Nuke.

Also, you're talking, I think Nuke, I think you're talking about tech.

No, it was definitely tech.

Yeah, it was tech.

But did you talk about nuke in another?

Yeah, probably.

Isn't nuke the

RoboCup 2 or RoboCup?

Yeah, drug.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love made-up 80s drugs.

Which is this, is this on the west side of this right aid that's closing?

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, you always talk about, you've talked about right aid ice cream for a long time.

We've never done it on the show.

We should do a thrifty ice cream episode at some point, but the chain used to be called Thrifty.

Yeah.

And then they retain, and they have, it's just a pharmacy.

It's like a CVS, but they have like, like, you know, ice cream there.

Like everything has gotten shittier.

So now it's like they don't have anyone actually working there.

So you have to bother some other employee if you want to get ice cream.

You're like a real fat fuck.

It sucks.

But

they, they, uh, but the ice cream is still the same quality, but yeah, they rebrand the camera.

When you walk in there,

they probably know that you want the ice cream.

Yeah, I also love Trader Joe's French vanilla, just open it.

Oh, wow.

It's really good.

Have you guys ever worked at an ice cream place?

No.

No.

I did.

What you did?

Really?

Because we know you were at pizza.

Yes.

And I'll get into some of the pizza stuff.

When I was in college,

the summer before I graduated,

I...

And was that the summer you turned pretty?

Yes.

It was the summer I turned pretty.

And then when did you turn gorgeous?

Right at the end of that summer, then it kind of all regressed back to

the fall.

I turned back to

a troll.

But

there was this local, like old-style, like independent drugstore that had a soda fountain in it.

This is in Iowa City, Iowa.

It was called Pearson's.

And

I like a bunch of cute girls worked there.

And I was like,

I like the malts and stuff there.

I was like, I want to work there.

And I knew one of the girls that worked there.

And she put in a word and I got the job.

And I was like, so stoked because it was a pretty like sleepy little thing.

And then maybe a week or two after I got there, they were like, well, we can't stay in business anymore.

And

an independent drugstore can't really stay in business anymore.

And so they announced they were closing lines out the door every day after that.

And so I only had like, I only worked there maybe like a month and a half.

And so it's, it was a little less like straight up ice cream and more like making malts, making milkshakes, you know, phosphates, stuff like that.

And

yeah, I would just go in every day.

And I'd like go in on my rollerblades and like rollerblade through the drugstore.

I was like, hey, everybody, I'll be out to sick.

Like take off the plates, come out with my hat on backwards and stuff and like make malts and stuff.

And then

1950s stuff.

Really?

And then, but then, yeah, then I went out of business.

I worked there maybe like six to eight weeks.

And,

but, and then lines out the door every day for people getting their final malts.

Wow.

But then it was like on the local news.

And I was trying to look it up, but you have to get one of those subscriptions to like.

Like the local paper.

Yeah.

Like, but not even like the paper itself, like a weird archive thing.

And I might, I might do it just to look it up.

But I know my photo is like in the Iowa City Press Citizen and stuff.

That's awesome.

You know what?

When the pretty girls find a shop to all work at, I don't like it.

Why?

Because it gets me too anxious going in there.

I don't like when it's all the pretty girls working there.

I'm not going to go into that shop.

It's too intimidating to me.

I can't go in.

I can't get into the, I can't go in there.

I was actually in a salt and straw and it was like...

Was it the pretty girl shop and stuff?

Well, no, here's the thing so it was they were all they were all like teen girl like they were much younger girl like their college age or high school like girls working there and it was like i was the only employee like customer in the store and so i went there and i tasted a few of their flavors and i was like you know what i'm just gonna go with vanilla and they go like oh bold choice they're taking getting vanilla they start fucking bullying me this is humiliating this is the issue with it it's these are like the popular these popular girls you can't you know it's scary they're mean girls yeah

you're just scared of them your entire life yeah there's never a period like you're when you're younger than when you're the same age and then you're older you're thinking to be over it like no still afraid awful there was a coffee shop you know what do you know mary lose that always has that's that that's that is like that's like where like uh that's where the like

big tittied girls work

100

you're not allowed to say that no 100 you're allowed to say that i'm like i give you permission to say that that was like the thing though is like mary lose is where all the like hot girl hot college girls work all summer when they're home from school yeah wait but what's mary lose is it in it's a coffee shop it's in the east coast yeah it's like a sugary coffee shop like they have a lot of like flavored crazy flavored coffees and stuff yeah yeah i don't need those big titties i just need a cup of coffee that's what i say to them when i walk in the door

it's uh it's too it's too much for me it's uh i don't i don't like even when there's a i don't like even i want someone to work at a place and not have any friends there and just leave you know go and put your eight hours in and then leave

and so when i walk and when i talk to you i know that there's you know i don't want want to work.

You don't want them having any fun.

Yeah, there's no fun while you're working.

Like Emma and Amelia.

They're actually, that is the thing in the Pacific Northwest, right?

Like the hot baristas.

It's like they have the drive-through coffee shops and they're wearing bikinis.

That's in Landman.

Have you guys watched that TV show?

I haven't seen Landman.

I've only seen clips of that show and it seems insane.

I only watched like two episodes and I was like, all right.

Is that the show where like it's,

what's his name?

Angelina Angelina Jolie's ex.

Billy Bob Thornton.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's Billy Bob Thornton.

And then it's like his daughter being like talking about come to his.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the clip I want.

What's the gold have got to check this out?

Land man.

Land man.

But today we're talking about Digman.

We're talking about come,

folks.

Wait, what we're talking past

past episodes of the podcast.

Michael, we talked fazolis with you.

That was our first experience with Fazolis.

We had quite a holiday.

We haven't gone back to it yet.

We have not gone back.

You've got to go back that's what i was going to ask like have you many made any return visits no i haven't only because it's so far it was like 40 was a 45 minute drive i was out there it was like horrible traffic too when i went it took me two hours to get there from where i live but i do think like if i was over there i would go again right it's so nostalgic like i feel the exact same way going

now that i that i did them

it was great felt good we liked it we liked fizzol it was fun we had a good time have you ever been i don't think i've made unless maybe somewhere, if there's some in the Midwest, maybe I've crossed paths with one at some point.

You've probably like driven past it.

Yeah, it's not impossible I've had a Fazoli

experience.

Right.

Because I know you went to school in Iowa, but I don't know if there's any in Iowa.

It feels like that's where Fazolis would be, but I actually don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really don't know.

It doesn't ring a bell.

Where does,

in the world of Italian food, like, is pizza the best or like would you take like a pasta over it?

Like what's what are your what is everyone's favorite Italian dishes?

Pizza doesn't even count.

Pizza doesn't count?

I mean, it does count.

You think it's its own thing?

Yeah.

Pizza counts.

Oh, Amelia's giving me the eye because you think I'm trying to take credit away from Italians or something.

Is that what it is?

Does pizza count?

Does pizza count?

Does pizza count?

I think it does.

I think, I mean, I'm trying to think when you go to an actually like a nice Italian restaurant, there's frequently a pizza menu.

But I probably still would go a pasta.

I think I would too.

As much as I like pizza, I think pizza is my favorite

food yeah i i i totally get that but like so if outside of pizza what do you get what are you getting yeah i mean pasta is second i mean like that that's the the and then what else is there lasagna a lot of times it's just like what's the i remember i was in florence or something and it was like the specialty was like a sort of lemony pasta that's not necessarily what i would normally order and i got it i was like oh it's one of the best things i've had in my life lemony pasta can be delightful yeah yeah so do you like some squid ink

Not when I'm chasing a squid.

That's a great point.

At the aquarium?

Get back here.

I don't know.

I'm not huge on squid ink, but also cephalopods in general.

I have weird things about eating.

Yeah.

Sure.

Is that...

Well, see, I don't know how.

I don't know if it's

a sack or are they, or

are they having the squid shoot the ink out?

I don't know how, I don't know how this works.

They got to jack them off.

They got to jack the squid off to get the ink out.

I kind of think they maybe blast it out in their death throes.

Oh, okay.

So that's what it is.

So it's a particularly horrible death.

I've actually not, I don't know that that's how they do it.

I'm sure it's amazingly ethical.

Mitra, do you have a pizza, pasta?

Do you have any favorite Italian dishes?

There's this place in New York called Supper that has this pasta limone, limone, or however you say it, which is really just a lemon pasta that's so good but i'm always i always love a pizza i'm always so happy to have a pizza eat like and i and i feel like i'm not always happy to have a pasta it's like

if it's like present because it can be too heavy whereas a pizza you you can just have the you can have a light like a lighter thinner crust i'm always just excited about pizza yeah

pizza is exciting sometimes i'm like i don't want to be it's like so sleepy after because i'm i'm sleepy when i have pasta yeah i'm not always sleepy when i have pizza Yeah.

What do you do when you're sleepy?

Because I just feel this.

What am I going to do?

What do I do right now?

You're not a napper.

I can't really nap.

Yeah, I'm not a napper either.

You're not either.

And so I'm just like, what do I do?

I'm just tired now.

I don't nap either, like the three of you.

I never nap.

I have to, when I've been like, I've had like a sleepless night or whatever, I have been able to nap, but like I've taken like two naps this whole year.

It's like very, it's very different.

And then I'm just like, so like, I get really tired.

I was like, I guess

I'm trying not to do afternoon coffee because that fucks up my sleep sleep at night.

And so I'm just tired.

Yeah.

I guess you're just tired.

Yeah, that sucks.

Something to complain about.

Eat a banana.

What do you do when you're bored?

Sometimes I just nap if I'm bored.

You know,

is that strange?

No.

I feel like I have enough activities to entertain me if I'm bored.

Yeah.

I'm in like desperate need.

I should be texting you more often.

I have had hours lately where I'm like, if I had a video game I was into, I'd just be playing a video game right now.

I have no energy to like go do something, a creative pursuit, but it's like three and I'm like not gonna start making dinner yet.

Yeah, I need to, yeah.

You messed around with Bilatro?

That's a real, that's a real hours eater.

Okay, okay.

Amelia perked up.

TK Bonanza comes out in a couple in a week or so.

TJ Bonanza.

Switch two.

You took a Bonanza.

Yeah, well, maybe I'll try to get a Switch too.

Switch two is you'd have to buy me.

I just started playing Stardew Valley this weekend.

Oh, yeah, I love Stardew Valley.

It's a very peaceful, chill game that like you can just like pick up or drop like at any moment.

I've been having a great time with it.

Okay, okay.

I'm an RPG.

I like RPGs.

But all I've done is Google, like, what are the good current RPGs?

If you're like, Clayer Obscura, that game's great.

Okay.

Game rich.

Maybe I don't know.

Really good story.

Very French.

But Stardew Valley does have some RPG elements.

There's a social element, it's like a town.

Your character, the player character, has abandoned cubicle life to go live at his grandpa's farm.

And so you are, you know, like tending to the crops and the livestock, and you're also socializing with people in town.

You're also going into the mines to get resources and battle slimes.

This is a little fantastic for

fishing.

It sounds lamb as hell, Mitch.

It's so good.

It's so fun.

It's so compelling.

The chunk is really good too.

Sounds like it's great.

Music is very peaceful.

It's just like kind of like you're just hanging out outside.

It's really nice.

And it's a singular work of one individual.

It's a solo dev, Eric Barone, aka concerned ape, who did the music, did all the art, coded the engine, did all the game design, did all the writing.

It's one of those things.

you're like, this is just

really impressive.

You would love it.

But here's the thing.

So Stardew Valley does, as I mentioned, has a social aspect.

Part of that is romance.

And so

no, I mean like...

Well, you should play, man.

I love romance and games.

There is a part, my first playthrough, and maybe you experienced this, but

there's a dance that you have.

There's like a harvest dance, and you can go there and you can ask your prospective partners.

I'm sorry, when you say social, is this

with other real-world people?

Great question.

It's with NPCs.

It's with

AI characters that exist in the game world.

Gotcha.

Yes.

Thank you for letting me clarify.

So you're in this, you're interacting with all these NPCs.

It's a dance.

You know, you spent

the fall like, or you spent like the spring like, you know, growing vegetables and raising cattle, chatting people up.

You have this dance at kind of the end of the season going into the next one.

And you have an opportunity to ask people that you want to court to dance.

And I went through and I asked every NPC I was interested in romantically to dance with me, and they all said no.

Damn, dude.

I thought I truly thought I did something wrong in the game.

I was like, literally, they were like, ask people to dance, and I was like, okay.

