MBMBaM 783: Spidey Spaghetti

The McElroy brothers are not experts, and their advice should never be followed.

Travis insists he's a sexpert, but if there's a degree on his wall, I haven't seen it.

Also, this show isn't for kids, which I mention only so the babies out there will know how cool they are for listening.

What's up, you cool baby?

One, two, three, it's the start

of something beautiful.

A small acquaintance has gossiped.

It's ripened into a precious friendship.

I could have never seen what was coming for me.

Hangs at the skate park, hangs by the beach.

My life,

it feels love.

It's better, it's better with you.

My life,

it's better, it's better with you.

Cause it's true, oh.

It's better, it's better with two.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my brother, my brother, me and Device Show for the Modern Era.

I'm your oldest brother, Justin McElroy.

What is up, citizens of Trav Nation?

It's me, your middlest brother, and brave leader, Travis, the big dog wolf wolf.

Room for McElroy.

What's up, Trav Nation?

It's me, your sweet baby brother, 30 under 30, built for tough Griffin McRoy.

I'm not sure, guys, if I'm even allowed to be doing this right now, yeah, dude, you should be taking the day off, popping your feet up like all of our government employees because it's anarchy in the USA.

We have no government, fear or nothing, and that's fear or not.

Not the worst, like obviously bad in a lot of ways, but bad so many ways, so many ways.

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

Well,

you're welcome,

certain parts of it.

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

the offer

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

Okay.

Let's just go down the list, Trav Nation, because I really, you know, help would certainly be appreciated.

We've burned a lot of bridges lately.

The folks down on Capitol Hill.

Yeah.

And the White House, actually, I should say,

primarily there also.

Yeah.

So

and the courts.

So the

parks are closed.

We'd open those back up.

How?

Just unlocking the gates mostly.

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

Well, we'd start paying the employees.

So then who's going

who's going to stop us?

The employees?

That's cool.

Yeah, no, you can definitely do that.

Every bear is actually a citizen of Trav Nation automatically.

Every bear, you said.

Every bear.

That's cool.

Even the weird ones.

The one that I need you to focus on, Trav, and you, Trav Nation, because it is the one that I hate the most about the shutdown.

I think is that our beloved air traffic controllers will continue to work, uh-huh, right, but will not be compensated for that work.

That's the exact headspace I want them at, baby.

Yes, that's exactly where I want them.

I want them, I want them ragged, bone-tired, yeah, and broke, and

broke and angry.

Here's my plan for for that.

I'm going to start.

Thank goodness.

Yeah, I'm going to start paying them.

And I'm going to hire more of them.

And I'm going to give them breaks and comfy

stuff in there.

I'm going to redo a lot of this stuff.

That'll do it, man.

No money.

Get the Property Brothers up in there.

Have the Property Brothers.

Like, make the tower cute.

That's cool.

Fix all their shit.

Give them raise car beds.

That'll fix it.

That'll do it.

Tell me the next 10 words and I'll drop out of this podcast right now.

You You know, Travis, like, sounds nice.

I gave you a lot of words, Justin.

How you're funding it.

He's going to help out to land in the planes.

Travis, break off a little bit of how that sounds.

If you were in the tower.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, a little to the left, a little to the left.

Oh, yeah, you got it.

Now, kiss those wheels on the ground.

Smooch them right down.

That's a good plane kiss.

That kind of thing.

Yeah, for sure.

That kind of thing, for sure.

That ought to get

boys and blue down safe.

What I'm going to do, Justin, to raise the money to pay for it, I'm going to sell the tanks.

Now, I know what you're wondering.

No,

I'm not going to sell them to other countries.

I'm going to take the bullets out of them.

Yes, good.

Smart.

The bullets are so big in the tanks.

I'm going to take the bullets out so there won't be any bullets available.

Don't get it twisted.

And then just going to sell them to American collectors.

I think that there's going to be a real market for these things.

We could put them in parades.

Yes.

Just put them all over the place.

Let kids drive them if they want to.

Maybe set up like an amusement park area with

corn dog.

Yeah.

Playtown for kids.

With corn dogs.

Tanks.

Yeah.

You can drive the kids.

The tanks shoot corn dogs out super fast.

That's cool.

And I'm going to let Trab Nation citizens pay a dollar each per vote to vote on what we're going to name each tank.

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

Yeah.

You notice how uncomfortable this is talking about political?

Yeah, man.

Here I am talking about selling all that.

I feel like we're over here having a good time talking about tank town.

Obviously, it's a fucking horrifying situation 100 of the time all around what tank town but like it's our job it's our job as jokesters to say things like a tank that shoots corn docks justin's over there looking like he has diarrhea and he doesn't know what to do about it no i was thinking yeah i got lost in my own head for a second because of all my good ideas because of how it was it was when you were gonna get rid of all the tanks not get rid of them

sell sell them good this part's important good collectors yeah when you said you wouldn't...

Okay, here's what happens.

Tanks can neither be created nor destroyed.

So I can't get rid of them.

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

Cool.

That's a good idea.

Yeah, that should be fun.

About tanks.

Oh, no.

It's just when Travis started talking about not selling the tanks.

I started thinking about that time and Superman went and scooped up all of our weapons and threw them in the sun.

