Setup - The Adventure Zone: Abnimals

What's up, you radical Taz fans?

I'm your game runner, Travis McEroy.

Hi, we are about to be so rich.

We're about to get so rich off this one.

Oh, boy.

I think this has the potential to be our most lucrative one yet.

You're talking about Toyetics.

The Toyetics on this one are through the roof, dudes.

Let's just say this.

What's up, kids?

If you've never listened before, we're the McElroy brothers and our dad, Clint.

So the McElroy guys.

But he's not a narcissist.

Don't worry.

He's a cool dad.

He's sitting backward in his chair.

I'm cool, man.

Yeah.

I don't know if your parents have ever told you about the Avenger Zone or your Guardian or whatever, but that's this.

And we're going to do a story just for you to hang out with them and everybody to have fun together.

Now, what does that mean?

We're going to try to avoid profanity.

Now, that's interesting, kid.

I should mention.

Why did you say try, Justin?

I don't like that.

There's no level of commitment there.

I will try.

Our editor, Rachel, will succeed in not letting there be any profanity in here.

I got to say, kids, I'm really excited.

I'll be honest with you, I cuss in front of my kids, so I don't know.

I feel like I'm living kind of a glasshouse

standard.

I do not.

And I've got both of them just to the sides of my desk.

They are watching me like fleshy statues that look a lot like me.

And they have to be.

I've never cussed in my entire life.

So this isn't going to be boring.

It's going to be fun.

Yeah.

I promise.

Okay.

what what about minced oaths can we minced oaths who okay i would like to darn a favor darn is okay darn is okay i would like to yeah i would like to not say darn please what about shucky darn absolutely not so ding dang it

ding dang darn i'm gonna be dang it i'm gonna

be careful i'm gonna be sick from all this profanity so i want to start uh from the beginning so when we were uh discussing what was gonna to come after Taz versus Dracula,

which is not for you, kids.

That one's got...

That one's

67.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, very cool.

And so the part of the discussion that we kind of got to was like choosing a thing because I wanted to run the next one.

I think it was Justin who was like, you need to think about like, what's the thing?

that makes complete and total sense that you would be the one like telling the story and that it just is a perfect fit.

And for a while now, I've had running segments on my brother, my brother, and me about abnormals, which is my term for primarily, it was like the late 80s, then through the 90s and early 2000s, different TV shows that were like animals with muscles in places they should not be.

So beginning with Teenage Meat Ninja Turtles in like 1987, and then you had like street sharks and biker mice from Mars.

In my head, it's always like, I always think about animorphs because I always think about if animorphs got stuck halfway, you know what I mean?

If the animorphs got stuck, and

they also all skateboarded and ate hot dogs.

If you sneeze mid-morph, you get stuck in the morph.

Everybody has that.

Now, for me,

the term animals kind of expanded beyond just like street sharks.

I mean, I think it fringes into like dark-winged duck area, a little bit, tailspin.

I would say that there's areas of like Toxic Avenger cartoon that's in there, which was a wild, by the way,

wild call.

Yeah.

There in the 90s.

Basically, and you'll see this in animals where we have it broken down into three categories of like animals that kind of evolved rapidly, like your ninja turtles, people that mutated with animals, like street sharks.

battle toads that kind of thing and then you have like aliens which both includes like other planets or like fantasy, other dimensions kind of things, like your gargoyles and

I want to say Cowboys of Moon Man.

No, Bike and Rice from Mars is rather from Mars, where it's just a planet where they are

that.

And in discussing that, like in talking about it, it also then just made complete sense to try to embrace the kind of Saturday morning cartoon feel of it, which is where that concept comes from.

And if that's the case, why not make it so like everyone can listen and maybe not be embarrassed that you're listening to it while you drive your kids to school?

No, no, no.

Oh, hold on.

Wait, we can't promise that.

You may still be embarrassed to listen to this show.

We are, I think, in our peak cringe era.

Oh, yeah.

She's embarrassing me.

And so like, you'll be embarrassed by it, but it won't be like you can play it for your friends at church.

Now, I also can't promise that, Griffin, because I have peaked my cringe so many times in like just in the last decade and a half.

I don't know how much more cringey I can be personally.

Sure.

And there might be complicated

morality things maybe you shouldn't play for your friends at church.

Yeah, no cursing, no Satanism.

Well, now hold on.

We're going to have a very positive Christian message in this one.

Can't promise that either.

Skibbity.

Skibbity, Ohio.

We started with that concept and made up a rule set.

Let's see.

Who do we want to start with when we discuss?

We'll kind of go over the rules a little bit when we go through the character sheets.

But

let's start with Griffin.

All right.

Well,

for this season of The Adventure Zone, Abnimals, I will be playing Navy Seal.

He is a SEAL.

He is big boy,

Ocean Commando, and former member of the Royal SEALs,

an all-seal-based team of

heroes.

He is not, nor has he ever been, an active duty service member of our armed forces.

This is something he must make very clear.

anytime he is introduced.

Navy is just his color, right?

Navy is the color of sort of his armor.

That was his assigned color in the the Royal Seals.

However, he was not aware that that is a type of, like, army guy.

And so, or I guess Navy guy.

