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Wonderful! 309: Zoopin' in My Cardboard Box

Wonderful! 309: Zoopin' in My Cardboard Box

Released Wednesday, 17th January 2024
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Wonderful! 309: Zoopin' in My Cardboard Box

Wonderful! 309: Zoopin' in My Cardboard Box

Wonderful! 309: Zoopin' in My Cardboard Box

Wonderful! 309: Zoopin' in My Cardboard Box

Wednesday, 17th January 2024
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0:00

Hi, this is Rachel

0:04

McElroy. Hi,

0:19

this is Griffin McElroy. And

0:22

this is wonderful. The weather outside

0:24

may be frightful, but not

0:27

here, not in this room. That's

0:29

how it goes. Not in this room,

0:31

in this room. The

0:33

Lord will keep you warm and

0:35

cozy. Who is trying to sneak in the

0:38

Lord? Anytime we talk about anything. That was

0:40

the version I learned as a child. Weather

0:42

outside is frightful, but the Lord

0:44

will save your soul forever. The

0:48

snow is the devil. That's great, because

0:50

that's year round. You don't even need, we

0:54

need winter time for that. Yeah, it might be too

0:56

hot outside. That's frightful. If you

0:58

ask me, I'm not trying to get sweaty

1:00

and sunburned. There might be mosquitoes.

1:03

The weather is almost always frightful if you think about it.

1:05

There's always something natural out there waiting to

1:08

get you. If

1:10

you take one thing away from

1:12

this podcast, the Lord,

1:15

don't even have to sweat mosquitoes, huh? Hot

1:18

weather. Right. The

1:20

only small wonders. This is a show where we talk

1:22

about things we like that's good, we're into. Good.

1:25

I went to Google before I said

1:27

this, so you may break my heart

1:29

right now, but the other day Henry

1:32

rhymed skeleton with relevance.

1:36

Is that from a Dan Bull song? It is, it is.

1:40

Our son Henry, and to be honest,

1:42

Rachel and I, I think also listen

1:44

a lot to Dan Bull, who is

1:47

a, I think he does general

1:49

sort of video game raps. A

1:52

lot of Minecraft. But mostly Minecraft

1:54

and there's a lot of

1:56

genuine jammers. Anyway, Henry really likes

1:58

rhyming and I always get really excited. Hi Dad

2:00

when he does it. Ah, particularly. If

2:03

there are multiple syllables involved, Yeah,

2:05

ah. Because I like to think that he has

2:07

the spirit of a poet and that just helps me

2:09

build that fantasy that I have. Not a fancy and

2:11

he's got the beautiful spirit of a gentle soul. The

2:14

beautiful soul. Of. Digital Artist Parliament.

2:18

Ah I'm going to say.

2:20

We're. Said a

2:22

thought Of some sudden I have. Had.

2:25

Bill all the time in the world. me

2:27

looking around the rim bottle play Doritos com.

2:30

I will say. That jake from a role

2:33

for sandwich to thank us for poisoning

2:35

him a couple of times on his

2:37

are cool lab. Between us and roll

2:39

for sandwich send us some nice sauces

2:41

and yeah crack into those because that

2:43

I figured you non kind of out

2:45

the hot sauce game but man there's

2:47

this green sauce the brain of which

2:49

I don't know if the time I

2:51

had that he sent it. I kissed

2:54

output not broken. Everything you know I did

2:56

yesterday so you know we have that like spicy.

2:58

Parmesan want to spicy for me? I use

3:00

that on my pizza crusts to how is

3:02

that is nice and balances that was a

3:04

little too spicy. That green thought though his

3:06

it just right. We'll see is the tide. Silly

3:08

one the other day to. Yeah Anyway, thanks

3:10

for the sauce to. I

3:13

go first this week. It. A snowy

3:15

out there Dc got hit pretty good. the

3:17

definitely the most snow we've had since we

3:19

have lived here. been almost he lit up

3:21

for it. Has to do figure out like

3:24

three to four inches has a deep what

3:26

we were m We weren't really expecting it,

3:28

quite quite so bad, but his started yesterday,

3:30

snowed all day yesterday and most most of

3:32

the night woke up to a veritable winter

3:34

wonderland out there. Is interesting whether

3:36

you know because I I'm. You.

