Justin shouted out his “fellow spectrum riders” during this week’s Munch Squad
one of the weirder ways I’ve heard someone obliquely reference their self-diagnosed (wife-diagnosed?) autism*
just thought I should let y’all know
ETA: didn’t realize I needed to clarify this isn’t making fun of Justin but here we are
travis does some more bullshit on episode 13 and i had to stop and actually figure out where the fuck these idiots are staying. you guys won't see this one for like another two weeks and you'll probably have forgotten this by then, so an excerpt of what i'm currently working on:
in episode 13, firbolg once again falls under the mind control of higglemas, and heads to higglemas's office, in the annex. due to planning by the firbolg prior, fitz and argo are alerted and race to intercept him from their dorm.
>Travis: Uh, so you reach the Annex building, and you have no idea how long it‘s been since the Firbolg has entered. I mean, it usually takes you like, 15 minutes to walk from the dorms at a leisurely pace. Y'know, stopping and saying hi to everybody. So you're betting, maybe five minutes at a full blown sprint.
their dorm is approximately 15 minutes walking distance away. according to nike
>Most people can expect to walk a mile in 15 to 22 minutes, according to data gathered in a 2019 study spanning five decades.
so their dorm is approximately a mile away from the main building and annex. but wait!
back in episode 1:
>We are still at Wiggenstaff‘s campus, but we approach from a much different direction. We found ourselves now at a wrought iron gate on the school‘s far wall. At the base of the tower, we can now see the Annex. Wiggenstaff‘s Sidekick and Henchperson Annex is run by Hieronymous‘ younger brother and lifelong sidekick, Higglemas Wiggenstaff. The awkward building sits, appropriately, in the tower‘s shadow.
>[...]
>Our journey comes to an inauspicious end. We find ourselves in a room, empty save for three simple beds and a cat. This is an Annex dorm room, where three students will make their home for the next five years.
so despite some earlier nonsense where travis seems to imply the only thing inside the annex is higglemas's office, we know that at least the sidekick dorms are situated within the annex, at the base of the tower that comprises the main building of the school. ah! but wait, you say, i remember that they were moved into villain dorms at the start of the semester. well hold on to your horses (because centaurs would be offended if you ride them)
continuing in episode one, they leave their dorm to explore the school grounds and run into groundsy outside.
>Yes. Okay. As you exit this uncomfortable conversation with Groundsy the groundskeeper, you now have two options. You can go to the left, and uh, pass around the school by the barn side, or you can go to the right, and pass around the school on the battleground side. Uh, and you do not have to all go together for this, because you will end up at the same place.
ok, we have a bit more geography. the battlegrounds and the barn are both bordering the main tower, one to the left and one to the right. hm, there's something tickling the back of my brain....
from episode 10:
>There are windows in both bedrooms [of the new villain dorm], and your dorm overlooks the battlegrounds. And there‘s a Gary in this room, as well.
there you have it. they live in the villain dorms, which obviously overlook the battlegrounds that border the tower that borders the annex, which is a mile away from their dorms. this worldbuilding shit is easy as hell.
Hi, all -
Once again coming in hot off the wire from WV:
> Assault charges dropped against local comedian
> Criminal charges against local comedian Justin McElroy have been dropped, the prosecuting attorney's office for Cabell County announced on Wednesday.
> McElroy had been charged with assault and battery last October following an incident in a local restaurant, charges which could have included mandatory jail time.
> On Friday, October 3rd, McElroy and his family had been dining at Fat Patty's restaurant, located at 1935 Third Avenue in downtown Huntington. Fat Patty's staff members and customers reported that following a verbal confrontation, McElroy threw a hard-boiled egg as hard as he possibly could at another diner, striking him in the back of the head and ruining his life.
> Charges were pressed the following Monday.
> WSAZ3 spoke with a Fat Patty's staff member at the time of the incident. "[McElroy] asked for a hard-boiled egg," the witness told WSAZ3, "and when the server brought it out, he grabbed it and he wanged it as hard as he possibly could at the back of [the other diner's] head."
> When reached by WSAZ3, McElroy did not deny the charges. "Yeah I wanged it," he told us. "I wanged it as hard as I could! I wanged it right at him and I'm guilty as hell! Is that what you want to hear? I'm guilty as hell!"
> McElroy, a lifelong Huntington resident, is best known for appearing in the "Trolls 2" animated children's movie, and for starring in a 2007 television commercial for Berry & Cream-flavored Starburst.
> The prosecutor's office released a statement on Wednesday. "McElroy has agreed to participate in an anger management program, and attend a public safety seminar about the dangers of throwing hard boiled eggs at people and hitting them really hard in the head with them."
i don't have anything funny or smart to say, this just stopped me dead in my tracks when i was listening to an old ass mbmbam today lmao
This was pre-amongus. If only either of them had listened to that advice…
Kick up the 4d3d33d3, a little bit
From the perspective of the other aspirants, Rictus would just be a guy who cums uncontrollably at the thought of violence; this would be really off putting, preventing him from forming alliances and causing him to get ganked by round 3 at the very latest. Is there a lore reason behind why this didn't happen? Or do you think Griffin is just saving it for a later challenge?
What do we think gang, does Travis get the pass like Juice?
Only an hour away from Huntington. Definitely a McElroy reference.
#Setup Griffin had a book signing for The Stowaway at the Chicago Humanities Festival today. It's a choose your own adventure novel, herein abbreviated CYOA. Adal Rifai was moderating/hosting.
I did pay actual American dollars to attend and get a copy of the book.
#Interview Here's what I found out:
#Audience Q&A
Are you planning on doing a deeper dive into the lore? — He's thought about it, but sequels are hard to think about. This story made sense as a CYOA book. But he'd be excited to explore the broader conflict.
Will you get into other genres/media? — White whale is a game. It'd daunting but his most familiar medium. Game dev tools are easier to use nowadays. He's tried Unity and (Game Maker?), but didn't have much success. He picked up Godot about 6 months ago.
Were you picturing scenes from a graphic novel perspective? — Prose was a big struggle. "Do I want to to write a words book?" he asked himself. He wound up writing a book with about 10 lines of dialogue and "didn't use a ton of what I learned" from the graphic novel process.