And so he did, there were accusations of stolen valor that were placed at his feet that led to

his removal from this honorable animal hero team.

Well, did he start life as a seal or a person?

I think he started life as a seal.

I think it would be weird if he was a person first and then got turned into a seal.

Okay, so he evolved rapidly

into this anthropomorphic seal person.

Yes, that's right.

So, yeah, he's a Ross seal, which is a very round type of seal.

Big bug eyes, big bulldog, sort of flappy mouth,

big beefy, well, blubbery body.

He's got a big suit of sort of future armor.

On the scale of shirt pants, both are neither.

I think he's both, but I also think that

it leaves little to the imagination.

So it's a scanty both.

A scanty armor.

He also has a signature item, which is a mechanic in the game that Travis has devised

that he uses a lot, which is basically like the flood pack from Super Mario Sunshine.

It's a sort of double-barreled hydro blaster jet pack that he can use for sort of propulsion or spray combat purposes.

Yeah, or just like, I don't know, if somebody is, well, it's salt water, isn't it?

I was going to say if they're thirsty, but you wouldn't.

I bet he's got a filter that he can slap on

a Brita that he can mix in there.

And yeah, he's sort of the sort of the heavy of the group, I'm imagining.

Sort of the Raphael, but without all the baggage.

A non-toxic Raphael.

A non-toxic Raphael who's sort of.

Your kids can eat this Raphael and you don't even have to worry about it.

It's not recommended.

There's not a lot of vitamins in it, but no Mr.

Yuck sticker on this Raphael.

Yeah, you know, in a bit of a career slump, was riding high with the Royal Seals, but is sort of in a rebuilding phase with this new ragtag

abnormals team.

So the way that the signature item works is anytime you attack with something or attack in general,

you have 2d8 of attack.

But if you're attacking with your signature item, it's a 3d8 attack.

This is a very 8-based system.

Yes, correct.

There's 3d8s that we roll to determine success or failures.

More 3d8s means more chances for success.

That's right.

So your signature item helps you to do that.

So then we have two sets of kind of specialization and skills.

You have your abs skills and your animal skills.

And abs is anything that you have

learned

in training or educated yourself on.

You got to train abs.

You got to train abs.

You don't just get abs.

You earn abs.

And animal.

You remember this stuff you earn.

Like you earn your abs.

You earn your abs.

An animal is

in the church, in the iron church.

Yes, thank you.

And then animal skills or animal moves are anything that is inherent to the species

that the player character is.

Yes.

Ross Seals have this cool thing where they can make these insane noises with

their

neck stuff that they have inside on inside.

They just make like with their neck stuff.

No, that's what I don't care about the noise part, Griffin.

Could you not think of throat and vocal cords?

I guess that's what I was thinking of.

They have these vocalizations they can do to like communicate long distance.

So that's one of the things

that

falls under the skills to pay the bills.

Unlike regular TT RPGs, everybody can, you know, check for a thing or lift up a thing or do that stuff, right?

But each character has like special skills that are related to kind of their abilities and their animal, which are the skills to pay the bills.

So Griffin, what is Navy SEAL's abs skills to pay the bills?

Abs skills hydropropulsion with his with his splash pack.

He also has a skill called bulky boy That just means he's been to the gym a lot and he's hard to knock down.

And then on the animal side, Siren Song, he's got this crazy loud voice he can do stuff with.

And Bug Eyed, because,

man, look at a picture of a Ross Seal.

These are good dudes.

And their eyes are huge and crazy looking.

Excellent.

Yeah.

And we'll talk all about what those do when they come up in the game.

And finally, as far as specialization goes, each character has Mondo moves.

And these are moves that are conditional.

If blank happens, then you can do blank.

And once again, they're broken into abs and animals.

What are Navy SEAL's

abs moves?

Yes.

He has an abs move called Torpedo, where if he is submerged in water, he can launch himself at an enemy at tremendous speed, closing large gaps and dealing a bunch of damage.

That is facilitated by his splash pack.

And then there is on the animal side, Blubber Shield, which lets me take damage for an adjacent friend.

Or I also have baby doll eyes, which is that if me or one of my teammates fails a diplomatic role of some sort, I can bat my

adorable eyes

to try and repeat the role.

They're really good.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, man.

These are good boys.

Oh, my God.

So cute.

Grevin, do you have a stolen valor kink, or is it just like an unrealized path in your life that you never went down?

It is, I think, specifically.

It's just about the Navy, i guess like i've never wanted to be that's not my life but i think i look at the navy could be there it could be huh i look at the navy and i'm like they've got a lot of great ideas over there they're cooking with and i'm just talking about sort of aesthetically like yeah that's my aesthetic what this is the thing about that also the navy can't be problematic because they're just following orders and they're just like you can't be bad it's not army right army is like we go into your place and we like mess it up and we do like all kinds of wild stuff people have some thoughts about navy we're just a beach boat friends on the beach having a great time and we should make it clear we don't know anything about the navy no well now wait man wait wait wait we have maritime blood running to our veins go back to the titanic cursor thomas macre i thought it was herbert

macker herbert herbert i just had a great idea We should have a swear jar, an actual swear jar that we have to put money in.