And then everyone said no.

And I was like, did I fuck something up with somebody supposed to say yes?

Now you're just watching everybody dance standing in the corner by yourself.

13th reason.

You took your character into the big titty coffee shop and they made fun of you.

It seems like Animal Crossing, it seems like it would be

similar, yeah.

Definitely similar.

But it's a little, it's, it's, it's more, it's got more depth than Animal Crossing.

Yeah.

Um, do you think that the founding fathers, when they had to pluck a feather from a crow, did they also have to catch a squid to use for ink?

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, man.

That's crazy.

Where else does ink come from?

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Do you, do, does ink come from any land animals?

Are there any land animals that shoot shoot ink?

Pig.

Pigs do.

It comes out their snouts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you harvest ink?

Like, actually, just from squids.

Because I imagine nowadays it's like synthetic.

There are no land animals that shoot ink as a defense mechanism.

It's all sea creatures.

And there is most, when you get the ink from squids, it usually involves killing them.

So there's a million people in it.

Yeah.

Dude.

Did this to ours myself, I guess.

To you guys.

I did to you guys.

Sorry.

Neil, on this topic, I know you've been eating more vegetarian for some time.

Yes.

How stringent are you on this?

Do you have any flexibility?

Or are you coming?

I'm pretty much pescatarian.

Pescatarian.

Yeah.

I started, I just was like, let me try a week being totally vegan, totally plant-based.

And I went like a couple weeks.

I was like, okay, I think I might need some like eggs and cheese

in my diet.

And

or I don't want to totally let those be the things that make me go, never mind, back to all meat.

I was like, okay, I'll do vegetarian.

And then I was just like, I won't stick with this unless I have like one

escape route or whatever, one exception.

And so then I was like, what would be the one thing?

And I was like, eh, sushi.

And so

I decided to make pescatarianism my kind of, my one alternative to vegetarianism.

Now, we talked in the podcast before about you spent some of your childhood in Japan.

Yes.

Is that where you developed an infection for sushi?

So at a pretty young age.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

We, I, I was pretty good about trying things

even as a child.

And so, so we, and my parents were great at like taking us off base and going to like a local mom-a-pop shop.

And we try, you know, yakisoba.

And like, a lot of times you just get a little like fish, like a kind of.

They still do it at like places like BCD tofu house where you just get that little like fried fish with your meal.

Yeah.

And so I'd try to like be navigating that with the chopsticks and stuff.

Was there ever like a, like it was it the kind of thing we're on the base because I know they sometimes have American chains that are there for like a taste of home.

Was there like a Burger King there?

Was there like a Philly's?

There was a place called like Anthony's.

This was Campazama in Japan.

There was a place called Anthony's Pizza.

And I think is what it was called.

There was maybe a sub-place and I'm blanking on the name.

And I think we had Burger King.

I can't remember, but we did not have McDonald's, but this other base that we'd play in Little League named Otsugi, which I think is is where Lee Harvey Oswald had once been stationed.

Wow.

When we'd go over to Otsugi, they had a McDonald's there.

So that was, you know, we'd get our asses kicked in soccer or Little League or whatever.

Or maybe we'd beat them.

We, you know, they weren't dominant against us.

And then we'd

then we'd go get a

McDonald's as a treat afterwards.

Yeah.

Wow.

But I didn't really, I also was not a huge McDonald's kid.

Hmm.

That pisses me off.

I just said, I said this the other, Dimitri just heard me say this out twice, but you know, there is like a Campbell-McDonald's rivalry.

And

so, and after I puked eating McDonald's once, my parents were like filling me in on that.

So, maybe.

Wait, wow.

There's a, you're family.

I mean, like, the clans in Scotland.

Oh,

wow.

The Campbells and the McDonald's don't get along.

They don't get along.

And that potentially is like your extended family tree.

Exactly.

Wow.

And so that may have been, they may have been trying to poison me when

I threw up McDonald's orange juice when I was six.

I asked, I just recently, because we were recording the 500th episode and I texted you during this whether there was a

Chili's in Japan at the base at Chili's base.

Because we got a question from someone who was, remember the question was

the person who was stationed.

We were looking at Yelp reviews and some of them were from, yeah,

there was a Chili's at some, maybe in Korea, a Korean naval base.

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember this now yeah all the different bases seem to have different different chains different restaurants but you did not have a chili's on your base no sorry not as far as I remember I but I'm

fairly certain Mitra do you have any restrictions on what you will or won't eat not anymore I was veg for like a decade okay

and then I went to visit my family like I yeah I think like 11 to like 21 I didn't really I didn't eat meat.

And then I went to visit family in Iran and everybody was making me like stews with meat and like meat-based dishes.

And I was just like, what am I doing?

Yeah.

And then started eating meat again.

And then were they good as hell?

They were so good.

I mean, it was like, there was one meal where I had like seven aunts came and they all prepared like a full meal and gave me a full like entree-sized serving of it.

So I had like kind of seven dinners at once.

Oh, man.

And then I cleared the plate and I was like, the most full I've ever been.

And then one of the aunts put like a huge like leg of something on my plate.

And I started crying.

I was like, I did what

I did my job.

And then I like looked at my dad.

I was like, please.

But it was amazing.

I mean, best food ever.

But

we may have covered this in your previous appearance, but like, do you have any favorite Persian dishes and/or like, are there any Persian restaurants in LA you really like?

Yeah.

I, I mean, growing up, we used to go to this place in Cincinnati that's now closed called Caspian.

And I like any place like that place that's like a small kind of family-owned hole in the the wall.

I feel like I haven't really found a place like that that I love here in LA.

Um, I went to Azizam, which is not far from here, which was cool because I feel like you've got your classic places like Rafi's, which I really love, which are like you're getting the kebab, you're getting like the Shirazi salad, like all the stuff you kind of recognize when you think about Persian food.

Um, and Azizam had a bunch of different types of dishes that I that I personally had not had or had not had in an Iranian restaurant.

So that was really cool.

Um,

and

I think, what's it, a sofre in New York, I think, is really good.

Um, they have a second restaurant that I can't remember the name of, but I, I mean, I have, I'm, it's hard to go and not like it, I feel, yeah, sure.

Um, and then mashedi Malone's, and I think any, there's my favorite is um faloudeh, which is like a, um,

like sorbet kind of, but with rice noodles.

Um, and it's like really crisp and like uh citrusy, and it's like very refreshing on hot summer days.

Smells delightful.

Is Mashi Malone's, is it Persian?

Is it a

is it?

Oh, cool.

I had no idea.

I, I, I, oh, I, what, I, I,

is there one that's on sunset like that way?

Or yeah, there's one on

Franklin and La Breo, and there's one there's one like right here.

There's one right around the corner.

Are these new?

Are the mashed malons here new?

Or like, did they expand?

Or because they definitely expanded.

I don't know when.

That sunset one was the original one, right?

Like the one over the one on La Breao?

The one, yeah, La Brea.

I I used to live around the corner from that one, and I would go to it all the time, and it felt like it had been there for 100 years.

Yeah, okay, yeah,

yeah, sunset, La Brea.

Yeah, I've, I've, I've heard, I've heard about, and they have like, they have like rose water, right?

Right.

Like, uh, yeah, I gotta try it.

I've never tried mashed on it.

It's so good.

It has like really thick chocolate.

Go after the pun.

All right.

I'll go get a scoop.

Uh, this guy loves ice cream.

Uh, one of Jon Stewart's directorial debuts, please.

Uh, Guilla Garcia Bernal playing an Iranian guy, for one, please.

With respect, of course.

Yes, with the most respect.

With the most respect, of course.

I am going to crack this because I think this is so nasty.

Yeah, so we're for people in the audio feed, we've got some spin drifts here.

The No Hito, which is a lime and

mint combo.

That you'd think would be awesome, but is disgusting.

I love it.

This is a polarizing flavor.

Yes.

No, no, no, totally.

Totally, it's the materialists of spin drifts.

It's like some people like it.

Some people really don't like it.

I never thought that would be good personally.

Yeah.

The mint.

And you don't care for it.

I mean,

I like a mojito, the alcohol drink, but

mint in a drink.

I don't need mint in a non-alcoholic drink, I feel like.

I'm never excited to drink.

A mint tea,

like a hot drink.

That makes more sense to me.

But cold mint drink, I don't know.

A mint lemonade?

Mint lemonade is good.

Man, it's a lot of fun.

Why do you have to call me on my shit?

Got him shit.

You got him.

What about

mint milk?

Mint milk is pretty good.

Wow.

Yeah.

But mint chip.

Mint chip is legit.

Have they done a mint coke?

Have they ever done a mint coke before?

I don't know if they've done a mint coke.

I'm surprised.

They'd make a mint.

They would make a mint.

That feels like an overseas flavor.

Like they've done mint coke in Singapore or something.

Oh, that makes makes sense.

Yeah.

I don't know, but.

I believe you.

Yeah.

Do we, wait, have we tried the Nojito back there?

No.

No.

No.

I don't.

No horizons.

I don't.

I also don't know.

Well, if anyone wants to sit on boozy drinks, so.

I think.

I guess you're right.

Like, I guess if there was like water with like lemon and mint in it, I think I'd be okay with it.

But for whatever reason, maybe it's just the fact that it's like...

mint flavor.

And I know spin drifts are like natural flavors, right?

But still, it just feels like a strong mint taste.

I don't want that.

I don't mind it, but there's like kind of a lot of spin drift flavors where I'm like, um,

one can's enough.

Like, I get, I didn't know that I'd be hydrating a lot throughout the day.

Sure.

Yeah.

I'm pounding the lemon and grapefruit.

I think they're so good.

I think those are real good.

Oh, yeah.

A lot of those, yes, yes.

But there's a similar

weirder ones.

I'm like, one, yeah, just one.

Yeah.

Honorable Palmer one's pretty good.

I like that one.

I like that one.

Yeah.

You guys are both on the show Digman.

Yes.

Yes.

Now.

And that's not a coincidence we're here.

That's also true.

Yeah.

Here's the question for you.

What is the best food you have to dig for?

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

I thought it was a really good question.

I think it is a good question.

I actually will give an answer.

I think.

You're going to say carrot?

Carrot?

Yeah.

Oh, you mean in the earth?

I thought you meant the act of eating it was digging.

Well, you know what?

Now there's two questions.

Because that one is potato.

What's that?

Potato.

Potato, I think, is my answer as well for digging.

Any sort of tuberculosis.

Clams?

Yeah.

Oh, clams are pretty good.

That's a great answer.

Good answer.

I mean, I think it'd go oyster over.

Oyster.

I think I don't worry about oysters over clams.

And that's the sort of thing, like, just going back to pescatarianism.

When I think about it, because

I'm constantly reevaluating my own relationship with meat, and I try to eat less meat.

I end up eating

some.

I certainly eat it for the podcast.

But like,

I look at a fucking oyster and I'm like, I don't know if you have a soul.

Like, I don't necessarily, I don't feel, I have six oysters.

What is the scenario where you're looking?

Oh, you're looking at them on your podcast.

Yeah, like, like, let's say I get six oysters on the half shell and having that for, as a little treat.

Uh, I don't feel like I'm inhaling six souls.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't feel like that's what I'm doing, but maybe they do have an internality.

Maybe they do have a consciousness.

Maybe we just don't understand what being alive really is.

But that, but I, I don't know.

I mean, I feel, it feels like I am with you on that.

I mean, it feels like maybe where I'll land, just to just a button on my thought is like, I feel like I might just ultimately land on pescatarianism myself as I keep vacillating between being vegetarian, eating like some meat, but not others.

I certainly have some hard lines where like I wasn't eating any pork for a long time.

I wasn't eating, I still don't eat cephalopods.

And I try to minimize my consumption of red meat.

But sorry, go on.

No, no.

The only thing I was going to say is like, I was doing like a food tour thing in Mexico City and we got to a market or whatever.

I was like, all right, do you want to eat ants and like crickets and stuff?

And I was like, well, I guess wouldn't roam.

I was like, I never really considered where insects fall

in the sort of scheme of things there.

Or there's bugs.

Good.

Didn't you say your tour guide was a frog, though?

Yeah.

It was from a food tour of like a swamp outside the city.

It was Slippy Toad from Star Fox specifically.

Yes.

Okay, that's great.

uh, I uh, which would be confusing, you know, he does wear suits.

Um,

he does wear suits.

So,

would those characters be considered poly

because they are polygonal?

Yes, because they're polygonal.

I think so, yeah.

I think so.

