0:00

Hi, this is Rachel

0:04

McElroy.

0:17

Hello, this

0:19

is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful.

0:22

This is wonderful. I

0:24

wasn't trying to say that like I was like, yeah,

0:27

I mean, a little bit. Wonderful. I'm

0:30

Rachel. I'm so

0:33

cool. This is wonderful. Shall

0:35

we talk about things we like that's good that we're into?

0:38

And it's thank you so

0:40

much for joining us. I'm

0:42

racking my brain to think of something

0:44

special to say. Is

0:47

it okay to just be like this episode's

0:49

normal? You

0:52

don't ever hear that on like TV

0:54

and media when

0:57

the hosts of shows are like, this is a normal

0:59

one.

0:59

We got a normal show for you tonight,

1:02

guys. It's going to be a show

1:04

that we are used to making and you're used

1:07

to hearing. Some people like that,

1:09

right? Like when I watch Top

1:11

Chef and they're like, today's episode's going to be crazy.

1:14

Sometimes I'm like, I just wanted a normal

1:17

one,

1:17

you know? Yeah. Like in Restaurant

1:20

Wars, it's like this is going to be the most fucked up episode of Top

1:22

Chef for the whole season. And I'm like, I

1:24

just wanted a normal. Can't they just cook?

1:26

I like the cooking. And while I'm on my

1:29

soapbox here, sometimes on Top Chef they're like, today

1:32

you're going to cook outside. There's

1:34

bees everywhere and you can't use any

1:37

cutlery at all. And it has to be a

1:39

dish we can eat using just our faces

1:41

and no hands. And

1:44

also it's snowing and there's hungry

1:46

foxes all over. And

1:47

all your ingredients are canned goods. All

1:49

your ingredients are canned goods and you don't get

1:51

a can opener. And then they eat the food

1:53

and Tom Colicchio is like, this kind

1:55

of tastes bad. Yeah, Tom.

1:59

Yeah, Tom, why do you think that is? Thomas, this

2:01

isn't up to the level of quality I expect it

2:03

to be. Yeah, man, you put

2:05

a bunch of funny restrictions on them, don't you think?

2:08

That is part of the problem. Anyway,

2:11

we're watching Top Chef right now. Yeah, we are. I guess

2:13

that's my small wonder. We're watching Top

2:15

Chef All-Stars. Yeah. It's

2:17

a good season. A lot of good chefs. It is good.

2:20

It's like world All-Stars or something. Yeah.

2:23

It's like Top Chef apparently airs

2:26

all over the globe. Yeah. And

2:28

so they took winners from seasons

2:30

all over and

2:33

it's people from different countries. That

2:35

show has really changed. We were remarking on

2:37

that when we were watching this most recent

2:40

episode. It's very, very posse.

2:42

Very like all the folks

2:44

are genuinely very sweet to each other

2:46

and very kind and supportive. And Jesus,

2:49

that used to not be the case.

2:51

Yeah, no, there used to be like real

2:53

conflict. There was like a lot of ego and

2:55

a lot of people that didn't get along and

2:57

they like didn't wanna work together and you don't

2:59

see that as much. I don't

3:00

remember his name. I remember there was a bald Frenchman

3:03

who was on the show who was just kind

3:05

of a jerk a lot of

3:07

the time. And you

3:10

just don't see that very much, huh? Yeah,

3:14

I don't know if that's like careful

3:16

casting on their part or people under- Just

3:18

chef culture has shifted a bit.

3:21

Or people understanding like I better

3:23

be on my best behavior. Yeah, right,

3:25

yeah. Anyway, that was

3:28

my small wonder. I really did. Yeah, I snuck

3:30

it in there. Is that okay? Yeah, no, that's fine.

3:32

But what do you have to talk about? Can I mention

3:35

your gym participation? Sure,

3:38

sure. I have been going to the gym

3:40

since April. I joined one close

3:42

to our house and

3:44

I've been talking about it. I wouldn't

3:47

say incessantly. I've been talking about it

3:49

a reasonable amount for somebody that goes to the

3:51

gym, a reasonable amount. Yeah. And

3:54

Griffin joined me last week and

3:57

we have been twice now and it's-

3:59

It's delightful. It's cool, yeah. It's

4:02

very doable. We

4:04

shouldn't say what gym we go to because I'm not trying

4:06

to get poached out there.

4:08

Poached?

