This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:31] R. Alex Murray: Welcome back, Adventurers, to Ale & Well Met. The Twenty Sided Tavern Podcast.

[0:35] R. Alex Murray: It's me again, R. Alex Murray, your universal swing and tavern keeper and podcast sounds verbal component guy.

[0:45] R. Alex Murray: We're back again, and hey, this week we are super excited. We've got Travis McElroy here with us, hanging out, chatting. Thanks for being here, Travis.

[0:55] Travis McElroy: No problem, R. Alex. Do you prefer R. Alex or Ralex?

[0:59] R. Alex Murray: I mean, you hit it in one, man. Ralex is sort of the secret code name. Ralex, Alex, guy. I'll respond to pretty much whatever.

[1:09] Travis McElroy: I'm going to go with chef.

[1:11] R. Alex Murray: Chef? I like chef. Thanks, man.

[1:13] Travis McElroy: That's what I've been trying to get my kids to call me. Because I did this thing for a long time, and I'm trying to break this habit of I would explain a thing to my kids, and then I would go, okay, okay. Because what I wanted was just to acknowledge that they heard me, but it was coming across very weird. So instead, I was like, can I get a heard chef? And they'd be like, heard chef. I'm like, okay, cool.

[1:31] R. Alex Murray: Yeah, there's like gentle authority there as well with the yes, chef, right?

[1:35] Travis McElroy: Yeah, it's very like also like I've taught you how to use a knife. I've trained you in the ways of the blade. You will respect me as such. And it makes my wife laugh, which I think is the most important part. Instead of me saying, okay, and her going, don't do that. Instead, if the kids say heard chef, it's just great. Everybody enjoys that.

[1:54] R. Alex Murray: Man, you feel like Gordon Ramsay.

[1:56] Travis McElroy: Well, when I walk around, I do most of my parenting in a white like kind of clean chef coat.

[2:01] R. Alex Murray: Sure, freshly pressed.

[2:02] Travis McElroy: Very tall toque. The whole thing.

[2:04] R. Alex Murray: Oh, yeah. Oh, so you're a classically trained French parent.

[2:07] Travis McElroy: Very nice.

[2:09] R. Alex Murray: Nice.

[2:10] Travis McElroy: I went to the Cordon dad, the James Cordon Bleu.

[2:13] R. Alex Murray: No, he's a terrible parent. I wouldn't trade for him at all. Terrible person.

[2:17] Travis McElroy: Anyways, not important. We don't need to knock James Cordon, but we will.

[2:20] R. Alex Murray: Nah, he's not worried about us.

[2:23] Travis McElroy: Alex, you're probably wondering why I asked you here today.

[2:25] R. Alex Murray: Yes.

[2:26] Travis McElroy: Oh, yeah. I've been very curious. It seems like you've played a whole lot of Dungeons and Dragons. You know what you're doing. I don't really know what you need from me.

[2:34] R. Alex Murray: Well, you've been podcasting for a while without a license.

[2:37] Travis McElroy: Oh, yeah.

[2:38] R. Alex Murray: Oh, no. I knew it.

[2:40] Travis McElroy: Yeah.

[2:41] R. Alex Murray: It's actually, since me and my brothers started podcasts, you actually need to run it by us.

[2:47] Travis McElroy: I read the book, and it pretty much said everybody could do it.

[2:51] R. Alex Murray: Oh, okay. Cool.

[2:53] Travis McElroy: Yeah.

[2:54] R. Alex Murray: Then that's fine. If you bought the book.

[2:56] Travis McElroy: I'm off the hook.

[2:57] R. Alex Murray: Yeah.

[2:58] Travis McElroy: Okay.

[2:59] R. Alex Murray: Sweet. You're one of like 20 people that bought it.

[3:01] Travis McElroy: Hey, man. It's like a great coaster over here. Just chill.

[3:03] R. Alex Murray: Hey, I love that. It's good for leveling furniture, too, if you ever need it. It can really withstand a table leg.

[3:06] Travis McElroy: Hell, yeah.

[3:10] R. Alex Murray: Well, you're stepping into the 20-sided tavern in what, a couple weeks here? You're about to go on tour and then come make your Off-Broadway debut?

[3:18] Travis McElroy: Correct.

[3:19] R. Alex Murray: Hell, yeah. And you've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for what?

[3:21] Travis McElroy: Okay. Well, consistently for a decade.

[3:25] R. Alex Murray: Okay.

[3:26] Travis McElroy: But before Adventure Zone started, Griffin and I got interested in it because of Acquisitions Incorporated that they did at PAX with Penny Arcade. And so we had played some fourth edition, but it was like one shot here, one shot there. We never got anything really going. I came to D&D very late in life, but growing up, we played a game called HeroQuest.

[3:56] R. Alex Murray: Word.

[3:57] Travis McElroy: Which is like board game D&D.

[4:00] R. Alex Murray: Yeah, it's the out-of-the-box dungeon crawler, right?

[4:04] Travis McElroy: It's with all the minis.

[4:05] R. Alex Murray: Yeah, exactly.

[4:06] Travis McElroy: Yeah, yeah. But we had played that a bunch, and then once we went through all of the pre-written little dungeons in the book, I know this sounds like a made-up biography movie thing, but Griffin, at 12 years old, would run new ones for us that he would make up, and we started using figures from other games.

[4:28] R. Alex Murray: Sure.

[4:29] Travis McElroy: And we had this one where you were trying to... Oh, what was the name of it? You were trying to quarantine this virus on a space station, and so we started using the little space men that came with that in dungeons as aliens and stuff, too.

[4:42] R. Alex Murray: That's glorious. I like the idea of Lion-O and Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe trying to make it through a dungeon.

[4:50] Travis McElroy: Yeah, that's rad. We were already doing adventures and stupid stuff of like, and what if it was like... I mean, Abnimals is just bringing it all full circle, bringing toys from other games into our game. It does feel like you're just looking through your toy chest and going, who gets to be in this week's...

[5:08] R. Alex Murray: We never grew up.