What was the process like in writing for a younger audience than usual? — First draft was weird. Every part of a CYOA is load bearing. Changing a scene and its place in the story can lead to lots of other changes. He was quite late on the first deadline, in part because he said "Kids aren't gonna like this." He then(?) realized he had an 8-year-old son, which is the early end of middle readers. So he asked himself what his son would like. He likes Nintendo manga. Griffin wanted to write a book that wouldn't be scary like the CYOAs of the 80s and 90s. He didn't want death, but there was still "terrible peril" and the prospect of being "flung into space."
How do you get over perfectionism? — He would love to have helpful advice. It's something he really has struggled with. He really wanted to stick the landing with TAZ Balance and worked "morning, noon, and night" on it. He was editing up to 45 minutes before publishing the last episode. And then he had a kid. They have a hired editor who "does incredible work" and so he doesn't get hung up on stuff as much. His advice isn't actually to have two kids, but it worked for him.
What's the TAZ writing process like? — It's changed a lot. He wrote Balance like a book, but that was unsustainable. He was trying to squeeze the players through his plot. Live shows made it click. He does less prep work now, which is better?! He then said he uses a process called "vines and landings," which I'll be honest, I didn't quite understand.
What were some other space storytelling influences for the CYOA? —He didn't read a ton of sci-fi/space fiction growing up. But he loved movies and TV. Firefly was a big influence. He really started thinking about it when everyone was stuck inside during COVID. The world is a big part of the story in fantasy, but in space, it's either humans being isolated or tight-knit. Cowboy Bebop, Spaceballs, Neil Stevenson, and Andy Weir were other big influences. Space is lonely. The characters/audience are either there for that or trying to fend it off.
#Conclusion I have an autographed copy of the book. The paper is a little cheaper than I expected, and the text pages are pretty blank. But the illustrations are nice, and there's an abstract map of how the story branches.
Also, I updated the Wikipedia image. He seemed surprised that somebody would want to do that.
This was serious, but feel free to jerk in the comments.
I was responsible with getting the Travis Replacement Theory mentioned on MBMBAM and one of Travis' streams and Justin and Sydney answered my question about breast milk on a stream. How have you affected the McElverse?
And why are the player characters even in debt? Not very smart
Sup, fellow freaks, tweaks, creaks and reeks, we’re presenting a new evolution in jerking technology today; the very first Shmanners co-jerk experience! Or the Shmanners Reacharound, if you will. I am joined today by my fellow actual queer freak pervert and shmufferer of the shmines, u/CardInternational753 as we delve into the celebration of ten years of Shmanners by the ever-dependable T4T. They made their notes first, then I went and listened through, and we’ll be trading off comments on sections as we go to give you, the audience, a fuller, more fulfilling jerk. Like doing that thing where we twist the head a li’l while working the shaft. What insights do T4T have to offer looking back on such a long time doing this show, what elements do they take the most pride in, and what can we glean from this self-indulgent wankery from our two favorite shmidiots? Let’s find out together, hand in unjerkable hand!
Standard intro, Brentalfloss theme, hello my dear my dove, etc. Teresa says it’s the Shmannerversary! And Travis makes a coughing noise straight from The Exorcist. They also, once again, do not know how many episodes they’ve made, as Travis says this is the 490th, but it’s listed as episode 484 on the site, alongside ANOTHER 484 and then Episode 501 at one point, so, uh…
Card: “Woah, are you the winner of the 2025 AVN Independent Male Performer of the Year award because that's one girthy...podcast.
We did y'all, Mission Accomplished. Shmanners made it a whole decade. And to honor that milestone, Travis and Teresa McElroy, the twee-est and boudoir-est of all the McElcouples, decided to bless us with an episode called Shmannerversary! (Sugoi! So kawaii!), whose description reads: "Hello internet! This week’s episode is the TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY of Shmanners! So we bring you the history of the show: how it came to be, how it’s changed, and some of the episodes we loved! Enjoy and be sure to share with a friend!"
That last part really struck a chord with me because I do love to share and this podcast is just so big and girthy that I think I'm going to need an extra pair of hands to milk all its etiquette goodness. So this is essentially a two-part Schmecap in collaboration with perhaps my favorite actual queer freak pervert on this voyage of the damned - u/KPopMyHoleBod.
Now if I was in a twee marriage with the living embodiment of one of those Tumblr rockabilly girls who was secretly an awful person, I would do something cute and saccharine for my 10-year anniversary episode, like theme it around 10-year anniversaries (officially, the tin anniversary). But that's not how Travis and Teresa roll so instead they decided that a history lesson about themselves is what the, like, seven fans who listen to this show want to hear!
But first, I think we should all give up for KPop props for picking up the cursed torch of Schmecaps and honestly knocking it out of the park. And honestly, the whole schmecapping crew fucking rocks but I know that KPop is perhaps the most consistent of them all.
The episode is a meaty 38 minutes and 28 seconds long, because it being their tenth anniversary means their fans get 10 extra minutes in the ballpit OKAY SO THEY LITERALLY START BY NOTING THAT THEY'VE DONE 'NEARLY 500 EPISODES'. TRAVIS CALLS IT THE 490TH EPISODE, DESPITE THE EPISODE BEING NUMBER 484.”
Thanks for the kind words, Card, now let’s dive on into it together!
Travis talks about going back down shmemory lane and looking at old episodes, and already we’re off to the races with the self-congratulatory glad-handing and back patting.
>Travis: That as I was going back through I was like, we did an episode on that?!
>Teresa: I know, right?
>Travis: Oh! Ah! I can't—ah! I can't believe we talked about that, that's awesome. Ah, I can't wait to listen to that one. I bet we were really interesting.
>Teresa: [laughs] Well, yes, I bet we were.
>Travis: I bet we were!
Spoilers: No, you were not.
After some unfunny interjections from Travis, Teresa takes us back to yesteryear and reveals the show started during their move to LA and were recording at the MaxFun headquarters, though Teresa notes that it’s no longer at the same building. So they’ve fully left the old office, but seemingly have yet to move into the new one they were crowdfunding for? Fascinating look into the attempted move, hope it fails hard for them and Jesse Thorn has to burn his pocket squares in a trash can for warmth on the streets. No one deserves to be homeless - EXCEPT Jesse Thorn, that’s my campaign promise. Seemingly confirming my disdain, Teresa reveals it was, in fact, Jesse himself who first suggested that she and Travis make a podcast together. One more terrible thing begat upon this world by Mr. Thorn, cool, great. At least in this telling, anyway, who’s to say who first had the idea for Shmanners specifically? Travis says that Justin was the one who got them onto the idea of the topic of etiquette, while Teresa claims Jesse just had the suggestion of them doing a podcast with no theme in mind beyond the two of them hosting.