3:39

Look at your little phone and it says

3:41

forty percent chance and you think of that

3:43

doesn't seem like very much and you see

3:45

it's for the entire day. They're like oh

3:48

well as a lot that is alive set

3:50

with yeah we got we got ah a

3:52

know that out there a really is beautiful

3:54

skin snow day today. Henry's first real like

3:56

snow days since he's been in school which

3:58

is exciting. Ah and his gun Me think

4:01

in a lot about sledding. Ah,

4:03

yesterday we had a chance to take the

4:05

boys out in the snow plough him for

4:07

a little bit which is really nice. We

4:09

haven't had many chances to do that put

4:11

in stark contrast. I think the first time

4:13

we did it with Henry was when her

4:15

house was destroyed by snow living in Austin

4:18

and this was I would say a much

4:20

more footloose and fancy free way of playing

4:22

with now and that we came inside and

4:24

there was heat and water which is is

4:26

always ideal are we have a little toy

4:28

Slattery bottle a toy store for like ten

4:30

bucks a poll them around with that and.

4:33

It just got me thinking about how much

4:35

I like sledding. I think assists great and

4:37

was always sort of the highlights. For.

4:39

Me of snow days are

4:41

growing up in in Huntington.

4:44

Do. You how much Stephen hims fond and

4:46

on us as an only child you didn't

4:48

really clean up his and. Ah,

4:51

I have zero sledding experience. I

4:54

think there wasn't. I mean I

4:56

won't lie, kids in my neighborhood.

4:59

I. Was really good. Hill near. Me,

5:01

that's true. Ah. On a

5:03

snow day typically transportation is a little

5:05

difficult, right? so I just a yeah,

5:07

I don't think I as I don't

5:10

know that I've ever sled. Bet.

5:12

Like Reverend your life once. The.

5:16

I can think that our. Mailing I get out there Bay is

5:18

an hour and up as. Is a lot of fun.

5:20

Little slow for you. Sit down. You. Sit

5:22

down. First. Of all, amazing.

5:24

I've gone skiing a couple times.