[5:09] Travis McElroy: Thank God. D&D professionally, it's the best. But I never really got into it until I was like 23, and even then didn't start doing Adventure Zone until I was like, what, 29, 30? I mean, I'm almost 31 now, so if I've been doing it for a decade, we didn't start doing Adventure Zone until I was 31.

[5:27] R. Alex Murray: Yeah, crazy. Because for whatever reason, it was like the last threshold of nerdiness that I was like, I don't know. I don't know if it's for me. I think that like, I talk about this, I guess I'll be 41 by the time I'm on 20-Sided Tavern, and I can remember a time where you did not talk about playing video games publicly or you'd get made fun of.

[5:53] Travis McElroy: Bro. I was shoved into a locker in middle school for reading The Hobbit.

[5:58] R. Alex Murray: There you go.

[5:59] Travis McElroy: Yeah. And I remember distinctly when the Madden football games came to video games, and suddenly everybody was talking about playing video games. And it was very unnerving, very unsettling. Everybody's just talking about video games?

[6:18] R. Alex Murray: Just sitting there, just talking about video games.

[6:19] Travis McElroy: Just casual? There's a girl here. You guys see the girl? We're talking about video games? No one's getting made fun of? Do you want to see the maps I've been drawing for the layout of my SimCels on graph paper?

[6:30] R. Alex Murray: No, we do not.

[6:31] Travis McElroy: No, okay, that's not where we're at yet. No, we're playing NFL Blitz at the bare minimum.

[6:34] R. Alex Murray: Great, great, great. NBA Jam? Everybody loves NBA Jam, right?

[6:37] Travis McElroy: Yeah, we're on fire. And so there was like all of this kind of ingrained stuff. Same with like, I recently started getting into Magic the Gathering, and I was like, I've been missing out. I've been missing out on this shit.

[6:50] R. Alex Murray: I got good news for you, man. There are about 4,000 Magic decks backstage at the show.

[6:56] Travis McElroy: Oh, yeah? I'll bring my dog meat deck. My friend Paul Foxcroft got me the dog meat Fallout Commander deck.

[7:02] R. Alex Murray: Hell yeah.

[7:03] Travis McElroy: And I've been thoroughly enjoying it.

[7:04] R. Alex Murray: Hell yeah. That's the big downtime activity. That and Suica, where we try to make watermelons out of smaller fruits.

[7:11] Travis McElroy: What is that?

[7:12] R. Alex Murray: We'll play.

[7:13] Travis McElroy: I don't know. It's like a fruit matching game where you just drop fruits onto other fruits, and then they become bigger fruits.

[7:18] R. Alex Murray: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[7:19] Travis McElroy: And that's it. For some reason, I was picturing this in real life, like the weirdest edible arrangement of like, how many cherries does it take to make a watermelon?

[7:24] R. Alex Murray: Yeah. We're going to find out today backstage at the 27th.

[7:27] Travis McElroy: Gallaghering backstage.

[7:28] R. Alex Murray: Just slamming.

[7:29] Travis McElroy: But reverse Gallaghering.

[7:30] R. Alex Murray: Yeah.

[7:31] Travis McElroy: Because you're putting together smaller fruit into a bigger fruit.

[7:32] R. Alex Murray: With hammers.

[7:33] Travis McElroy: I love that.

[7:34] R. Alex Murray: Yeah.

[7:36] Travis McElroy: She's being weird.

[7:37] R. Alex Murray: Well, yeah, I understand. They're just like, you know, you can't go full nerd, right? At a certain point, you're like, oh, that's all of them. I've collected every like nerd gem in my, you know, in your nerd gauntlet.

[7:50] Travis McElroy: Wow.

[7:51] R. Alex Murray: And it's also a thing of like, one of the things like with ADHD, which I have, it would be weird if I started talking about ADHD and I didn't have that.

[7:59] Travis McElroy: I mean.

[8:00] R. Alex Murray: Let me tell you about other people that do. You're a white guy with a lot of podcasts. You got to be careful about just, you know, telling people what they think they need to hear.

[8:07] Travis McElroy: Hey, you look like someone who has ADHD.

[8:10] R. Alex Murray: Is that I, interest is such a funny thing because like, Stardew Valley is a great example of like, I bounced off of Stardew Valley like four times and then started playing it the fifth time and became obsessed with it. And like, like read everything I could about it, learned everything I could about it, like devoted myself to like, I'm going to be, I'm going to reach perfection, a hundred percent perfection within the first two years of gameplay. And it's just like, for whatever reason, that fifth time it hit.

[8:38] Travis McElroy: Yeah.

[8:39] R. Alex Murray: And so I think that with like D and D and stuff like magic and you know, all that, like it just wasn't the right time for me to get into it or I would have.

[8:50] Travis McElroy: Sure.

[8:51] R. Alex Murray: You know, also if you're like a hyper fixator, you know, one thing at a time.

[8:55] Travis McElroy: Right.

[8:56] R. Alex Murray: So like, Oh, maybe I'll, maybe I'll get out of started. No, no, I'm not ready. Not ready to get out of the other thing that I'm doing. Nothing else I want to play. I'm in there with Bellatra right now where like I had put it down when it was on like computer and Steam Deck. I put it down, I walked away, I'd finished and it came out on my phone and I was like, goodbye children. I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Daddy has to get angry at this game for a while.

[9:15] Travis McElroy: I'm afraid to touch it because I don't, I don't trust myself, frankly.

[9:23] R. Alex Murray: You'll get lost in it.

[9:24] Travis McElroy: Yeah. I mean, the last one for me was, I mean, it was everybody was Baldur's Gate 3. I just disappeared.

[9:28] R. Alex Murray: Oh yeah.

[9:29] Travis McElroy: My wife would be like, Oh no, Alex is, he's home, but he's not here. He's in his room with fighting whatever a githyanki is.

[9:36] R. Alex Murray: I don't know.

[9:37] Travis McElroy: The one saving grace is I don't like playing Baldur's Gate 3 on my Steam Deck. It's too small. Like it doesn't give the scope. And so at the very least, if I'm not like at my computer, I know like I couldn't be doing it right now. So it's like, that's that saving grace of like, there's no temptation to be like, ah, I could pretend to be in the room with my children, but actually I'm in Baldur's Gate.