Okay, I just want to make sure the characters of Star Fox are all poly.

They're all, I think they're all, I think they are all poly.

Okay,

check out Digman.

Usually, there's a whole like room of writers that if I say something that they can kind of beat that and just don't even matter.

So don't think the whole show is going to just be like that.

I think that was unbeatable.

When I was in Mexico City, I went to Bujol, which is a great restaurant there.

And they have, there's like a sit-down.

You can do like the omakase, which is the.

the taco, they do like a bunch of different tacos, and that's what I did.

Or you can do the sit-down.

I love, just to interrupt real quick, I love an omakase.

Yeah,

very fun to say, but anytime someone is just like picking everything, like you're making all the decisions, I pay one rate and you're just going to give me a bunch of stuff.

Like, great.

It's the best.

But sorry, keep going.

And it was, it was, it was with, um, it was paired with,

uh, what's the smoky tequila?

Uh,

Mescal.

It was a mezcal tasting.

I don't know.

My brain doesn't work anymore.

But it was a mezcal taste, uh, paired with mezcal.

And I never liked mezcal, and the mezcal was good, but there was, there were a lot of buggy ingredients.

There was ant larvae, and, uh, and, uh, there were, uh, uh, chapolinas.

There was stuff like that

in the tasting.

And it was like,

you know, this is like one of the best restaurants in the world.

And it was good.

But normally bugs are insects are hard for me to get over.

I can't do the there's a mental hurdle there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was also like a fun food tour.

I was like, yeah, I don't know how much I would make it part of my regular diet.

Sure, yeah.

And going back to what we were talking about salt and straw, salt and straw has all these like weird flavors.

They did have a bug series at the time.

They had a bunch of like, you know, meal worms and crickets in there.

And that, that to me, that is maybe a bridge too far because I was like, I will eat insects, but I feel like I don't need insects in my ice cream.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's almost like deer food.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's funny if you asked a fish or a bird what their favorite

food to dig for is, they'd both say worm.

That is true.

They would, yeah.

Wait, fish, did you say?

Yeah.

Well, maybe they aren't able to dig, but they always like love seeing a worm on a hook.

That is true.

You know, desperate for it.

Yeah.

Oh, they're

so thirsty for worms.

That makes me sick.

Isn't there a fish?

It is funny that

fish love worms.

And birds do.

And birds love worms.

Above and below.

Air and sea.

They both love worms, but we are the ones who dig up.

We are the ones who, like, how does a fish regularly get a worm?

We're the friends of the worms.

Worms are our stable mates on terra firma.

But are we really?

Because we're feeding them to the fish.

That's true.

We're exploiting them.

How does a fish get a worm

that's not from us?

That's my question.

Does a worm just accidentally swim into the pond?

My guess is there's some sort of like sea creatures that resemble worms, and that's partly why they're so tempted by them.

Maybe baby eels, yeah.

Or maybe just like weird little squiggly things.

Like, I don't fucking know.

We know the mysteries of the sea.

Especially the one on Pandora.

Yeah, that's true.

Who knows what's going on up there?

Yeah.

Way of the water?

Mitra, do you like the Avatar franchise?

Yeah.

Here we go.

What did you think of the Way of Water?

Had a great time.

Yeah.

I was crying.

Yeah.

I just, I love seeing that stuff.

It's so good.

Yeah.

I mean, when Piacon jumps from the water, I was in tears.

Piacon, the mighty tolku.

Every time they're swimming and the music is swelling, I have tears streaming down my cheeks.

This is, it makes me like, I want to be like an evangelist for movies and be like, this is why we come to the cinema.

Like you're here to look at things and listen to things.

Like it's just like, it's like, it's just such grandeur and spectacle.

And it's not wasted time because it's not getting to the next plot point.

It's just like, we're just getting to live in an alternate world for a little bit.

Just enjoy being in the seat.

Yeah, it's so fun.

For a minute.

I fucking love it.

Folks.

Kate Winslet did a voice on Digman season two, and it was

a world record holder for holding her breath.

She was in town to do avatar.

Oh, wow.

She's maybe also doing some FYC stuff.

It was like a year ago.

So it was like, I forget what the name of her show is, the Embassy or something.

Oh, right.

But

yeah, she was also doing avatar stuff.

Did you get to interact with her at all?

Yeah, she was, I mean, super nice and

came up to like a recording studio in Santa Monica and Andy and I went and met up with her there and recorded a part.

It was great.

It was awesome.

Very.

Did she demonstrate how she can hold her breath for seven minutes?

That's a break Tom Cruise's record.

The performance is.

Wow.

She was working with maybe the same same team, but Tom Cruise

had some sort of, or like for actors, maybe broke the record of like he held his breath for like six and a half minutes or something.

And then Kay Winslet did it for Avatar and she held her breath for like seven minutes or something.

It was something crazy like that.

Damn, you know, he got in the pool the next day.

Yeah.

Yeah, you gotta take her down.

Come on.

Do you mean Cruise to have that title?

A guy I grew up with also works on the Avatar movie, does special effects.

A guy who like I used to make movies with in high school named Ryan Champney.

Oh, wow.

Does special effects stuff for Lightstorm.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

So cool.

I'm very excited.

The sequel comes out this year.

Fire and Ash comes out this season.

I can't wait.

This winter?

Something to live for.

Finally.

I mean, I'm going to need markers every month to keep it going.

Digmans?

Yeah, Darren.

Digman?

You got me for two more weeks.

A few weeks.

I'll listen to it.

It does come out once a week.

Yeah, so at least a few more weeks.

Yeah, we got that into about August.

Now I got to make it to Avatar.

Yeah.

Are there any other guest stars we look forward to with season two?

Yeah, we got a lot of guest stars.

We've got Jeffrey Wright.

We've got Caroline Viswadas.

And Stephanie Beatriz are on the same episode, which is a super funny episode.

And then we've started to finally hear from people who have watched episodes.

And that is

the fourth episode Rachel Kaylee wrote.

And that is one that people kind of

keep mentioning to us as a fave.

So that one's great.

Rekha Shankar,

Mark Hamill.

Wow.

That was cool.

That was awesome.

Beck Bennett.

Stow Boy's Guest.

Yeah, I was listening to the episode this morning as I walked here.

We've got, yes, then Kay Winslet, John Waters, Nathan Lane, Tatiana Mizlani.

I'm probably forgetting some other people, but those are a lot of our big Artemis and Kayvon.

Oh, yeah.

Kayvon Ovec and Artemis Pubdani

in

an episode of like

that's dear to me.

I love that.

A lot of heavy hitters.

Yeah.

That's great.

Has Cartman been giving you a hard time at all or no?

Has he actually?

No, he's been so warm and welcoming.

It's been like, it's been such a blessing.

Like, I know he's actually been a problem.

What's that?

Kenny, because Kenny's been more of a problem.

Kenny is more of the issue.

I was expecting Kenny to be so sweet.

He's been ice cold to me.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Does he take down?

Does he still have, can you understand what he's saying?

You can make it out.

And it, it's, especially the bad words.

Let's just say

not liking my kind, if you know what I mean.

Oh, my God.

Jesus.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Kenny.

Jesus Christ.

I know.

We met Mitch.

You and I, we met Randy Marsh up at Sketch Fast a few years ago.

He was way more down over there.

They did like a whole thing for him up there.

Yeah.

It was great.

Yeah, it was a Randy Marsh rector back.

Kevin Pollock, like, kind of MC'd it.

it.

Yeah.

He's great.

They were just swapping stories, just stories the whole time.

Hank Hill, I think, was on the day.

Hank Hill was on the dais.

He was really cool.

A little standoffish, but like not in a mean way, just sort of like you respect his space.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, he's really nice as young Bobby Hill, but then old Bobby Hill is not, he's, he's not, he's not nice at all.

Older Bobby Hill.

Yeah.

And what about Bobby's world?

Bobby's world, he's, he's, he's like a diva.

So you never, Cartman never said respect my authoriti or anything?

No.

Oh, okay.

All right, that's cool.

He's actually really chill behind the scenes.

So damn.

All right.

That's great.

We did, we did a,

we, I, like, we took a selfie with Beavis.

Yes.

And

he, like, as we were posing for the selfie, the selfie said, I am the great cordon holy.

Oh, yeah.

And we're like, oh, thank you.

And he was like, I know, I know.

That's classic.

That's classic.

But he's like, he just was like ready to say it.

I keep getting Johnny's.

He knows this is what people want to hear.

Yeah.

Show me the money.

It was was awesome.

We talked to him about the fires.

We talked about the fires.

And he was like, I know I always, like, I was always a fire, fire guy, but like, this is not cool.

It's like not cool.

It's not what I wanted people to take away.

That's really down-to-earth.

Yeah.

And then

I saw him.

And then Mitch, I saw him, and it was funny.

And it was like, it's on the news.

And they barely called attention to it.

He was just there at Altadena, just like with a hard hat on, just volunteering.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I was like, that's amazing.

Yeah.

Especially for a guy who promoted fire for so long to go on the other end of it.

It's cool.

It's really cool.

And I know he hasn't been the same since Butthead died, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You just don't like, you don't want to bring that up around him.

Yeah.

It's a sore subject.

Did you hear about Mill House?

No, what happened to him?

He works for ICE.

Oh.

That's that.

That's fucking horrible.

Yeah, that is a bummer to me.

Yeah.

That is a bummer to me.

Sorry to bum you out.

I know this is a comedy podcast.

You know what?

Anybody to bring down the room?

No, I mean, like, while we're here, this is the thing.

We can talk about whatever.

We can talk about food.

We can make jokes.

We can talk about serious stuff that's happening in the world.

Like, it's all just conversation.

Thank you.

But

you're welcome.

You know who else is with

Ice Now?

Mr.

Freeze.

That's two on the nose, honestly, that he would join, that he would join such a horrible.

And he's a villain, so it makes sense.

It makes sense.

It makes sense.

It's not like Frozone doing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's true.

If Frozen did it, I would be very, very upset.

Wait, did you say Frozen?

Yeah, what did you say?

I said Frozone.

Frozone.

Both work, honestly.

Either Frozen from Frozone

or Frozone.

Rest in peace, Butthead.

Rest in peace, Butthead.

Yeah, one of the best.

My dad, when I was younger, he like he would always,

like, he knew of Beavis and Butthead, so he would always be like, ha, yeah, cool.

He would do, he would do that voice to me to be like, to like try to, like, also, also making fun.

Yeah, also like making fun.

Like, I think it was trying to bridge the gap.

I was like, I don't even like, I didn't even like Beavis and Butthead that much, but somehow he had heard Beavis and Butthead, which I don't know how he heard it.

There was a bit on, I remember the old Letterman late show

where like they just did like a pre-show thing where like in the green room, it was Letterman was just saying hi to Cisco neighbors.

Hey, thanks so much for doing the show.

He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, no problem, no problem.

And then he left.

And then they went into Beavis and Butthead and we're like, oh, Dave's show sucks, man.

Letterman's like love of Beavis and Butthead really was like a cosign that made it kind of like, okay, this isn't just like a thing that my parents might think is stupid, but I'm like feeling childish for liking the way that maybe like.

We listen to like Adam Sandler's album or something, you know, like you're like, I know this, whatever.

Like it was, all all right david letterman likes bibus and butthead there was there must be something going on here and it's cool that butthead uh guest hosted the show at one point too i thought that was really nice later on yeah

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And we're back live during a flex alert.

Oh, we're pre-cooling before 4 p.m., folks.

And that's the end of the third.

Time to set it back to 78 from 4 to 9 p.m.

What a performance by Team California.

The power is ours.

All right, anyways.

Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by the Kearney Brothers.

It received...

The who brothers?

The Carney Brothers.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, Carney, it's, you know.

That's fun.

It's, you know, Carneys.

Like they're Carneys, like Carnivals.

Yes.

Yeah.

I don't know what they're where what the etymology of the name is, but that's what they were called.

It receded from its red roof dining strategy in the 2000s.

Now, most locations are Delco units, which is a portmanteau between delivery and carryout.

Mostly recently reviewed in 2022.

And

Neil, as you remember, originally reviewed on our first episode of 2016

over nine years ago,

where Neil gave it this review.

Emma, can we play a little bit of this?

So, I don't know.

It's one of those things where I go, wonderful.

Why would you do a fast food pizza place place unless you had no other option?

It just feels like it's more soulless and just tastes like no one gave a shit.

They just slopped a few ingredients together.

But I kind of feel like you're almost always going to have an option that probably is a little fresher, a little more love put into it,

and

is not really that much more expensive.