4:11

Yeah, you know, like someone turned me into

4:13

a rug or a suit or

4:15

something like that. Oh, I thought you

4:17

meant like another gym would be like, Griffin,

4:20

have we got a deal for you? Yeah, no, I

4:22

don't think that that's, I don't think they're gonna be, this

4:24

isn't money ball. It's

4:27

not like some commodity to be traded

4:29

around. But no, it's

4:31

good.

4:33

I have been very, it's been kind of

4:35

worrying that

4:38

our children have increased

4:40

in energy level

4:42

and ability as

4:45

I have decreased in those

4:47

same statistics before

4:49

my time, I would say. And so this

4:51

has been, it's been nice to kind of remind

4:54

myself that I can move it.

4:57

Yeah, no, it's

4:59

impressive. I think you're gonna get some quick

5:02

gains. Oh, for sure. I'm already, I

5:04

think, feeling it. I mean, I'm for sure fucking

5:06

feeling it. The soreness

5:09

is truly next level, but

5:11

that's weakness leaving the body from what

5:13

I understand.

5:14

Do you know who said that or where that came from? My doctor.

5:16

I feel like you always say that to me as if

5:18

it is a known quote. I saw it on the wall of

5:21

my, my

5:26

high school gym had like a weight

5:28

room for like the football players to get

5:30

stronger.

5:30

Yeah. And I saw that painted

5:33

on there. I don't know why the fuck I was

5:35

in there. I didn't belong and

5:37

I wasn't using it, but I

5:39

saw that and I was like, wow, that's cool.

5:42

At my school, you could take weight training as a class.

5:44

Yeah, that was, yeah. And get like a credit for

5:46

it. So wild.

5:48

So bonkers. That's wild to me. They

5:50

had like an inspirational saying and that that

5:52

was the one they chose. Yeah. I

5:55

mean, it's bonkers to me that you could take

5:57

weight training as a class, but also like I

5:59

took.

5:59

the piano as a class, you

6:02

know?

6:02

It's the same. If you think about it. And

6:04

I mean, you lift heavy stuff more than you play

6:07

piano. That's fair, yeah. Especially

6:10

as our boys get heavier. Again, the

6:12

boys are getting so big and strong.

6:16

Help.

6:18

I go first this week. I do a song

6:20

this time. Okay. It's a good

6:22

one. I'm excited to talk about this. It's

6:25

a song that has become very

6:27

prevalent in our household. More

6:30

so. This could be a number of songs.

6:32

More so than any Danny Go, any

6:34

Coco Mellon,

6:36

any Blippi or Kidz Bop or other children

6:38

focused music. It is

6:41

our two year old's favorite song, which

6:43

he requests by name frequently,

6:45

several times a day at least.

6:48

That song is of course,

6:50

Turn Down For What by DJ Snake and Lil

6:52

Jon.

6:52

I thought for a moment you were gonna do Skibbity

6:55

Bop, yes, yes. No, yeah,

6:57

there's some, okay. There's a,

7:00

God, it's so hard to explain the

7:03

internet sometimes, but

7:05

there's like a thing called Skibbity Toilet,

7:08

which is like a meme from

7:10

a YouTube video, I guess. And then they

7:12

made Roblox games out of it or some shit.

7:14

And then every YouTuber on earth that

7:16

Henry watches is all about Skibbity Toilet.

7:19

And then there's a song called Skibbity Bop, yes,

7:21

yes.

7:22

I can't, this rabbit hole actually makes

7:25

me tired to go down it to say, yeah,

7:27

I can't imagine what it's like to hear. It's like a reply

7:29

all episode right now. Yeah, this is not what I want.

7:32

I wanna talk about Turn Down For What by DJ

7:34

Snake and Lil Jon. Yes. I'm

7:36

not sure I appreciated this song enough

7:39

in its time. And I'm glad that our

7:41

son has allowed us this chance

7:44

to kind of reevaluate it. Cause

7:46

man,

7:48

it's just a stone cold banger

7:51

every single time.

7:54

I feel like this was, he was on

7:56

the path cause last time

7:58

we talked about this, we talked about the. and

8:00

how he gets very excited about the drop. Oh

8:02

right, yeah, we played that clip. Yeah, and so

8:05

now we have moved to the next phase,

8:07

which is he has identified specific songs

8:10

that have drops that are

8:12

just impossible

8:13

not to love. I'm

8:16

gonna play Turn Down For What? You've heard it a million times,

8:18

but you're about to hear a million and one.