Remember that part in Superman 4?

A lot of people don't talk about it, but in Superman 4, superman scoops up all the nuclear weapons on the planet yeah which he knows about

this that's

he yeah x-rays okay so he gets all the nuclear bombs of the planet and then he throws them in the sun yeah do you think

I mean, Superman's great and indestructible.

We love it.

But do you think he talked to any science guys

about that at all?

And he's like, I'm not a bombologist for sure.

Yeah.

But like, it does seem

wild that he just kind of made that call.

Do you think too, when he landed back and he was like, I got rid of all the nuclear weapons?

Like, the science guys and stuff were like, oh, my God, you got rid of all the nuclear weapons and all the stuff to make more nuclear weapons.

And he was like, oh, shit.

Oh, no.

I'll be right back.

I got to go get one on the middle.

I think soups probably did some back of the napkin math.

According to They Might Be Giants, a million Earths could fit inside of one sun and a million nuclear bombs can fit in one earth.

Yeah.

So that's like a Google bombs.

I think it would take quite a lot to blow up the sun, but it would have been nice to know if he had done like a press conference beforehand, even shortly beforehand, like, hey, I'm Superman, I'm going to take your bombs.

There's nothing you can do to stop me.

I'm going to throw them into the sun.

If you happen to be a Sunologist and you know stuff about how that could be disastrous for the whole solar system, hit me up.

And he has like a public.

Right now, I'm going to pick them all up.

I'm going to park them on Saturn.

as a placeholder.

And then if you guys tell me it's cool, you're going to take them to the sun.

If we want to do them one at a time, just as 10 at a time, I think is okay.

We'll do 10 at a time.

If there's like a crazy flare, I'll be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

it's like, yeah, it's exactly what I'm saying.

Superman, Superman.

Hi, Jiff, Jeffson, Daily Planet.

Couldn't you just throw them anywhere else in the whole gala, in the whole universe?

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

And also, you know, like Doomsday's Out Out There

and

Mega Zor and all the other Superman bad guys, and they could collect those things up.

You know what I mean?

You can hit the Guardians of the Galaxy with that, then where are we at?

Yeah, you got to be careful with that.

Captain Planet told him to do it, and he was like, yeah, let's do it.

It is a bad idea to talk about this considering that it is, I mean, four or five days before the episode comes out while we record this.

We don't know what the situation is.

I did see Mike Johnson on the news this morning that absolutely fucking choed penis wrinkle up on a stage saying, if the Democrats don't get it together, we're going to have to start laying off federal workers.

You hate that shit, don't you, Michael?

Michael, that's your

favorite.

Start.

Going to have to start.

We hate laying off federal.

Fuck off, choed nuts.

Get him.

Yeah, get him, Griffin.

I hate how much oxygen I share with that absolute fucking choed wrinkle.

Fuck that dude.

Yeah.

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

He came out.

Someone came up to him.

He was like, hey, your president's embarrassing himself, man.

And he's like, I didn't see the whole military speech thing.

Eat both of these nuts, Mike.

Johnson, you fucking chose.

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

Michael!

I did it.

Didn't see that one.

Did say it.

No,

I was watching the new season of the bear.

I know I'm a little behind, but I haven't been keeping up with current events.

I only read LeMange.

Is it LeMange?

This is an advice show.

I want to help you, the people.

I collect rubber ducks.

In recent years, this has become pretty common, and they're popping up in more and more stores.

As a result, when I mention my collection nowadays, I'll get a casual, oh, I'm a fan of collects them too, or something casual like that.

The thing is, you've used casual twice in two two clauses.

My friend, I know exactly what your problem is with this new wave of duck collectors.

It couldn't be that they're casual, huh?

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

and have about three.

I didn't even finish the fucking question.

I knew you had your number.

Not that exact number.

I would have guessed 300 unique ducks.

How can I casually assert my dominance as the inevitably superior collector that's from Buoyancy Bother in Virginia?

We're going to have to put on the hat of someone who celebrates a sort of gatekeeping, which is not our usual position to take.

But I do think, I do fully, fully understand why it would get your hackles up.

My oldest says that he has a rubber duck collection because he gets a rubber duck every time he goes to the dentist.

My friends, he has like nine.

And then some of them are cool.

He has one big glittery one.

I like that a lot.

That's a cool rubber duck.

He's got a whole spot in his bedroom where he displays them.

That's great.

but come on i don't know

i don't uh listen i'm gonna gatekeep gatekeeping for a second i don't know that differentiating a collection versus i have several of those that's more of like let's let's make words mean something more than it is gate if you said i like rubber ducks and you said you don't like rubber ducks i like rubber ducks because i have 300 of them but if you're like yeah my friend collects those and you're like how many do they have?

And they're like, five.

It's like, no, they have several of them.

But it's just like everybody feels like a phony all the time, man.

Not me.

You don't want me to do anything.

That's true.

And Travis doesn't.

Some people don't.

Okay.

A lot of people feel like a phony all the time.

You don't have to do anything to make people feel like a phony, right?

I understand the compulsion, but if you

peacock a little bit,

it's a different bird.

Travis is right on this one.

It's a fully different bird.