Yeah.

I'll go.

one fork.

Oh my god.

One fork.

Oh my god.

Jesus Christ.

What is the worst pizza?

Oh my God.

What is a worse pizza?

No, this was an earlier era of the podcast when we did not really use the full fork scale.

I think you were the first person to give anything one fork.

This sent shockwaves through the donkeys.

It sent shockwaves to the donkeys fans.

I actually did make people mad at me.

Yes.

I was

trying to do my friend's podcast, and I had a great time.

Little do I know, I'm going to open up whatever,

Instagram or

Twitter at the time or something, and have people like, you don't get what the show is.

And be like, pissed off at you.

You opened up a can of worms, and there was no fish or bird on the other side of this.

They were very angry Redditors that got upset with you.

And

I think it changed everything for the show.

I think it honestly was a very big early moment for the show because it kind of was like

you can review this food on your own criteria.

And I think

Mitch, you and I, over time, have gotten a lot more, I think, especially just as we've consumed 10 years of this garbage.

We've become jaded.

We've become a little more jaded, but we've also become just a little bit more willing to use the full fork scale.

Like,

we go to a place like Planet Hollywood, which we did in New York City with our buddies from Blank Czech, and it just fucking sucked.

Wow.

And and that's that's the power comes great responsibility with the fork scale so you don't want to for sure you want to use you want to use the forks correctly and you we had never seen anyone do what neil did it was powerful it was alpha i loved it

um and yeah a lot of places do suck yeah a lot of places including maybe pizza hut possibly pizza hut we'll we'll we'll get into it but we were we were saying the other we had papa johns just recently that's right and papa john schnarter or whatever his name is this is for an upcoming episode it's releasing its first one yeah well shit that's all right You're fine.

We don't like, we didn't like Papa John's in the past, and then we were like, is Papa John's better than Pizza Hut?

Papa John's might be back.

Minor spoiler for an upcoming episode.

But Pizza Hut to me is like one of the places that I think of that's like declined the most of any pizza place I've ever.

And that I think like going

like what it is now compared to what I remember it being, which by the way, isn't just nostalgia.

It is like, you know, I was in like high school or college, which I guess is nostalgia, but like it was like, I was a fully formed adult when I was eating Pizza Hut and I was still okay.

Right.

But like the pan pizza, which we didn't get today, that like

when I would go into Pizza Hut and get a pan pizza, I thought it was a good pizza at one point in time.

And now I don't.

There's like every time I eat Pizza Hut, I think it's pretty shitty.

We were a Pizza Hut family growing up.

The Pizza Hut was the closest of the chain pizzas to our house.

And my dad was too cheap to pay for delivery.

So we would just order it it from there and pick it up for carry-out.

And so, I developed an affection for Pizza Hut.

I have a lot of nostalgia for Pizza Hut.

And that was the primary pizza that I had.

Like, if I was going to have something like Domino's or Little Caesars, that was like at a friend's house.

You know what I mean?

So, that was a little bit more exotic to me.

But, but, Neil, you certainly have a history.

You worked at Pizza Hut.

My very first job was working at Pizza Hut.

This is basically most of the year 1996.

So, picture me finishing up a shift August 21st, 1996, Fairfax City.

Finish up my shift, drive over to the Patriot Center to see Rage Against the Machine that night.

Pretty cool.

So that, yeah, that was, that was my 1996.

And it was a delivery takeout place.

There was no, it wasn't a restaurant.

And yeah, I mostly made pizzas and answered the phones and took orders.

Did you throw a slice to any of the band members?

Yeah.

And then after that, they were kind of like cheered up.

Maybe the machine's not too bad.

Yeah, they kept clarifying, not the pizza making machine just so everyone knows

uh

yeah and so i

i never really liked the pizza hut hand tossed crust partially

be partially i just didn't like it but then also it was like you're just getting frozen discs and then you like spray something around the outside then you put in like a proofer or whatever and over time it becomes so it was just like

for a thing called hand tossed.

It's not like, oh, and you're walking down like the Jersey boardwalk and you see like pizza places where you can like watch them actually toss the crust.

It's not.

It's literally like a frozen disc you would get.

And so I already didn't really like that.

Yeah, I remember you talking through this process on your original appearance, which was that some of the dough are fresh made in store, at least were at the time.

Yes, there were people who came in and made some dough for the pan and for the thin crust.

Yeah, but the but the hand tossed was around the hand tossed was not.

And I, but I had going in, I didn't really like pizza hut hand toss so it kind of just made it's now like i always

it's their default which also for me it was always the pan pizza i wonder why they got rid of maybe dough tossing is dangerous you know you've seen i've seen videos where dough is falling on a guy's head and so maybe that is a part of their issue that they just streamlined it and put it into a frozen i mean that's probably it i think you nailed it

There must be some reason.

I think Pizza Hut probably, yeah.

Dough is landing on people's heads and they were getting injured.

You could make a trip fall on on a spike.

And then you could probably, yeah, you could, with the dough on your head, you could probably fall into a spike.

I'm sure.

The Pizza Hut spike.

When I was working at Pizza Hut, one of the giveaways, they had like a little like bat, like a Jeff Bagwell bat or something giveaway.

But

Flipper was out in movie theaters.

Oh, yeah.

The giveaway was like...

this sort of like rubber hand puppet that you could like stick in water and and it had a little like bladder in it so you could like squirt i remember i remember like i remember this i remember the ads for the like uh this is the because i i had the i had the casper hand puppet, which I talked about a lot.

Uh, but I don't, I never saw that Flipper movie, so who knows if this was like a Pizza Hut invention or the plot of the movie or what.

But the thing that I always thought was really funny was you had, you could get Flipper, but the bad guy was like a hammerhead shark.

But it's just, it would just like, it seems funny to me that, like, a movie about Flipper, about a dolphin, that the villains wouldn't be like mankind encroaching upon his ecosystem or something.

But, like, wait, the bad guy in the Flipper movie is a mean fish?

Is it a

A shark?

Like, they couldn't, like,

humans making this movie couldn't be like, no, we might be a problem.

Or the corporations in charge could be like, this can't be about an oil spill.

They are like, the bad guy for Flipper is a shark, not anything a human does.

Underwater drama.

Mitra, do you have any history with Pizza Hut?

I saw, I saw during the SAG After Strike, I saw Flipper on the picket line.

That's what I saw.

And did you see the Hammerhead scabbing?

Yeah, his hammerhead was scabbing.

I have no real history with Pizza Hut.

We were, I would say, more of a Costco pizza family.

Wow.

Back in this before Costco Pizza was cool, it sounds like, too.

For sure.

And then there was a local chain called the Rosas.

Kind of insulting that you said that.

It's the truth.

It's before Costco Pizza was cool.

Sorry, you came across.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I'm not saying, I think you're very cool.

I'm saying Costco Pizza.

Is a dork like you having Costco pizza?

Oh, this must have been before.

I'm saying Costco pizza.

This is when like fugly bitches were having

a lot of people.

That's not what I was saying at all.

Nasty, stinky, ugly trolls.

That's not Costco pizza.

Oh, check that out, check that out.

That's not.

I was.

Costco pizza has become very Costco has become very in wise in the last few years.

Costco hot dot like

the Costco,

the Costco guys, the dad and son.

Sure.

AJ and

learned about from your party.

And Big Justice, thank you.

Big Justice, AJ.

Yeah.

Like Costco is, Costco in the last 10 years has had a bigger, because I didn't know that the Costco pizza was good until probably within this decade.

I've always loved Costco pizza.

We would get it when we went to Costco, but it was not like our default pizza.

It was just like maybe a little bit out of the way.

But yeah, I would certainly give Costco five big booms.

Boom, boom, boom.

Boom.

Woo!

I also love their mixed berry smoothie.

Oh, the mixed berry smoothie is good.

Okay, so last time I went to Costco.

How many booms did you give that?

Five big booms.

All right.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Last time I went to Costco, they didn't have the mixed berry smoothie.

They had, they'd replaced it with the frozen

frozen strawberry pink lemonade.

Now, I was a little skeptical.

I wanted my mixed berry smoothie, but I got it as my, what my usual Costco routine is: I get a walk-around drink while I'm shopping.

And then afterwards, I go to the food court for a lunch, and they'll usually get the hot dog with the soda combo.

So I got my walk-around beverage, and I tried out that frozen pink lemonade with strawberries.

Absolutely fucking delightful.

It was so good.

It was so refreshing.

Mixedberry is gone is so concerning, but if there's something good there, it could just be a seasonal offering.

And it could just be also at my Costco.

I don't know if it's nationwide, but I had a great time with it.

I mean, this is, I'm just now wondering what you think of the, I just wondering what you think of the frozen lemonade.

I give give the frozen strawberry pink lemonade five big booms boom boom boom boom boom

it was really good yeah

i i haven't i haven't tried it yet i want to go i want to go back i got to go back and i think my costco membership i always get the costco membership and then it just uh i never renew it and so i have to renew it all the time but can't give us something what's up the way my shoulder hurt

that's why those guys are

that's why they're jacks.

It's true.

He's a professional wrestler.

I know.

AJ AJ, yeah.

Did you do shoulders this morning at the gym?

I did do a little bit, but yeah.

Nice.

Nice.

Yeah, you know.

Now I do, now I do dominoes, which we talked about last summer here, which I love, still love, had dominoes recently, got

my free pizza.

They have a stuffed crust now as well.

I never get it.

I don't care about that stuff there.

No bells and whistles.

Let's just go classic.

Sure.

Go on, please.

But I, so I, I have, I don't have like an emotional tie to Pizza Hut.

So I will say my, my journey with the big chain pizzerias is that like, yeah, Pizza Hut family growing up.

In college, Papa John's, as we've talked about and will talk about, Papa John's had a, was like really aggressively expanding.

They had a lot of coupons.

So like just as a value proposition, I ended up eating a lot of Papa John's.

And I think also Papa John's quality was just higher back then.

So it was like, I was really in Papa John's.

And then in adulthood, I was just kind of like into Domino's.

And Domino's has kind of been my default.

It's what Natalie and I get by default.

We're getting chained pizza.

But I do really have a lot of affection for Little Caesars.

If I'm ranking the big four, like the Mount Rushmore, as we hear, are here on July 4th Eve of Chain Pizzerias, I'd probably go Domino's 1, Little Caesars 2.

And I might put Papa John's over Pizza Hut, but we'll see where we land after this review.

Yeah.

That's like

is Pizza Hut the worst one, I guess is what I'm asking.

I guess that's what we're litigating.

I think it's fallen quite a bit.

It's fallen quite a bit of ways.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, well, today, so we had a couple, we had a couple of separate meals.

Um, you all had a little bit of

a pre-game lunch here, and I went on my own yesterday.

Um, but you got the cheesy bites pizza with a ranch flight, which comes with Ultimate Ranch, Pepperoni Ranch, and Chipotle Ranch.

That's right.

That's a lot of fun.

I'll tell you, every flight for me is a ranch flight.

That's my carry-on.

A buffalo chicken milk,

a medium jalapeno thin.

The liquid bottle is too big, sir.

Medically necessary.

A medium jalapeno, thin and crispy crust, and a large original stuffed crust pizza.

I do the travel.

I do the small ranch

crust.

How was that Cheesy Bites pizza?

Because that's the thing they're pushing right now.

I mean, I will say this, that it was my favorite of the pizzas.

And I got to say, it looked gorgeous.

When the lid came up, I went, that is a beautiful looking pizza.

What toppings?

Did Boticelli make this?

Was it just a cheese pizza?

What toppings did you get on it?

We just got a cheese pizza.

Okay.

All right.

I thought you were vegetarian.

I know that you don't eat meat, Neil, and there's no fish.

Yeah, there's no squid pizza.

There's no squid.

Unfortunately, there's no squid pizza there, but that isn't it.

But there was, yeah, there's no, there's no sort of pescatarian option.

So I, but we could have gotten veggies on this one, I realize.

So they don't, they, I mean, I guess, I can't.

I actually do think when I worked there, you could get anchovies.

Oh, wow.

I don't have them anymore.

I think you had to like pull like a, like it had a weird separate compartment.

You could get an anchovy.

No one ever ordered it, but you could.

I do like anchovies.

Me too.

In context.

Yeah, I like it with other,

I like it mixed salty with other ingredients.

They're very salty, which that's kind of my, you know, we were talking about salt and straw.

Pizza Hut, to me, is.

Everything I ate today, I thought was salty, including that ranch flight.