8:21

Five and out, another round of shots.

8:24

Turn down for what? Turn

8:27

down for what? Turn

8:30

down for what? Turn

8:35

down for what?

8:37

It is just, this song is just

8:39

kinda three drops. If

8:41

you think about it as like a, you could, I

8:44

love sort of imagining the line

8:46

graph of this song, the like sort of

8:48

sine wave

8:49

pattern of Turn Down For

8:51

What? A lot of times I will lose track and I'll be like,

8:54

is there one left or was that the last one? Yeah,

8:57

the third one always sneaks up on me. This

8:59

is a song that feels like it's been around since the dawn

9:02

of time.

9:03

It's hard to imagine a time in my life before

9:05

Turn Down For What, despite

9:07

the fact that it came out in December, 2013,

9:10

which is 10 years ago. So I guess it has

9:12

been out for a grip, huh? It has been

9:14

out for a minute.

9:14

That came out like when we got married.

9:17

That song came out the year we got married, isn't that weird? Yeah,

9:20

like the month we got married. It's easy

9:22

to kinda lump it in with the rest of Lil

9:24

Jon's body of work, right? Because

9:29

Turn Down For What came out in 2013, Get Low

9:31

dropped in 2003, which is 20 years ago. That

9:36

feels right. Cause I

9:38

remember that song really had a seismic

9:41

shift impact on my

9:43

high school dances when Get

9:45

Low came out.

9:46

Even though I remember being, let me

9:48

think, 16 and hearing

9:51

till sweat drips

9:53

off my balls and thinking like, I'm

9:56

not

9:57

ready for this. None

9:59

of it. None of the people here that are listening

10:02

to this are ready. Excuse me, I'm going to need

10:04

to leave. I should leave. Can someone

10:06

call my parents? DJ

10:09

Snake is a French DJ

10:11

and producer who had been buddies with

10:13

Lil Jon for several years before

10:16

this collab.

10:17

By the way, fun minigame.

10:20

Maybe not, maybe he'll crush it. How old do you think Lil

10:22

Jon is? Oh, 51.

10:28

52, wow. I'm

10:31

impressed. Yeah, usually I'm not as

10:33

good as that as I was just then. So.

10:36

I think if I hadn't told you that Get Low came out 20 years ago,

10:39

you would have undershot a bit more. Now

10:41

I'm at an age where I kind of take my own

10:43

age and I guess based on how old

10:45

I am, this person would be and that's how I

10:48

got there. So DJ Snake put together

10:50

the beat before, turned down for

10:52

what? Before it was turned, before it had worked. It

10:54

was just a beat. It's just this amorphous, beautiful

10:57

thing that existed in the artistic

10:59

ether of his mind. And he sent it to Lil

11:02

Jon to try and get a collaboration

11:04

going, this is a quote from DJ Snake that is

11:06

very good. When I hit up the Big

11:08

Homie Jon,

11:11

which like he's not Lil, which one is

11:13

he? Describe which adjective? He

11:15

probably, his friends probably he

11:18

prefers. To his friends,

11:18

he is the Big Homie Jon. When I hit

11:20

up the Big Homie Jon and asked him if he wanted

11:22

to be on the track, this song is a pretty

11:25

balling song. He heard the beat and

11:27

was instantly down with the vision. What he

11:29

sent me back though, absolutely blew

11:31

my mind. I knew Jon was one of the best,

11:33

but he absolutely killed it on this joint.

11:36

I am so glad

11:38

again to kind of revisit Lil

11:40

Jon because

11:42

there's like, what? There's like 11

11:45

words in this song, like fire

11:48

up that loud, another round of

11:50

shots turned down for what? 12 words, 12

11:53

words over and over again. And so you hear that and you're like, wow,

11:56

Lil Jon really made

11:58

bank on that, really got the money and.

11:59

I ran on this one, but

12:02

there is no one else. There's

12:04

no one else who could bring to this song

12:06

what Lil Jon brought to it, period. There's

12:09

not another performing artist alive who could

12:11

do what he did on this song. And can

12:13

I tell you that until you just said those lyrics

12:15

to me, I only knew the turndown for

12:18

what part? I

12:22

heard the word shots in there, but

12:25

I couldn't distinguish anything else.

12:26

For a while, I thought it was like

12:28

five to nine and everybody

12:31

shots. So it was like,

12:33

we're almost like nine to five, but

12:35

no, it's fire up that loud another round of shots.