Hilariously, Travis says that Justin alleged suggested the topic because ‘Teresa knows all this stuff about, like, manners and etiquette’ but then clarifies that he thinks Justin meant that in comparison to the brothers as a whole, which Travis points out ‘is not hard to accomplish.’ While I agree Teresa doesn’t seem the most knowledgeable on the subject as a whole, way to once again undercut your wife, Whimpering Dog. To rectify, he quickly moves on to say that she does know ‘a lot’ about it and is ‘more polite’ than the brothers. Justin apparently was also the one to propose the name, and Travis was the one to make the call to spell it without the ‘C’ because it ‘seemed easier to spell.’ I’m telling Germany you said that, Travis.
Card: “Their origin story starts at MaxFun HQ in LA. They claim that the idea for them doing a podcast came direct from Jesse Thorn and then Justin suggested a podcast about etiquette because, per Travis, Teresa is to manners/etiquette knowledge what Sydnee is to medical knowledge. Which, have we ever established what Teresa's qualifications for this topic are? Because Sydnee is a doctor, like she has a medical degree I assume. Teresa, based on her LinkedIn, is a former actress? Like they have never actually talked about why Teresa is considered an expert on etiquette. AND HEY, THIS FEELS LIKE THE PERFECT EPISODE TO TALK ABOUT THAT BUT I GUESS YOU AREN’T.”
In a bit of McEl-lore, we learn that apparently Justin and Griffin had to be the ones to convince Travis to do MBMBAM with them the first time by saying they’d just record a ‘test episode’ while he was getting over his nerves, only to then turn around and upload said test episode directly as the first one. Travis then decided to repeat this, saying he ‘tricked you the same way’ to Teresa, which… I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as he makes it sound with that phrasing, but woof, man. Anyway, they recorded the very first one in their Van Nuys apartment, and Jesse Thorn added one more contribution by suggesting they do a ‘cold open’ joke before the actual intro, which Travis says was one of the harder things to do;
>Travis: And that lasted a really long time!
>Teresa: It really did.
>Travis: Until it reached a point where it was like, I can't think of any more jokes.
>Teresa: [laughs] Ever. You've completely run dry of jokes.
>Travis: It started to be the thing I was most nervous about, was like, will I be able to think of a joke for this one? Ah, no!
>Teresa: [chuckles] Turns out we didn't need the joke.
>Travis: No, I make plenty of stupid jokes throughout the episode itself.
Card: “Holy shit, you guys were renting a split-level apartment in Van Nyus? They...clearly did not plan anything for this episode because Travis is just rambling about how many times he can marry (and swap organs with) Teresa Travis sorta rips the mask off by talking about how their dynamic is that he just keeps talking and Teresa jumps back in "like a revolving sushi restaurant””
They go on about how it’s now two kids and almost (already???) 500 episodes later, still on their first marriage. Which leads to a… odd little exchange that I will refrain from analyzing too much at risk of armchairing too heavily, but, uh…
>Travis: If we have a second marriage, it'll be to each other again, which will be weird. Can you double marry? Like, or does that—and then on the—
>Teresa: I think you have to get divorced, and then you can—
>Travis: No, we can marry more? Mary Moore.
>Teresa: Mary Moore. [chuckles]
>Travis: Mary Tyler Moore.
>Teresa: Maybe.
>Travis: We'll exchange some organs this time.
>Teresa: Ew.
>Travis: And then I think if we get married a third time, I think it's actually square. I think that's four, like because it just doubles again. You know what I mean? And so it's a Fibonacci sequence of marriages. And then the next one will be eight, and then 16. And eventually, I think we'll just be melded into one person like that Alison Brie and Dave Franco movie. I haven't seen it. I think it's Romantics? It's not. [chuckles] I know the summary of it, it's not romantic, don't watch it if—
>Teresa: You were talking to me, and I kind of like checked out—
>Travis: No, I know, I watched.
>Teresa: [laughs]
>Travis: And you know, I figured 10 years in, I would just keep talking and see if you check back in.
…annnnyyyyway, they get into their first live show, on greggnancy, and mention it was during the time that Teresa was pregnant, along with Rachel the clone-wife of Griffin, not the Editor. Travis offers some more insight into the timeline of McElroy events; they did the first live Shmanners in May of 2016, then in August moved to Huntington for ‘like a month and a half’ to film the MBMBAM TV show, which lasted until about September before the pair of them moved to Cincinnati in October that year, with Bebe being born roughly two weeks later. I’m sure this is gonna be valuable info for someone’s red-string cork board conspiracy, so take notes all you Bellhouse truthers out there. While this is all, I guess, theoretically interesting, they still aren’t really saying much about the show itself? Like, we’ve brushed past the ‘why’ of choosing etiquette with no real deeper insight, no further reasoning. I mean, not that I expected much deeper behind it than ‘I deserve a wife-guy podcast and my wife has better manners than me so that kinda works as a topic,’ but it’s kinda crazy that they don’t even try to bulk out the process a bit more. Just “Yup, we threw this one together kinda thoughtlessly after being asked to make a podcast, outsourced the concept and title to Justin, then just went ahead with it.” No one else is doing it like etc, etc.
Card: “They talk about their first live show apropos of...moving back across the country to Cincy from LA I really feel like someone needs to deep dive on just what happened to Travis in LA because it really does feel like this was meant to be his big break and it just...didn't happened.”
>Travis: Anyway, so she was born. But really, the podcast is our first baby.
>Teresa: Ah.
>Travis: Aah. Not really. If Bebe, if you're listening to this someday, that's not true.
Travis, I hope for both your sake and hers that Bebe never listens to anything you’ve ever produced. Same with Jesse Thorn’s daughter, really. Your kids need to be hermetically sealed off from your creative endeavors until long after you’re both dead.
Movin’ right along, they segue into gabbing about which live shows are their favorites. Not much insight here, though Travis offers his up as the Pizza live show in Chicago, leading to Teresa’s surprise and delight because that’s her favorite live episode, too, and they (allegedly) didn’t discuss this before recording and landed on it independently. If true, kind of a cute moment, though from what I remember of the recap it was not… the best episode of Shmanners, but then none of them ever are so that doesn’t count for much I guess. Whatever, it’s fine, who cares. Card, thoughts?
Card: “Travis (and Teresa's) favorite live show was the one about Pizza, recorded in Chicago. That is one I personally recapping and it's...bad. This is a show that opens with Teresa very bluntly reminded Travis that they are married and she is not simply his 'girlfriend’.”