And then at the end of the season, whoever has swear the least gets gets all the money.

I don't want your guys dirty swear money, I want to donate it somewhere.

No, yeah, I will donate it.

Well, that's bad because that incentivizes swearing.

That's true.

That'll be the that'll be our max fun drive bonus.

All the swears we cut out all in one long track.

Um, and then, uh, like any good

rule system, there is advancement that is based off of like when you score a perfect attack or when uh you fail a roll or all those kinds of things points that up you can spend them but once again we'll get into that as we go

dad tell me about your character my character is Roger Muir

he is

primarily a spy he's a cow yes okay yes

he

is like a master of infiltration.

Well, he thinks he's a master of infiltration.

he's a uh a charolaise cow c-h-a-r-o-l-a-i-s

he's all white and oh wow

this is a beautiful animal oh my god you guys have chosen beautiful animals isn't he beautiful so furry like wildly furry like fuzzy furry

yeah

he has like a uh two black circles around his eyes, almost like a bandit mask.

Okay.

Cool.

And when he does his infiltration, he covers that with a white domino mask so he can blend right into any situation.

Where it's all white and very bright.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's kind of an Arctic cow.

This guy looks like a sheep who got

huge, like weak, got big, really weak and got freaking huge.

A sheep

on a Zoltar machine.

Yeah, exactly.

Roger is

very fond of his hair and uses that

because

he's kind of,

again, thinks he's a master of disguise.

Now, he's an alien

from another galaxy.

He was in a different abnormal type group.

And they're all the Barnyard All-Stars.

The Barnyard All-Stars.

And they were all very jock-oriented, very sports-oriented.

And Roger loves the dance.

His usual cover is as a competitive ballroom dancer.

And so all of his skills and moves are basically a derivative of dance.

Hey, Justin, I got that, and I love that.

That's very good.

There's going to be a lot of that, guys.

A lot of it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Quick question, GM.

Yeah.

Is this an all-animal GM or GR?

Because you said Game Runner.

What's your term?

You got Commander Grant?

Yeah, what do you prefer?

You made this game.

Master Travis.

No, that's not it.

No, that sucks.

I think game

Zookeeper?

Zookeeper is pretty cool.

Zeke.

Hey, you know what?

ZK is at least easy to remember.

Yeah,

I'm going to go with Zookeeper.

ZK.

Okay, ZK, listen.

Is this an all-animals world?

No.

So this is more in line with

there are a lot of animals and a lot of teams uh ever since the convergence yeah um but primarily the citizens of river city are still human i need a guarantee right now

from all of us that we will not kiss any humans we will not have a sonic the hedgehog or gargoyles-esque sort of in intra how dare you romance arcs like cut that off for your fellow players griffin

um but yeah that would be icky.

So, if you guys want to just discuss, no, I don't want to start with that energy.

Anybody can kiss anybody they want to as long as it's consensual.

No, don't, don't be, don't be cutting into Roger's arsenal here.

I mean,

okay,

you just don't want dad kissing my characters, and that's fine, Griffin.

That I get, I understand that completely.

If there's any animal babes,

yeah, okay, nice.

Um,

so Roger is an alien, uh, was with the Barnyard All-Stars, is no longer with the Barnyard All-Stars.

um cool uh tell me about roger's signature item

his signature item is called the cattle prod

and they're these little metal caps that fit on the tips of his horns and they act like a taser

they can shock

i love that i love but you have to like punch your head into an enemy to use it it has to get pretty close to him yeah has to get pretty close can you hack with them I don't know if our team has a hacker.

We'll see.

That's for future development.

Yeah, the thing about

the abnormals rule set is intentionally very flexible and vague.

Um, because I don't know if you guys uh have watched any of those uh references I made earlier recently, they're really but they're not very physics and science-driven, so I'm not super worried about it.

Um, uh, his skills, yes, um, he uh is a master of of mu tie

which is

which is a bovine fighting style so he can use his hind legs to front kick or sidekick he can use his front legs to block jab

awesome you really find his mechanics yeah which button is max which is math to uh x and which is math to a dad i need to make sure triangles

And then L2

is sidekick.

And then his

other.

I pull them all together.

He deploys his udders and he does his utter blast.

It comes out utterly.

Justin, I don't want to listen, Justin.

I don't want to get too far into cow biology.

That's why he has to press all the buttons, Travis.

Let's leave it at that, okay?

Oh, it's a special combo that makes him

suddenly have an utter.

Yes, it's utter madness.

It's not utter normal.

Utter madness.

Oh, I'm stealing that.

Yeah.

His other skill is counterfeit.

He can speak most animal languages and imitate each one of them perfectly.

I don't like that one.

I don't like animals having other languages.

Oh, just the pun itself.

I feel like we should limit him to one for

now.

Hey, Justin, Dad's fully embracing this, and I'm loving it.

I'm so sorry.

Now, tell me about your animal skills.

Prehensile power,

where he can use his tail like a whip or a somewhat short rope for like binding somebody.

I love that.

And C4.

Now, wait one second.

You can use your tail to bind somebody, but then they're just like

on you.

Tied to his butt.

Yeah.

Tied to your butt?

Yeah, right next to those hind-kicking legs.

Oh, cool.