12:38

That is what Lil Jon sent him back. Lil Jon

12:40

was like, thank you for the beat. Here's what I have, fire up

12:42

that loud another round of shots, turndown for what?

12:45

It's good. And he just sent that, him

12:47

yelling that in his incredible way about 200 times,

12:50

which is just precisely what the doctor ordered. And

12:55

the lyrics are very good. The

12:58

beat, the actual instrumentation of the song

13:00

is also exceptional because I feel

13:03

like

13:03

it's so deeply ingrained

13:05

in my mind. Like I can imagine every

13:07

sort of movement of trap

13:09

drums and like synth warbles

13:13

that happen in sequence. And

13:16

I feel like despite that, they

13:18

do hit so right every single time

13:21

from the buildup to the sort of climacies,

13:25

which is the

13:27

plural of climax. Of course. The

13:30

message of the song is also so great,

13:33

I think, because

13:34

it's a party jam, right? Yeah.

13:37

And so there's a lot of ways to frame that.

13:39

And certainly Lil Jon has done a

13:41

lot of that framing in so many different

13:43

ways, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, everybody

13:46

like more straightforward, like let's party.

13:48

What this song says is what possible

13:51

reason

13:52

could we have to

13:55

stop partying? Yeah. And

13:57

it doesn't provide an answer to that rhetorical question.

14:01

It might be solvable. Like

14:04

turn down for what? What there could

14:06

be like, I'm sick.

14:07

I'm sick today, little John. And then he

14:10

would be like, that's okay.

14:11

You're okay, Griffin is excused. That's his next

14:14

track, Griffin is excused. I

14:16

have terrible news, big, big

14:18

homie, John. I have terrible news. Terrible news. Your

14:21

car is being towed. Oh, okay. I

14:24

will be back in a moment. Turn down for

14:26

a set, for a bit.

14:28

Until I go and rectify this. I

14:31

have to go pick up my kids from

14:33

soccer practice, turn it down until,

14:35

let me see, reconvene here at 7.30

14:38

and then turn it back up.

14:39

At which point the what will be over

14:42

and we do not have to turn it down. So the song

14:45

is excellent. Gus wants it constantly.

14:48

When he shouts, turn down for what? He only gets

14:50

like every other word and it's

14:51

very fun. It's funny because, and it's really

14:53

the excitement and the momentum

14:56

because he will specifically ask for

14:58

turn down for what. He will say all of the

15:00

words in that order. But then when the song

15:02

is playing and it gets to the point where he

15:04

can shout that, you could tell he kind

15:07

of panics. He panics every

15:08

single time, it's very good. Song

15:11

is great. The music video is

15:13

the stuff of legends.

15:15

I don't know that I've seen it.

15:18

Okay, I'm gonna just put it on the computer

15:20

in the background. Okay. While I

15:22

continue to talk about it, because it's important,

15:26

you're just gonna have to imagine the

15:30

song playing. So

15:32

that's Daniel Kwon. Oh.

15:35

From the Daniels, the

15:38

Academy Award winning directors of

15:41

everything everywhere all at once.

15:42

Yes. That's Sunita

15:44

Mani who has been in a bunch of stuff. She's in

15:48

Mr. Robot and Glow and

15:51

Spirited. She was the ghost of Christmas past. She's

15:53

been in a bunch of stuff. So in this video,

15:56

Daniel Kwon plays a man

15:58

who starts out on top of his apartment.

15:59

building. And as the song goes,

16:02

he humps his way through the ground

16:06

and smashes through every floor using

16:08

his sort of pelvis as

16:11

a kind of like,

16:12

I don't know, like sonic cannon. And

16:15

he just just humps his way through the

16:17

apartment and makes a big party happen. And soon

16:19

everybody else starts humping through the ground and

16:22

smashing through the ground. It's very powerful

16:24

and poetic and cartoonishly

16:28

kind of weirdly horny. It's

16:31

going to be hard to kind of continue talking while

16:33

this happens at the background.

16:35

Yeah, I think I've seen enough.

16:42

So I think it's very good that

16:45

the Academy Award winning directors

16:47

of everything everywhere all at once

16:49

created and starred in this

16:51

music video for Turn Down For What. There's

16:54

a quote from Daniel Kwan who said, for a

16:57

while Daniel and I had been wanting to explore

16:59

male sexuality in a really weird way. For

17:01

some reason, our brains came up with this image and

17:04

this other universe where dudes are so pumped

17:06

up on their own dicks and they're so

17:08

into their testosterone that the way that they

17:10

show that is by breaking shit with their dicks.