5:27

A. Day I think he can sit. We

5:29

can't sit famously a whiskey you you

5:31

must stand. Unless I do it last

5:33

last year business letting we're in Huntington we

5:35

it went down just since Hill I know

5:38

you did. I did a couple to I

5:40

don't think I did. I think it seemed

5:42

like a bad idea. A watched it's

5:44

a safe it's know at literally no

5:46

one's ever gotten her slender zero percent of

5:49

the boss is. Great spot! So I grew

5:51

up in Huntington. A short walk from

5:53

River Park which is sort of like the

5:55

big park in Huntington. Ah and read

5:57

a park has the big hill that runs

5:59

up behind it. it goes up to the

6:02

tennis courts. You know the dog park

6:04

is up there. the amphitheater is is up

6:06

there and ah and so there's like

6:08

a road they would clear out see he

6:10

get up. It pretty easy to get like

6:13

maybe twenty minutes to get all the

6:15

way to the top and. Then you

6:17

can go all the way down this

6:19

huge to straight up grassy. Slope

6:21

Wow that is have a good long

6:23

ride it is. I mean you get

6:26

your money's worth. Ah but he would

6:28

always be such a huge deal. Has

6:30

everybody in town like knew that this

6:33

was the hot place to go so

6:35

people would go and like line up

6:37

to to slide. Now there would be

6:40

people who would very I would say

6:42

shrewdly were selling hot chocolate. And

6:45

when you reach the bottom, you just climb up the steps

6:47

of the amphitheater to get back up. Soon have to trudge

6:49

up a city snowy feel. Like a it

6:51

was like a snow park. It

6:54

was a dream. I. Am. Lewis

6:56

had something that was appropriately called Art

6:58

Hill and that it was next to

7:00

the Art Museum. I was

7:02

very large hell and people would come from

7:05

all over the city to define again. Never

7:07

ever been to those. Art museum it's

7:09

a little thing. Sounds awesome. Anyway, it

7:11

was a huge deal. It was a

7:13

lot of fun. I have a lot

7:15

of very fond childhood memories of that,

7:17

seeing like kids from school who I

7:19

wasn't particularly close with, but like. When.

7:22

You see them? At. Sliding

7:24

it's like me to like as

7:26

they were both kids and we're

7:28

doing the same stuff some normally.

7:30

We don't have anything and eleven nothing at. all

7:32

your been plenty in this mom are

7:34

likely to mention lot not last christmas

7:36

but crysis twenty twenty two we went

7:38

to unintended and there isn't great great

7:40

deal of snow that happen and we

7:43

went sledding by in the house of

7:45

i just in south ah jersey densities

7:47

house i just trolling could relive their

7:49

also now and they have a couple

7:51

categorical that's everyone this isn't the census

7:53

and i know some exit and ah

7:55

we went on the hell is henry

7:57

first time sledding and he just really

7:59

lit up This is at a fun

8:01

age where he started to get kind

8:03

of like braver about, um,

8:05

like, you know, outdoor adventurous stuff.

8:07

Yeah. Peer pressure finally working on

8:10

your pressure, finally cracks the

8:12

egg. Uh, and he had an amazing time and I did

8:14

too. And it was a lot of fun. And I thought

8:16

you had gotten in on that also, but

8:18

you didn't did Gus do it. Gus

8:20

is so small. No, no. As

8:23

I recall, there is a fence and pretty

8:25

much, I hit it. Yeah. In order to

8:27

stop, you hit the fence. It works. And

8:29

I thought, but here's the

8:31

thing that's great is when you fall

8:34

down, there's a lot of activities from my youth that

8:37

do not fucking hold up. If I never go on a

8:39

slip and flight again for the rest of my life,

8:43

because when you're 10 years old and

8:45

your ribs are not yet fully formed

8:47

and there's some give

8:49

to them, it's fine. You hit the,

8:51

you hit that's your, that's nature to

8:53

shock absorber, your rib cage. As an

8:55

adult, no such luck. That's what happens

8:57

to you every summer though, where you suggest we

9:00

buy a slip and slide for the kids.

9:02

Not for me. Jesus. I did it when

9:04

I was like in college, there's actually a

9:07

pictures we were with, Oh God, this, I

9:09

think we were with the Smirls. Yeah. I

9:11

mean, the picture is of you and Travis

9:13

and Riley. Yes. Uh, and

9:16

Travis and I were like too old then this was

9:18

when I was like 22 years old,

9:21

maybe just shattering my, my sternum. Uh,

9:23

every time that I threw myself down

9:25

sliding though, you fall down, you

9:28

land enough powder and it's cold,

9:30

but it's like, it's pretty safe.

9:33

And that's just amazing. Uh,

9:35

so sledding it has existed

9:37

obviously forever. Basically people who

9:39

have lived in snowy areas realize like dinosaur

9:42

stuff, flat stuff go fast. I would not

9:44

put it past a dinosaur with like a

9:46

particularly broad foot, sliding its foot across the

9:48

snowy ground of me. Like, Oh gosh, check

9:50

this shit out. Like if

9:53

Tim Allen were a dinosaur. Thank

9:55

you. Egyptian

10:00

Egyptians also used sand sledges to move

10:02

huge things across the desert for construction,

10:05

which is very clever. Obviously,

10:08

there's infinite variations on the sport of

10:10

sledding, the most famous of which being

10:13

the luge and the skeleton and the

10:15

bobsled in the Winter Olympics,

10:17

all of which I really enjoy

10:19

watching. What's your favorite of those three?