They don't even say anything.

You

are ostentatious

with your ducks.

Then I think that they're going to fill in the blanks there, and they're going to see what a joke they are.

They're going to recognize themselves for the Jabroni that they are.

They're going to know that your superiority there.

They're going to know the tip of the flying V, such as it is.

Now, let me ask you this, Justin.

Is there a scenario in which Question Asker is talking about very proudly their duck collection?

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

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

Yeah, everybody does that.

That's when you have to drop.

That's when you should.

Okay.

Yeah.

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

Burners, not your faves.

Keep them.

Not your faves.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no.

You need to be able to toss some on the ground and walk away.

That's how good your collection is.

These are literal trash to me.

This is gravel.

Hold up like a special limited edition, like Christina Aguilera, like Dirty Era sort of like cross-promo record launch duck.

And they're like, you're like, pretty cool, hon.

They're like, holy shit, where'd you even get that?

You say, and you crush it in your hand, you throw it in the guard.

You say, it doesn't matter.

I have 30 of them.

I got 30 of you.

I have 30.

I want you ducks all over my floor.

We're probably the first people to make that.

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

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

We take a breath

for the historians to write it down.

Let's go get it.

Clip it.

Awesome.

Clip it out.

Clip it out.

Which makes it easier for history to find it.

When history is trying to find it later, the big ones.

Take a little parentheses around around the junk.

A little parenthetical, a silence parenthetical.

That was when they changed everything.

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

This was the episode, The Music Died.

We'll all remember.

I think a great solve for this, and this is one that you can use for so many fucking things that you want to use as a conversation starter or a subtle means of displaying your superiority in your duck collection, is set it as your desktop on your phone, your wallpaper, whatever you call it.

People call it different things in different countries.

Your desktop wallpaper on your phone.

Make it all of your ducks.

People are going to see that because it's bright and colorful.

They'll be like, wow, it's a lot of ducks.

You say, thanks, they're mine.

Do you want to see more photos of them?

Don't tell me about your friend.

They'll be too embarrassed.

They'll know if they see it.

They'll know that it's not appropriate to bring up their friend.

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

well mine juice you think about how many times you're doing that a day they only have 300 ducks so they could pull off this gambit approximately 10 times you are you have to go back for your boys you gotta get yeah you can you can ducks fly together you know what I mean yeah yeah you can drop them in a flourish but ducks fly oh man holy shit though I almost think

Because of my prioritizing avoiding uncomfortable social scenarios, it would be worse to have this be public information because, do you know how many fucking scrouty row, basic ass,

canary yellow rubber ducks you are going to get sitting on your?

You come in, they know it's your birthday, they put a basic ass rubber duck.

Like, enjoy, what the fuck am I going to do with this?

I do this platonic ideal of a rubber duck.

There is an early level of intervention, though, where you set that up: like, listen, I love receiving ducks if

they are like appropriate for the collection.

And now you've given your coworkers or friends like the hunt, right?

Where they're going to bring it and like, what about this one?

I've done this one.

It's special.

And when they get the approval on that, that's when it feels so good.

And it's like, yeah, that's worthy.

You nailed it.

That's great.

If you had...

A big rubber duck collection, wouldn't you want to display it in like a huge, like hook a duck rotating aquatic display like you would have a whole room in your house and you walk people would walk in and you they're just going like they're not sitting on a shelf collecting dust oh yeah they're like in a ring of moving water they're in a ring of moving water like a carnival game but these are absolutely not child's prizes these are adult collectors items That would be so cool.

Man, I hate that you used the word adult before things.

It just is, I think it's been ruined for me.

The second you say adult collector's items, I'm like, ugh.

Yeah.

What's up with these ducks?

they're they are they are butt ducks

i love popsicles and i was thinking about maybe bringing some to work as a delightful afternoon snack there's a freezer and the popsicles are individually wrapped what's the etiquette on bringing these treats into the office for context i'm specifically speaking about the frozen treats on a stick

Not the flavored ice in a sleeve or iced cream.

The flavor would most likely be fruit flavored.

So no bombs.

Thank you.

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

These are important details, though.

They are important details.

You know what?

Maybe it would be better to use it.

What the fuck do you think bomb pops tastes like?

Bomb-pop.

Give me a, it's a cadoozi.

Give me a fucking push-pop.

Maybe that would be unconventional.

I might, I might.

They're all fruit flavors.

There's two kinds of fruit flavors.

I know, but Justin, you have to recognize in a professional setting, you see Derek from Accounting bust out a flute-flavored popsicle.

Sorry.

Sorry.

You said flute.

So we have to play.

What's playable?

Like those candies, you know, like tooth sweets from

Twitch.

Bing bang.

Look, I'd destroy a tooth sweet right now.

We all would.

But

you see that, and it's like, now that's almost a professional affectation.

I see a bomb pop.

I'm like, that's a child working an adult's job.

Yeah.

What's the adult?

I guess there are like those fucking fancy chocolate ones that you see where they like really drizzle on the that that good chocolate stuff.

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

You're right.

It's not an ice cream.

It's a fruit flavor.

You're right.

There is the ones we've tried to do this where it's like, hey, there's pieces of real fruit inside and like give those to our kids.