>Travis: I think some of our best episodes, to me, are ones where I know a lot of surface level stuff about it. And then you bring like history and definitions and etiquette to it and I'm like, "Well, I didn't know that." I made a pretty bold claim, thinking I knew the answer to that, and then you're like, "Well, no, actually." And I'm like, "Oh, okay, okay."
Travis, you seemingly don’t retain any new information Teresa gives you during this show, and you also frequently try to belittle her when she IS giving you new context and knowledge and find ways to needle at her for being ‘the expert’ to reassert your own dominance and authority. Bold fucking claim to be making here, man. Anyway, they claim the energy of the audience was good that one, Teresa again makes her baffling statement that “Chicago style deep dish pizza is a casserole” that just... no? No it isn’t??? That’s not- whuh-
This then leads into a highly jerkable exchange where Travis once more decides to show his ass.
>Travis: Except when I say that thin crust, crispy is the best to me. It lets me just inhale the pizza.
>[both chuckle]
>Travis: In a very like "let's do this, go," kind of way. But I don't savor anything in life.
>Teresa: Yeah.
>Travis: I'm always go-go-go like a shark. That's me. I'm a shark. You know? Always moving, can't sleep. I'm afraid of orcas, or whatever.
>Teresa: [titters] Everyone is afraid of orcas. They're terrible.
>Travis: Even other orcas?
>Teresa: I think so.
>Travis: Okay, yeah.
>Teresa: But I said that deep dish pizza was a casserole, and the crowd was incredulous at first, but I think I won them over.
>Travis: Yeah, but you also think that cheesecake isn't cake, so that's fine.
>Teresa: It's a custard.
>Travis: You can be wrong about things and beautiful and amazing at the same time.
>Teresa: Okay. Anyway, so…
STOP NEGGING YOUR WIFE, GODDAMN. EVERY fucking episode lately that I stumble on, Travis is doing this shit. What does she see in him (besides a lingering conservative obligation to never, ever divorce and always keep the peace in marriage ‘for the kids’ and- ooh, wait, jerking too close to the sun, not allowed to go that far, uhhh)?
After that, T4T decide to briefly spotlight the person I’m most curious about in this whole production pipeline, their researcher Alexx. The mysterious Wikipedia scribe who combs half-assedly through the most basic info and spits it back at them with all the finesse of an especially broken ChatGPT session. We also… Jesus, it’s getting fucking hard not to armchair psychoanalyze with all the nuggets they’re dropping in this one, goddamn.
Card: “WAIT WHAT, THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT ALEXX IN DETAIL. Okay so Alexx works in Travis and Teresa's house. She uses their physical office space. It's a lot of nothing - Alexx has written for 68% of the episodes they've done, she writes about 3300 words an episode. Also Travis says that they love Alexx but quickly clarifies but not in a romantic way, which feels like a bit of a awkward thing to do. Also no info on who Alexx actually is, of course.”
>Teresa: And she would like to let everyone know—
>Travis: That our kids like her better than us?
>Teresa: Well, yeah, but—
>Travis: Yeah. Not in the like love kind of way, but it's in an excitement kind of way. I think—
>Teresa: Yeah, they, when she is here, working in the office, they drop their things from school and run straight to Alex to tell her the parts about their day.
>Travis: Yes.
>Teresa: And to like play with her sticker collection and like—
>Travis: Well, it's also because Alex spins them around in her office chair.
>Teresa: Yeah, that's true.
>Travis: And I think like, "Oh, yeah! We get to go to the Alex Carnival." Which is great.
>Teresa: [chuckles] She started writing for us March 6th, 2019. And her first episode was researcher for the makeup episode.
>Travis: Oh, that was a good one.
>Teresa: And since then, she has written 337 episodes of Shmanners. Which means that Alex has been here for 68% of the show's lifespan.
>Travis: Almost 69. Nice.
>Teresa: Ah, nice. So, her average episode is 3280 words, and by that logic, she has written over 1,105,000 for Shmanners.
>Travis: We should do like a Shmanners encyclopedia. A Shmancyclopedia.
>Teresa: We should.
First off, 2019?!?!?! Y’all made it almost FOUR years into this without a dedicated researcher?!?! I… WHO THE FUCK WAS DOING IT FIRST, THEN??? Secondly, she’s written 337 episodes??? Good fucking god, the amount of time this show has taken up yet the lack of anything worthwhile it’s ever said is astounding to me. Travis has left so many graveyards strewn with dead podcasts over the years, but THIS is the one he’s kept afloat for so long? Thirdly, there’s frankly so much to dig into with the whole ‘our kids are less excited about us and more interested in the random researcher who WORKS IN OUR HOUSE’ that I could make bank selling shovels to jerkers. Also, again, Alex COMES TO THEIR HOUSE for this???? As always, somehow so much more effort than needed but never any in the places it could really use it, the McElroy way.
Travis almost immediately derails from this peek behind the curtain to ramble about making a Shmanners book about a vampire, because they could have lived through all the decades they’ve covered and vampires are hot, blah blah BLAAAHHHH GET BACK TO THE BEHIND THE SCENES SHIT, THE ONLY THING OF INTEREST IN THIS DRECK
Card: “Uhhhh what? Teresa openly admits that she just skims their researcher's work and Travis doesn't read the notes to be 'genuinely stupid' on air. Okay no more Alexx apparently. I agree the person who has written nearly three-quarters of your episodes and over 1 million words only deserves like 3 minutes of this episode.”
>Teresa: Well, so I do—I do want to caveat that I don't read the entirety of Alex's episodes—
>Travis: And I don't read.
>Teresa: On every show. And you don't read. I do read through it before I do the show. And so, I have appreciated all of her words.
>Travis: I don't read it ahead of time. This is important. There are some, right? Like idioms episodes, ask Shmanners, that I read beforehand.
>Teresa: Yeah.
>Travis: But I don't want to pretend to be stupid. I want to actually be stupid.
>Teresa: [chuckles] You're a method actor.
>Travis: I'm a method actor, I take my stupidity very seriously. So, when you're presenting stuff to me, I don't want to have to pretend like, "What? It was that—" So anytime you've ever heard me just be wildly wrong about a thing, when you're like, "When do you think this was or who do you think did this?" And I'm like, "Boom, Attila the Hun." And you're like, "No, it was 300 years before that." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." That's all real stupid, baby. 100% purebred stupid.
>Teresa: Yay.