10:23

Not skeleton for me. Skeleton's too scary. I

10:26

like luge. You like luge? Mm-hmm.

10:29

I do too. I think I like luge too.

10:32

Bobsled's cool, but I feel like we've

10:35

solved for bobsled. Bobsled

10:38

the difference between racers is always like 0.0006 seconds. It's

10:42

hard to tell who's crushing it, but on a

10:44

luge it's like, God dang. It's also something

10:46

I enjoy when

10:48

people wear tight clothes and they vibrate on top

10:51

of each other, I guess. Wow.

10:53

Not what I was expecting you to

10:55

say in that sentence, but you did

10:57

it. We're all here for it.

11:01

There's a version of sledding called

11:03

backcountry sledding, which involves a little

11:05

sled that you ride on your

11:07

knees, almost like a little kayak.

11:10

It's sort of kayak-shaped,

11:13

only much, much smaller. It's more sort

11:16

of maneuverable than a sled, so you can kind of tilt

11:18

back and forth holding onto the sides

11:20

to really carve. So you can use it to

11:22

go through more densely wooded

11:25

hills and get through trees. You can

11:27

also do tricks on it. I watched

11:29

a compilation of people doing jumps, and

11:31

it seems really fun, but

11:34

probably very exhausting and slightly more

11:36

dangerous than normal old sledding. And

11:38

then of course, some ski resorts

11:40

allow for tubing, which is just

11:42

sledding on an inner tube, and

11:45

they do that on special tubing hills. On

11:48

one of those youth group church ski trips

11:50

I went on, at one point I

11:52

was so sore and my butt was

11:54

like encrusted with ice. I

11:57

had gotten so much snow down my pants that it

11:59

formed a perfect But when I

12:01

went to the restroom, and so I was like, I'm

12:04

not doing that anymore. And I did

12:06

tubing instead of the time of my life. It's

12:09

just like sledding a little bit faster. Um,

12:12

there's also something called ice blocking, which

12:14

is apparently very regional. The only places I

12:16

could find it happening on any kind of

12:19

organized level was in California, it's kind of

12:21

like sledding in reverse, where you sit on

12:23

like an ice block, uh,

12:25

and you slide down a grassy hill

12:28

on a somewhat warm day. Interesting. It

12:30

has to be kind of warm because the ice

12:32

has to melt in order for it to get

12:34

slippery and the ice blocks are like specially made

12:37

where they'll like freeze ropes into the ice blocks,

12:39

they can like hold onto it and

12:41

slide down the hill. See where they do this?

12:44

California. Um, it's big

12:46

state. I mean, I wish I could get more. I

12:48

assumed Minnesota. This seemed like a, like a real

12:50

wholesome Minnesota activity. It does seem like a

12:52

wholesome Minnesota activity. Um, I

12:54

don't like that. There's no snow in

12:57

ice blocking. And so it's like, when you fall down

12:59

to the ice block, crush you.

13:01

Maybe no one is quite sure.

13:04

Um, I just, I,

13:06

I really, really enjoy

13:08

how accessible sledding is.

13:10

I w we have this sled now that

13:12

is very cheap and works very well. Very

13:15

slippery, I will say. But when I was

13:17

a kid, I remember one time going to

13:19

Ritter Park, I didn't have a sled cause

13:21

it had broken. It's like one of those

13:23

cheap plastic discs and it just fucking snapped.