And our kids are like, what do you think I want out of a popsicle experience?

Because father, this is not it.

It's not the world's hardest strawberry.

I'll tell you that much.

It's just like the gap between, it's like

the biggest gap in the world is the gap between how kids think they feel feel about smoothies and how kids really feel about smoothies.

Right, for sure.

100%.

Kids are obsessed because

we had a lot of cartoons that were in their age that were like trying to popularize healthy eating.

You got to eat smoothies.

Daniel Tiger went ape shit for it.

They love, conceptually love smoothies.

Well, that was, he was doing protein.

He was protein packing because he wanted to get huge.

Like his dad, he wanted to get huge, like his dad.

That was the whole thing where the, do you remember

the chunk of episodes where the lion moved into town and and like took yeah he like walked up to daniel tiger's dad and like fucking punched him in the face and then took his house yeah took his house and his wife and his watch and it's like his dad is like the power's not gonna cut it daniel if you want real games you gotta eat a gazette so they he had to protein pack on you remember that it was the one prince wednesday did die he died from the lion attack kids don't like smoothies that's all i was gonna say i

i can't

where you guys have popsicles?

Because I, I, guys, I bring these flavored treats out to the pool.

My kids love them.

Yeah.

I can't.

I don't like any popsicles.

That's cool.

That's.

I understand any popsicles.

They give me a tummy ache weirdly, especially the ones in the plastic sleeve.

It's just like straight sugar water.

Now you say weirdly, they contain carbon.

So I don't understand why it is weird that they give you a tummy ache.

I will fuck absolutely with a Philly swirl.

Sometimes those come in cups with a stick, but they do make them in popsicle forms.

Those are so lit.

Justin, you do.

Philly swirl people, please make a box of the cotton candy ones.

You only put two in there, and it's ruining my life.

Yeah.

Please.

I mean, it's my favorite, but for the kids, the kids got it.

You do a box of cotton candy.

Hey, as long as we're on this, I see you all out there, popsicle makers, the animals, all y'all.

You know, you got one good flavor and one shit flavor, and you do combo boxes to get that shit flavor out of the warehouse.

Cut it the fuck out.

Cut it out.

We're on to you.

And stop putting people they like on flavors.

Stop putting people they like on flavors they don't.

I'm tired of telling my kid I can't get him Olaf's horseradish crunch because my son, my son Jeremy despises horseradish.

So I can't buy it for him.

You don't like spaghetti.

I'm not getting you.

I'm not getting you the ragu with the battle bus on it, dude.

I'm getting spidey spaghetti.

You don't like spidey spaghetti.

You hate spaghetti.

You love Spider-Man.

He won't make it taste good.

It won't taste how Spider-Man feels to you to see him.

I know the spaghetti is like Webb's, but it doesn't.

It doesn't translate.

It doesn't.

That doesn't translate.

I can't make the pasta look more like Spider-Man.

There's only so much I can make it look like.

I know it fell apart with your spoon, sweeteny.

You're supposed to.

It's supposed to.

You're supposed to eat Spider-Man.

I like it because I like spaghetti, but you don't.

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

And

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

Now, watch me eat it.

You got to label your box of popsicles, first of all, but you also got to know that

with individually wrapped popsicle, you are creating a very stealable situation.

It's one of the more stealable foods.

Anything individually wrapped in like a box of more than four,

you could totally lose one of those just to just aft.

Shrinkage.

Shrinkage is what they do call it.

What if you made your own popsicles?

This is a fun summertime activity, and it's not really summer anymore, but it is fun to make a popsicle.

And then no one's going to really go after those.

And I think if they see you eating them and they see like little herbs and shit floating around in there, it does lend it a certain, like, I don't know, veneer of adulthood.

Um, wow, you guys fucking hated that idea.

No, I liked it so much.

I despised that idea.

I was picturing in my head, Griffin, when I'm anytime we talk about like an office behavior outside of any normal, like regular established procedures, right?

Right.

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

The office popsicle.

The office popsicle guy.

Okay, I can see it.

Every day, 1:30, he has a popsicle to get him over that hump and make it to five o'clock.

We love that.

Probably good.

Bespoke popsicle guy who makes his own like basil lemonade.

I think that's cool.

I think that's kind of cool.

That's what I'm trying to determine.

I'd get into it.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think we might have a solution to this problem

from Wheeling, West Virginia with our own budget saver.

That company is the company behind Twin Pops.

No way.

Twin Pops might be

just the thing.

Because imagine anytime someone goes to the freezer and they come out with one, you have a little bell.

Yes.

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

Cotch.

You will not get much work done.

You will be primarily watching the kitchen to see if someone comes out with one of these pops.

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

splitsies.

Yes.

You know, two fur.

There's two there.

One for me.

Thank you.

One.

One fur.

One for me.

One.

One fur.

One fur.

Two fur.

One fur.

Two fur.

One fur.

We're splitting.

Two fur ass, one for me.

We're splitting them.

Have you ever tried to split one of those in a clean half?

Not doable.

Twin pops.

We should get up to wheeling because we could probably access that factory.

You need preparation.

Just one little preparation, please.

That's all I'm asking.