So, like. Here’s the essential paradox of Travis McElroy, right? He says this, thinking that it makes him ‘quirky’ and ‘funny’ and ‘relatable,’ because he’s not trying to put on ‘an act,’ he’s just giving it to us all raw and uncensored and live, he’s not here to ‘pretend’ with us. But in that classic ‘first thought = best thought’ way of his, he doesn’t understand that keeping himself ignorant and then blasting that ignorance out like a firehouse of furry jizz into a catboy twink’s face all over his podcasts only serves to make him that much more prone to making offensive remarks and playing into his existing biases without reflection or introspection. And then it’s also at odds with his need to be seen as ‘right’ and ‘authoritative’ so you get the numerous exchanges throughout the podcast where he has to cut Teresa off and interject to try and force his misunderstood impressions of things past her, or gets snippy when she corrects him one too many times for his liking, etc. So you get someone who both wants to ‘own’ his ignorance and also show how he’s ‘above it’ all at the same time, and the end result is just insufferable. It’s also an example of Travis again being able to NOTICE a problem, an issue in his content and personality, but instead of taking any actionable steps to address it and maybe make improvements, he doubles-down and insists on being ‘in on the joke’ but without doing much to heighten things. He just keeps on going being an entitled and ignorant idiot and acts like he’s nailing his ‘role’ in the podcast, when nearly every review that isn’t aggressively glazing the Big Dog has people mentioning how he makes the show harder to listen to by constantly interjecting and sniping at Teresa.
Card: “I wish I had more to say about this but it's just so boring? Like oh my god, how do you make an episode ABOUT YOUR SHOW uninteresting?”
AD BREAK
Flop House ad, Triple Click ad. Fairly normal, but there’s one line in the Triple Click ad that basically sums up the entire MaxFun model succinctly; “Triple Click, it’s kind of like we’re your friends.” Not beating the parasocial allegations with that one, huh.
So, I’m going to be very real with y’all, I started writing this out in, like, February and then proceeded to fall headlong into another bad Depression Ravine for the next several months. I’m getting some treatment, but it’s slow-going at the moment since there isn’t much progress being made and going over all the sad moments from the past to process them has lead to a heightened awareness of mistakes and failures that I’d mostly shoved back down before interrogating them.
But! I’m at least able to hang virtually with some pals and watch weird cinema and obscure cult films, and that’s made a dent in the overall hopelessness to some degree. I do have other Jerker Manifestos and recaps planned in the pipeline, I just need to get back into some kind of vaguely productive swing again after mostly finding even the most minor of writing and art-making draining and dispiriting. We’re gonna make it through this year if it kills us, heavy metal jerker babies. I believe in us.
Have some music for getting through all this; been on a Julee Cruise/Angelo Badalamenti kick lately, with a few bits of Lord Huron alongside for that special cocktail of cosmic and wistful vibe that feels appropriate as of late.
I want to once more thank u/CardInterntional753 for their gracious participation in this shared breakdown grand co-jerking madness, and apologize for it taking me literal months to finish.
BACK TO THE SHMINES
We return to Teresa continuing on about how she doesn’t read all of Alexx’s notes on air, revealing that there are several ‘in-jokes’ that Alexx writes into the scripts that are just meant for Teresa’s eyes only, little parenthetical asides and such. And it’s like… it’s kind of cute, sure, I can see the fun, but also, THIS is what Alexx is doing instead of making more thorough research notes, instead of properly crediting the Indigenous origins of words, instead of finding any sources more robust than Wikipedia and PBS specials and children’s books? Like, again, it’s another sign of the seeming addiction to ‘quirky’ aesthetics and production methods that, in actuality, only end up detracting from the final product. More of that twee Millennial-ism that MaxFun as a network seems lab-grown to cultivate.
Card: “Teresa mentions that Alexx is 'currently doing marking' implying that Alexx holds down some form of teaching job (and that Travis and Teresa absolutely do not pay her what she's worth)”
Cont. in PART II
Moving on, Teresa and Travis both espouse that the idioms episodes are their favorite recurring segment in the show and are approaching their twentieth installment in the series. Having suffered through an idiom-centric Shmanners or two, this is baffling to me because they feel like the most thin and threadbare of the already meagre offerings from this slop, which some of the most inconsistent research and a lot of urban legends and old wive’s tales mixed into their ‘explanations’ of the origins of various phrases. Lots of ‘well, probably’ or ‘it could have come from’ sorta talk in those. Sadly enough, Travis says that he’s learned the most from the idioms episodes, citing ‘the cat out of the bag’ as the one that comes to mind when asked (by who, Travis? Who in your life is asking you for clarification on what you do on Shmanners? Is it your kids? It’s your kids, isn’t it? Except even they would surely grow bored with that after the first explanation of what daddy does on Fridays and why he and mommy need to leave them with Dad’s Special Friend Alexx while going into the microphone room) about the idioms episodes.
Card: “They are just talking about episodes they've done but not, like, in any detail? They are just saying 'I liked this episode' and then just talk about what the episode was about and now why it stands out to them?”
>Travis: Well, and also, the thing about idioms episodes, it's not a specific like idiom that I learned, so much as like the number of times an idiom will come on the show and I'm like, I didn't even think of that as an idiom. It's so common and pervasive—
>Teresa: Exactly.
>Travis: That it's just a part of my language without ever thinking that it meant something else at some point.
Again… this is the DEFINITION of what an idiom is! Common and pervasive phrases and sayings that have trickled into language and culture that convey meanings derived from real situations turned into aphorisms!! WHY ARE YOU AMAZED THAT IDIOMS ARE IDIOMS WHEN THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF-
Anyyyywayyyy, Travis then displays more of his ‘homegrown 100% organic’ stupidity by once more showcasing how terrible he is at educating his children, after Teresa makes the point about how idioms make learning new languages difficult.
>Travis: Though, I—to slightly go off topic for a second, but I find this talking to our children and teaching them—
>Teresa: Yes.
>Travis: Where like they will ask us like, "What does this word mean?" And usually, if it is a word like… I'm trying to think of a good example, but like, "perseverance," right? These things that describe—
>Teresa: Sure.
>Travis: The quality you have of this thing. And it's so hard because you're like, "It's how much you persevere."
>Teresa: [laughs]
>Travis: It's like, I know that that doesn't help! I know that this has not answered your question.
>Teresa: Defining the word with the word.
>Travis: Yes, but it's like, there are so many words where it's like, this word refers to how much of this word you have.