13:25

Yeah. Um, but I took a cardboard box

13:28

and it worked great also. I'm

13:30

telling you, can you see me a little

13:32

stinker, a little Charlie Brown just zooping down

13:34

in my cardboard box. Uh,

13:38

I think most sort of snow play

13:40

activities are great, but sledding

13:42

I think takes a cake and I

13:45

really would like to go sledding with you. I

13:47

don't know how we make that happen. I mean, there's gotta

13:49

be a hill. Take you outside. This thing's got a sled

13:52

we have as a rope on it. I could just tow

13:54

you around the neighborhood for a little bit. I

13:56

mean, we live close to a

13:59

very. Large number of hills

14:01

there's got to be one there has to

14:03

be people go to that adults That

14:06

adults good. I'm gonna google. Where's the

14:08

adults only? I mean what you do is you

14:10

put a kid in there with you, and then it's like not even

14:12

about you That's true for

14:14

so many things Can

14:17

I steal your way? Yes? The Most

14:27

of the plants humans eat are

14:29

technically grass most of the

14:32

asphalt We drive on is almost

14:34

a liquid the formula

14:36

of WD-40 is San

14:38

Diego's greatest Secret zippers

14:40

were invented by a Swedish

14:42

immigrant love story on

14:44

the podcast secretly incredibly fascinating We

14:46

explore this type of amazing stuff

14:49

stuff about ordinary topics like

14:51

cabbage and batteries and socks Topics

14:54

you'd never expect to be the title of the

14:56

podcast Secretly incredibly

14:58

fascinating find us by searching for

15:00

the word Secretly in

15:02

your podcast app and at

15:05

maximum fun org I Am

15:11

damn McCoy, I'm Stuart Wellington I'm Ellie

15:13

Kalin and together we are the flophouse

15:15

a long-running Podcast on the maximum fun

15:17

network where we watch a bad movie

15:19

and then talk about it and because

15:21

we're so long running Maybe you haven't

15:23

given us a chance I get

15:26

it But you don't actually have to know anything

15:28

about previous episodes to enjoy us and I promise

15:30

you that if you find our voices Irritating we

15:32

grow endearing over time. Perhaps you listen to one

15:34

of our old episodes and decided that we were

15:36

dumb and immature Well, we've been doing

15:39

this a while now We have become smarter and

15:41

more mature and generally nicer to

15:43

Dan, but we are only humans.

15:45

So no promises Find

15:48

the flophouse on maximum fun org

15:50

or wherever you get podcasts Okay

15:58

my thing this week yes Takes

16:00

us from outside play. Okay to

16:02

inside play. I prefer

16:05

this and that is the ball pit. Oh All

16:09

right. Yeah, this is a toughie because I

16:11

think there's a big distinction between the private

16:13

and this is Have

16:17

our own ball pit we might have a ball pit it

16:21

Is not a fancy ball pit and there

16:23

isn't nearly enough balls in it. No, not

16:25

it's not nearly enough Rachel

16:27

recently bought more do you want to tell the story of

16:29

you trying to restock? Yeah, I mean How

16:32

big it's been we have a kiddie pool. Yeah,

16:34

it's basically the size of a kiddie pool and

16:38

we had we had collected

16:40

a Pretty large

16:42

number of balls, but not enough to fill this

16:44

thing And so I was looking online and I

16:46

thought I have no idea how many balls I

16:48

need but I'm scared to get like 200

16:51

that seems like way too many and I was like, you know what? I'll just

16:53

get 50 nothing did

16:55

nothing You

16:58

can't same level. I

17:00

agree thing after kovat times. Yes I mean

17:02

we're still in kovat times, but after the

17:04

bad to kovat 19 times I

17:07

look at ball pits a little bit of a stink

17:09

guy now I actually I I talked about

17:11

that at the end of my my segment how

17:14

I read a whole article that was like Will

17:16

we ever get in ball pits again? I mean

17:18

I can say And

17:21

I hear yeah, I'm here from the

17:23

future to tell you yes. Yes you

17:25

do Yeah So I wasn't sure

17:27

if I would find anything about this right

17:30

because it's like tell me about slide like

17:32

how you know Ball pit to me feels

17:34

pretty Rudimentary, I

17:36

don't know slide is a simple mechanical

17:38

object ball pit Feels

17:41

it like a distinctly human like

17:43

a product of human. That's true. That's

17:46

true Okay, so they there

17:49

is a man who is credited with

17:51

the invention of what they called the

17:53

ball crawl That

17:55

is Eric McMillan the

17:58

first ball ball pit or

18:01

ball crawl he installed was

18:03

in 1976 at SeaWorld Captain

18:06

Kids World in San Diego.