It was like

each of the, did you try the dipping, the ranch flight or no?

No, I'm not like a real ranch person.

They weren't.

I didn't try the pepperoni one out of fear it had meat in it, but I'll try the other two.

Yeah.

What did you think of the other?

The other two are the.

They're fine.

It's like, yeah, it's like when you dip crust into a into ranch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I thought the, I mean, it's a fun idea, but it's like, it was just kind of shitty ranch.

And the

cheesy bites pizza is a fun idea.

And I actually thought like that pizza was cooked the best maybe of the of all of them, but it still was not good.

Yeah, I agree.

It's the whole thing for me feels a bit like,

you know, sometimes you go to a bar and it's like, or a restaurant or whatever, let's just say a bar, and it actually is like very old and it is the building's really old or whatever.

And you're like, oh, this is an actual old.

whatever, a dive bar, or it can be like an English drawing room and it has like a old fireplace in it or something, you know, we were just in the bayou together.

That's right.

You know, or something like that.

And you're like, this is old, and that's old.

And then sometimes you go to a place and you're like, oh, this is trying to make it seem like it's like an old English drawing room, but like, this is like, like that bar that used to be near here, like the study.

Is that what it's called?

Oh, yes.

And you're like, this is like

weird, just like vinyl paneling to

make it look like old wood.

It's a Vitamin Park simulacrum of real stuff.

Exactly.

You want the actual die bar.

You don't want the gentrified approximation of a music.

Yeah.

And sometimes, and like with all the Pizza Hut stuff, I have that vibe where I'm like, I don't know why this wouldn't be called pizza.

It's crust and then

sauce and cheese, but there's something about it doesn't feel like it is actual

pizza or something.

But almost that made the cheesy bites thing closer.

I was like, this just sort of feels like a weird like appetizer you get at a sports bar or something that's just like a weird, like our cheesy mess thing.

And you're not trying to think of it as like, am I really eating a pizza right now?

And it was just more of like, here's a ton of cheese for you to eat.

I'm trying to bring up the menu here.

And Pizza Hut is one of those chains that has a really frustrating website where you have to like

put in a zip to be able to just see, to browse the menu.

Amelia can speak to this because we were trying to get the cheesy bites pizza, which I think is on its way out anyways.

But it was like...

I had to call Mitch this morning and be like, I don't see the cheesy bites or the ranch flight anywhere on the menu.

Yeah, this to me is as close to an emergency.

You're fired.

If I don't get the cheesy bites pizza, you're fired.

This is as close to a work emergency as we get, wise.

I didn't know what to do.

Do you know how many people want to bring me a cheesy bites pizza?

You even said it last night.

You were like, a cheesy bites pizza might be annoying.

And it was, but it also was,

you were able to, and I was going to just go tavern because they have, they now have a new tavern pizza as well, which

seems like thin, it seems like it would be thin crazy.

I mean, I know that Chicago people will be mad at me for saying that, but it seems like it will just be like a thin-style pizza, same difference, basically, right?

I went to a search engine and was able to find a separate page that isn't listed on their main website about the cheesy bites, pizza, and ranch lover's flight.

And actually, there is a fact here, a frequently asked question section.

Do I get to choose the ranch flavors that come with my cheesy bites, pizza, and ranch lover's flight?

They cannot be replaced with other dips, but you can add other dips to your order for an additional fee.

Nice.

Neil, pepperoni ranch is flavored with signature pepperoni spices, flavors, and herbs, does not contain pepperoni.

So you could have had that.

Oh, I wasted my life.

Get in here.

It's still in there, sitting in there by itself.

Jimmy, go fetch pepperoni ranch.

Jimmy, Jimmy.

Jimmy, fetch pepperoni ranch.

That would be awesome if I could teach her to go.

I didn't say lick bitch's finger.

No, there must be pepperoni bones.

You broke it.

I mean, I think there was pepperoni.

I will say that we we left the door slightly ajar because there's

it's it's the 4th of July holiday week, so the head gum is off.

You know, I traditionally get the entire week off of work for the July 4th, especially if it falls on a Friday.

Friday, yeah.

So awesome.

So they're not here, so we left the door open.

And I will.

They're not putting in their 16 hours a week.

Roast them.

They deserve the roasting.

So

I will say the door is slightly ajar and Jemmy did try to walk out.

Just to show that.

She spent the first like 30 minutes staring at the door, like, let me out of here.

Yeah.

To show that we do just keep her captive.

No, you got to listen to the podcast.

And listen to us go along on

pizza and ice cream.

It's

no dog chow, though.

Emma, though, she does get excited to come to work.

And she arrives here and she's like riled up.

She's barked at everybody.

She barked in excitement for a while.

She was like, I'm sorry she was so excited.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, because on Monday, I was like, we're going to go to work tomorrow.

And then we canceled a couple of records because Wags wasn't feeling well.

So we, so she, I like teased her all week.

And I was like, just kidding, we're not going.

So today she came in hot.

I was chewing on a bone when I came in.

That's part of the reason.

Her bone.

Her bone.

I took her.

Jamie and I are always fighting over the bone.

Did you like the cheesy bites themselves?

They were like fine.

Describe what they are exactly.

They're little blobs.

So it's funny because today we got,

they're little blobs of cheese at the end of the day.

They're like little, they're little.

I liked them.

I liked them.

We did stuffed crust and we did cheesy bites.

Yes.

Which is kind of fun to see the difference between the two of them.

I actually liked the cheesy bites more than I liked the stuffed crust.

I liked it way more.

Yes, way more.

I'm basically never in on stuffed crust.

Sometimes it surprises me by being better than I thought, but I remember as a kid seeing pizza, introducing stuffed crust pizza, convincing my dad to get it because it was, it was an upcharge and thinking it was going to be the best thing possible.

And then you have it, and you're just like, oh, well, this is just like worse than the pizza itself.

Yeah.

And it's honestly like

less of a, it's honestly even less fun because it's less of a contrast for the p with the pizza than the traditional pizza.

I think the issue with stuffed crust is like, I always think of it being like kind of like wet and undercooked towards the end of it.

Yeah, it's kind of gummy.

It's kind of gummy.

And then with these, they are like, it's just little bits of cheese.

So I think it maybe cooks better.

Okay, that makes sense.

That is, that's helpful.

But I, it was fun.

You kind of pull them off.

It is weird, though, because then you can just have like a crustless pizza at the end.

You're just eating kind of like a, you know, you're finishing the, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Is ranch the right dipper for this?

Because to me, I'm thinking marinara.

Marinara is probably the, I mean, like, marinara probably would be better.

All the dips were not great either, and they were very salty.

And the pizza, I thought every pizza was super salty.

That's like, that was my main takeaway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know I said this already, but mostly when I got to that crust, that was the closest I had to like something enjoyable because I was like, I'm not trying to, in my head, like try to

make this be pizza.

And I was like, yep, here's a cheesy bite and this is just like an appetizer I'm having somewhere.

Yeah, I would order like a basket of those at a bar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like it felt like a food that I would eat again.

That part of the pizza.

That's an endorsement.

I liked them.

I think they were good.

I felt like I was chewing on the stuffed crust forever.

Like there was just, it just like, it's so much cheese.

Like, it feels like you're having like, like, the string cheese just like melted into the bread.

Whereas with the, with the little dippers, I'm, I'm happy.

Yeah.

They were, it was, it was way, that was more fun.

I thought the stuffed crust was a bad outing for the stuffed crust today.

I thought it was a you had actually for the other pizzas.

I don't know if there was any great outing today.

So I,

and I, I'll, I'll, I'll get into what I'm, uh, what I got here because we both got melts, Mitch.

You got the Buffalo chicken melt,

and I was going to, I got the meal on my own yesterday.

Um, and I ordered exclusively from what the Pizza Hut app calls the party of one menu,

which is

so depressing.

I bummed me out, sure.

Yeah, I love, I think that is gorgeous.

It's nice rejected by everyone in your video game app, and then you got a fucking

video game app.

That bitch.

Well, because

I hate the feeling of like,

I want a pizza so bad, but I'm home alone.

I'm like, oh, my God, like, I'm going to eating this for like the next three days.

Like, party of one seems.

Well, so, so here's what they offer.

And I just moan in that you're just home alone or like your family has left you accidentally.

Home alone, like, like, yeah, like, my family's gone.

I'm freezing cold as Christmas.

Two guys are trying to break in.

Yeah.

We have a neighbor.

That's kind of weird.

Yeah, kind of weird guy.

This is something with the lady.

End up being okay.

You've seen the Home Alone House, haven't you?

You've gone and seen it.

Yeah.

And like right by Evanston, right by where Beck grew up.

Wow.

Beck grew up near the Home Alone House.

Yeah.

That's cool.

Whoa, exclusive.

We got that in the body.

Oh, my God.

We should have asked him about it.

Why didn't we ask him about it?

I should have asked him about it.

Should we give him a call?

I don't want to bother him.

He'd love it.

Hey, have you seen this?

He's probably watching Superman or something, I'm sure.

So they have the party of one menu.

I ordered, I was just like, let's see what this is like if you're trying to go to a pizza hut as a single diner.

And so I ordered two of what they call their My Hut boxes.

Their two options are they have a personal pan pizza inside or a melt and a side.

Now, here's part of the problem with the party of one.

Mitch, you and I have talked about the personal pizza specifically from these chain pizzerias.

The ratios are way off.

Like it's never the same.

Like it's way, it's way too crusty, not enough slice.

I judge a pizza on a large pizza.

It's got to be like I'd much rather have.

And it's not just because I want a large pizza, though I do a lot of the time.

And this was, this whole, I will say, this, this order altogether was a decent value, but like I still, I would rather have a slice from a medium or a large pizza.

Like just having like a personal pizza is like so much less satisfying.

And I think if I would do it again, if I was actually going to order from pizza by myself, I think I would just get a pizza and then just just have like four or five slices and save the rest.

I might eat the whole pizza.

But

I got the create your own two-topping pizza, cheese, marinara, onions, jalapenos, because I'm something of a heat seeker in Pancrest.

And I also got boneless wings,

which were buffalo medium.

They do not have the option for bone-in wings.

You can only get boneless wings as one of your sides.

Shockingly, the boneless wings do not come with a dip and sauce by default.

So you have to pay extra.

You have to pay an upcharge for a ranch or a blue cheese.

I got one of each.

I also got the melt in side.

I got the pepperoni lovers melt because, honestly, to me, Mitch, the buffalo chicken melt looked gross.

I'm curious how you felt about it.

I also got straight-cut fries, which I don't know why they're doing fries, but let me tell you, they're doing them okay.

It's honestly like a highlight of the lunch.

The fries were good.

The fries were fucking good.

And I don't know if they're good.

Pizza HUD shouldn't be doing

fries, but they're doing them well.

Yeah.

Their main event.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, flipper things.

But what did you think of the melt?

Because I thought my pepperoni lovers melt was so much better than the personal pizza, like markedly better.

I thought the melt was okay.

It was, again, salty, but I, but I, but I, it was like,

yeah, mine was salty as hell.

For, for, what did you think?

We tried it.

I tried it.

Yeah.

I did not like it.

Yeah, that's fair.

I'm, but I'm also not like a big like buffalo chicken person.

Okay.

Which kind of pissed off.

I don't like about myself.

Uh, but, but it's like the kind of thing where like

I like with with like pizza or ice cream like we were talking about like I I can kind of like any of it like buffalo chicken.

I feel like I need to have like a really good

sure yeah and this was not this was not a good version of it, but

it was okay.

Yeah, I so for me I'm like I'm already grading.

It's like the it's harder for me to like a buffalo chicken and this was like I just don't think this was like a special buffalo chicken.

It was not special at all, but I will say like compared to everything I got I was like it's on the higher end of the things I tried today.

What I liked about it is and essentially what the melt is is a pre-folded slice.

It's kind of like

a pizza quesadilla, kind of folded on and on itself twice.

I just felt like it was so dense with flavor versus the personal pan.

I just thought like every bite was unsatisfying.

Party one week.

Can I ask somebody real quick?

Yeah.

The buffalo thing.

Yeah.

If you go to like a...

not not a not necessarily like a chain, but just like a sports bar and you get like hot wings.

Are you to assume that is buffalo wing or is buffalo a specific flavor that's not like what your standard hot wing flavor is if i saw hot wings i would expect buffalo i expect basically buffalo okay okay yeah i wasn't sure if there's a if there's a standard hot wing flavor that i'm not sure of if they were like spice if it was like breaded spicy wings i'd be like okay i like i

the flavor is like red the flavor is red or like spice or something i'd be like sure i can't get rustic or something or like a sports bar that's not a chain and it's if it just says hot wings it's probably buffalo sauce.