>Teresa: Yeah.
>Travis: And I'm like, yeah, no, I know. I know that this isn't helpful, but it's the best I've got.
Deeply, deeply embarrassing thing to admit on air, Big Dog. Like, you can’t just say “to persevere is to go the distance, last until the end, and so perseverance is when you are able to do that, how much you can withstand and last” or whatever. Do they even own a fucking thesaurus and dictionary or are all their books just different editions of Harry Potter and Bridgerton
We’re just fully into them reminiscing about their favorite episodes and series of episodes at this point, looks like further insight into the ‘inside baseball’ of Shmanners has left the building and now it’s just only aggressive back-patting and self-sucking for us to dwell in until the end of this ‘monumental’ anniversary special. Teresa’s favorite series/recurring theme is their wedding-focused episodes because she’s still a romance novel girly who lives for the spectacle and opulence or whatever. Travis cites his as their three-parter on prohibition which gave us one of his more infamous libertarian moments of complaining about taxes. And SPEAK OF THE DEVIL…
Card: "Travis complains about alcohol sales tax."
>Travis: Where we talked about—because it's like, I realized doing that— because I knew about prohibition, you know, from like school and probably PBS, if I'm being honest.
>Teresa: [chuckles]
>Travis: Support public broadcasting. But also, like there was so much in that that connected to me of like, oh, so this is because of prohibition, and this thing is because—like these things that wouldn't exist, mostly bad, if it wasn't for prohibition, right?
>Teresa: Yeah.
>Travis: Like, I think it was income tax or sales tax or something where it's like, yeah, to make up for the money that was coming in from alcohol sales to the government, they had to institute this tax because of that. And it was like, they should have just kept selling alcohol then!
>Teresa: They should have just kept selling alcohol.
>Travis: Because then they started selling alcohol again, and didn't take that tax away, I noticed. Hm!
Big Dog taking a Big Stand against the eeeeeevvvviiiiiiiiilllllls of government overreach that steal his hard-earned podcasting money from his pocket to spend on, eeeuuughhhh, public services and infrastructure, grosssss.
They get into other ‘recurring characters’ that crop up on Shmanners, and Teresa’s first example is… the industrial revolution??? Not a person or ‘character’ per se in any traditional definition, but sure, you do you Teresa, why the fuck not. Travis says that Queen Victoria is a regular ‘recurring character’ because she reigned so long, was so important, and…
>Travis: It was during a span of time where was, like, everything she did started ripples that changed stuff. And like people—there's photographs coming into play, there's like the ability to spread news. Not to mention, and it's bad, but she was like a huge colonizer, right?
>Teresa: Yeah.
>Travis: So it's like her influence then spread to all these other corners of the globe. And obviously, that sucks, but also, it just increased that just her… behaviors, traditions, things that she started doing, really spread very quickly.
I truly cannot get over the fucking aw heckin’ shucks way they talk about the evils of historical figures and events. Just this awful combination of a need to remain ‘wholesome’ and play into the ‘good good boy’ facade while avoiding too many bummers but also reassuring the audience of their ‘progressive’ bonafides by tossing out the most gosh dangit to criminy language to scold historical colonizers like they’re talking to a misbehaving small child. “And it’s bad,” “and obviously, that sucks” like come the fuck on, what are we doing here. Too fucking chickenshit to call her a monster or decry Britain’s colonialism with even a “this was a terrible and awful stain on her legacy that impacts how we think of her” or would that get in the way of their mutual deepthroating of England as this fantasy land of whimsy and castles and scones and elegant manners, goddamn fuckin’ teaboos.
Teresa mentions that Alexx says she’s ‘currently trademarking’ the phrase ‘the great Christian rebrand’ which I swear to god I do not remember coming up in any of the Shmanners I’ve covered, but is apparently one that ‘comes up a lot’ according to T4T??? Which then leads to this hilarious moment to me where Travis once more showcases his ignorance;
>Travis: It does come up a lot. Once again, another colonizing influence, the great Christian rebrand. Also, our patron saint, Emily Post.
Hey, Travis? Maybe wanna think about how it looks to say “another colonizing influence” about Christianity and then, in the same breath, mention your show’s ‘patron saint’? Because combined with everything else you have to say about Native peoples, Indigenous history, general colonialism in general, I don’t know that I wanna give you the benefit of the doubt on that one, Big Dog. Weird to be like “Christianity was a a pervasive influence on colonizing the world, anyway here’s the patron saint of our show,” but maybe that’s just me and the Shmanner Shmurnout or whatever.
More natter about their first Emily Post episode, which Teresa reveals was recorded in the dining room of a rental house while Travis was filming the MBMBAM TV show in Huntington. Apparently they stayed there for three weeks, though whether this corresponds to the total shooting time for the series is not revealed. Moving on, Travis then cites the biographical episodes as another of his favorites, because… oh, god, oh, boy, fucking… this CANNOT be his reasoning…
>Travis: It's wild to me, biographies are another one that are one of my favorite. One, because like it's fun to like very much take history and like personalize it, personify it to a person. But also like, we do a lot of episodes where it's like, they do not teach you about this person in school, and they have had a huge impact on things. Or this person was absolutely wild, and if kids learned about history in this way— like, it's a thing throughout life—one of the episodes we did was Joshua Norton, the first emperor of America.
>Teresa: Yes.
>Travis: Which was a thing I learned about when I was in high school and have been fascinated by ever since. The story of this man who lost all of his money due to a bad investment, disappeared for a short time, and when he came back was like, "I'm the emperor of America." And yeah, and everybody in San Francisco where he lived was like, "Okay, cool! We love this guy!”
So… first of all, where in the fucking seven hells and fourteen dead worlds do you get the unmitigated GALL to declare that your fuck-ass goddamn wikipedia slop show with some of the laziest, most irresponsible and incoherent ‘research’ that babbles on inanely without proper sourcing or any deeper digging into both incidents and meaning is somehow TEACHING PEOPLE MORE THAN THEY LEARNED IN SCHOOL?????!?!?!? This is a fucking ANTI-EDUCATIONAL PODCAST, you leave your listeners even fucking DUMBER than when they started with all the context, detail and basic facts you leave out, get wrong, mangle, or somehow fail to interrogate to any serious degree when using flawed sources! You are NOT teaching people more than they picked up on in school, this is not some fucking supplement or replacement for actual goddamn school and it speaks to Travis’ outsized and unhealthy egotism for him to think of it as such.