18:08

That's way later than I thought you were

18:11

going to say. Also ball crawl sounds like

18:13

a new single from the yin yang twins.

18:16

It's the

18:18

yin yang twins featuring LMFAO

18:20

ball crawl summertime hot.

18:24

About ball rooms, right? It's

18:26

about, no, testicles I imagine. They

18:29

get blue. They work blue, the yin yang twins.

18:35

A lot of people, so he kind of

18:37

rose to fame in 1971. He

18:40

was appointed chief designer of Ontario

18:42

Place, which was a project

18:45

that included a park, a theme park,

18:47

the world's first IMAX theater on

18:50

the newly built artificial islands just off

18:52

the Toronto waterfront. Okay.

18:56

But what he identified one of

18:58

the quote mistakes was that there was

19:01

not a lot of kid activities. Yeah.

19:04

So he created the Children's Village,

19:06

which at the time

19:08

had huge rope nets, soft pyramids,

19:11

hanging tunnels, and an enormous

19:13

air mattress. That sounds dope.

19:15

All that stuff sounds great. So

19:17

he kind of became the leader

19:20

in soft play. And

19:22

so that's the ball pit in 1976, which

19:27

had, guess how many balls? I

19:30

mean, did you say the dimensions of the pit?

19:34

Are you going to do this precisely? Yeah. It's

19:37

like a math problem. I don't know the dimensions of the pit. We'll

19:42

say, okay, it's probably what, like 15

19:44

feet by eight feet, probably a foot

19:46

and a half deep. I'm going to

19:48

say there was 8,000 balls inside of

19:50

it. 40,000

19:53

balls. Fucking hell, man. That's

19:55

so many balls. I'm sorry. I didn't

19:57

have the dimensions for you. I'm sure you would have gotten it.

20:00

I cannot. I can work backwards from

20:02

forty thousand balls a case for thousand

20:04

balls his next year say go for

20:06

the she says with. The

20:10

Bad: as twenty thousand members. Ah,

20:13

so this is that. This

20:16

is this, an article from Box

20:18

That com And Twenty nineteen. Ah,

20:20

and they are talking just kind

20:23

of about the whole beginning of

20:25

the ball pit. And they include

20:27

that as quote from this gentleman

20:30

Eric Macmillan about how he's at

20:32

the idea for the ball pit.

20:35

Was this before after he

20:37

been stricken with ball madness

20:39

after seeing a operating Forty

20:41

thousand Boss. You'll never guess this.

20:43

Okay, Ah, so he was working

20:45

with team are trying to come

20:47

up with ideas for San Diego

20:49

as I mentioned d. C

20:52

World's Right Kids location. Ah, it's

20:54

he said ah quote. There was

20:57

a jar of onions and we

20:59

were sort of saying. Well.

21:03

If you could crawl through those cool

21:05

and then thing we decided to try

21:08

says i'm imagining. Pearl Onions first I

21:10

think they were one. Has it ever

21:12

be a pretty big jar for her

21:14

mouth? Full sized video years. He

21:17

goes on to say like ah, people

21:19

just went crazy about it. Thank God

21:22

for those onions. I

21:28

mean, it's it's it's it. It

21:31

is impressive. I think it takes

21:33

a very special. Unique.

21:35

Mind to look at of a jar

21:37

of pearl onions and say oh you

21:40

know that New Sea World exhibit were

21:42

talking about What if we did Forty

21:44

thousand balls. Best. Such as

21:46

that? Such a long leap it seems to me.

21:49

Yeah I wonder if they did what I did and they

21:51

bought like a hundred. Balls on the like. now that's

21:53

I only one that are likely to me either I

21:55

know we're going on or bows and they put it

21:57

on around or I can sense and is this isn't

21:59

that. Two hundred, I know.