Okay.

Come on.

I thought this out, baby.

I thought this out.

Sounds like it.

And his other animal skill is CH4U,

where he

burps a cloud of methane gas, which can be very disorienting

and is most effective up close, like if he's interrogating somebody.

If he burps in someone's face.

Burps in somebody's face, it's a cloud of methane gas.

What is his carbon footprint?

How much of the current sort of climate crisis do you think Roger Moore is kind of like solely responsible responsible for a lot of it?

I think like 9%

of it.

9%?

That's so much, Dad.

In defense of the world.

I mean, you know.

You have to destroy the world sometimes to fix it.

Yes.

It should be clear, just because it just occurred to me.

Roger is a member of the, or former member of the Barnyard All-Stars.

All the Barnyard All-Stars are not cows.

It's a world of various barnyard animals with different sets of skills and everything.

Which three of your Mondo moves are you starting out with?

I think I'm going to start with

Hwango Bango Tango.

Okay.

When somebody grabs Roger or attempts to grab him, he can counter grab that opponent and put them into a disorienting spin.

Love that.

And then I think I, I really think I want to go with

the night fox trot.

Okay.

When he hears a techno beat,

he can do a fluid, acrobatic, tumbling dance like the French dude in Oceans 12.

Yep.

On the sheet.

Got that on the sheet.

Yep.

It's so wild.

Now, originally, there was a misprint where dad mistaged and said, the Grinch dude from Oceans 12.

And it took me way too long to figure out he meant French dude.

You remember when Jim Carrey stole all that art?

And then

the animal move

I'm going to do is

Scourge of the China Shop,

which in close quarters he whirls around like a dervish and wrecks everything.

Okay.

And that's Roger.

Last but not least, Justin, introduce us to your creation.

Hey,

I'm playing a character named Axo Lyle,

and he's

an extreme firefighter and an axolotl.

He's both.

Now, Justin, I do need you to...

Some people can be two things.

No, that's great.

I love that.

What makes...

He really can't have it all.

Okay.

Extreme firefighter was a thing I needed to ask you about when you told me you wanted to be.

Yeah, so an extreme firefighter is someone who...

Like a firefighter fights fires.

But if you need to fight a fire in a situation that is otherwise dangerous, you call in extreme firefighters.

So, if there's a fire in an airport, firefighters, if there's a fire in an airplane, extreme firefighters.

Do you understand me?

Yeah, you couldn't expect regular firefighters to like they're like the SWAT team of firefighters,

okay?

So, they and they're they're used to like extreme environments, extreme conditions, extreme action, and adventure excitement.

Yeah, okay.

And

did Axolile start as an axolotl?

He mutated, right?

Yes.

Well,

I didn't have to invent anything for axolotl's guys.

They are wild.

Yeah.

But did he start human?

I guess is what I'm asking.

No, he started as a regular pet axolotl.

that his owner read on Reddit that you could inject iodine into them to force them to metamorphize, even though that that is not something that happens in the wild.

There's experimentation with that.

So he actually accidentally gave him cosmic iodine,

which his father had at the house from his experiments.

Yeah.

And the cosmic iodine transformed him into the extreme firefighter Axel Lyle.

Excellent.

I feel foolish because I realize I'm the only one that didn't think about how did my guy become a super-powered bipedal seal man.

I didn't think about that.

It's just that's.

Well, it's part of the convergence.

Okay.

And we'll not cover what that is.

Well, the convergence is the catch-all term for the two-week period where suddenly a lot of animals suddenly existed.

Cool.

Yeah.

Like, for a while, there was only the one set, the Greenback Guardians, who started in the 80s because they ate some microwave lettuce, right?

We can't.

We can't.

It's just.

You got to reveal it slowly, Trav.

They don't deserve all of it at once.

You got to skirt up slowly.

Now, Axelio.

You mentioned the metamorphosizing because Axelio was formerly a member of Amphiba Force.

Right.

Absolutely.

That was his last home after he...

I mean, he's always on call as a volunteer extreme firefighter, and that's something that is tricky is that work can sometimes call him away at inopportune moments.

He was with the Amphiba Force before this team,

but it eventually got weird for him because he was the only one that didn't actually naturally

morph.

Uh, because axolotls don't do that naturally, they could, they just don't, they're really weird as an adult, you mean?

Uh-huh.

Yeah, they don't

metamorph.

They don't go through metamorphosis, but if you give them iodine, they will.

There'll just come something new.

No biggie, just like real Pokemon.

It's weird.

Axolotls are wild, man.

Yeah, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are you hoping that he has teeth?

He does not.

There's no teeth.

I wasn't hoping that, Justin.

That was not, I had no investment emotionally in it whatsoever.

So you're telling me the axolotls transform into adult salamanders with an injection of iodine.

They never become fully mature salamanders in the wild.

Yes, this is what I'm telling you.

That is the wildest animal fact I've maybe ever heard.

Oh, okay.

They're only in one place.

South America?

No, it's Lake

Zochimilco.

It's in Mexico City.

It's the only place they are.

And they're canals around that area.

They're just there.

They're wild.

No teeth.

My powers are based on the

axolotl.

Well, before we get to that, I want to hear about your signature item, Justin.