I have a get a get a daughter, get a daughter that cries if you do it wrong.

You'll learn.

You'll get a real, you'll get fucking.

I got, you know, no shit.

I got Martin Yan's crazy butcher knife above my stove for when my kid wants a twin pop and I can't deal with the breakdown and I need perfect, that perfect precision.

That perfect carbon steel.

We don't talk about the 50 degrees of

carbon steel.

I've gotten so good at eyeballing, splitting a drink into two cups.

Like, I'm like,

I bet it's to the micron.

You know what I mean?

Like, I got

we got a we got a pizza delivered earlier this week, and something happened to it en route, and it showed up.

And when we opened the box, it was like half squished into like one half of the box.

It was a tragedy.

A lot of the cheese had just like come off almost all the slices that it all kind of like squished into each other.

It was a horrible situation.

And Gus is so so picky about his pizza.

If he sees any sauce through the cheese stratum, he will not, he will not fuck with it.

So this is me in the fucking kitchen hovering over this pizza mush trying to create a solid layer of cheese coverage on one of these reconstructed slices and then like putting it in the, in the broiler for a second to try to melt the cheese because if he knows it's patchwork stuff, he's not going to fuck with it.

It will

the most degrading moment in my entire life.

Oh, Griff.

Oh, Griff, buddy.

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

You got to eat the slop.

That's dinner, baby.

Can we go to the menu?

Oh, dang it, Griffin.

I was going to say it, and then I technically didn't say it.

I said a series of syllables.

Can I tell you what's wild?

I'm already there.

Laurel.

Shit.

I'm in the money zone.

Travis, who's in there with you?

You two.

No.

Travis, those are.

Travis, that's not us.

What?

That's not us.

Travis, get out of there.

It's hallelujah.

You know why I like doing ads for Squarespace?

Why?

Why?

Why?

I like

a sponsor that is all about creation.

That's what Squarespace, for me, it is a creative tool.

You got a project you want to do.

You don't know the best way to get started, a website is a great place to get going.

And I'm I bet that if Squarespace was around at the dawn of time, God would have used it to create the earth, probably with the with these like best-in-class templates, absolutely he would have.

But he, the problem is that they're created by world-class designers, and I don't think there were any world-class designers before God made the earth.

Okay, that's the first thing he would have made then, the designers.

In the beginning, there was designers.

You all The word from here.

The word was designers, and the word was with designers.

Thank you so much, Squarespace.

Oh, there's more.

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

You can use these websites, they're not just vanity things.

You can use them to sell stuff.

Yeah, you could use them to sell your products if you want.

You could use it to organize events, whatever you want to do, a website.

Squarespace makes it really easy.

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Fuck.

Imagine rocket money is like a defense system with little rockets targeted at your unused subscriptions.

And when those unused subscriptions try to hove into your bank account, it's like bew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.

And it takes those unwanted subscriptions out, takes them down.

That's a little bit more.

Yeah, wow, that's such a violent way of thinking about it.

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

I was thinking more like the Space Invaders video game, you know?

There's no gore.

There would be no gore, Griffin.

Is that what you're concerned about?

So you're like, you have like your Fart P and a Deluxe subscription that your son.

signed you up for because his fingerprint, I guess, is close enough to yours.

Yeah.

And

it zaps that, but no blood or anything.

No, no, no, no, no.

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And then I don't have to pay $6.99 a fucking week because Rocket Money helped me out.

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Are you serious?

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Today, that's rocketmoney.com slash my brother.

Rocketmoney.com slash my brother.

Now everybody knows that the greatest generation has always been Max Fun's go-to podcast for old Star Trek recaps.

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All right.

Okay.

That was so cool.

I want a munch.

Squad.

I want to munch.

Squad.

Damn.

Welcome to Munch Squad's podcast.

It's been a podcast profiling the latest and greatest in brand eating.

That was a little bit...

Like when Frampton runs the tube from his mouth into a car.

He's like a talk box, baby.

And then he talks through it.

That was your really good Peter Frampton talk box impression travel.

Thank you.

Who knew?

Okay.

I can never do it again.

Never again.

It's rare that

almost almost it's rare that like an entire movement can be summed up in one image.

And it's even rarer that I would do that in an audio format.

Huh.

We've made it.

Yeah.

Looks like we made it.

Can I say?

Can I just say what is in?

Yeah, so this is Trav.

What drop it?

What we

as modern day human beings might at first mistake for a windy sign.

yeah a big windy sign up in the sky so admittedly without any of the excess stuff on it just the windy's picture and then where it would say windy's it says tendies

right

and there's a godlike beam of light shining upon it from that there is a weird number of god rays uh in this picture they basically just swap the w with a t and you can tell that's what happened because the kerning is like fucked up yeah like you can tell a w was supposed to go there not a capital t yeah but this is the headline.

Without context, though, I just want to say, Tendy's doesn't read like chicken tenders to me so much as like, we're going to treat you tenderly here at Wendy's.

Yeah, I could see that.

There's the headline, guys.

A new chicken era dawns at Wendy's.

That's the story.

From we are still cleaning up after the last chicken era.

The fact that a new one has settled this quickly has already begun.

This is going to confresh the future paleontologists who dig up all these chicken bones.