22:02

this is it. Ah, so.

22:05

What? Were more familiar with is

22:07

the nineties which is when the

22:09

ball pit became kind of the

22:12

staple of any like. Family.

22:14

Oriented restaurant your chest. She's

22:16

really pops. Yes! Exactly. This

22:19

is also because for most of the

22:21

twentieth century, arcades were seen as kind

22:24

of Cds and linked to gambling and

22:26

racketeering B S and so places like

22:28

Chuck E Cheese were response to that.

22:30

Like here's a safe place. Also, the

22:32

whole idea of indoor play like it's

22:34

it's contains. Like you don't necessarily have

22:36

to worry as much about people role

22:38

in up and and messing with your

22:41

kids like they've gotta go through a

22:43

process to get in the building. Rhino

22:45

says of fights Charles

22:48

sees his new science

22:50

or sisters security every

22:52

location. And had

22:54

a Cd that. Exciting. Strong

22:57

brawler type. every. Person enters

23:00

has to fight Mister Cheese. Adults

23:02

If your adult. If

23:04

you're a grown up, you can't go to Chuck E Cheese.

23:07

Unless you have a report card. If

23:11

you have a report card will amaze on it.

23:13

You can get into turkey, cheese and. You get

23:15

a personal pan pizza. What if that's that's. Happy to consider

23:17

saying you bring your porkers You remember this Tickets

23:19

easy to bring your parker they give you give

23:21

tokens. It's got good grades. Oh, I don't

23:23

remember that. not. Only thing I phone

23:25

cleaned up on a day should have made

23:28

it so that you can't I mean unless

23:30

you have. Those

23:32

Yoga Report. This a bunch of parents any

23:34

outside the window trying to watch. Their to our

23:36

harm the sidewalk near. Ah!

23:38

The other thing I wanted to

23:40

quickly mention is of course, the

23:42

Mcdonalds Play Place. Now yeah, I

23:44

didn't realize this. Ah, so in

23:47

the nineties, Mcdonalds Play Places had

23:49

become so successful they launched a

23:51

stand alone brand of indoor playgrounds

23:53

called Leaps and Bounds. Ice

23:55

I feel like I watched a different slant

23:57

about this are some. Yeah, the state.

24:00

We reviewed in Naperville, Illinois, 1991, and

24:03

we merged leaps and bounds in 1994

24:05

with Discovery Zone, which

24:10

I remember. I

24:13

just thought that was interesting, that this fast food restaurant was

24:15

like, you know what else we should do? Totally

24:17

unrelated to food of any kind. Well,

24:19

I mean, it brought in children and

24:22

communities who didn't have access to a

24:24

lot of playgrounds. So it

24:26

is one of the more sort of,

24:28

I don't know, I

24:31

guess brilliant maneuvers of the McDonald's

24:33

corporation. So 2020, as

24:36

you mentioned, ball pits everywhere

24:38

went dark. Nobody's playing

24:41

in a ball pit during the

24:43

height of the coronavirus situation.

24:47

And this article in the Washington Post was all like, I

24:49

can't imagine ever getting a ball pit again. But

24:51

what they talked about was the color factory,

24:54

and what they do, they

24:57

have a ball pit washing machine for

24:59

the balls, and

25:01

then they have sanitizing before

25:06

and after people entered the pit.

25:08

So it's like a disinfectant fog,

25:10

similar to the kind that airlines

25:13

use to sterilize airplane cabins. So

25:15

we've been to a few indoor

25:17

play places that have advertised this as well.

25:19

Like we fog blast the shit out of

25:21

this whole thing. Yeah, this happened when we were

25:24

at the dopamine land exhibit. Yeah, that's right. They

25:26

were trying to chase this little boy out of

25:28

the pits. They were getting ready to fog him.