It's a hatchet, man.

Hatchet Man?

It's called Hatchet Man.

In the Amphiba Force, the guys all had named weapons that they loved, and they would be like, so what's up with the hatchet?

And I'll be like, it's not a weapon.

It's a tool.

It's a hatchet.

And I use it for extreme firefighting.

They're like, but what's its call?

What's its story?

And I would keep telling them, it's a hatchet, man.

It's just a hatchet, man.

And then eventually they're like, Axel Isle, he never goes anywhere without Hatchet Man.

I see.

So I eventually just had to go with it.

They just started calling it Hatchet Man.

Okay.

Tell us about your abnormal skill, your abs skills to pay the bills.

Yes.

Okay.

So

Axel Isle.

has some of his ab skills that are from his his time as an extreme firefighter like extreme exfiltration When a structure or environment is in danger of destruction, I have a practiced sense of the best path of escape.

I have extreme hiding because I can use camouflage to hide in the environment.

That's just axolotls, though.

But I've practiced that skill to where I can use it because it's not like perfect.

It's not invisibility.

It's like something that I've had to learn how to do.

It's also not natural to me.

My last ABS skill is another one that requires a lot of focus and concentration because axolotls have gills and they also have lungs and they only use their lungs sometimes if they feel like it.

So I can manually activate my lungs to help me breathe in challenging environments rather than just relying on my gills.

Yeah.

Of course.

My animal skills are limb regeneration.

Man, I was going to ask how often that's going to come up, but given the history of the Adventure Zone, every four episodes or so, someone gets something

loses an arm, yeah.

Yeah, you want to know something?

I'm going to switch these two.

I think Extreme Hiding should be animal, and Anything's a Drum should be apt.

I'm going to switch those two.

Anything's a Drum is he's exceptionally skilled at improvising melee weapons in his environment since he does not have a weapon that he carries with him.

He's very adept at like finding melee weapons in the environment.

Perfect.

What is his hatchet, man?

tool.

It's a tool, baby.

Stop calling me baby.

Yeah, no, it's a hatchet, man.

It's twice in one show you call Griffin Baby.

It's got to stop.

I think

getting into kind of a Roger Moore kind of

baby.

I was inspired by

Teenage Ninja Turtles, the movie.

where they keep their weapons on their back the entire movie.

Yeah.

They never take them out.

They're literally just there the whole time.

They don't use them.

So you'll see them like get sausage links at one point and use those as nunchucks.

It's like, dog, you have nunchucks.

Yeah.

You have them.

Yeah, but the shell makes it really hard to reach back there.

I just do a little.

Yeah.

Tell me about your Mondo moves as Axel Lyle.

Okay, my Mondo moves.

I have nocturno sense.

in a darkened environment and when not in active peril lile can use sound and chemical detection to understand more about about his environment and enemies, etc.

But that doesn't work in danger and it doesn't work when it's bright.

It's only when it's dark because

exceptional in the dark.

This is an edible move.

It's called Don't Look At Me.

If Lyle loses multiple limbs at once, he can regrow them.

But the noises he makes in the process are so embarrassing, he's unable to continue fighting opponents who've heard it.

And that's if I lose one in a fight, okay.

If I lose more than one, I have to lay down and grunt in a way that is, I can do it.

I can come back from that, but I can't keep fighting.

Uh-huh.

Because it's too embarrassing.

What's the use case for?

I guess if you're in a fight, you lose a bunch of limbs.

Okay, truthfully, I wanted to use my mono move as a way of like

creating a limit.

limiting factor around my ability to regrow limbs because I didn't want it to be a thing where I'm always

young axolotls will eat parts of their brothers and sisters for energy because they know it's just going to grow back.

Maybe not even a big deal.

Got to.

Cool, man.

Wow.

Axolotls are horrifying and beautiful.

Oh,

sexy.

That's the only thing about Lyle is like, he's really sexy and cool.

In a rugged way?

In every way.

Whoa.

Okay.

Once again,

my character's also sexy.

I've encountered this playing with a bunch of different teams, not just us.

I didn't know you could just do that.

No, he's the hunk.

He's the hunky one.

Darn it.

I'm going to say,

I'm willing to.

Pretty sexy.

Yeah, listen, I don't want to force this on you guys.

If each of your characters wants to assume they're the hunky one, I'm on board with that.

Let me make a suggestion because we will have younger people listening, I hope.

Let's just make a rule that none of us say the word sexy again.

That was the last one, actually.

That was the last one.

Hunky.

We say hunky?

I don't think we even need to talk about it.

Okay, cool.

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

You know what they're, you know, what they're upset about.

Just like the state of things and whatever.

No, they're only ever wanting one thing, and that's for me to get the smalls out.

Dad, we don't know how to.

Yeah, they love the smooth bird.

Dad, we want our smooth bird.

We don't have jobs.

We can't buy our own food.

We don't know how to order things.

Dad, we're so scared.

We're cats and we've gained complete human intelligence.

What's happening?

Where are we?

Yeah.

Where are we?

But you know what?

I calm them right down with smalls because you're going to get a package of smalls, right?

You're going to open it up.

You're going to put it in front of your cats there, put it into a bowl, whatever you're going to, I don't know your business.