[10:01] R. Alex Murray: I really know you've got a problem when you're like, Oh no, this is a, this is a barrier that is totally arbitrary. It doesn't actually exist.

[10:08] Travis McElroy: Yeah.

[10:09] R. Alex Murray: But you need the, I need to set those up. Like consuming something in the other room is enough to be like, I'm not going to walk in there and get it.

[10:15] Travis McElroy: Yeah.

[10:16] R. Alex Murray: Yeah. The big thing with any diet, right, is just telling yourself you're not going to consume something. No, I'm not doing that.

[10:22] Travis McElroy: Yeah, for sure. When, when did you start playing? I'm curious.

[10:24] R. Alex Murray: I started playing D&D. So it goes all over the place with the cast, right? There's a whole bunch of people who came late. There's a whole bunch of people who like got into it for the pandemic. There's a couple of people who like got cast in the show and were like, I guess I should learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons. I, when I was like eight, a summer camp counselor was like, hey, you want to play D&D? And like old school, A D&D, first edition.

[10:50] Travis McElroy: Get out of town.

[10:51] R. Alex Murray: Or second edition rather, A D&D. But I was like nine and eight or nine and wanted to be a dungeon master. And I walked around all summer with, they had like a little like, it was like a little dossier with all the, all the character sheets and everything in it. And you could just walk around. I walked around with it, you know, like I'm a real dungeon master and we would make up adventures without dice and like just sort of arbitrarily like using our skills and things and just, you know, just, just basically telling stories to each other, like sitting underneath trees by a lake in Maine, which is as idyllic as it sounds. It was great.

[11:27] Travis McElroy: And, and then I got, you know, I couldn't find anybody else to play with. And I got the, almost the reverse. I got into magic real early because I grew up in Rome, Georgia. There was no gaming store. There was nowhere to, you couldn't there. I just couldn't have played Dungeons and Dragons if I'd wanted to. It was, you know, 1994 and there, my parents were scared that it was the devil because church said, and somehow magic was okay. And they were right, but it's fine. I mean, all the deals I've made. You think I became a professional D&D player, full-time D&D player by skill and charm? No, sir. No.

[12:04] Travis McElroy: The devil. I mean, I get it. You are like, you know, like putting hope into a dice, right? You are like looking at it and be like, come on, let me decapitate this goblin, you and putting all your will and passion into it and then throwing it, you know, like runes. And that's freaky. I always loved my parents when I was a kid, they, I grew up Southern Baptist and like my mom was a church secretary. Like the, you know, we went Wednesdays and Sundays, but it was never indoctrinated in that way. It was always like my parents were very social. They liked going and like doing all this stuff.

[13:09] Travis McElroy: Like there was just a lot of that where it's just like I think just don't tell people at church you watch The Simpsons like that was always their go-to thing of like my parents very much wanted to be and they were very good like moral you know in that way but anything where it's like I feel like I'm supposed to tell you not to do that thing but I think it's fine. There was a lot of that. Well, we also grew up, we would have been, we're about the same age and we were right there when The Simpsons was all about Bart being a little prick too. So when you're like 10 and my mom watched this show where Bart's being a little stinker and telling people to eat his shorts and they were like no, no, no, no, no, worst thing ever.

We don't eat shorts in this house. Not here, sir. Alec, you will be having zero cows in this house. Like a fine Christian family, we eat trousers, yes, and maybe culottes if times get tough. That's it. In a few years, you might be able to eat some cargo shorts because they're coming down the pike, but yeah. JNCO jeans is too much. You'll fill up before dinner. I was definitely, there was to be no JNCO jeans in my house. My mother would have nothing. In the 90s, Hot Topic was allowed, but what are you gonna do? Well, that was the thing. It's like my, the dichotomy of me growing up was like going to church every Wednesday night and Sunday morning and also on every other day doing theater, right?

And so it's like my parents were like, yeah man, what are we going to tell you not to hang out with kids wearing JNCO jeans? Yeah, right? That would cut out 90 percent of your friend base. Man, I had a kid wearing JNCO jeans who was playing Smaug the dragon who got me into the Grateful Dead because you know he was, because tropes exist in real life, absolutely. Yeah, and what are you gonna do? So, okay, that's a good place to go. You were a theater kid growing up, yeah?

[14:54] Madelyn Murphy: Correct.

[14:55] Travis McElroy: Awesome. I went to school, got my degree in it.

[15:00] Madelyn Murphy: Hey, me too! Look at us now, off-Broadway getting it done.

[15:03] Travis McElroy: I don't think that what I do now my theater professors then would have called getting it done, yeah, but now it took a long time. You know, a lot of people talk about like making their parents proud or like explaining what they do to their in-laws or whatever, but for me it was, would I get published in the alumni, the theater program alumni newsletter? And it took many, many years before I was in there. My theater department just had a big 25th anniversary of the theater and they invited a bunch of distinguished alumni there. You will notice that I am here and not there right now, yes. I haven't been asked to speak. One time I did get interviewed. That's not true. I did do a class with, like online during, you know, lockdown where I did like a Zoom thing with some of the kids at the theater school now and it's very lovely.

[15:51] Travis McElroy: Nice, very nice. That's cool. Well, there's more and more people that want to get into this space too. I've done sort of a thing, they're like how do I get into voice acting? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Have a weird voice, yeah. Start a podcast, have a weird voice and hope people like it. That's my answer.

[16:06] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, that's great.

[16:11] Travis McElroy: But have very talented brothers and just hang on tight, don't let them shake you off your coattails. But like the thing is, is I mean the theater thing is so interesting to me because what I get to do now, and this is like, so I also worked at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company for many, many years, for five years as their technical director and I performed in a bunch of stuff and I set design, did all kinds of things, wore many hats as they say. And I never really loved it because I didn't like performing a character that wasn't me, saying someone else's words, following someone else's direction, you know, all that stuff. I was like acting, okay, but I'm just doing other people's stuff. And like I often think about what would have been different for me because I remember when I left college, like my senior year, I was getting my degree and I just think like, I don't know what I'm going to do with this.