25:31

Fog the balls. Yeah. Another

25:34

great standout track from the yin yang twins.

25:37

There's a lot of easy low hanging jokes.

25:41

I wonder if our listeners have heard anyone

25:43

make jokes about the balls before. About the yin

25:46

yang twin. Oh, maybe. Just balls in

25:48

this context. I think I mostly just like thinking

25:51

about the band yin yang twins.

25:54

I don't even remember what their song was. No, I don't either.

25:56

I assume that you did. While

25:59

you looked back, I will say

26:02

that the color factory

26:04

is quite proud of

26:06

their antibacterial sterilization option.

26:08

And the

26:11

chief executives in this article said, quote, I

26:13

would contend that in a pre-COVID world, and

26:15

especially in a post-COVID world, that we have

26:17

the cleanest ball pit on the planet. I

26:19

love that. When you

26:22

got it, flaunt it, you know?

26:24

Shake it like a salt shaker.

26:29

Featuring Lil Jon and the East Side Boys. A lot

26:31

of collabs. Young twins have been involved. I

26:34

love a ball pit. We brought two fucking

26:36

club bangers this week, I think. For

26:40

kids and adults, here's the thing. Sometimes I jump

26:42

in the ball pit, our private ball pit, to

26:44

play with our kids. It's great.

26:46

It's fun. Yeah, and I

26:48

will say, like, there were a lot of things

26:50

during the height of the pandemic that I thought

26:53

I will never do again. I also probably would

26:55

have been in the ball pit camp. And

26:58

I will say, definitely, when we take our children to

27:00

locations with ball pits, all I think about is when

27:02

they get out and I can wipe them down. But

27:05

I'm glad they exist. It is a safe

27:07

location. Man, kids love them. Kids

27:10

love them. And it's indoors, which this

27:12

time of year is really appealing. Yeah, absolutely.

27:16

That's it for our show. Thank you so much to Boann

27:18

and Augustus for these for a theme song, Money Won't Pay.

27:22

You can find a link to that in the episode description. Thank

27:24

you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network.

27:26

Go to maximumfun.org. Check out all the great shows that

27:28

they have over there. I'm going

27:30

to plug once more, New Season of Adventure

27:32

Zone just started, The Adventure Zone versus Dracula.

27:35

I'm GMing. We're playing D&D

27:37

5th Edition. And my family is Vampire

27:39

Hunters. Hunting down, Dracula. I finished

27:42

the first episode. It was so fun. Thank you, baby.

27:44

The character's great. The whole premise is great. Thank you.

27:47

I'm excited about the adventures to come. Thank you,

27:49

baby. I appreciate it. I appreciate you.

27:51

We got merch over at macroymerch.com that

27:53

you can go and check out, including

27:55

the Three Wolf Brothers shirt. I

27:57

don't know the name of it. but

28:00

it's like three wolves howling at the moon, but it's us,

28:02

grown men. You're about to track those sails in real

28:04

time? Yeah, a million. A million? Yeah.

28:09

So, no

28:11

big deal. That's

28:13

gonna do it for us though. We'll be back next week.

28:15

Oh, can I share another cute thing

28:17

that our kids did? Yeah. So

28:21

we got like the snow overalls, the snow

28:23

overalls. Oh, they're good.

28:26

Gus put them on and then he's like, I

28:28

look like mommy. Yeah. I

28:31

was so charmed by because as listeners of the

28:33

show know, I'm a big fan overalls. I have

28:35

at least four pairs and I wear them quite

28:37

frequently on the weekends and I was so happy

28:39

to be associated with that brand. Yeah. Get

28:42

at us. Get at us

28:44

overalls company. Yeah. Any overalls company

28:47

if you wanna get at us, then

28:50

I don't know how you would go about doing that.

28:53

Ask Max Fun. I don't know. Anyway,

28:56

bye. Okay.

29:28

Maximum Fun. A

29:35

work-around network of artist-owned

29:37

shows. Supported directly by

29:39

you.

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