Secondly… Big Dog, you literally just said that you learned about Emperor Norton AT SCHOOL TO BEGIN WITH, so what do you fucking MEAN this is about the people they ‘do not teach you about’ in school when the first major example you have is one that you then say IN THE NEXT BREATH was one that came up in your education??? Like, sure, fine, MAYBE he means that they didn’t cover Norton in any great detail compared to other sources, but, like. Fucking incredible how he instantly contradicts himself when trying to make a point that is blatantly false, the Travis McElroy Special.
They next talk about how they did a biography episode on the French ‘fartist’ Le Pétomane as a MaxFun bonus show, pivoting that into a brief ad for becoming a member to get access and then wondering if their bonus episodes count towards them nearing/hitting 500 episodes, which… god, the lack of organization and thought put into this stupid show from every level, I just cannot.
Teresa pivots again to now talking about Alexx’s favorite memories from the show? Wild that we’re getting so much Alexx info on this one, but any piece of the Shmanners puzzle is welcome since my life has apparently devolved into making a fucking Travis McElroy conspiracy cork board by now.
Card: “ALEXX'S FAVORITE MEMORY OF THE SHOW IS BEING THANKED ON AIR??”
>Teresa: So, I would like to share Alex's favorite memory of the shows. Her favorite memory of working on the show was the first time that she heard herself thanked on air.
>Travis: Aw.
>Teresa: So, she was having a work meeting with Alice, who is another one of the—
>Travis: It's our business person!
>Teresa: The employees here.
>Travis: She's the business half of my brain, and also one of my best friends.
…does Travis employ ANYONE who isn’t already one of his ‘friends’ or acquaintances or otherwise has worked with in, like, local Cincinnati theatre? Because it’s fucking yet another sign of the weird McElroy nepotism that seems to plague their shows where it’s all ‘friend of a friend or friend who got collared into this’ stuff with them from what I’ve seen, with maybe the exception of the ‘mainline’ McElroy shows where I don’t know whether Editor Rachel was a personal friend before landing the job or not.
Card: “God, like 60% of this episode is just a list of episodes they like.”
There’s some painful joking around where Travis brings up his ADHD as a ‘surprise reveal’ he’d been saving for their ten-year episode, Teresa feigns shock and horror, it’s nothing but at the very least they seem united in giving this stupid bit energy and attention so it’s on the more benign end of Travis’ stupid interjections and interruptions. We take what we can get on this blighted pod of a cast. Travis bemoans that Alice and Alexx have similar names and that he’s ‘tried to get ‘em to chance their names so many times’ which even as a joke strikes me as weird, but then I did have to live through the mistake of trying to get a former friend to switch up their new name when it was almost identical to another friend’s chosen name and that was a whole mess that made me wary about that sorta thing. College friends and poor choices, name a more iconic duo.
Travis reveals the ACTUAL bombshell of this episode, which is that Alice is the co-founder of Travis incredibly scummy and scammy ‘DnD in a castle’ weekend getaway sleepaway camp Champion’s Grove, the single most fraudulent and downright immoral thing in the entire McElroy ecosystem that I cannot see as anything but a complete and utter scam to fleece the most parasocial out of their cash for the most nothingburger of a payoff. Once again, I shudder to imagine the kinds of people that would willingly pay THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to spend a weekend in-person with Travis McElroy.
Card: “Travis calls one of their business development employees (Alice) as "one of his best friends" (she is also the co-founder of Champions Grove). I think she is also listed as a producer on Chasing Immortality. WHO ISN'T A CLOSE PERSONAL FRIEND OF THE MCELORYS ON THEIR STAFF.”
Whatever. Alexx rushed to the bathroom to put her phone to her ear to hear her personally being thanked for the first time on Shmanners, has written over three hundred episodes since, T4T go back to rambling about things they’ve learned on the podcast since it started. X to doubt this very much. Travis rambles about cowboy poetry and then onto the Shmidgerton episodes that apparently he and Teresa really like and, once again… you can just drop the etiquette framing and do a podcast where y’all just talk about what you like, it literally cannot make the show any worse at this point and the move away from historical subjects might make it less offensive if anything.
There is then a truly puzzling digression about their episode on the Winchester Mystery House that… once more leaves me wondering about Travis’ skills as a parent.
>Travis: Especially when you talk about a story where it's like, yeah, you know about the Winchester Mystery House. We know all about it! I've heard all about it! And then like go one layer deeper and it's actually like, no, actually, it's pretty messed up that everybody thinks that that is the true story. Where it's like, no, that's a very fun—so like, when we—
>Teresa: It's a fun story to tell parties, but—
>Travis: My girl—our girls are very interested in like weird stuff from time to time. I mean, they're my kids.
>Teresa: Mm-hm.
>Travis: And so, they watch like videos of the Winchester Mystery House, and we explained to them like, "So, there is like the ghost story version and there's the true version. And we're going to tell you both of those, so that you—it's like, ah, that's like kind of the ghost story fun version. And like here's the true one, that's important that you know that this is the true one."
Like, conceptually it’s not the WORST idea, but also… I dunno, I don’t trust Travis to properly delineate between true and false stories with his kids and not end up selling the ‘fun version’ more than the ‘true one’ given how much he clearly prefers made up shit to actual history. Maybe I’m just too jerkpilled. Maybe the stress of doing this over several months in between bouts of severe depression make me unable to provide a faring good faith take on Travis’ parenting stories.
Luckily for my self-doubt, Travis then proceeds to say something I have no trouble believing is entirely false.
>Travis: Because I think you can enjoy both things, as long as you know. It's like I like both the book The Count of Monte Cristo, and the movie The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Guy Pearce and Jim Caviezel, which is wildly different—
>Teresa: Wildly different.
>Travis: From the book! I can like both things, and know that one of them's true.
Pressing X to doubt hardcore on Travis ‘I had to remind myself multiple times to stop disparaging reading around my daughters’ McElroy has ever read the full, unabridged text of The Count Of Monte Cristo because it’s far too wordy, complicated and ‘books-level boring’ to borrow a phrase from Justin for him to possibly get through. Maybe he means he read one of those ‘Classics Abridged’ versions of the book where they take up like half the page-count on those illustrations, or a ‘Junior Reader’ version of some kind, but like. No fucking way he’s read one of the denser pieces of French literature from its era in full, absolutely not at all. Maybe he just watched the Dominic Noble video on the lost in adaptation stuff or whatever.