17:13

So whatever happens, that would just be a funny

17:15

logical progression.

17:17

They really like planting the seeds

17:19

for the film that they would go on to make. Yes,

17:22

of course. Like this alternate reality

17:24

where things are ridiculous. Yeah,

17:27

there's a big hot

17:29

dog finger to the

17:31

music video. Anyway, that's Turn Down

17:33

For What. Great song that really

17:36

has made me appreciate the singular

17:39

legacy of Lil' Jon and

17:42

DJ Snake. I saw a great

17:44

story from the 2016 election, I think,

17:46

or maybe 2020 when someone asked

17:49

Lil' Jon to endorse Trump for

17:51

president because I guess he was on Celebrity

17:53

Apprentice. Oh, yeah. And

17:55

his response was a tweet that just said, how

17:58

about fuck no. Anyway,

18:01

can I steal your wig? Yes.

18:10

Griffin, you know the economy. Oh, sure. You

18:13

know how sometimes the economy makes you

18:15

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18:17

have? That's a very good way of putting it, baby. I know.

18:20

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18:23

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18:29

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18:34

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18:38

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18:41

too. So it's like you spent this much on health

18:43

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18:45

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18:47

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18:49

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20:55

just helplessly laughing till

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21:13

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21:50

Come get all this good good. Or this great

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great.

21:57

I have my topic for you. Are you ready?

21:59

Yes. My topic this

22:01

week is the zoo train. The

22:03

zoo train? Yes. Okay. Yes.

22:07

I guess this is a thing, huh? This is

22:09

a thing, yeah. It was difficult to find like

22:12

one resource. I

22:14

really, I like, I literally Googled

22:18

list of zoo trains. Doesn't

22:21

exist. Can I say something? This is kind of, this

22:23

happens

22:23

on this show sometimes where we

22:25

become the source. We are the

22:28

ones who are like, wait a minute, something's happening

22:30

here. There's trains in a lot of zoos. Now

22:33

all of a sudden we are the nexus Lexus

22:35

result when you search for zoo trains. It's like, well,

22:37

wonderful. Did a pretty deep dive

22:39

on

22:39

this. I talked about four zoo trains. So

22:41

there's gotta be at least four. Okay.

22:44

It's probably the same four that I'm thinking of. So let's see.

22:47

No, there's a lot of zoo trains. Okay, thank God. When

22:49

I was searching for this, it was just,

22:53

it seemed like the majority of zoos have

22:55

a train. I love that. That doesn't make

22:57

any fucking sense at all. I love it so much.

23:00

I think I couldn't really figure

23:02

out, you can Google any number of

23:04

things. You can find out

23:06

what the first zoo is or

23:09

the oldest zoo in this country. But

23:13

if you Google first zoo train,

23:16

you will not find anything.

23:18

So

23:20

I just thought I would do kind of a smattering

23:22

of zoo trains. My experience

23:24

of course began in St. Louis. The

23:27

St. Louis Zoo Line Railroad

23:30

as I knew it. Now it is

23:33

sponsored by Emerson. So it is

23:35

the Emerson Zoo Line Railroad. But

23:39

it is a mile and a half around the zoo. And

23:42

there is a like a 20 minute little

23:45

informational like speech that happens

23:47

while you were on it. Like a

23:48

little person will sit in the back and will

23:50

tell you about the zoo and the areas you were going through.

23:54

And the train can hold like 80 people.

23:56

And it is a great way to get around.

23:58

It is an important way to get around. it around. That's

24:01

a big zoo to try to traverse

24:04

by foot. Yeah, so the St. Louis Zoo

24:06

is 90 acres, which doesn't even

24:08

rank it as one of the five biggest.

24:10

When I was looking, the Bronx Zoo is up there.

24:13

Of course, our zoo here, the Smithsonian. I

24:15

don't know how exactly they are

24:18

counting acreage and what

24:20

makes a big zoo. Is it just the

24:22

land it takes up or the number of exhibits?

24:24

I don't know. It was difficult for me to determine.

24:27

But yeah, the St. Louis Zoo train, we took Henry

24:29

on it once.

24:33

It's like a bonus thing. You go to

24:35

the zoo to see animals

24:38

and then there's also a train to ride. It's

24:40

a hat on a hat, but both

24:41

hats look really good.