Yeah, for sure.

There was a whole extinction event that they're not even going to see.

Wendy's Fresh, Never Frozen Square Burgers holds deep roots in chicken, too, with its spicy chicken sandwich arriving in 1995, a good 24 years before the so-called chicken sandwich wars enveloped the category on social media.

Okay.

But

U.S.

CMO Lindsey Rykosky and the team recognized more pressing trends swirling in recent years.

Guys, we're eating a wild amount of chicken.

We can't get enough of this stuff.

That's the thing.

And they cannot sell enough of it through the judicial method.

Hence,

Dendy's.

What is that, Justin?

Because so far it just looks like they're announcing they Photoshop to sign.

For Wendy's.

Radkoski says the brand had two choices, as is often the case when it

elevates into a frenzy.

It could race to join in or it could watch, learn, and arrive to market on its own terms.

Fucking great.

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

Yeah, we are very smart.

These other dummies rushed to market to make money off the trend.

We waited until the trend started to die down.

And now we're going to try to scrape up all the money that's left.

The fix, the leavings.

Rad Koski says Wendy spent more than a year, quote, probably closer to 18 months on development of the COVID-19.

You don't know?

You don't have to correct.

You can fix that in the press release.

Yeah, I know, yeah, 100%.

They should know exactly how long that they did.

This is a news story.

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

I was just reflecting on how it was a similar timeframe

to create the first COVID vaccine.

These

creation will kill COVID.

In laboratory conditions.

Yeah.

Wendy's involved franchisees and tested through a couple of markets.

In addition to flavor and appearance, it wanted to pilot Tendys

in the real world.

Guys, they took 18 months to come up with to change the one letter, yeah.

Yeah, they got six sauces, Wendy's signature, sweet chili, scorchin' hot, creamy ranch, honey barbecue, and honey mustard.

Can we cut, can we not have a little bit more more originality in the sauce department, guys?

18 months to come up with what?

10.

What?

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

Really good chicken tenders.

And just recreate those.

Just make those.

Returning to the broader theme for Wendy's, Radkoski says, it would have been easy to look around and observe the chicken surge.

And maybe

we should have done that.

That would be a good idea.

Yeah, we don't know.

Fuck.

Wendy's wanted to begin the process with customers.

Quote, why are they eating more chicken now than they have?

And as we started to do the work on our menu more recently, as we were looking at the next chapter for Wendy's staying modern, relevant to younger QSR customers, as we refine our consumer target.

So

that's why.

And then she says, simply, core menu or innovation, quote, we've done a lot with chicken.

Elite sinister.

No doubt.

Most of which we couldn't tell our priest about.

Let's put it that way.

Yeah, it's an evil.

There's a wickedness there.

We're really known for flavor, she adds.

So when we thought about what's out there right now, the choices consumers have and the unique place we believe Wendy's can carve out.

It wasn't only about the tender itself, but the sauces became a huge part of the conversation.

And really where we saw a lot of excitement when we did work with the customers.

If you didn't get excited about honey

barbecue at this point, I don't know what to tell you.

You're on a whole nother thing than

I want to get on your list.

That's cool.

I was on TikTok today and I saw an ad for garbage pail kids books written by R.L.

Stein.

That just happened, right?

Yeah.

And you want me to get excited about honey mustard?

Yeah.

And even that, I assume, choose a very small reaction from you.

Like, like that's what it takes even that got a

pressing Can I say honey mustard to be nutting over honey mustard is crazy so far from this press release what I have gathered is they spent 18 months

Determining that people like to eat chicken tenders with sauces

I literally still do not know what the news is here.

What is the action item for me as a consumer of Wendy's?

Well, I mean

I did clarify that the entirety of the story was contained within the image.

And I was not, I mean, tendies, guys.

Tendies.

They have chicken tenders.

They decided to not make them taste like shit.

And people like dipping them and stuff.

They did.

They had a press release.

They didn't have chicken tenders before.

They didn't.

There's a new chicken tinders.

They didn't have chicken tenders.

I can't even do that with confidence.

I didn't fucking know.

I didn't know that.

So, like, who gives a shit, Wendy's?

Yeah, Griffin, but then, but

so

they go on.

They go on.

There's many paragraphs.

Here's another quote from Red Koski.

You think about a portfolio.

What?

How do you maximize reach and grow coverage with consumers and have things that are very unique and distinct to Wendy's?

By having honey mustard.

One example is sweet chili.

Wendy's could have unveiled a sweet and sour sour sauce and stayed pedestrian, she says, but this presented a chance to unroll an updated taste.

There's more flavor intensity and balance, and it's relevant to a Gen Z category that flocks to sauces.

Flocks to sauce.

That flocks to sauces.

Something else Wendy's noticed, and guys, this one is really going to trip you up.

They noticed through research and hands-on tests where customers, again, with a spotlight on younger cohorts, like to mix sauces and make meals meals more personal.

They combine ranch with scorching hot, for instance.

That mixability, it really leads to endless ways you can create flavor with Wendy's sauces.

But what I was in mind when we thought about how the sauces complement each other within the lineup as well.

That's cool.

So, then was it

you had a good think about like, but what if they mix creamy ranch with that?