But when you put it out there, these cats are going to freak out.

And you're also going to see some long-lasting effects in my experience at least my cats have been a little healthier they've had a nice nice looking coat and they just love they love smalls they love it smalls cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients um and it's delivered right to your door and cats.com named it their best overall cat food and get this after switching to smalls 88 of cat owners report overall health improvements for smalls food that's a big deal for a limited time only because you are i I was really proud of that, Justin.

I was really proud of that.

Sorry, Trav.

That was great.

Thank you.

For a limited time only, because you're an adventure zone listener, you can get 60% off your first smalls order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com/slash adventure.

That's 60% off when you head to smalls.com/slash adventure plus free shipping.

Again, that's smalls.com/slash adventure.

Hey, this week, we're coming to sorry to interrupt.

I just kind of burst in.

Okay, yeah.

Sorry.

Hey, I'm also sorry.

I'm also sorry.

And I'm here, and I'm interrupting too.

If you're coming to

our shows this week in San Antonio and Austin, thank you.

If you're not already planning on coming, why not?

We want to see you there.

We need you there.

Join us.

What are you doing?

That's so great.

Yeah.

If you're coming to the show and you want to have a question,

you got a question you want answered, you want a fear read aloud, we got you.

Email that to mbmbam at maximumfund.org and put your city in the subject line in Austin.

And also doing what trap?

What are we doing in Austin, buddy?

Well, we're doing Adventure Zone versus Hercules, and it's going to be a real treat.

You're going to feel happier than you've ever felt in your entire life.

Yeah, we're also coming to Utah and California later this year.

Tickets for all those shows are on sale now.

More info and ticket links are available at bit.ly forward slash McElroy Tours.

Oh, we also have new merch because it's a new month.

Yeah, we have a month, new merch, new you.

Well, yeah, sort of.

We've got a brand new Gerald t-shirt over there designed by Lynn Lynn Doyle.

Go to macroymerch.com and check it out.

And 10% of all merch proceeds this month will be donated to Equality Florida, which is dedicated to securing full equality for Florida's LGBTQ community.

So go to macroymerch.com to get yours now.

Hello, Internet.

I'm your husband host, Travis McElroy.

And I'm your wife-host, Teresa McElroy.

And this is a promo for Schmanners.

It's extraordinary etiquette.

For ordinary occasions.

Every week, week, we're going to tell you about a bit of culture, a bit of history, how etiquette still applies in the modern day, all that stuff.

We also love to do biographies and histories of, and, you know, general procedurals, how to do etiquette in today's society.

So come check it out every Friday on maximumfund.org or wherever you find your podcasts.

Manners Schmanners.

Get it?

My name's Doug Dugay, and I'm here to talk about my podcast in the middle of the one you're listening to.

It's called Valley Heat, and it's about my neighborhood, the Burbank Rancho Equestrian District, the center of the world when it comes to foosball, frisbee golf, and high-speed freeway roller skating.

And there's been a jaguar parked outside on my curb for 10 months.

I have no idea who owns it.

I have a feeling it's related to the drug drop that was happening in my garbage can a little over a year ago.

And if this has been a boring commercial, imagine 45 minutes of it.

Okay, Valley Heat, it's on every month on maximum fun org or wherever you get podcasts check it out but honestly skip it these are the chronicles of the rancher industry district districts

in my valley and around my valley

So that's the characters and you know, we'll learn everything about them, I'm sure, as we play on.

The world that that we'll be playing in is River City USA time now.

The convergence has led to there are quite a few Abnimals teams throughout the city.

We already mentioned the Royal Seals, Amphiba Force, Barnyard All-Stars.

There's other notable ones like the Dragon Riders and code named Bird.

of course Unicorn, the mercenary unicorn group.

We'll get more into it as we go and talk about all those teams.

But primarily, this is still, you know, human population.

But that said, at this point, abnormals are such a common kind of occurrence that these aren't like hidden from sight.

Scientists must not know we exist level.

So you guys don't need to worry about like going out during the day or talking to people or anything like that.

Here in the city, in fact, maybe the biggest entrepreneur,

the guy who owns anything that's River City First Blank is owned by Walter Russell, who is a half-man, half Walrus.

He owns River City First Bank, River City First News, all these different places.

So he's well known.

Abnimals are not hidden here.

There's also,

surprisingly, very diverse environments, biomes here in River City.

Part of the town is a swamp.

Part of the town is a desert.

Everybody's comfortable here.

Everybody's comfortable.

Seaside?

Seaside City?

Oh, yeah.

Seaside.

Cool.

With a long river, as the name would denote, running through the center of the city to the sea.

So we even get a little bit of like marshland there in the delta where it meets.

Varied.

Varied, you would say.

It's varied, incredibly varied.

Got it.

Ballrooms?

Are there ballrooms?

Of course there's ballrooms.

Don't worry.

Don't you worry.

And in our many beautiful hotels.

The Admirals' presence began in the 1980s when the Greenback Guardians came on the scene and they were the only ones for a long time but then they mysteriously disappeared in 2004 one day they were there one day they weren't but also by that point they'd cleaned up a lot of the town their main opponent dr.