24:44

It's a great way to get around. I think the nature

24:46

of zoo is that you have a lot of

24:50

open, untree-lined,

24:53

often concrete area. In

24:55

the summer, it is miserable. So

24:57

bad. Get on that train. Now

25:00

all of a sudden you're on the other side of the zoo and

25:02

you're a little relaxed. Our small son went

25:04

to zoo today and big son

25:06

had the opportunity to go to zoo and

25:08

was like, nope. I kind

25:11

of get it. It's pretty

25:13

hot out there. It

25:14

is pretty hot. I wanted to talk

25:16

about some zoos, some notable zoos.

25:19

San Francisco's zoo train, I just

25:22

wanted to bring it up because they call their train the

25:24

little puffer. Oh, that's cool. Which I

25:26

just love so much. The train itself was

25:28

purchased in 1925 and installed in the zoo in 1941.

25:35

Still going? Still same train?

25:38

Yeah. Well, it went in storage

25:41

from 1965 to 1997. Whoa,

25:45

that's a long gap. And then was restored. I mean, here's

25:47

the thing. This is why a lot of zoos

25:49

would not have a train or would not continue to have

25:51

a train. It is expensive to keep

25:53

up the train. All that coal. And zoos,

25:56

which are focused on animals,

25:59

not coal.

26:00

A lot of them are steam. Okay. Some

26:03

of them are coal though, probably. Just

26:07

like a little kid, like a little sustained

26:09

kid in the

26:09

front. Each train has like one coal

26:12

each time just to get it to go around. Is this a

26:14

monkey shovel? It's 11.

26:20

Got a little tin lunchbox with a banana in it.

26:22

I wanted to talk about. Play

26:24

with me. Play with me. I feel

26:26

like I did for a little while with

26:28

my little one coal. Okay, fine. Gets

26:31

the whole train going. All right. There's

26:34

also been a move to electric

26:36

trains which I think is interesting. St.

26:38

Louis just got one in March, 2023. Cincinnati

26:43

has one now. The

26:45

focus is to save on fuel

26:47

and maintenance costs and

26:50

Cincinnati gained status

26:52

as the greenest zoo in America. Wow.

26:55

Which is part of the reason that they took on the electric

26:57

train.

27:00

The one I wanted to spend a little time

27:02

on is the San Antonio Zoo. Now we have

27:04

never been there. No,

27:05

I've heard good things though.

27:08

Yes. Yeah, it's kind

27:10

of embarrassing how little we went to San Antonio

27:12

considering we were like an hour away. We went

27:14

a couple of times.

27:15

It's, you know, it's

27:17

cool. I genuinely liked San Antonio every

27:20

time we went there. I don't think we ever took our children there though, did

27:22

we? Maybe not.

27:24

Maybe not, no. I think so. So

27:27

the San Antonio Zoo has a train. The

27:32

railroad there was built in 1956 and

27:35

at the time was the longest miniature railroad

27:37

in the world. It

27:39

was formerly known as the Brackenridge

27:42

Eagle.

27:43

Cool, my trains have the coolest names.

27:47

Because it goes around Brackenridge

27:50

Park. The thing I

27:52

wanted to talk about is 1970 when

27:57

this miniature train was robbed

27:59

at gunpoint.