I don't want to audition for things. I don't want to, and like there was no one who was like, have you thought about stand-up comedy? Sure. Have you thought about sketch comedy? Have you thought about improv? There was none of that. It was just like you're getting your theater degree, you're either going to act in film or act on like in shows. And then, and so it took, we didn't start doing the podcast till I was 25 and I don't think I considered it a full-time job till I was like 28, yeah. And it was like, oh, I get to be myself, play me. It's different every time I get up and do it and the character I'm bringing to it is like myself performing, right? Yeah, and that's what I really want to do. I don't want to act, I want to perform. And that was like the realization that I made that kind of unlocked my own brain.

[17:59] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, for sure.

[18:00] Travis McElroy: Well, it's weird. Like I did stand-up for a while, improv, clearly still doing, and like those aren't things that people encourage people to do. Nobody's ever like looked at somebody like, no parent has ever been like, you know what? I think you ought to do, son, stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedians don't want their kids to be stand-up comedians. Like it's not a thing you get encouraged to do, which is so wild because it's like, yeah, maybe the pathway to like a career or whatever is more obscured. Like you can't see it as well as like that's what you audition 100 times for a movie and now you're Robert Downey Jr. or whatever is like people understand that.

[18:41] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[18:42] Travis McElroy: We're like, I think about how many more jobs there are behind the scenes for somebody who writes really, really well, somebody who like can tell a good joke and can tell a good story. And there's so much, like most of the people, because when I lived in LA for a couple years and I did like UCB, and like most of the people I met either doing UCB or like that were teachers, they are doing things, it's like they went on to be writers on things and like that kind of stuff. And there's so much more, I think job security. I mean, not, I mean, don't get me wrong, writers get boned all the time actually, but I mean like when you are good at it, there's a smaller pool, right? But more, anyway, I think that like being an actor, there's a lot more dime a dozen kind of feeling sometimes.

I think that actor is a way easier thing for people to go, you hear this all the time, I think I'll be an actor, right? Like you people, I, people move to New York all the time and you run into them and they're like, this happens at the show. People will look at me and be like, I'm an actor, how do I get to be in this? And I'm like, you want my job, the one that I have that I'm doing right now? Well, you know, there's a process, but yeah, it seems more accessible, right? You look at people do it, you're like, I can pretend, no sweat. But writing, and nobody's ever sat down and written an episode of television.

[20:07] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, right.

[20:08] Travis McElroy: Yeah, well, and it's the thing, man. I remember I grew up doing a lot of children's theater and then I like went back for a while when I was living back in Huntington and I was like playing the dad and stuff a bunch of kids and I directed some children's theater and stuff. And I remember talking to kids and be like, hey, you're a really good, like I remember I had this one kid who was a stage manager for me when I directed a thing and I was like, you're very good at this, you should be a stage manager. She was like, well, I want to be an actor. And I was like, no, listen, I understand that, but do you understand you'll work for how, if you, you are good at this already and you're 14 and you're a great stage manager, if you focus on this, you will work forever. You're too organized to be a few people. You can't do it. So few people dedicating themselves to being a great stage manager or like a good props designer or like do that, man, do that.

[21:01] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, I mean like also you get into the business and you start making friends with like the Yahtzee people and the like the stage hands and like, oh, they are super chill. They're in the entertainment industry, they love it, they're building stuff, they're putting stuff together, they get to be part of construction and like also union job security, the pool's way smaller.

[21:27] Travis McElroy: Yeah, no one ever talks about like what's their beauty routine, if they put on a couple pounds. Oh, I didn't like it. I don't know. They're just working consistently and aging and it's fine. It's all good and they're the most mellow people ever. It's like, oh, what have you done for the last 30 years? Oh, I've run sound at this theater in Orlando.

[21:41] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, man, leave me alone. Do you want to know about the ghosts in this theater?

[21:46] Travis McElroy: Yeah, I do. I do. Tell me about these ghosts. I worked at a Rainforest Cafe for three weeks in Nashville, Tennessee, and there are two guys at the Rainforest Cafe that are Yahtzee. One of them's a Yahtzee union set guy. He's a guy who takes care of all the like animals and the lights, and then the other dude takes care of all the animals, right? There's one guy who's like, he's got a zoology degree and he's in charge of two tanks in a Rainforest Cafe in Tennessee. These dudes didn't give a fuck. They were high all the time. They were like, you know, I thought they were crazy old at the time, probably 45, and like, yeah man, they didn't care. They just had a good thing going, chilling, watching like, you know, 22-year-olds try to sell microwaved hamburgers. Hilarious.

[22:37] Madelyn Murphy: I also want to say Maddie is here, but Maddie lost her voice and so she's just been very supportive and listening this whole time. But man, I've really been thinking about the fact that Maddie is here just having to listen to the two of us and like, and let me tell you more about me now you tell me about you. Hi Maddie, I like your nails.

[22:51] Madelyn Murphy: Thanks!

[22:52] Travis McElroy: They're getting mad. Maddie's miming at us. You get, I promise Maddie's here. We're definitely not making it up. No, no, there's definitely a co-worker in a closet showing us their very good nails and their clothes and their dresses with pockets.

[23:08] Travis McElroy: Okay, well, Maddie was going to be here to like give us some like Trickster 101 advice. So we, you know, what luckily Maddie is already, I was kind enough to like speak with me before now because I reached out and I was like, hey, I know you're doing the Trickster right now, give me some advice. And she said, who is this? How did you get this number? She yelled at me a lot and then she lost her voice because she yelled at me so much.

[23:29] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, yeah, she was very hostile.

[23:30] Travis McElroy: Yeah, well, but in a very much like, that's it was, I felt respected, right? Because she respected me enough to be hostile to me. And so I look forward to on her advice, first rehearsal, finding the biggest person there and just beating the crap out of them. That's you and me established dominance.

[23:49] Madelyn Murphy: It's, I assume it's you, Alex, so I'll probably have to beat up just two 40-year-old theater majors just wailing on each other.

[23:59] Travis McElroy: That'll, yeah, ineffectively. Yeah, we're gonna be pulling all of our punches and doing naps and stuff like fake punch but pulling everything. You come into quadrant one, two or three, buddy, come on, what are we doing?