I would consider that the default, yeah.

I think in my mind, I would think that.

There is like there are like you know, I'm talking about like kind of like uh like more of a coating, like a fried coating that's like kind of spicy.

As we talked about recently with Beck about uh B dubs, is that there is a they have a my favorite B Dubs seasoning is where they're dry rubs desert heat, which is not a yeah, and I know, yeah, I know the dry, yeah, I'm thinking of the wet, yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's a different flavor profile, but still I'm thinking of the wet.

Where's everyone on spicy?

Love it, I love it too, me Me too.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Me too, buddy.

Well, I also, seeking heat, I got a

this was my experiment because I know I gave it one fork last time.

Yeah.

I wanted to try to go, well, what when I worked there,

with the employee meal you could get, and forgive me if I said this nine years ago and I forgot.

Kind of a lot has happened in the meanwhile.

What?

We'll have a few other episodes of this that I was on.

Wow.

And but the thing you can do is you can take the thin crust dough and you you can make your own personal, and they didn't sell like

personal thin crusts.

So you can make your own personal thin crust.

And I would make myself one with sausage and jalapeno.

Now I don't do sausage anymore.

So I just did a thin, the smallest thin crust I could get, a medium,

with jalapeno, seeking said heat.

Wow.

hoping it would replicate what I, the, the meal that used to bring me joy from Pizza Hut.

But it was still, I don't know.

You, you, you get that size pizza.

a medium size is like kind of, I don't know what you call that kind of pizza that you get at like an Italian restaurant, you know, where it's like a smaller, crispier crust.

You know what I mean?

Like

you might use a fork and knife or maybe

isn't sliced, you know,

whatever.

That style of Italian restaurant pizza.

Is that a Neapolitan style?

Like a sourdough pizza.

Maybe, yeah.

Like that's what I was expecting.

Well, maybe that's what this, a thin crust medium will capture.

And it was still just kind of like, well, still kind of chewy.

Like the outer rim is certainly crispy, but it was, it was a little too dry.

Yeah, it was just kind of like, nah, this didn't quite

achieve that magic either.

I wonder if, and, and, Amitra, I know you're not, uh, you're, you're, you're, you have a bit of a buffalo aversion.

I love buffalo, uh, and I don't feel like this was a well-executed buffalo wing.

Like, the, the boneless wings that I got were pretty rancid.

They were, they were just like, first off, just like bad chicken nuggets.

They were like, they were like the saucy nugs, basically, that you get from Wendy's.

they were just like not not anything particularly exciting um texturally and then i just i didn't love their buffalo sauce and like a lot of the like like dominoes too like their wings i'm like i just feel like they're like they're like mushy yeah i hit or miss with dominoes wings i've had some success i certainly have more success with a bone in but you didn't even again you didn't even have the option to do bone in here I've never loved Pizza Hut wings, and they branded their wings separately as Wing Street.

Like, this is their Wing Street label wings.

And I don't even know if they even had them when you were working there.

Yes, I think they did.

They did.

They did.

I think they did.

You cook them the same way.

You put them on like the conveyor belt that goes through the

like they were frozen or something.

That must be how they're making the fries.

They must be making them in the oven because they don't have a deep fryer there.

Yeah, probably not.

Wow.

Yeah, it's a conveyor belt now.

But pizza huts used to have, they used to have ovens back in the day.

You know, they're like, a lot of the places had ovens.

We were conveyor.

You were your conveyor belts?

Damn.

That's kind of early even for that episode.

Oh, when Silence fell into it.

What happened?

Did you get turned into some sort of pizza?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Never mind.

Well, don't say it.

It's going to be a Pizza the Hut joke.

No, no, no, it's not going to be.

No, I would never make a Pizza the Hut joke.

I would never make fun of a Pizza the Hutt.

I was going to say, I want, no, I'm not going to do it.

I can't do it.

I think you have to do it.

I'm not going to do it.

Do you want a minute and we'll come back to you?

You decide if you're going to do it?

Okay.

I think it's a bit of an indictment of Pizza Hut's party of one menu that the best thing that I had was the fries.

Like, it's like, it's, it's, and I understand why it exists.

I know it's probably for people who maybe it's just like, hey, my job is near a Pizza Hut.

I can get a $10 value meal from there.

Fuck it.

Let me try it.

But, like, I would just be, to me, viewing this as a workday lunch and, hey, I'm basically having this for my job.

I found it pretty unsatisfying.

You knew it?

I was really, I was really.

I went to Pizza Hut with Neb Campbell on season one of Twisted Metal.

Wait, is this a thing?

Yeah.

This is the thing we're going to do?

Oh, no, no.

Okay, okay.

I went to Pizza Hut with Nev Campbell on the first season of Twisted Metal.

She ordered five Party of Ones.

So collectively a Party of Five.

So

that wasn't the thing?

There's another one that you're more embarrassed of.

Okay.

Wait, can I guess my theory on the Party of One menu, having never heard of it until five minutes ago?

Yeah.

I bet they were like, yeah, we've sustained as a business for many years because families order pizzas

and people order pizzas at parties and stuff like that, or when they have friends over and roommates order pizzas.

And I think, I wonder if so much of like work from home and people being like

more socially averse or being like, I want to, I don't, like made them be like, fuck, everyone just stays at home and doesn't go and like, they need a lunch when they're working from home, you know, or

whatever.

You just maybe hear more, Whether it's always been the case, you maybe just hear about there being more social anxiety now.

So I wonder if they're like, fuck, we got to, people stay at home by themselves.

We got to, that's a market we're not tapping.

Yeah.

I'm not doing, I'm not going to do my second.

No, come on.

You got to.

The first one went over like a, it went over great.

I liked it.

Yeah.

We could sweeten it and add in some laughs.

Say, well, I promise we'll laugh.

No, no, no.

It was related.

We were talking about conveyor belt ovens.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, then he's doing it.

He said I turned to him.

I'm not going to.

I've already bombed enough on this episode.

I'm not doing it anymore.

You're doing great.

No, I'm not.

I'm not doing great.

You are doing great.

No.

Come on.

Come on.

Shut up, everyone.

Okay, you were at least expecting it, but you have to do it.

All right, sometime.

I'll do it at some point.

Did y'all get any dip in sauces beyond the ranch flight?

Or was that it?

I think that was it.

That was it.

I will say the marinara that came with the

pepperoni lovers melt did do a lot.

And I don't know if there was any dip in sauce that came with the buffalo chicken melt, but the pepperoni one did come with a marinara dip, and that did a lot to cut the saltiness, the sweetness of that.

So that was very helpful.

Yes.

I mean,

my mouth is so dry, it was just a tie.

The entire meal was a salt bomb to me.

I felt like it was like.

I already didn't didn't think Pizza Hut was good going to this, so I walked away from this meal not happy.

We should get to our final thoughts on Pizza Hut.

So, Beetra Deal, you both done the podcast.

Neil, I want you to go last.

I got to give it some thoughts.

I'll give you some time to think it over.

But we'll each go around.

We'll give our closing argument, if you will.

Yeah, we'll be kind of like a conveyor belt of thoughts

And end by giving it a score from zero to five forks.

Beatra, let's start with you.

Your thoughts, your fork score.

My thoughts,

my favorite was the cheesy bite pizza overall.

I normally, if I'm having pizza, I like can't stop eating it.

And I have to like stop myself from eating past the like halfway pizza mark.

And this I had, I had two slices and I really didn't want any more.

So I think that is a problem with the pizza.

I was able to kind of stop.

I wanted to stop.

I really didn't like the Buffalo Chicken thing.

But I really did like the cheesy bites.

I wish I wanted a bucket of those alone.

And I would actually get that

at some point if it was like its own thing, not attached to a pizza.

But I

don't know.

I feel like I

don't want to do one.

But I really didn't like anything except for the thing that wasn't pizza.

Yeah.

So

I'll give it 1.5 because I really did like the cheesy bites.

Wow.

One fork two times for the cheesy bites.

How about that?

One fork two times.

Mitch, what do you think?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's nice.

Should we do Neil?

Or are we going to save Neil for last?

We said Neil's going to go last.

Pizza hut, pizza hut.

Kentucky fried chicken in a Pizza Hut.

This is how I opened my review when you did the show, I believe.

Oh, I thought that was Alfred Lord Tennyson.

McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut.

Now,

if I think of chain restaurants that have

over the course of time have fallen, Pizza Hut is

like, I haven't thought about it too, too much.

I mean, we talk about other places that the quality has gone down and some that have closed.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, Pizza Hut just, obviously, we used to like the Pizza Hut Buffet.

We've talked about that a ton.

Like, I used to really enjoy Pizza Hut.

It wasn't my favorite pizza.

I still liked Domino's or whatever.

Like, there were other, or like, like you were saying, a local pizza place way more than I like Pizza Hut.

But, like, the quality of that place is.

It sucks.

Pizza Hut is bad now.

It's not, it's not good.

And it's gotten worse over the years.

And I'm like, I don't know why I would ever, ever order this ever again.

Also, the guys who started it saw that Domino's was doing well and they didn't even make pizza.

And that's like how it started.

It was like the

pan-made pizza at Pizza when you go in there and they actually put it in an oven was good, but that's it's it's all conveyor belt.

It's all conveyor belt pizza nowadays.

And

no, no, no.

What else about a conveyor belt?

Nothing about a conveyor belt.

You tell some joke, damn it.

But,

but

I think that this is like one of the chains that I like

has fallen the most, even since we've done the podcast.

And I wasn't as mean to it the first time we did it, but it's like, it's been bad for 10 years now, basically.

And I'm going to go with my old friend Neil's score from the original episode.

I'm going one fork.

One fork.

Wow.

And I follow my friend Neil.

You know, my belt is a little tight.

I wonder if anyone has anything they want to say.

Method of conveyance.

I'd like to convey.

My belt is a bit tight from eating the pizza.

Join us, Mitch.

I can't, give me time.

Cut me off.

I'll say, I'll get my thoughts now.

I am rooting for Pizza Hut.

I have a nostalgic connection to Pizza Hut.

I want Pizza Hut to be good.

I'd love for Pizza Hut Hut to be my default pizza.

And I will just say, yes, I kind of went rogue in terms of how I ordered me going from the party of one menu.

And, but so, like, yes, I you want to criticize that as the crux of my review.

Fine, but this is something they're offering.

This is something they're promoting.

And I've had Pizza Hut in the intervening years since we did our last review in 2022, and I've never came away satisfied.

I just think it's perpetually disappointing and also perpetually on the decline.

We talked about where it ranks with the Mount Rushmore of

pizza chains, of major pizza chains in America.

I think it is the worst one, but also of the now Mount Rushmore, formerly the triumvirate of Yum Brands

labels.

We have

KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and now The Habit are all part of that one company.

I think it's also the worst one of those.

It's the one I'd want the least.

I was pretty disappointed by my meal meal overall.

Like I said, the things I liked, and this is Echoing Mitra, which I think was a really, really nice way to put it and a really honestly despairing way to put it, which is the best stuff was not pizza.

The best stuff was the fries number one and the pepperoni lovers melt number two.

And

I think we've learned a lot over the course of this podcast, but we learned an important lesson in that episode back in January of 2016 from our dear friend Neil Campbell, which is that

it's important to evaluate these places truthfully and not on some sort of,

you know, sliding scale that allows for

evaluates its quality of food within just the bubble of chain restaurants.

And I think from that standpoint,

pizza has fallen off.

And I think it deserves one fork.

And that's where I'm landing.

One fork for Pizza Hut.

Wow.

Neil, let's go to you.

All right.

So look, I was nervous coming here

because I know the last time I did the one fork,

there was some blowback.

I was worried.

Yeah.

If I a repeat performance, maybe, you know, I'm going to get swatted by your fans.

So

doxxed at least.

They'll swat you.

Yeah.

You guys get swatted a lot by your fans.

Yeah, but it's like it's nice.

Yeah, yeah.

It's Bill House.

Yeah, Bill House shows up.

But so I tried to go into this going like, I don't want to just be Mr.

Grump and Mr.

Negative.

Let me give it, I tried to order the closest facsimile I could to the meal I used to make myself there and enjoy.

I was down to try all the other things we got.

And really, I mean, I'm going to echo Nick's.

praise of Mitra's review.

I am the same way with pizza.

most of the time I'm like, I shouldn't have more than two slices.