27:59

What In

28:04

in 1970 in July so

28:08

You know we just passed the anniversary They

28:11

have what San Antonio calls the great little

28:14

train robbery wait Why

28:16

would why they celebrated

28:18

every I'm gonna get there they celebrated every

28:20

year Which I think is funny because it was an actual

28:22

crime like these people actually went to prison But

28:25

it is like so unusual That they they

28:28

celebrated as an event every year And

28:31

so at this point it was over 50 years ago And

28:35

what happened so

28:36

there is there is it like a it's actually a witness testimonial

28:38

So the people that were kids at the time weren't told a newspaper

28:40

the story of the experience

28:47

The person they interviewed their

28:49

father Was

28:52

the manager

28:53

at the like train depot The manager at

28:55

the like train depot okay So

28:58

they were on the train like his

29:01

kids like the family was on the train And

29:04

the train stopped and then they heard people talking

29:07

about how the train was being held up while

29:09

on the train The

29:12

robbers two people wearing masks one

29:14

had a gun the other had a duffel bag

29:17

and Some people started hopping

29:20

off the train immediately. We're just like forget

29:22

this. I'm not here No kidding

29:23

at which point the robbers were like get

29:25

back on the train Clearly

29:28

didn't have a plan no well Except

29:32

that they

29:32

did because they robbed a train like

29:35

but anybody that's been on a miniature train knows like

29:37

it's it's you know There isn't an all our

29:39

contain sometimes. There's like a little chain

29:41

that hooks onto the side, but there's not

29:44

a lot of barrier What a strange

29:46

choice

29:48

And then people were just kind of skirting

29:51

the Issue

29:53

like they saw it happening and so they put stuff in

29:55

their socks They took their money out of their wallet and

29:57

so by the time the robbers got to them

29:59

and they didn't have anything available

30:02

to the robbers because the robbers were trying to move quickly

30:04

just going from person to person. So you

30:06

saw them coming down the way. You were like, oh, I better

30:08

hide all my stuff. By the time they got there,

30:11

there wasn't anything to get. So

30:14

what happened was one,

30:17

the person who was being interviewed, her dad,

30:19

as I mentioned,

30:20

owned the train, or managed the train depot,

30:23

and one of the guys on

30:26

the train got on a walkie talkie

30:28

radio thing and reached

30:30

out to her dad and said, there

30:32

are people robbing the train. He's like, are

30:34

you kidding me? Are they armed?

30:37

And they said, yes. So she

30:39

said her dad clicked off the radio, opened up

30:41

a safe,

30:42

and pulled a gun out. Which,

30:46

they don't explain why somebody managing

30:48

a zoo train would have a gun. Have a gun? Yeah,

30:50

that's another

30:51

great question. But apparently

30:53

they knew, they

30:55

had their suspicions. They

30:57

knew like, this would be the perfect crime.

31:00

I should get strapped.

31:01

If I were a criminal, I would rob our small

31:04

train for sure, for sure. At which point

31:06

this woman's dad told

31:09

the person he was working with to lock everything down. They're

31:11

probably gonna double back and try to rob the main

31:14

office here too. By

31:16

the time he got there, the robbers

31:19

were already gone, but they did

31:21

get caught. Apparently they were soldiers

31:23

that were stationed nearby at Fort Sam

31:25

Houston. They

31:27

got away with about $500 in valuables and cash,

31:31

but they got caught. And

31:33

train robbery is a federal crime. So

31:35

they were given 10 and 20 years in

31:38

the federal penitentiary

31:40

because of their train robbery. That's

31:43

the wildest

31:45

crime. It's

31:48

not the wildest crime, right? There's obviously lots of

31:50

wild crime stories out there. And

31:52

speaking from experience, there's very little

31:54

that is funny about being robbed at gunpoint.

31:57

Yes. But

31:59

the leaps. that someone has

32:02

to go through to plan

32:04

this heist and

32:07

not go, should we maybe

32:09

do like a building instead? Should we maybe not

32:11

do? No. It might be better. Hey

32:13

Rob, I was thinking about this. Maybe we

32:15

should do like

32:18

a room with walls

32:20

and a door and not a big

32:23

long room with no walls

32:26

and is in a zoo, in the middle of a zoo. Do

32:29

you think they just wanted to do a train robbery

32:32

really bad?

32:33

It's very possible. And I mean, here's the thing,

32:35

it is celebrated now. So apparently

32:38

this crime marked

32:40

itself in regional and state history

32:42

as the first time in 47 years a train

32:44

had been robbed

32:46

and the last known

32:48

train robbery in the state. So they really

32:51

let, they are lumped in now with all

32:53

these famous train robbers in history. Well,

32:55

probably not in the

32:56

way they were hoping they

32:58

would be.

32:58

So apparently they

33:00

have, it is not unusual for them to celebrate

33:03

this at the San Antonio

33:05

Zoo. Recently zoo employees

33:07

dressed as bandits once again, walked the length

33:10

of a train holding out a bag, this time asking

33:12

for donations towards a new train.

33:14

That's great.

33:20

So part of the reason I thought of this is

33:23

because I have talked a lot about how

33:25

I really want the Smithsonian National

33:27

Zoo to have a train.