[24:15] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, okay, I'm gonna be coming from here, okay? I want you to turn this way.

[24:20] Travis McElroy: Yeah, we do, oh man, I'm excited. I don't know how we'll do. We do, we warm up with lap being slap circles, so we do start rehearsals by pretending to slap each other in the face very hard. It's very fun.

[24:30] Madelyn Murphy: Oh, perfect.

[24:31] Travis McElroy: Yeah, we also play a game that I think you will like called portmanteau where it is essentially work of fart but like blown wide open. You can do it just to any things.

[24:39] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, yeah.

[24:40] Travis McElroy: And we'll just, people will run into a room and just yell like, oh, okay, yeah, I should have had one queued up.

[24:45] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, you didn't get it.

[24:46] Travis McElroy: Like, oh, okay, let's see, a flashing light circle plays the biggest RPG video game of 2024, Elden Ring Light.

[25:06] Madelyn Murphy: That's pretty good.

[25:07] Travis McElroy: I was thinking Disco Baldur's Gate, but Elden Ring, yep.

[25:12] Madelyn Murphy: See, but Elden Ring Light will get it there.

[25:16] Travis McElroy: Hell then, 16th president meets big underwater passageway in New York.

[25:20] Madelyn Murphy: Okay, hold on.

[25:24] Travis McElroy: I don't know if you've ever, I love portmanteaus very much.

[25:27] Madelyn Murphy: I am aware of this.

[25:28] Travis McElroy: I have a tier ranking system for them. Because like, okay. S tier. S tier portmanteau is that it shares letters when you put it together and is clear what the two words were. So like a great example, celebrity couple named Bennifer. It's a perfect S tier portmanteau combining Ben and Jen, right? And you can clearly say, see that the root names were Ben and Jennifer. With the internal rhyme. I love it.

[25:59] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[26:00] Travis McElroy: Now a like D tier brunch. There's no connecting tissue between breakfast and lunch in there. And like, if you heard it for the first time, you would not immediately think, oh, that's a combination of breakfast and lunch. No, you'd be like, what is that? You have a condition. You want me to go to brunch? What are you going to do? You're going to hit me with brunches.

[26:22] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah. It sounds violent.

[26:23] Travis McElroy: Yeah. Brunch sounds violent. It is very weak. Maddie says that Maddie's in the chat now says it's the smash burger of portmanteaus.

[26:33] Madelyn Murphy: Correct.

[26:34] Travis McElroy: That kind of thing bothered me. It was like, well, you just put, you just put some of the letters from one thing on another one.

[26:39] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[26:39] Travis McElroy: It's not, that's not a portmanteau. There was no overlap. It's just one of those pet peeves that I have. I'm trying to think now, if we can do it now. Surely you have thought about this before. Is there a better something than brunch?

[26:49] Madelyn Murphy: Is there a better portmanteau for we're having breakfast at lunchtime than brunch?

[26:59] Travis McElroy: And we have weeks till, till maybe this, till your debrief. Okay, Madeline says privilege, which is pretty good.

[27:06] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[27:07] Travis McElroy: I agree there. That's fine.

[27:09] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[27:11] Travis McElroy: That works. Privilege. We're going out for privilege today.

[27:13] Madelyn Murphy: Oh, cool. $13 for avocado toast. Enjoy.

[27:17] Travis McElroy: This is the other thing too, man. And I was about to start talking about brunch and how I can't drink during the day anymore because I'm super old.

[27:22] Madelyn Murphy: Sure.

[27:22] Travis McElroy: That's not what we're here to discuss.

[27:24] Madelyn Murphy: I mean, we're here to discuss anything, man. This is just so our listeners can get to know you. For those of them who like, you know, have not been listening to the Adventure Zone or My Brother and My Brother and Me or whatever, you know, for years and years.

[27:38] Travis McElroy: Yeah.

[27:38] Madelyn Murphy: Just for you to say hi and tell them to come hang out.

[27:41] Travis McElroy: Hi, come hang out.

[27:43] Madelyn Murphy: Done.

[27:44] Travis McElroy: Good. Nailed it.

[27:45] Madelyn Murphy: Okay, bye, I'm logging off.

[27:46] Travis McElroy: Yeah, the rest of it is just us, you know, talking about brunch and privilege. Well, you know what? I think we have, we have, uh, two questions that we ask the characters, like, before we go into the adventure proper on stage. Uh, the first is anything you're particularly excited about?

[28:02] Travis McElroy: Yeah, honestly, honestly, the, the characters, I, I said this, um, to Michael and David and Sam in, in, like, my first meeting with them, going over the characters. I'm going to be doing Barry and Wondro and Tamburlaine.

[28:17] Madelyn Murphy: Hell yeah.

[28:18] Travis McElroy: And all of them are great, but Wondro especially, I had said, like, I'm angry in a jealous way that I've never thought of this before. Because it is very similar to, I had an idea for a D&D character that I hope I get to play someday, where it's like a Houdini monk, where it's like a stage magician monk, escape artist, who's like trained his body to be like a perfect thing, that every time somebody thinks he's doing real magic, gets mad and explains to them, like, no, magic is easy. That's a spell they cast. I have trained for years and years to be able to do this.

[28:54] Madelyn Murphy: The opposite of a wizard.

[28:56] Travis McElroy: Yeah, yeah, very much so. Because like, that was, I'm a big fan of Houdini and like, that was Houdini's whole deal of like, don't call it magic. Don't say that I'm like a wizard. I worked very hard to learn how to do this. And so having the reverse of that with Wondro is so good to me. It makes me so happy. Same with Barry, of like getting to play a quote-unquote evil character who's basically good and effective.

[29:20] Travis McElroy: Because I love characters, oh my god, this makes me sound like such a dork, but like Gru and minions and megaminds and even like the Grinch, right, where it's just like, they're not bad. They want to seem bad for all these reasons. I mean, that's Barry. And then Tamerlane, do you guys want to hear like my idea for him?

[29:38] Madelyn Murphy: Yes, so badly.

[29:41] Travis McElroy: I'm going to play him like a lounge lizard, like Dean Martin, kind of more like Jerry Lewis doing his impression of Dean Martin in The Nutty Professor. But that to me is...