And I'm like, that's so good.

I'm going to have a third or a fourth slice.

That's just a, you know, a pizza place I do order from.

Right.

And had no problem stopping this.

It was, it felt like a chore today to try each slice of each pizza.

Yeah.

What a bummer.

And I'm like, look, the, yeah, the little cheesy bites were

the highlight, but I don't know that they did anything to

change my mind about it.

I think there needed to be a more more seismic shift to change my previous score.

So I'm going to stick with one fork.

Wow.

I think that's beautiful.

Wow.

Broken Plate Club for Pizza Hut.

Damn.

We need to get the shift.

You know what, Mitchell?

We need another chain rescue Pizza Hut.

I think that's maybe the next one.

I agree with you.

We should figure that out.

But then also, if we do a chain rescue, didn't we start liking the place right afterwards?

But maybe it'll get better.

Yeah.

The last chain rescue we did was Wendy's, and Wendy's went on to win our tournament of Chocolate Madness this year.

So, you know,

it certainly had

rehabilitated itself a little bit in our image.

That's nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So, but yeah, we got to figure out what's going on with Pizza Hut.

It sucks.

It sucks.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's bad.

Yeah.

Such a bummer.

It is really.

Yeah.

Really a bummer.

I wonder if part of the issue is that they're like, you know, because you just, just generally, these corporations are trying to save money, pench pennies.

And I wonder if what's happening over there is they're trying to tighten their belts and then

that act is being conveyed to the consumer in an inferior product.

I wonder if that's what's happening.

I'm not going to do it.

If you don't do it,

it doesn't even make any sense.

It doesn't even make any sense.

I want all of the ire that went to Neil in 2016

directed at Mitch if he doesn't give us this thing.

It doesn't even make any sense.

It doesn't matter.

You think that matters?

We got to hear it, Mitch.

I can't.

I've already embarrassed myself too much on this episode.

No, you haven't.

You haven't.

Tell one of us, then we'll do it.

No, it's not.

I mean, that would be even weirder.

I'll read it.

No, you can't.

Yeah.

Miserable will do it.

Let Mister do it.

Well, I'll and I'll like put everything into it.

I can't.

All right.

Maybe.

All right.

Just give me a minute.

Just give me a minute.

Well, we have a minute because we have a segment.

I've got a food stuff we're going to decide if you just put it in your mouth.

It's snack or whack.

Amelia Marino is bringing over some of these for each of us.

Thanks.

In celebration of the movie The Fantastic Four, the First Steps.

They have new Fantastic Four Pop-Tarts.

The Crazy Good Collaborations unleashes a fantastic snacking experience with four movie-inspired toaster pastry flavors.

The Pop-Tarts and Marvel Studios, the Fantastic Four First Steps collaboration is a celebration of our shared 1960s origins, as documented in the film Unfrosted.

There's no better way to welcome everyone's favorite blue-suited superhero family to the MCU than with a triumphant return of our own fantastically blue toaster pastry, Pop-Tarts Frosted Blue Raspberry, back on shelves the first time since 2019.

So, this is the flavor that we have here.

This is the Pop-Tarts Frosted Blue Raspberry.

Amelia toasted these up in the head gum uh toaster.

Thank you, Amelia.

And it has a little decal which is kind of grafted onto the frosting.

Um, mine, I have Herbie here, which is a lot of fun.

Oh, you have Herbie.

I have the thing.

It's not Herbie fully loaded.

It's the

Herbie.

I'm just kidding.

Oh my God.

Fuck.

That's my fault.

Not your fault.

No, it is.

It is.

No, it is Mitra's fault.

Sorry.

It's not your fault.

Mine just has

to go.

Damn.

Who do you have?

Mine has my home address.

Human torch.

That's pretty good.

That's good.

Yeah.

Where's everyone on Pop-Tarts?

I used to love him as a kid, but I loved him as a kid and haven't had one in.

Well, I've probably had one, but I've barely ever had one in 25 years, but loved him as a kid.

Yeah, same.

I loved the brown sugar cinnamon.

Chocolate.

I just like, yeah, I was a big chocolate guy.

It's a dessert.

I mean, like, yeah.

And I'm going to take a bite into this, some bitch.

Um, this is nice and toasty.

What toaster setting did you use?

Bagel.

Wow.

I'm going to toast just one side of it.

Yes, I like it.

Very blue-flavored.

Yes.

It definitely tastes blue.

It definitely tastes blue.

I can taste the shared 1960s origins.

Man,

this is fucking good.

I got to say, it's very artificial.

It's hyper-processed.

The decal is so fun.

Like, I love seeing Herbie on there.

I love seeing any the IP.

It's like really well printed.

And

I wish it was fully loaded.

I honestly, I do wish it was fully loaded.

I'm trying to believe it not.

And

yeah, the blue has like the hue of the blue raspberry is like a little sparkly, which feels kind of magical, feels kind of supernatural.

You must see fully loaded, hang out with Neil after an improv show.

Don't I know it?

He's, yeah, he's probably done that more than you.

Has he?

I don't know.

He went home a lot, didn't he?

I'd like to hang out back in the day.

The early days of last day, yeah.

I'd say probably a few years.

There was every week.

Yeah, when it was in my 20s.

Yeah.

I'd stay out a little later.

I wasn't always a 5:45 a.m.

alarm alarm guy.

Damn, 5.45 a.m.

is your alarm.

Rising shine.

I would not want this for breakfast, but as a treat, it is delightful.

Yeah.

I think it's great.

I think it was a snack.

Yeah, actually, I loved that.

I thought I was going to hate it.

I want to eat all of this, and I'm going to.

I'm going to.

Waiting, Mitch.

I think it's good.

I'm still nervous about trying to tell this joke.

I think it's good.

It is a snack.

It's not a morning.

No.

It's very, it's very artificial.

I think a kid would love this.

Yeah, kids would love this.

Is the

do you guys ever get like

at a pastry, like bakeries?

Like, have you seen where people make like they make their own pop-tarts?

Kind of a like just what I needed does them.

I love the just what I needed.

I feel like I've seen them a couple other places as well.

Yeah, it feels like a new thing, like the upscale pop-tart

bakery.

I love that.

It's fun.

Yeah.

I worked on two Fantastic Four video games back in week.

Oh, I remember that.

Yeah, yeah.

That's cool.

Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Thinking about that lately.

How were those games?

Were they well received?

I mean,

I could talk about them for a while.

I'm not going to because it's not particularly interesting.

But when I joined development, it was clear that it was like everyone kind of knew this is not what this game should be, but it was like kind of what had been declared from the publisher, Activision, and kind of just said, like, this is what we want.

Because it originally had started as like more of a like wham pow like comic book like like like they had the comic book IP and then Fox was going to make it into a movie so they were like make it into the movie game so they had to redo all the art redo all the character models and the engine was more set towards a classic like turtles in time sort of beat'em up but they wanted it reoriented towards like a 3d um action adventure like like platformer slash character action game And it was just like the engine wasn't quite up to it.

There was a development time wasn't big enough and didn't have enough of a budget to rejigger it on the fly.

And it just kind of came out kind of half-baked.

But there's some stuff in it that I liked.

I don't know.

Are you looking forward to the new movie?

Yeah, why not?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm so burned out on the MCU.

I am the same way.

And it's actually the first one in a while.

I'm like, I might actually go see that one.

It feels like it has an aesthetic and a tone where it kind of is like, okay, I'm kind of into this.

I like the cast.

That feels a little funny to me.

That's that, like,

I feel like a lot of times when you, like, I don't know, are doing a reboot of a movie, you're kind of like, hey, how are we upping the game from the last one or something?

And there's just something that feels funny to me where it's like,

and maybe this is good.

I don't know why

it's just even striking me at all, but where I'm like, well, the last one's like, Michael B.

Jordan is the human torch.

And like,

I mean, Miles Teller, I would guess, is about as big a star as

Pedro Pescal, maybe not right now, but you know, not far off.

They're both at SNL 50.

You know,

and then you're like,

I don't know.

It's, it's just like a funny, like, lateral move, it feels like, in a way, but I bet, you know, I feel like there's movies, I feel like, like, uh, Fantastic Four maybe just doesn't work, you know what I mean?

Like, it feels like they've tried to do it, it does feel like they do not like to show him stretching in the,

I don't know that I've seen Pedro Pascal being stretchy, yeah, I haven't seen him stretch at all.

They've uh, I mean, the part of the issue is like they cast him and then they found he couldn't do it.

Oh, that sucks.

Oh, yeah, that's a huge issue.

Patting the resume, he said he could do it.

Yeah, and they're just like, oh, yeah, this guy would, you know,

that's the same reason why they I auditioned for the thing.

They would, how many times?

I mean, this is the fifth attempt at a Fantastic Four movie, right?

None of them really worked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you count the Roger Corey, the Roger Corporate, yeah.

Like a new

kind of a conveyor belt.

Yeah.

For Herbie Kenneth.

Oh, yeah.

Because he gets on a conveyor belt.

I texted Wager what it was.

I'll never say it, and I told him not to say what it is.

No, and he'll agree with it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I said in the thing.

You're scared of saying this?

It just was the time it passed.

You should say it.

Okay.

The noid uses the conveyor belt like a treadmill.

That's what I was going to say.

That's what I was going to say.

I was like,

Proof that he said.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

That's exactly it.

And he also said, I put at the end, don't tell them, though.

And I did not breach that trust.

That's how he stays fit.

You're talking about the annoyed, not the

guy.

So part of the reason why I was like, it doesn't make any sense.

It's Pizza Hut.

Right.

And you're talking about the annoyed, the character, not the guy who went crazy.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that would be annoying.

He maybe should have used, I think, exercise maybe would have helped his mental health a little bit.

Ooh, that's a good point.

I can totally follow the logic of it because he's ruining the Domino's pizza.

Yes.

He's like, Pizza Hut is like, yeah, you have safe harbor in a pizza hut.

You want to come over and work out.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it makes sense.

The joke makes a lot of sense.

And it's also like, it's like doing hot yoga.

You're on the hot conveyor belt, so you're getting a little bit of an extra burn.

Yeah.

It's kind of like a stove top boys.

It is very much like a stove top boys.

Oh, man.

You just reminded me of the stove top boys.

Stove November.

It was an improv show that Paul Rust and I would do, or an improv act.

which I shouldn't be able to say.

I don't know that we ever quite did more than like a 15-minute set where we were two miniature men who were on top of a stove.

Also dressed like sailors for some reason.

But we were trying to do improv, but we're kind of constantly hopping back and forth from foot to foot, going, ow, ow.

And so we'd be getting suggestions of her jumping back and forth.

Is this Mandela Effect, or was bare feet in Element?

Yes, yes, bare feet.

Exactly.

Pretty poor judgment to be in a hot stove with bare feet.

Well, I don't know.

They make shoes in it.

They're size.

Who's everyone's favorite Fantastic Four member?

I think I like Human Torch.

Yeah, Human Torch is the only cool thing.

He's the coolest one.

Yeah.

He's kind of try-hard, but he is cool.

And I feel bad.

You've got to feel bad.

The thing with the thing is that you have to feel bad for the thing because he doesn't like being the thing.

And that bums me out.

I think when I was a kid, I was so drawn toward

like

the brooding leaders who kind of like a Cyclops or whatever.

I like just liked the characters that were like, they don't get the glory and they're not the cool, exciting character, but they have to kind of keep the ship afloat and

be the leader.

I don't know why I liked that, but I was like, I loved Cyclops and I so I think Mr.

Fantastic was more of like.

I like that he stretches, but they just never do it.

I mean, I also didn't, the X-Men TV show got me into X-Men a lot.

There was never a good, there was never a good animated fantastic,

speaking of animation, there was never a good animated Fantastic Four.

Maybe the

creator of Digman could tackle that.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to see who has the rights to that, but maybe I could just do it.

Do you have any F4 allegiance?

I've never seen any of them.

Okay.

For one of the four,

that means the powers are working correctly.

The invisible.

She's turned invisible.

Yes, I

get it.

I like all the stretchy people, though.

Yeah,

it's so clearly a thing that's fun

for an artist.

Like, they were like, this will be so fun for like Jack Kirby to draw.

And then in a movie, people are like, huh.

It looks really cool, like a comic panel frame when he's like doing all this like crazy.

Like, he's working on his machines, and it's a little less.

What's the Elastigirl?

Elastigirl, yeah.

Yeah.

And Incredible's equivalent.