33:29

It's not just big folks, it is

33:33

angular. It is a

33:36

downhill jaunt, which

33:38

then becomes a very

33:40

rough uphill jaunt. Yes, there are like two

33:43

entrances, one at the top of the hill, one at the bottom

33:45

of the hill. And it seems like

33:48

if you're gonna do the whole zoo, you're gonna end

33:50

up in trouble at some point, either having to

33:52

spend the whole time going uphill or at

33:54

the very end, having to go uphill and get back

33:56

to your

33:57

car. My strat now parked

33:59

the bottom. go up at the very

34:01

beginning and then you can just enjoy the

34:03

zoo. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So I was looking

34:06

like, I was Googling, like, Smithsonian

34:08

Zoo train? And

34:10

what I found was in, and

34:13

this is an article from 2008, the

34:15

Smithsonian

34:17

had a renovation plan that was approved to

34:19

cost about $1 billion. It

34:22

was a 20-year plan,

34:24

so we're not at the end of it yet.

34:27

Um, it called for a parking garage,

34:30

which we have not seen yet either. Uh,

34:32

seven new animal exhibits, uh, new plazas

34:35

and visitors amenities. And then one of the

34:37

things in there was an aerial tram.

34:40

I was thinking like a funicular of

34:42

some sort or a, uh, something

34:44

like that. That would be dope. Part of

34:46

what was approved was a three-station aerial

34:48

tram similar to a ski lift that would run

34:50

the length of the zoo's 163 acres.

34:53

Oh, I like that. Yeah. I

34:55

like that. Again, this was published in 2008. It's

34:57

a 20-year plan. We're

35:01

getting close. We're getting close, and I have not even seen

35:03

signs that this is going to be constructed. Please look forward,

35:05

pardon our mess, as we make this

35:07

zoo more traversable. So I don't know

35:09

if that's still coming or not, but, um,

35:12

fingers crossed. Okay. Well,

35:15

um, thank you for your service. Uh,

35:18

I'm going to be thinking about this small train robbery for a

35:20

very long time. Yes.

35:22

And, um, I was

35:24

trying to think of like a punt, like

35:26

a train robbery pun of like

35:29

a, but the best I came up with is 310 to

35:32

Puma, but I don't think that that's

35:34

any 310 to Zuma. They might not

35:36

have Pumas at the San

35:38

Antonio zoo is the only issue.

35:40

Uh-huh. And I don't even know if 310 to

35:43

Yuma has a train robbery in

35:45

it. The problem is we don't know a lot of train

35:48

words. Uh, that's not

35:50

true. Okay. Uh-huh.

35:54

Rail locomotive is another word.

35:56

Yeah. Uh-huh. Anyway,

35:58

that's there's no, there's.

35:59

There's nothing there. I've

36:02

just, we're standing on the precipice of a comedy

36:04

void and looking over it saying like, there might

36:06

be,

36:07

we might be the ones to force

36:09

this impossible. on

36:11

the internet is everybody sitting trying to

36:13

figure out what to name this website and they've

36:16

got nothing. And so. Yeah. Hey,

36:18

thanks to Bowen and Augustus for these, for our theme song, Money

36:20

Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description

36:23

and thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network.

36:25

Go to maximumfund.org, check out all the great shows that

36:27

they have on there. Go to mackleroymerch.com

36:30

and check

36:32

out the, all the hot merch that we've got going

36:35

on. We've got a new Clint the Plains Walking Janitor

36:37

sticker that is just fantastic.

36:41

Got some Bessie's merch coming soon that I'm pretty

36:43

stoked about too. I'll show you some, some ruffs.

36:45

Okay. I

36:48

think that's just about it. We got some, oh, we got

36:50

some shows coming up. We're going to be in

36:52

Seattle doing MBMBAM and Taz during

36:54

PAX. We're going to be in

36:57

Philly and then New York,

36:59

around New York Comic Con in October. So

37:02

you should come, come see one of those shows. Go to mackleroyfamily.com

37:05

or mackleroy.family and you

37:08

can find links to all that stuff.

37:10

But

37:11

till then, thanks for, thank you for

37:13

listening to this very standard

37:16

boilerplate, by

37:19

the numbers. It's

37:22

an episode. It's a episode of Wonderful.

37:27

This is how it always ends.

37:30

♪ Funny Wahs, Herry, fuck it all,

37:33

Tim… ♪ ♪ Funny Whone, Harry,

37:36

fuck it all… ♪ ♪ Hill, Funny

37:38

Wah, Harry Hungary, all… ♪ ♪ Hill,

37:42

Funny Wah, Harry📸 ♪ funny

37:45

Whone... ♪ Funny Wah, Harry,

37:48

Fuck it all Hill, Funny

37:50

Wah Artist H 허팝 Maximum

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