What if they mix creamy wrench in there

originally all of our all of our sauces were sort of chemically repulsive to each other like oil and water they would not actually mix but we realized one of them was baking soda and vinegar and guys that was a mistake that was not a good sauce Wendy's signature is Wendy's signature creamy sauce with hints of black pepper and hot sauce.

I mean, credit to them.

I'm not going to put that in my body.

Like, I don't know.

Do you guys?

Okay.

Okay.

I have a, I have a big idea for you.

Okay.

They recently did.

You got to get this fucking picture of chicken tenders off my screen, Jose.

It is making me hungry.

So hungry.

Yeah.

They did a

Wendy's promotion recently with Wednesday, where it was like a bunch of wild sauces and they were all colored.

So you couldn't really tell what the sauces were.

And you had to kind of guess.

And they had names

like blood from a

dog.

Here's my theory.

This is my fan theory.

I think that those are are all the sauces that they made for tests.

And then they were like, fuck, nope.

This all is too crazy.

We can't.

Well,

let's just keep the normal ones, okay?

They didn't like mummy piss, guys.

They did not like this.

They hated mummy piss.

We got to get rid of that.

I told you we should have done Chipotle mummy piss.

That's where the youth cohort is at.

Chipotle mummy piss.

These young freaks like it's spicy.

They don't care that it's piss.

They don't care that it's piss.

It's the spice that they crave.

There's a reason Wendy's dropped six options instead of one.

Redkoski admits it's a crowded space, but being distinctly Wendy's in a sea of fast food options is nothing new to the brand's marketing ethos.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like.

None of that means shit.

Like, those are just words.

Those are words put in an order that our human brains ascribe meaning to and yet say fucking nothing.

Gotcha.

Hey, speaking of, would you like a full quote about why it is called this?

Yeah.

Because you are probably wondering about it, right?

Like, how could you?

We like to have fun, and it doesn't have to be super serious.

Okay.

Our name so easily lends itself to a nickname for the product.

Yeah.

And the way we're going to talk about it is our tenders are so bold and juicy and crispy and the sauces are so amazing.

You're going to want to know them on a first name basis.

This is beyond, I think AI wrote this, and it's putting me in a headspace of like, maybe it's all, like, maybe it's all AI matrix, human battery, and I'm asleep.

And because

there's simply no way

a human being got a hand on this particular ball.

That is a profoundly wild thing to say.

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

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

tenders?

I can geek out on some of what the team went through, she says, of the ideation process.

It takes time.

And we had conversations once we knew what was happening competitively.

We said, we're not going to rush it.

We're not going to change our launch date.

We're going to do it our way.

The boxes don't say Tindys.

They say Wendy's.

I don't ever want to go there again.

Did it take them?

It just sucks, dude.

I don't ever want to go there again.

Can I ask a serious question?

And we've talked about this, obviously, on Munch Squad a lot before.

Yeah.

You're plugged into the QSR space.

How many, just rough estimate.

I'm rolling captive.

Just rough estimate.

How many major news publications, how many verticals are out there covering the QSR space that would need the help of a full press release to write the story?

Wendy's Has Chicken Tenders Now.

QSR is not, it's not just for Marketing Griffin.

It's about, it's a historical document.

You know what I mean?

So like three or four maybe top publications.

Okay.

So this is a job for someone is to write this whole thing.

The whole thing.

For those four places and you.

That's crazy.

That's like really bespoke service journalism.

It's really wild that they're doing it.

It almost feels like vanity journalism.

Like we'll, like, we'll name a star after you.

You know what I mean?

Like, we'll do a, we'll do a, a, a long feature story about how you came up with Tindy's, just so you can frame it.

I can't stress it.

I think this is just so they have something to frame in the offices, right?

You've shared the details here with us, Justin, and I once again have to reiterate a little bit of telling on themselves.

Once again, 18 months spent, people like chicken tenders, dipping in sausage.

Sometimes they mix them.

And have you ever noticed that Wendy's sounds like Tindy's?

Yeah, so I want to look at the packaging real quick.

I know, Griffin, can you just clock if you just look at the packaging?

They don't do, I got to say, pictures of chicken tenders without dip are repugnant to me.

This does nothing for me.

Yeah, it's really rough.

It's really rough.

They need to be dipped in something.

Looking at them

by,

by the way, this is a core product offering.

Okay.

They're having a picnic out on a picnic table.

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

I don't want you to look at the fries.

Don't look at the fries right now.

We're sorry the fries are touching our picnic table.

It's crazy.

That's crazy, man.

So you look at the packaging there.

The details work down to packaging.

Tendies come in vessels built for dunking with a dip cup cut out.

Vessels built for dunking.

That's a submarine.

A submarine is a vessel built for dunking.

Take upon yourself this sacrament.

Take the vessel, the empty vessel.

In a way, my children, we are all vessels meant for dunking.

Come, get baptized.

It's got a dip cup cut cup dip shot din chop It's got a dip cup cut out that holds sauces quote It's a reflect

It's a reflection of how consumers want to eat

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

Yeah, it's a reflection of how consumers want to eat we want to enable a better elevated experience of a little perforation or a cutout for the sauce.