Kill death had actually at that point gone into politics and I think by that point had made mayor he would later become governor and then retire But they disappeared in 2004.

The convergence happened in 2010, six years later, at which point there are a whole bunch of new abnormals teams on the scene.

As far as when you guys actually joined the kind of abnormal scene in River City, that's up to you.

But my question now is how recently were you all removed or quit your team?

Your previous team, I should say.

I would say Navy SEAL's sort of excommunication is pretty fresh.

I would say probably it's probably been just sort of a couple months.

He is very much in the rebuilding phase of

his life and career.

Is there a new SEAL on the team to replace you?

Yes.

What's their color?

Hmm.

Don't lie.

Yeah.

Come on.

Fuchsia.

Tell the truth.

Tell the truth, Griffin.

Fuchsia.

Fuchsia Seal.

That's got hurt.

I hate him.

I hate his guts.

That's got hurt.

And Royal Seal is led by Golden Seal, who is the SEAL Prince.

I hate his guts, too.

Oh, okay.

Because he booted you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool, man.

What about Roger?

Roger, when did you leave or remove from the Barnyard All-Stars?

I think Roger's been out for a long time.

He's pretty much

a lone wolf.

I mean, he's a coward.

He's a cow dancer.

He is a cow.

Yeah, a lone wolf.

That was in quotes.

I think he's been out for a long time, and, you know, especially since he's been establishing this cover as a competitive dancer, you know, he's going to try try to make it on his own, going from partner to partner, trying to, you know, set up this whole

cover identity as a competitive dancer.

I think he's been out for a long time, and I think he's got quite the reputation.

He really established this cover.

What about you, Axel Isle?

I'm not sure I'm out.

I haven't gotten a call from him in a long time, but it was always kind of like a, you call me in when the situation merits.

I always felt like I was kind of on the fringes anyway

so when they would call it's just gotten like more and more sporadic i'm not a hundred percent that i'm out what was said like you're not in it anymore what was the normal length of time between calls and how long has it been since they last called it it's usually about two to three weeks i would say is the typical and how long has it been since they last called you 13 months it's been 13 months but they

I don't know, you know, things change.

Maybe there just haven't been any fires lately.

There just haven't been any fires, it has been really rainy.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

How long have the three of you been operating as kind of a team?

Four days.

Do you see yourself as a team?

Oh, interesting.

What'd you say, Griffin?

Four days.

Classically, I feel like two of us would know each other and then we'd meet the third one.

Doesn't that feel

that feels right, right?

I think, given the proximity of our biomes, it feels like Axel Isle and Navy Seal have probably run into one another

at some of the wet parties, which is parties that sort of ocean and river animals throw.

Okay, you know what a wet parties.

It implied.

It implied.

It was very clear from the words, Griffin.

You painted a picture.

And I don't think the Venn diagram has a lot of crossover with Roger.

I mean,

Axelle and Navy don't really seem like the followers of competitive dance.

I don't know.

We are of a similar build, though.

We probably go to a gym specifically for big boys.

Maybe.

So maybe.

Maybe that's okay.

I like that connected tissue.

Yeah.

That's good.

We go to, we shop at like the whatever the animal equivalent of big and tall, like

animal warehouse is

River City.

Big and tall.

River City first closed for big boys.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

So was it that you two, Lyle and

Lyle and Navy, started working together and then were like, we need to, no pun intended, rope in a third?

Yeah.

There were some underwater fires that

maybe we had to deal with.

That feels so.

Oh, that's extreme.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's pretty extreme.

Fire in the sun.

Underwater fire.

Regular firefighters are not ready for underwater fire.

They're like freaking out.

There were these billionaires who did a deep sea sub exploration and there was a big fire and it made the news.

But in this universe, we got it, folks.

Yeah, no.

In this universe, no problem.

Love that.

We got there.

And

was it that something about in order to reach the thing, you needed...

some like spy infiltration skills and you're like, I know a guy.

We'll bring him in.

I know a guy at the gym, I know a guy at the gym who says he's pretty sneaky.

Yes,

we had to sneak into the ocean,

it was shark territory.

Oh boy, we didn't mess with them.

Yeah, I would imagine that the Royal Seals

have a lot of issues with the sharks.

Surprisingly, it's actually killer whale.

Maybe it was the orca.

Oh, there you go.

The organization, the organization,

very good.

So, you you guys did this undersea rescue.

It was successful.

That is so important.

Yeah.

I don't think we got much acclaim, though, because I don't think that billionaires would want this to come out.

And so I don't think that this is like a, and then we became famous

situation.

But it was, it went well enough that the three of you were like, maybe we...

do like another and see how it goes and maybe keep i i think i think we realized that the problem with all the groups is that they're so specialized yes you know what i mean that's the problem with a lot of these guys it's like if you have a frog problem

you know what i mean but what if it's a problem that like requires a lot of different approaches exactly you know what i mean a lot of different skill sets that aren't so targeted you know what i mean i think we all are sort of in between our specialities you know what i mean where we're not not not hemmed in and a lot of teams

a lot of teams won't allow there to be two big boys.

Like a lot of teams are like, we have our big boy, we have our little guy.

But us, there can be overlap.