[29:54] Madelyn Murphy: That's going to be great.

[29:57] Travis McElroy: I want him like, I'm focusing very much on like the charming aspect of like versus seduction because I want it to be like, I could talk them into anything, right? And you know, seduction might come out of that, but charm being a more powerful way of like, I'll do anything this guy says, you know?

[30:18] Madelyn Murphy: I trust him.

[30:19] Travis McElroy: Oh yeah, I'd buy some, you know, swampland in Florida from this guy.

[30:23] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, for sure.

[30:25] Travis McElroy: Uh, that's, I mean, they're all going to be very fun to watch. That's, it's great. Man, the people just keep having different takes on them all. Like it's, it's glorious.

[30:34] Travis McElroy: That's the thing that I think is wonderful about this. If I might wax poetic about The 20-Sided Tavern. And one, the way that you guys have figured out how to do this show night after night makes me so jealous because this is a thing that we've talked about Adventure Zone for years of every time we do a live show, we have to like come up with like what the story's going to be.

[30:50] Travis McElroy: And so like my brother, my brother, I mean, when we do live shows, like we have the structure, we get the questions, you know, generating the segments sometimes where it's like, yeah, I'll work this up and I'll figure this out. Right. But what the show is, is what it is every time. But like Adventure Zone, every time we do it, having to come up with like, okay, we, we've got like a two act structure. It's going to be a complete story in, in this time and everything has always been like, hopefully someone has an idea for it when it comes time to do it.

[31:28] Madelyn Murphy: And to have it built out where not only do you guys have a repeatable way of doing it, a structure that it is like, and if this happens, this happens. So it's like, even as it gets more and more chaotic, there's enough structure to it to have it be a show that you guys understand what is happening. And it's, it's like different every single time because of the decision tree and the characters and the inclusion of the audience.

[31:57] Travis McElroy: And just like the improv nature of the actors, he's like, oh my God, this is such a brilliant evolution on what we've been doing in a way that like, it makes me proud and jealous and excited to be a part of it.

[32:10] Madelyn Murphy: Hell yeah.

[32:11] Travis McElroy: Well, I mean, thank you. I'm excited that you understand the time crunch thing, because I have heard you guys in the middle of like a live show go like, oh God, uh, throw these two pages out. This has to go. We've got to get out of the theater in two hours, which is a thing that we have to contend with every night because the improvisational nature of the show, you do get lost in it.

[32:32] Travis McElroy: You just get lost in a scene. And then all of a sudden you like look down at the clock and you're like, oh God, we have-

[32:37] Madelyn Murphy: Is there a clock on stage?

[32:38] Travis McElroy: Oh yeah. The DM, the DM is just looking at a clock.

[32:42] Madelyn Murphy: We have that too.

[32:43] Travis McElroy: And man, it's so funny because Griffin and I have two very different ways of like running live shows where Griffin will have like 10 pages of notes and I will have, I'm looking around to see if I have a notebook handy, but see if I have any of my notes, but it will be like, they'll meet these people and then this thing will happen. And then this guy will show up and then like act two, we'll just say they fight a big guy.

[33:05] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[33:05] Travis McElroy: And that's like all I've got. And so Griffin looks at the clock with this nervousness of like, how much are we going to have to cut? I'm going to have to edit on the fly. And for the first 30 minutes of every live show I've ever done, I think, what if I don't have enough? Oh God, I got it. What if we're just done now? You sure you don't want to talk to this guy anymore? He's probably pretty interesting. You can hang out with him.

[33:24] Madelyn Murphy: That's a weird tree, huh?

[33:25] Travis McElroy: Let's talk about this tree that I just made up.

[33:27] Madelyn Murphy: That's a weird tree.

[33:30] Travis McElroy: Yeah, we have. Let's go take a nap under it. The big trap with us that you'll find is the combat tutorial because it's so fun and so stupid and there aren't any stakes yet. And it's the first time everybody starts starting to get to do stunts and crap.

[33:44] Madelyn Murphy: And like, we will hang out there forever and then all of a sudden be like, oh Jesus Christ, we got it. Like, we haven't even, there hasn't even been a call to, nobody knows what we're doing yet. We got to get to the wizard's house so people know what's up.

[33:53] Travis McElroy: The smartest thing you guys have done is the beginning of the show has the most structure because that is the time for us where we'll sit down and just shoot in the shit and like poking fun at each other and intro and characters and suddenly like it's been 30 minutes of our two hour show.

[34:08] Madelyn Murphy: You got to do the actual thing.

[34:09] Travis McElroy: And what would be the first two lines of notes? We've spent 30 minutes just making jokes and now we have to cut like four or five.

[34:17] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, all of it.

[34:18] Travis McElroy: Oh no. Well, I mean, we get bad too. I mean, the thing about doing the same thing with the same people over and over again too every night is that like we start trying to make each other laugh, right?

[34:27] Madelyn Murphy: You can get lost in that sauce of like, especially Maddie who can't talk right now, which is too bad. That has a bit where they do a natural one on chugging a beer or a seltzer and it went from a sort of like teehee.

[34:39] Travis McElroy: I open it and it's to this like wrestling match with Maddie and a beer and a seltzer can and there's just beer going everywhere and we're all screaming. And like, I don't know if the audience thinks it's as funny as we do, but we're having a blast.

[34:53] Madelyn Murphy: This is one of my favorite things that used to happen because it was so consistent.

[34:57] Travis McElroy: Well, you're going to get to do that too.

[34:59] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[34:59] Travis McElroy: When I worked at the Shakespeare Company and we were doing like comedies is there would come a moment and it was usually during like final dress or something where you see a bit that had just over the weeks kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger because he kept laughing at it in, you know, in the career it's sitting there and then you get to like final dress just before you have an audience the next day and you're like, is that just funny to us?

[35:23] Madelyn Murphy: Because we know the evolution of it when this opens and then like you have your first preview and like this moment happens that has grown to this like minute long bit and the audience doesn't react at all.

[35:36] Travis McElroy: And you're like, okay, you know what?