I do not think perforation

Those are things that take a little bit of time, Travis.

An 18-month timeline in total, and then producing for 6,000 restaurants in the U.S.

at scale, training our system.

We wanted to do it the right way, which made it

want to crush it.

Derek said, let's get it out there.

We fired him.

This is what she said, which maybe meant it wasn't maybe the fastest as you think about some of our competitors and other things that have launched recently.

I'm looking right now at the Wendy's online website at the menu for placing a delivery or pickup order of Wendy's.

And this particular menu item is found under tenders, and you can get three-piece tenders or four-piece tenders.

They don't even call them Wendy's Tendies on the menu.

I've never thought of this before.

I never thought this of a press release, but it's lying.

It's lying.

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

So

the chain often frames their approach as, quote, not outspending the other guys, but outplaying them, which is 4D chess.

Yeah, man.

Don't tell us about that.

That's the podcast game we've been playing the whole time.

Yeah.

Be late to trends.

Do them very poorly.

You see it everywhere from SAS on social media to collaborations, such as its SpongeBob Krabby Patty setup, to the more recent Wednesday meal of misfortune, i.e., please take all these gravy sauces.

We don't know what to do.

The landfill smells weird and we can't put any more in the landfill.

The landfill guy, the landfill guy, said we couldn't put any more there.

He said, no more.

So we got it, you got to eat them, please.

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

Yeah, because they've been looking into like a cave system in Nevada where they said we could store these things for up to 50 years.

But I thought he said they've been crawling out strong.

So I do feel a little bit

I feel a little bit better about wrong than strong.

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

This is the I'll tell you how this ends because it really does go on like

we will make it really fun and bring to life a craft that went into the development of the product itself, the experience, the sauces, so that people can experience it in a hands-on, immersive way.

That's that's because the tendies locations are going to have a red carpet feel there's going to be tendies

restaurants you see a red carpet feel tendies experience it's a playful takeover approach where are these going to happen because if i don't fucking see it i am not going to believe it probably california i mean they get all the fucking fun stuff man yeah probably yeah and one thing Rydkoski wants to make clear however is tendies are not a fleeting moment in the product timeline okay joining these windy central offerings and giving the brand another anchor to leverage a chicken category that's driving growth and occasions throughout the segment.

And again, she says, that's why we took the time to do it right.

To leverage our tenders.

I want to eat chicken tenders so

bad.

Yeah.

Not these.

Not these.

Maybe, but like any.

They're all

kind of the same.

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

You guys still like Wendy's, right?

Not a gangrovan.

Trav, Justin would have, I would have gotten it.

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

Thanks, Travis.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, baby.

Let's wrap this.

Let's wrap this up.

I'm tired.

I'm Travis.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to our podcast i hope you're enjoying some um wendy's chicken tenders uh griff do you like wendy's we got some new merch up in the merch store over at macroymerch.com there's a taz hunger beanie uh with some rad eyeball design it's gonna keep you warm and spooky in these cold and spooky months and 10 of all of our merch proceeds this month will be donated to border angels which uh offers services like educational programs water drops in the desert day laborer outreach, familias reunite us, immigration bond fund program, and shelter aid support in Tijuana to aid migrants and asylum seekers in need.

It's again, macrowaymerch.com.

And hey, we got a few more shows coming up.

Not much, not many opportunities to come see us.

If you live in or around Salt Lake City or San Diego, we're coming up there in just like, I don't know.

Next week, I guess.

Something like that.

We've also got

the TAS show we're doing on that tour is going to be our 50th TAS live show to celebrate.

We're doing a balance show with Erica Ishii as a special guest, and Griffin is going to be running that one.

Fine.

The tickets are on sale now.

You can go to bit.ly slash McElroyTours.

Also, Champions Grove is coming back for its third year for Memorial Day weekend

in May.

Travis, didn't you say it was going to be sponsored by Wendy's?

No, and the tickets for that are going to go on sale November 3rd at 12 p.m.

Eastern Time.

Get all the details at championsgrove.com or by following Champions Grove on Instagram.

Yeah.

Hey, thanks to Montane for the use of our theme song, My Life is Better With You.

It's a great,

great album.

That new album, it's Hard to Be a Fish.

All Montane's music is so great.

I love to listen to it at home.

It gives me a break from listening to Imagine Dragons on my

sort of public house speakers.

Juice, do you like Imagine Dragons?

Grimity, you have the Montane album on CD.

Do you like Imagined Dragons, Justin?

Do we have a fear?

Justin looks like he's been killed.

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

Do you have the Montane record on CD?

I just, I,

yeah, I have it on CD.

CD's nuts.

I feel like not.

I feel like not.

Okay, Trad, do you want to do we have a fear?

We do.

I'll read it.

CD's nuts.

This year, I will live faster than my fear of witnessing a tense social situation in public and being approached by John Quinones after I've failed to intervene.

That's fucking good and true and powerful.

My name is Justin McElroy.

I'm Travis McElroy.

I'm Griffin McElroy.

This has been my brother.

My brother may kiss your dad square on the lips.

It's better with you.

It's better, it's better with you.

It's better.

It's better, it's better with you.

Cause it's true.

It's better, it's better with you.

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