My Brother, My Brother and Me 798: Round and Swallowable
Original Air Date: January 26, 2026
Hosts: Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy

Episode Overview

In this lively episode of MBMBaM, the McElroy brothers deliver their trademark blend of comedic advice, sibling banter, and surreal scenarios. The show kicks off with high energy, nonsense intros, and quickly dips into odd hypothetical worlds—from Resident Evil-inspired merchant bits to pontifications about sleep studies, pizza capsules, and the ethics of foraging in a city park. Along the way, they tackle listener questions with their usual absurd sincerity, imagine dystopian food trends, debate linguistic pet peeves, roast fast-food innovations, and reflect on their podcasting legacy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nasty Merchants, Resident Evil, and Character Tropes

• Merchant Impressions & Archetypes:
  • The brothers delight in riffing on the “nasty merchant” character archetype (03:07), imagining games and universes overrun by such figures instead of zombies.
    • Quote:
      • “If there is one character archetype that really gets the three of us, gets our rocks hard... It’s being able to do a nasty merchant.” – Justin (02:45)
• Resident Evil Reimagined:
  • Pitching the idea that the new virus just turns everyone into overzealous arms-dealing merchants. (03:30)
  • Jokes about green herbs in Resident Evil being a missed weed joke opportunity. (04:52)
    • Quote:
      • “How has nobody ever made a joke about how in Resident Evil the green herb you heal yourself with is like a weed joke? It’s crazy.” – Griffin (04:52)

2. Sleep Study Adventures

• Travis' Sleep Study (07:21–14:22):
  • Travis details his strange, almost liminal experience at a sleep lab, incapable of bringing comforts from home and feeling like a test subject.
  • Griffin and Justin escalate the bit by imagining dream-stealing orbs, Joseph Gordon Levitt’s involvement (Inception reference), and the anxiety of being surveilled.
    • Quote:
      • “It was like, almost like if you know about liminal spaces... this is almost a hotel room. This is almost a bed.” – Travis (08:11)
      • “I was assembling my Seven Samurai. Yes, my seven sleepy samurai.” – Justin (09:31)
• Classic MBMBaM Tangent:
  • Griffin quips about his son’s Nintendo alarm clock blasting terrifying Zelda music in the morning (14:46), adding to the sleep struggle discourse.

3. Advice Questions

A. Disposing of Pizza and "Pizza-Pilled" Culture (16:04)

• Question: How to let dumpster divers know discarded pizza is stale and gross.
• Extended Riff:
  • Old pizzas becoming pills or capsules for on-the-go pizza nutrition (“round and swallowable”) (18:51–19:12)
    • Quote:
      • “If I could grind it down in capsule form, I think that would actually save me a ton of time on pizza consistency and chewing...” – Justin (18:29)
  • Mock-concern about youths getting “pizza-pilled.”
• Food Waste and Community Guilt:
  • Griffin proposes guilt-based displays—a pizza “graveyard” pile outside to prompt civic responsibility for pizza consumption. (21:20)
• Rats, Steve Miller, and Surreal Solutions:
  • Justin proposes that centralized old pizza piles would attract rats and solve rat problems by distracting them from homes (22:22–23:45)
    • Quote:
      • “If there’s a huge mountain of dirty old pizza, the rats will just live there. There’s no more rat problem.” – Justin (23:14)

B. Cat Trick Documentation (24:56)

• Question: How to prove a cat did a backflip.
• Advice & Escalation:
  • Suggestions range from “just believe,” to unleashing a swarm of dragonflies to prompt another flip (26:51–28:09)
  • Justin raises the stakes: “I think you have to bring one to 150 dragonflies.” (27:43)
    • Quote:
      • “Now all of a sudden you have 100 to 150 dragonflies flying around your house because the cat can’t get them too fast.” – Griffin (28:28)

C. Throwing Away Broken Appliances (48:08)

• Question: Should you tell a stranger salvaging your curbside fridge that it doesn’t work?
• Consensus:
  • It’s assumed they know, or have their own plans for the broken fridge (props, parts, viral videos, fixer-uppers).
    • Quote:
      • “If you leaned out your window and said, ‘Hey, just so you know, that doesn’t work,’ the response is almost certainly going to be, ‘Yeah, no doy.’” – Travis (50:05)