[35:39] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[35:40] Travis McElroy: I think maybe we scale it back to where it was the first time we laughed at it.

[35:44] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[35:44] Travis McElroy: One of the inside jokes. We just keep it there.

[35:46] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[35:48] Travis McElroy: I mean, it happens and you know what? That's what we've got Michael for. We absolutely get those notes of like, okay, new choice guys. That thing is done. That horse is dead and beaten and leave it alone.

[36:02] Madelyn Murphy: Well, it's one of the things that like I'm excited because it does remind me so much of the Adventure Zone and it's one of the reasons we stopped doing Balance for live shows is that one, I mean, the main reason is because Balance is really the only one we've done where like the story was done, right?

[36:20] Travis McElroy: We got to the end of it.

[36:21] Madelyn Murphy: It's my favorite thing in any of those where Justin specifically would be like, I know I'm not going to die.

[36:27] Travis McElroy: Yeah, right. Well, that was the thing. It always felt really shoehorned in and really like, I don't know, this could have happened. But it also was like we were just recycling things that had made us laugh or that had resonated with the audience and it felt like a band that hadn't put out new music in 20 years just like playing the same.

[36:48] Madelyn Murphy: It's like, yeah, I've heard these 10 songs a dozen times.

[36:50] Travis McElroy: Oh, shit, guys. Are we Weezer?

[36:52] Madelyn Murphy: Oh, damn it.

[36:53] Travis McElroy: We're just, yeah.

[36:55] Madelyn Murphy: Let's do My Name is Jonas again.

[36:57] Travis McElroy: Yeah, let's do it.

[36:58] Madelyn Murphy: Three times in one night.

[36:59] Travis McElroy: Yeah, let's go. And so like doing different one shots and different things for the live shows, you find new things that are like crack you up and do it.

[37:11] Travis McElroy: Another reason I love the structure you guys have of like, you have, everybody has three characters and the audience picks which one.

[37:18] Madelyn Murphy: Yeah.

[37:19] Travis McElroy: Like where it's like, yeah, listen, the actors can have bits, but you're not going to be able to like count on recreating character interactions and character dynamics and everything over and over again because one, it'll be different depending on what the characters are, what the group makeup is and what actors are playing them.

[37:35] Madelyn Murphy: Well, and night to night, you can be, I mean, you'll find, I mean, like Felicia played legs three times and every single time was wildly different because she was like, well, let me take another swing. Let me take another swing. And you've also got like, you'll end up doing the show with probably all of us. So you'll have at least three different DMS. You'll have like different people on the bench with you, like people swing.

[37:58] Travis McElroy: Kind of chill tonight. Yeah, I need a there was the first time we ever did live shows in New York. We did them at this place called People's Improv Theater. There's a 99 seat venue and it was which one even then, uh, the loft like the original little one or the all I know is it was like an amphitheater stadium seating, you know? Yeah, yeah the big and uh, even at the time right this was early days for live shows, it was too small for us to do in New York. Right, which I don't know if you guys know this has a lot of people in it. And the first we put the tickets on sale, they were supposed to go on sale at noon and for some reason the venue put them on sale like a half hour early. So they sold out in like 10 because there's only 99 seats and it sold out in like a minute long before the time when we told people they'd be on sale.

So people were very upset and he said, okay, we'll do a second show. We'll do like a seven o'clock and a 9:30 or whatever tonight and then like those went on sale like 10 minutes before they were supposed to we were getting so mad and then people were mad again and we're like we will do a third show. We'll do like a 1 p.m., a uh, seven o'clock and a 10. It's a long day, man. And by the 10 o'clock, there was a moment where I was sitting there and I'm just like watching my brothers talk and I'm like looking back and forth because I sit in the middle and suddenly my brain went I don't think I've said anything in like 10 minutes. I think I'm just looking at my brothers. I should say something. It's part of my job to talk.

I need to and a feeling I've never had in my life of it's been too long. I haven't said anything in 10 minutes. I need to say something. And afterwards I was talking with my wife and I was like, yeah, it's so weird like I there's an entrance like I thought it was the best show you've ever done, which I think there's a lie. Thanks, thanks, honey, thanks, honey appreciate that but it's it's I think it's the one of the things that when people say like I could be an actor I could do that to jump back to that it is one of the things that I think that people don't they see you get up and you memorize lines you say the lines but the thing is like the number of trains of thought you have to have going at any one time where it's just like there's blocking I have to hit but I also have to like be in character and do the character and to add on to that like and also I need to think about game mechanics and the timing of this and like there's no uh, you have to like autopilot is the character and then the actor brain is everything else. Yep.

[41:39] Travis McElroy: Right like being on so I always talk about like one of the things that always stressed me out about being an actor is like when you're on stage and you're trying to do a scene but also part of your brain is thinking oh I'm supposed to move that glass and in a second he's going to come down and slam this thing down on the table but the glass is sitting there if I don't move that glass that glass is going to get shattered and so I need to find an excuse while delivering this important monologue to this guy to walk over there and pick up this glass and just gently move it six inches to the right but not in a weird way. Oh, no, and it's like all of that has to be going on in the background. Yeah.

Are you aware of uh, Marlon Brando and the glove in On the Waterfront? This is my acting teacher like there's a scene in On the Waterfront where Marlon Brando's playing with a glove that like people are like, oh the prop work and it's literally like his scene partner just dropped it and he just picked it up and he just found it in his hands and he was like trying to remember his lines while he was trying to figure out what to do with the glove and it just came off as like, oh, oh, he's brilliant. No, he was flailing. Uh, one time I was in this, uh, we were doing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Nice and that's an easy one. Not a whole lot of thinking or memorizing to go on there. I was one of the players in that one so I didn't have to do much because we were doing it in rep with Hamlet and I was Laertes and Hamlet and so I had to be dead at the end.

So I was one of the players throughout and I played like the strongman and everything. Um, but every time there would be a freeze or like a big monologue this other dude that I did it with named Matt was like, hey, how come you're always sitting down? How come you're always leaning? I was like man. I'm gonna give you a big acting secret. Human beings love sitting down. They love it. It's like your character always wants to be sitting down. Sometimes the only motivation you need for blocking is I haven't sat down in a while. I'm gonna stand up I'm gonna get a drink and then you know what I want to do? I want to sit back down and so anytime you're on stage you walk into a room your character even if they don't sit down right away he's planning where they're gonna sit looking he's thinking about sitting down and if you can't sit down lean against something because human beings want us to be standing or leaning if they have a choice and like years later he messaged me on something.