Well, a lot of in this world, right, because the greenback guardians were, they became kind of the template for these things, right?

So it was like, okay, so.

if you mutate if you evolve right if you're an alien with this species you're going to join this group because that's where the other ones are so it's also not like necessarily chosen it's not like ah we work together the best it was like well we're all seals so right yeah it's just like it's so short-sighted yeah yeah and roger doesn't really see himself as a big boy i think roger sees himself as the agile

i mean comparatively you may be because we didn't really cover this i feel like in the character setup but i do think it's worth saying at least for me like axelisle is also very strong and tough yeah we didn't like that's implied for all of us right well that once again goes kind of with the abnormals theme where they're all giants and baby.

And they'll be like, and he's the strong one.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

And it's like, he's the best one at fighting.

It's like, you all fight the exact same way.

Yeah.

So you guys haven't been together long, right?

We're maybe.

No, I think we're still learning, learning.

Okay.

But you're not new to the scene, right?

You guys were all in these other teams.

Right, exactly.

So a lot of it is like learning to work together, learning like how your skills fit and stuff like that.

Okay.

Well, I think we've covered a lot of stuff.

And, you know, in the next episode, we'll be doing like an actual like episode and story and stuff.

But the last thing I would cover before we went, what's your guys' like radical favorite food?

So to recover your hit points, you'll need to eat something radical.

It doesn't necessarily have to be your favorite food, but of course you would prefer it to be.

So what is your character's like favorite radical food?

Sushi.

That makes a lot of sense.

Thanks.

Is there like a specific kind?

Philadelphia roll.

No.

Philadelphia roll.

I don't think there's fish in that one.

I think that's just cream cheese and onions, isn't it?

Cream cheese and onions?

I don't think so.

I'm pretty sure maybe there's imitation crab stick in there.

Smoked salmon, cream cheese, and cucumber.

That's it.

And sometimes made with imitation crab instead of salmon.

No, I really don't think he is.

I don't think he's picky.

Does he go spicy, any spicy mayo in there?

Absolutely cannot be spicy.

Cannot handle spicy food.

He doesn't do spicy food.

Okay.

Cannot handle spicy food.

I'm going to write that down.

I'll remember that.

What about you, Roger?

What kind of extreme food does Roger prefer?

Moosely.

I said extreme food.

No one's ever like, oh, yeah, dude.

He slapped me some of that.

Muesley, brother.

Moosely.

Moosely.

Moosely.

No, we get it, but it's just the most extreme food imaginable.

You just, you picked it because it had moo in it.

You can put anything

in Muesli you could put fruit you could put vegetables still basically granola you can put anything in anything dad that's how things work

extreme

Okay Musely

Can I louder and longer doesn't make it extreme dad?

It makes okay put an X at the end of it Musli XX Okay, now wait hold on we're getting somewhere with Musli X because the idea

Muesly X is like a scientifically engineered special Muesli that dad has to get from the cops or something.

Well, and he has to, and it's what keeps him able to live on this planet.

I love that.

If he doesn't eat Muesli, he dies.

Yeah, Muesley X.

Muesli X, if he doesn't eat Muesli X,

then

he can't breathe the atmosphere.

Okay, yes, I love this.

Provided by Barker Innovations

is the kind of thing.

There is not a picture of Muesley that exists on the internet that makes it look good.

Yeah, it all looks like.

It serves its purpose, Griffin.

That's Muesley's whole thing.

It's there.

I don't think he...

I didn't say he likes it.

Yeah.

He needs to eat it to live.

It makes him poop now just with the amount of roughage.

No, no, no.

Roger has four stomachs.

Roger.

Four stomachs, baby.

Roger, his ability to digest is amazing.

That's three.

That's the third time that dad has called me baby in this one episode.

That was the royal baby.

That was the baby of the baby.

That was the royal baby.

I didn't think that was directed at you, Griffin.

But we're going to have a swear jar and a baby jar.

And Justin, finally, Lyo, what's Lyo's favorite radical food?

Well,

axolotls have an important place in...

in the Aztec culture.

So I thought I'd honor that with chocolate.

The guy's wild about chocolate.

Oh, yeah, baby.

I love that.

Oh, see, I just said, baby, I'm so sorry, everybody.

What is going on?

What's happening?

Stop it.

Everybody, stop it.

I don't know what's happening.

It's not a bit a problem for 11 years, and then in one episode, it's a problem for everybody all at once.

I don't know what's happening.

I love it, adult.

All right, toddler.

I think it's great.

All right, so that

they grow up so fast.

I think that's a great starter on all of our characters.

We're going to be back with an actual like episode next, but here here at the end, a special treat.

We wanted to play for you our theme song for Abnormals, written by Eric Near in conjunction with Justin McElroy, um, and performed by Jonathan Colton with additional lyrics by Jonathan Colton, with additional lyrics by Jonathan Colton.

So, please enjoy the abnormals theme, and we'll be back with the next episode.

We'll see you then

in spite of what you have heard, we're at the height of our powers.

Atop the tallest of towers This can never stop us by having to trust And we will do what we must Until it's turning out just like we planned And we're self-round is long, but our mojo strong And unless I'm wrong And I'm not, we're at the height of our power

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