More rambling over past episodes; Travis says that the Bob Ross and Fred Rogers episodes got him choked up during the recording, Teresa says they “came at a really good time” and “we really needed the uplifting of those episodes” and like… were those COVID episodes or what? There’s been so much terrible news in the last decade that this could mean anything on ‘coming at a good time,’ was this during Trump’s first election, second, BLM protests, etc? I suppose I COULD look up the episodes in question and find the dates, but in the spirit of Shmanners and their rigorous standards I’m just going to leave that unresearched and go with my gut response, as Travis would want me to do.
Blah, blah, just going over past ‘glories’ again and again, Travis says the Bob Ross episode was recorded at the Ryman Auditorium which… is NOT the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville but he acts like it is?
Card: “LMAO, Travis pretends that they did a live show at the Grand Ol' Opry (he meant the Rhyman Theater)”
God, I wish I was watching Robert Altman’s Nashville right now. I could be experiencing Shelley Duvall playing a ditzy groupie and Jeff Goldblum as the Tricycle Man, trying to tune into cross-talk and chatter that actually REWARDS listening deeper, instead of these fools’ insipid musings.
They ask the listeners to send in their requests/recommendations for period-piece cinema and shows for them to watch and do episodes on, since as they say, they could discuss;
>Teresa: That time period and about like—I know that we've also talked in Bridgerton like the real things that would have been happening, and also the reason behind why they made a different choice for the show. And sometimes it's just like as small as they would have worn bonnets in Regency England, and especially this echelon of people would have worn bonnets. But bonnets are hard for TV because you can't see people's faces from every angle. [titters] You can basically only see them from straight on. And so they made the choice not to have the people wear bonnets. And I think that that's fine, because it's like TV, right?
>Travis: Yeah.
>Teresa: So, if our listeners have any submissions that they'd like to give us regarding those different kinds of like media that we could look and contrast and compare and talk about, that would be awesome.
See, the idea of a podcast about historical fiction that goes into the cultural and societal norms of the period and what concessions were made for narrative framing or cinematic adaptation, discussing the trade-off between accuracy and entertainment, is not a terrible one. I’d listen to/watch that kind of content if it was made by thoughtful, invested people with expertise and grounding in the subject matter and relevant eras. Too bad it’s being pitched as a new pivot for this show of complete and utter dunderheaded ignorant bullshit hosted by a pair of racist dullards who think skinny-dipping is bad because historical figures who swam naked hated women or owned slaves or whatever.
Almost done. Light beckons at the end of the tunnel. Travis again asks for more historical figures to be sent in by fans for them to do biography episodes on, gives this as an example;
>Travis: But if there's a thing where you're like, why is this so commonplace now? The evolution of the purse, right?
>Teresa: Ooh, yeah.
>Travis: It's definitely something we could talk about. Stuff like that. I like doing those. And like I said, we've done 500 more or less episodes, and it’s not like we're running out of ideas so much as like, I know that there's things out there that we haven't talked about that we just haven't thought about, right? And so, just like we take submissions for idioms and Ask Shmanners and stuff like that, I'd love it if people shared other things of like, "Hey, I've always been curious about this." Or, "I know about this and it's wild." Please share it with us.
PRESSING X TO DOUBT ONCE AGAIN, because y’all clearly ran out of straight etiquette ideas within the first YEAR of the podcast starting, and the coffers have been drained and the larder emptied out on other adjacent subjects and ideas long since. The sheer fact that so much of this anniversary episode is spent asking listeners to submit more ideas for them to ‘investigate’ and ‘research’ says a lot, no matter how Travis tries to protest against it.
That leads into a final thank you to Alexx, gives a few more bits of insight into the Shmanners production process by shouting-out Editor Rachel;
>Travis: Oh my gosh, we've smoothly transitioned into it, so let me also say, thank you to Alex, our researcher, without whom we could not do this episode. Or, for that matter, 68% of our current episodes. Thank you so much, Alex. We wouldn't be where we are right now without you. You know it, we brought Alex in, we were about to have Dot at that point and we were like, oh my god, two kids, and we want to keep working on this. And Alex came in and made it all possible. So, thank you so much, Alex. Rachel, our editor, without whom we could not do this episode. Or, once again, all the episodes that she's worked on. If we sound listenable at all, I credit Rachel fully for that. Mostly because also, not just in the like post, but like with—we change setups and she was like, "Okay, great. Make sure the audio quality isn't bad." And I was like, "Ah, right-right-right."
Fascinating to hear about how they almost ended the show due to a second child but managed to press on bravely with Alexx’s help, also what the actual fuck do you mean Rachel offered the radical advice of ‘make sure the audio quality isn’t bad’ after you ‘change[d] setups’ what the fuck do you meeeeeeaaaaaaannnnn
A final insane revelation is that they’re working on making Shmanners a video podcast??? PIVOTING TO VIDEO TWELVE YEARS TOO LATE, NO ONE IS DOING IT LIKE THE-
Card: “They do a look ahead to 2026. They want listeners to send in period piece suggestions for future episodes They thank Tom the video editor because Shmanners is also doing that weird video clips thing”
>Teresa: Well, we should also thank Tom now, because we're doing—
>Travis: Oh, yeah, Tom—
>Teresa: A video element.
>Travis: Is working on video stuff, yeah. So, hopefully video stuff will be out soon, you'll get to see our beautiful faces.
Fear. Utter and complete fear. This is already terrible enough to sit through as an audio project without being viscerally reminded of Travis gawping, gaping maw, now there’s going to be full video of him rambling and interjecting… oh, god…
Card: “ANYWHO, BORING ASS EPISODE.”
AND WE’RE DONE. What have we learned here? You can totally do nothing for ten years and make it seem like world-changing podcast work if you’re delusional enough and immune to criticism. Any final thoughts, Card?
Card: “Huge shoutout once again to KPop and the rest of the Schmecaps team."
Thanks for tagging along, Card, and here's hoping the next Shmecap doesn't take me until August to get done, or that we don't die in nuclear fire before then, whatever happens first. Appreciate the anniversaries you have to look forward to and share with others, and don't make the grave mistake of listening to Shmanners.
Truly you cannot understand the big dog until you have listened to him bitterly complain about being 'profiled' because one time while on his own, he made funny faces at someone's child and the parent sort of pulled the child away from Travis when they noticed. Or listened to him fantasize about phsyically assaulting someone for being kind of like 4/10 on the rudeness scale to him and his friends at the movies.
Show some respect, it should be "Wimp, 30 Under 30 Media Luminary"