D. Illegally Foraging Berries at Work (52:10)

• Question: How to stealthily harvest black raspberries at a city park nature center.
• Proposed Excuses:
  • Pretend to be “poison checker,”
  • Offer illicit raspberries to would-be busting authority figures,
  • Claim a bear coerced you,
  • Stage a bramble “accident.”
    • Quotes:
    • “Let them get their beak wet, because they’re a crow.” – Travis (53:40)
    • “My name is Ranger Rick. A bear... has taken my family. He says he wants picnic baskets. He says it’s hard for him to get them cause he’s a bear. But I am in a position of authority. People trust me.” – Griffin (55:32)

4. Language Pet Peeves

• Discussion about words with odd spellings—raspberry, Wednesday, restaurant (52:43)
  • Quote:
    • “Could we as a society agree to get rid of the ‘p’ in raspberry?” – Travis (52:43)

5. Munch Squad – Zaxby’s “Giant Quesadilla” (37:05–47:38)

• Justin presents a history of the quesadilla and critiques Zaxby’s bold attempt at a “giant quesadilla”—a monstrous meat-and-cheese stuffed dish barely contained by tortillas.
• The brothers mock its construction as “a sleep study for food,” “toilet-shattering pillow,” and question at what point a quesadilla becomes “just a taco.”
  • Quotes:
    • “It’s like it’s taking a sleep study... it’s trying to wrap the quesadilla around itself, but it’s too monumentally loaded with cheese and chicken.” – Justin (39:02)
    • “Who wakes up January 1st and says, ‘you know what I’m gonna do this year? Get fingered at Zaxby’s.’” – Travis (47:27)

6. Podcast Legacy, Superlatives, and Running Gags

• Reflecting on their 16 years of podcasting and pondering what superlative or record their show might actually have. (05:22)
  • Quote:
    • “There’s gotta be some more superlatives we could attach to ourselves at this point, right?” – Justin (05:22)

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Nasty Merchant Bit:
  • “We love, like, a globular, like, lots of, like, pus in the throat.” – Justin (02:45)
• Resident Evil Herb Joke:
  • “How has nobody ever made a joke about how in Resident Evil the green herb you heal yourself with is like a weed joke? It’s crazy.” – Griffin (04:52)
• Sleep Study Liminal Space:
  • “It was like, almost like if you know about liminal spaces... This is almost a hotel room.” – Travis (08:11)
• Pizza Capsule/“Pizza-pilled”:
  • “It’d be round and ready. Round and swallowable.” – Justin (19:08)
  • “I can’t stop thinking about the new Internet craze where people Are worried about, like, their... young sons becoming pizza pilled.” – Travis (20:05)
• Cat Flip via Dragonflies:
  • “Let 10–12 dragonflies loose in the house and the cat will do a flip trying to get them.” – Griffin (27:09)
• Fan Mail: Fridge Salvaging:
  • “If you leaned out your window and said, ‘Hey, just so you know, that doesn’t work.’ The response is almost certainly going to be, ‘Yeah, no doy.’” – Travis (50:05)
• Raspberry/Berry Foraging Excuses:
  • “Just put the wrist out… Let them get their beak wet, because they’re a crow.” – Travis (53:28, 53:40)
  • “The bear made me do it.” – Travis (55:31)
• Ending on MBMBaM’s Place in History:
  • “Hunters, gatherers, podcasters.” – Justin (57:31)

Timestamps to Key Segments

• Start & Banter: 01:08–05:21
• Sleep Study Story: 07:21–14:22
• Alarm Clock/Parenting Bit: 14:46–15:52
• Question: Old Pizza & Dumpster Divers: 16:04–20:21
• Pizza Capsule Bit (“Round and Swallowable”): 18:29–19:08
• Rats / Steve Miller Band Side Tangent: 22:22–24:10
• Cat Flip & Dragonflies: 24:56–28:28
• Throwing Away Mini Fridge: 48:08–50:46
• Berry Foraging at the Park: 52:10–57:40
• Munch Squad: Zaxby’s Giant Quesadilla: 37:05–47:38

Overall Tone & Takeaways

The episode is a quintessential MBMBaM mix of playful absurdity, callback-heavy humor, and exaggerated advice that is both knowingly unhelpful and strangely cathartic. The brothers riff off each other's narratives with escalating surrealism, blending mundane grievances (alarm clocks, appliance disposal) with wild hypotheticals (drug-pizza capsules, merchant-infested video game apocalypses, berry-foraging subterfuge). Their signature bits—linguistic pet peeves, spin-offs on listener questions, and the Munch Squad’s earnest disgust at food trends—are all on full display, creating an episode that’s both welcoming to long-time fans and accessible to new listeners.

For more information: MBMBaM at Maximum Fun

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