I saw the thing at pizza hut uh he ordered party of one

he got

four

so

so so you shouldn't have done that one you should not have done that party of one that was the one to hold back on

no i'm trying to think which thing he's this is uh rep it's the fantastic four there's four of them uh it was a callback to our party of five joke i was

party of one is this uh

yeah?

It was called back to the joke that bombed horribly.

Yeah, I know, I know.

I was trying to be the actor who played this.

It was Ben Grimm.

Ben Grimm was, I don't remember who it was in the Josh Trank one.

It was Jamie Bell.

Jamie Bell.

Okay, so like Michael Chicklis before that and Evan Muskbucker.

Yes.

No.

Chicklis had the very.

After Chicklis, they went all CGI.

He was the last.

He was the last thing.

Yeah.

Chicklis was the last practical thing.

Oh, get me in the suit.

I'm not an actor.

We were talking about avatar earlier.

Wouldn't you love to go shoot avatar in a big tank for alienation?

Yeah, that'd be kind of fun.

Yes.

It would rule.

I'm not an actor, but I love to wear a big suit.

I got spray-painted blue for a Katy Perry music video when it was the coolest day ever.

That's awesome.

It was so awesome.

I was an alien.

That's so cool.

And it was so cool because they were doing airbrush and like everybody, like they were like shading everyone different shades of blue and green and stuff.

And it was just like so cool to watch.

Was that for the uh for is this the song alien it was it's a different song about aliens

i would say uh a less less beloved song about aliens called wow um not the end of the world wow that me and matt rogers are aliens that's that's cool was it full body yeah wow or i guess our legs were covered so no just arms and like the whatever was exposed wow yeah but it was awesome how long did it take to get spray painted i feel like we were there actually not that long like like not as long as i thought wow it was cool that seems rad i love getting all painted up i love to be blue

looking at avatars like man it'd be cool to be blue like for life you're saying no

to be i mean yeah but the navi are like just it's like well if you're in an avatar that is just like a little bit of like oh i get to be blue for a little bit then go back to being a guy well i don't even think they get to be blue i think they did right they don't they don't paint them they don't paint the actors blue but they get to be but no but i'm saying like in the reality, if you're on Pandora.

Got it, got it, got it.

Then you get to be that for a little bit.

Sure.

You just kind of LARP as a blue guy, but then you get back being a regular guy.

It would be fun to be, I think it would be fun.

It would be fun to be blue for a bit.

Yeah, for a little bit.

That's awesome.

I'm envious is what I'm saying.

That's really cool.

Smurfs cool.

Smurfs.

Smurfs are also blue.

Smurfs are fun.

You could do it if you wanted to.

If you want to dress up as an avatar for an episode, you could do that.

Next time I'm here, can we be blue?

I would love that.

Oh, my God.

Do I have to do it as well?

You don't have to.

You get to.

Okay, all right.

All right.

I would, I would, I would, I'm down.

Oh, my God.

How do we do this is my question.

Well, I'm a hairbrusher.

I know the person.

I'm still, I, I'm still Instagram friends with the person who picked me blue.

Wow.

Perfect.

It's cost us like $15,000.

It'd be worth it.

Just like a restaurant buyer feedback, let's open the feedback.

Today's email is from Brian.

Brian writes, there's a movie question.

Hey, y'all, I'm not sure if this question has been asked on the podcast, but how do you feel about sneaking food into movie theaters?

With the price of admission plus concessions, the total can really add up.

If you are sneaking food into the movies, what are you snacking on?

Cheers.

Thanks, Brian.

I have no moral qualms about sneaking food.

And if that's what the question is, I don't feel any

sort of wrong about bringing food into a movie theater.

Tisk Tisk, I say.

I'm bringing a full meal.

I love packing like bags of all different kinds of food.

Wow.

But like not like, not strong smelling food, but like I like having like a nut, a chocolate bar,

a bag of grapes.

Like I like having like stuff I can pull out and snack on during the movie.

Were you putting it in your handbag?

Like how are you getting it in there?

Yeah, I'm putting in my big tote.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah.

And I'm usually still getting a huge Diet Coke.

Like I'm still spending money at concessions, but I'm bringing my water bottle.

I'm not going to pay for water at the movie theater.

I'm usually bringing like five different types of food and buying Diet Coke.

I'm always bringing, like, I'm always bringing, like, I get my Yeti here.

Um, and uh, I will

generally have that on hand when I'm seeing a movie these days.

But a lot of times I will just buy the big soda.

I like getting a big soda, but that's the one thing I will buy.

Yeah, I'm with you if I'm bringing food and I don't always need food when I'm seeing a movie, but I will have, I will just put stuff in my purse.

And I like, like, I've been really into having a banana these days, a banana.

Um, and because I can eat, like, it's, it's just pure nutrition and also I can eat it quietly.

Yeah, that's that, that's the only bad thing when people sneak in a food that doesn't adhere to sort of the movie packaging, like unwritten rules, you know, of like, hey, buddy, I don't care if you sneak food in, but it can't be like,

you know, like, that's where it stinks.

And you can't bring in like fucking Panda Express.

It's going to smell.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a whole issue.

I sometimes will enjoy like a roast goose in the theater.

I love hearing people crunch.

So I don't mind.

I don't mind true.

I don't mind the bite, like having a popcorn bite.

I like hearing someone having a chip.

I like that.

That's like the instead of mesophonia.

I don't know if there's a way for it.

I don't like listening to people like a,

but I like hearing people crunch.

I can get pretty annoyed if I'm hearing someone behind me just like constantly.

Like I'm just like, what is happening?

What are they looking for here?

It's so funny.

People do get annoyed when I'm carving my roast goose.

After minutes is pretty annoying.

I mean, I'm pretty boring at the movie theater, so I'm usually just getting popcorn, which I wouldn't sneak in popcorn, but I could see sneaking in

you know a bag of peanut MMs or say rather than paying eight dollars for them there

and then apologizing when I leave of course I

when I saw broke back mountain I got peanut butter MMs

and I snuck them out of the theater because I didn't finish them I put them in my pocket was coming to work today didn't wear pants all day yesterday

uh wore short i wore shorts

i wore shorts all day yesterday and i when i i did the my peanut butter m's were in my pocket i never so did they melt they didn't melt no that's great

did you crunch i crunched i did no i because i was it was right before i came here but i will crunch them at some point but i'm more of a you know that i'm more of a popcorn guy at the theaters and i always get a popcorn if i'm really i like getting going to the amc and getting like the chicken tenders or the pretzel dippers i like getting a full meal i haven't done that at the amc's but you know i'll do the the

night hawks and the uh Alamos.

Yeah.

Yeah, I still haven't been to Nighthawk.

I got to go.

Those are good.

This is the, for, for our audience who hasn't heard us discuss it previously.

It's a, it's a New York

exclusive, I think as of now, basically equivalent to like an Alamo draft house, a place where you can see a movie and also sit down and have yourself a meal.

It's supposed to be a better, a better overall experience than Alamo.

I think so.

I lived closer to a Nighthawk, so I'd always went there.

I've been there more than Alamo.

Wow.

I was at Nighthawk and I had a couple of talkers.

They were talking the whole, they were talking the whole thing.

And again, they weren't on the screen.

No,

they were not Ben Affleck and The Accountant 2.

There were two people I went and saw The Accountant 2 because it was like the only movie I hadn't seen that was at Nighthawk that was that worked out.

And

a couple of

chatty Kathys behind me.

Can I be honest, Mitch?

Because we were talking about food and you said I had a couple of talkers.

And I, for a second, thought it was like a weird Boston way of saying tacos.

Me too.

That's why exactly what you're actually saying.

Tacos in a movie theater I would get annoyed at that crunch.

You know what?

Part of the issue with me, whatever I'm eating in a movie theater, I don't like having like,

well, this doesn't make me unique among human beings, but I don't like having gross, sticky hands, like greasy hands.

Like, I can't stand it to the point where, like, if I eat something that's sloppy like that, like I eat tacos, like, I gotta go wash my hands or use some hand sanitizer afterwards.

And so I can't imagine just taking like a couple Al Pass store tacos and then just sitting through an entire two-hour movie.

I'd feel greased up and disgusting.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

Do you ever get nachos at the theater?

I do get nachos.

That doesn't make your hands all yucky?

Emma?

We'll talk after the podcast.

No, you're right.

That actually does make me pretty greased up and gross.

I've had.

So, yeah,

that actually is the thing.

I think the little thing is like, just by grabbing the non-cheesy parts of the chips, I'm able to mitigate the amount of oil that I'm getting.

I've had nachos at Nighthawk, and they're totally good to eat.

They tasted good, I mean.

But I've had, like, if I'm just normally eating nachos, I'm trying to be so aware not to like spill cheese on me.

And I'm like leaning over

the table and stuff.

And like at a movie theater where you're kind of leaning back and it's like in front of you.

I was like kind of paranoid the whole time I was trying to have nachos at the movie theater.

I'm like leaning so far forward in an unnatural way so I don't spill casino all over myself.

I don't have a nachos too.

And I think that's why I never get them at movie theater.

Yeah, right.

I'll be too focused on not making a mess and not the movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I never think I'm making a mess.

And then I stand up at the end of the movie and I'm like covered.

Amelia, what's your booby stack of choice?

You're sneaking in the air.

I'm in the hand-holding club with you.

Nothing.

Yeah, nothing.

Yeah.

That or popcorn.

And then I usually have it all over myself or like in my shirt.

You find it later when you get home and you change and you're like, oh, there's popcorn in here.

Cool.

Yeah, I hate sitting up and like, there's so many like goosebones that fall off of me.

Yeah.

You're back.

Off your tuxedo.

Another premiere ruined.

You got us back.

I lost you.

No, you do.

You never did.

Yeah, I lost myself.

If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at feedback at birdfuck.com or leave us a voicemail at 830.

That's 830-463-6844.

Our producer is Emma Erdbrink.

Our associate producer is Amelia Marino.

Our video producer is Casey Donahue.

Our video editor, Mike Dorfman, Doughboys Apparel, Merchandise, KinshipGoods.com/slash Doughboys, and the Doughboys Double or Weekly Bonus episode over at patreon.com/slash slash doughboys.

Neil Mitra, Digman, season two, coming soon.

People watch season one right now on Paramount Plus.

Exactly.

Season ones on Paramount Plus.

Season two premieres.

Every episode's after South Park

this season.

So starting July 23rd, watch brand new South Park, brand new Digman.

Our third episode, we have a never-before-seen color that we're introducing to the world that's in the episode.

So you can tune in and see a color you've never seen before.

And Mitra's amazing on it and so funny.

And you're going to

crack up so hard

when you're watching her scenes.

And it's a show.

We're just trying to be funny and joyful.

And I hope you enjoy it.

All thanks to Neil Campbell.

I'd say guaranteed guffaws.

That is

two of the funniest people.

Two of the funniest.

And it's a funny show that exists for the sake of being funny.

And people should, like, I know sometimes

not everyone has cable, but if you do do have comedy centers, check it out.

And definitely check out the first season of Paramount Blessed.

Yes.

And another Doughboys fave, Andrea Jinn.

She and I wrote the season finale together.

Look around for that in season two.

Yeah.

And don't judge Kenny too hard.

He maybe was having a bad day.

Yeah.

You guys saw him.

I think Spenny had been coming after him.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, sure.

Because they were a comedy duo with Kenny and Spenny.

Yeah.

And then Kenny broke off into South Park.

Yeah.

It's weird because if you watch Kenny and Spenny, he seems like a completely different guy.

I agree.

I agree.

But I guess with a hood on, it's just like

incognito.

I won't get fact-checked on this.

Okay, well, meet your Johari.

Hey, that'll do it for this episode of Doughboys.

Until next time for the Smoon Red Micro Mitchell.

I'm Tiger Wagger.

Happy Eating.

See ya.

Bye.

Hi, I'm Alana Hope Levinson.

And I'm Dan O'Sullivan.

And this is The Outfit, the new podcast from Higher Ground and Head Gum.

You know, we're two journalists who are slightly obsessed with the mob and organized crime and other nefarious stuff like that.

Every week, we're going to bring you a story about a mobster.

Some you've heard of, some you definitely haven't, but all of them are going to help explain why America is like this.

See, the mob explains all sorts of things, from milk expiration dates to why we got into Cuba to Las Vegas, gay bars, who knew, who knew.

The mobs involved.

All that and more.

Subscribe to The Outfit wherever you get your podcasts and watch video episodes on YouTube.

New episodes every Thursday.

That was a Head Gum Podcast.