He was like, hey man, I want you to know I was in the show fucking right. I just sit down all the time. It feels so natural. It feels so right every time I walk into the thing the first thing I do is like lean a chair as if to say this chair's mine. I'm gonna sit here in a second and then I sit down there and if someone takes what was my chair my character gets so mad and it's like he justifies now every part of blocking and acting with like sitting down waiting to sit down being mad that he can't sit down. He's like it makes so much sense.

[45:05] Travis McElroy: That's so good. And I can't now I can't unsee like Brando's Hamlet where all he's doing is sitting and leaning and moping and like just perching. Yeah, that's I'm gonna direct him but one day I'm gonna be like listen, come here buddy. Here's the deal. Hamlet's tired because if you ever see a person in real life and you're like that person seems really awkward or nervous or uncomfortable you just need a seat. It's because they're like standing right? And it's just like they walked into a room and they don't know what to do. What do I do with my ass? When you walk in someone's just sitting down you're never like that person's out right well, they're in charge right the guy in the scene is in charge of the room, right? That's the the mob boss always invites you to sit down at his plush leather banquette. This is what I'm saying. I think that is sitting is acting. There I said it.

[45:59] Alex Murray: Well, we have a very comfortable pew all set up for you and I can't wait to see how Tamburlaine, Wondro, and Barry lounge upon it. Um, that's interesting that the second question that we asked the second character is there's anything you're nervous about and I mean, I think we kind of covered it. Well, I hurt my calves walking the other day so I think I'm a little bit nervous about that. We broke a Bria in half. So broke. Yeah, that was the first thing I messaged her and I was like, hey, um, what advice do you have? And she was like start building up your knee strength now. She um, oh shit, and so that's definitely something I'm aware of and something I'm uh, I've been building out my aerobics my endurance good and I'm doing my best but I can also just power through.

[46:59] Travis McElroy: Yeah, just power through or just hey man, we know you find a seat have a seat take a load off you'll be fine people love sitting down Alex. I don't know if you know this human beings loves it. I they can't get enough of it man. Can you can you imagine going to a concert and standing up the whole time? Oh, it's terrible general admission who who are you trying to impress the band standing person look at me Mick Jagger I'm standing the whole time. I love you so much. No one loves man. No one loves if I if I look out on a crowd out of my brother my brother Michelle and someone's standing I'll kick him out. I don't care what even if they're going to the bathroom. What are you doing? Just the one guy who just won't sit down. It's just oh stay holding up a big Munch Squad sign.

[47:36] Alex Murray: Yeah, get out of here.

[47:37] Travis McElroy: Oh man. Um, we don't need that energy here. No, we're chilling. We're hanging out. We're doing advice well Travis thank you for coming on, uh for chatting with us, uh for saying hi to the listeners and and our audience. Um, can't wait. There's an audience. There's gonna be people there man. They're gonna be alive.

[47:55] Alex Murray: Yeah, I I gotta tell you they do stand. I hope they'll be alive Alex.

[47:59] Travis McElroy: They will be alive for the most part and they will stand up and they will yell things and it will be fine. Nice things most of the time. Sometimes rowdy things. I mean you you guys we have secret codes for like hey, look out for that dude.

[48:13] Alex Murray: Yeah, um, and I'm sure you you do as well, I I've been at my brother my brother and me live show where someone needed to get off of the mic before.

[48:22] Travis McElroy: Yeah, that will happen. It does but everybody's lovely and wonderful and I'm so thankful for my audience Alex. So for sure. Um, I have nothing bad to say about them.

[48:36] Alex Murray: Well, if you'd like to say you want to you want to take a minute to plug yourself for what you got going on in the next couple weeks before we wrap this up. Um in general, I would say just check out we started a new run on Adventure Zone called Abnimals um, which is my word for uh, you know, all those cartoons back in the 90s that were like biker mice from Mars and Samurai Pizza Cats and Street Sharks and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it's animals with abs, um, you know anthropomorphic animal superheroes and uh, I'm running it and dad is playing a cow secret agent called Roger Moore. Uh, Justin is playing an extreme firefighter axolotl named Axolotl and Griffin is playing a seal who has never served in the armed forces named Navy Seal um, and uh, it is off the rails and I love it very very much.

I'm having a blast with it and uh coming up on Macro Family Clubhouse, which we do every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. I think yeah, this will be up later. We're doing uh, we've started this is our first year doing Clubhouse. So we've decided to end the year with a bracket style competition called Master Jeff in which we're going to figure out who wins uh Master Jeff of 2024. Um, so we've broken down um, we've picked a bunch of Jeffs and superlatives by which to judge them and then we'll just be putting them in a bracket system to narrow it down. There's actually been no joke a lot of logistical effort. You got power rankings up for how we're gonna do it. Goldblum's gotta be top seed.

[49:20] Travis McElroy: Goldblum's in there.

[49:21] Alex Murray: Uh, I have a strong place in my heart for Jeff Corwin uh who is an animal show host for sure and still does a lot of conservation stuff and animal stuff. Um, but that's to say you can also just go to the Macro Family YouTube and find it all there.

[49:36] Travis McElroy: All right. Well, thanks, uh, and come see the show come see the show. We're gonna have fun. Travis is gonna be being weird. He probably is gonna be sitting down a lot so come stand up drive him nuts.

[49:46] Alex Murray: Uh, it's important that you know that for context because then when you see me stand up you're like something oh here here it goes. It's about he wouldn't stand up for nothing. No.

[49:57] Travis McElroy: Tamburlaine has a glass he needs to move before he's about to blow us away.

[50:02] Alex Murray: Yeah, or he needs to go to the bathroom and he's making an excuse for it. Uh, you can follow the show at 20-sided tavern I'm at r alex murray all over the internet and uh, yeah until next time ale and well met.