Episode 400: The Escape to Margaritaville Red Carpet Extravaganza

Outline
(Note: This episode is formatted differently from most others: All questions are travel-, vacation-, or beach-related, and the brothers ask the questions of celebrities on the red carpet. When they can. Listener questions' time stamps are in bold, due to the events of the episode being structured differently than usual.)

6:06 - All three brothers are in Times Square before the Escape to Margaritaville event. Lin-Manuel Miranda is also there to advise them on red carpet events. Lin wants to know how they got there. The boys were apparently invited directly by Jimmy Buffett.

17:34 - The brothers are at the event. All three are very, very nervous.

19:55 - I live in a place people go on vacation, and I worry that I take the beach for granted. Do you have tips on appreciating it to the fullest without quitting my job and becoming one with the waves? - Rose

22:47 - The brothers plan to ask Marg Helgenberger about the beach but she walks right past while they're trying to decide what to say. Terry Collins, New York Mets manager, also walks by. Marg Helgenberger passes them two more times. Justin can't identify some of the celebrities.

29:12 - The brothers just miss either Steve Kroft, Tim Federle, or both, or neither.

30:00 - Promo break for Escape to Margaritaville.

30:34 - Justin thinks everyone is Matt Doyle. Griffin thinks they need to be on the other side of the rope. Travis jumps the rope. So do Griffin and Justin.

31:37 - The brothers ask Paten Hughes about her favorite vacation activity (hiking) and what sea creatures are the most dangerous (mermaids).

34:17 - My fiancee wants us to go to Italy for our honeymoon. Italy sounds great, but I'd also like to buy a house, so I want to rent a cabin up north and put the rest toward a mortgage. Where can we go that both feels like a honeymoon (rather than a family vacation) but also doesn't drain our savings? - Almost Married in Ann Arbor

36:05 - The brothers get called out for talking into microphones on the red carpet.

36:55 - The brothers meet Brenda Vaccaro (and Levi Bradley) and ask her about romantic vacation destinations (go to Bali in Indonesia and experience the culture, go to the Galapagos).

38:02 - Justin attempts to identify an entire family using his tip sheet and fails.

39:37 - One of the benefits of my job is a fair amount of vacation time. I'm of the opinion that it's best to take a couple days here and there, staving off corporate burnout. (Griffin: Short vacation or long vacation?) - Ezra

40:39 - Break for MaxFun Drive ad.

47:58 - Back to the carpet. The brothers attempt to get the attention of Steve Kroft and do funny voices pretending to be him while he is four feet away.

50:00 - The brothers ask Steve Kroft whether lots of short vacations or one big long vacation is preferable (it depends on how hard you work; if you're on your grind a whole lot, long vacation is better) and what the scariest sea creature is (barracuda).

51:48 - The brothers fall into their roles: Griffin does tech, Travis is the spy, and Justin just keeps saying they're in hell and yelling "Matt Doyle!" every few minutes.

52:58 - The brothers ask Corey Cott whether short or long vacations are better (Corey would rather take a long vacation but he feels his life mostly only allows for short ones) and what the scariest sea creature is (great white shark probably) and what the scariest sea creature he wouldn't ADMIT he'd be afraid to see would be (jellyfish).

56:00 - The brothers attempt to read a bunch of questions and then settle on going back to ideal destinations.

56:20 - The brothers ask Ethan Suplee his ideal vacation (anywhere with a warm beach where he can sit in the water "up to [his] tits"), if he takes a lot of stuff with him (he has four kids so he has to take a LOT of things), and whether Atlantis is real (if we are living in a multiverse it must be real somewhere but he doesn't think it's here on Earth).

58:58 - The brothers ask Marilu Henner what the scariest sea creature is (Ursula from The Little Mermaid).

59:31 - Jimmy Buffett arrives at the event. The brothers decide to lie to him about how good things have been going.

61:00 - Jimmy Buffett meets up with the brothers. They lie to his face and then ask him what the scariest sea creature is (moray eel, because he had a bad experience with one). They then get a picture with him.

64:58 - The brothers discuss what to do better next time: come over the rope, don't hand people microphones, and don't be too aggressive.

65:24 - Another plug for Escape to Margaritaville.

66:36 - The brothers decide to walk through the photo line.

66:58 - The brothers decide to wrap up after recording an hour, but are immediately derailed by a sighting of Al Roker and get caught up in planning how to talk to him.

70:44 - The brothers meet Al Roker and attempt to question him, but are immediately epically roasted for having too many microphones and taking too long.

71:51 - The brothers decide this is a good place to wrap up on the red carpet.

72:17 - Break for MaxFunDrive ad.

74:27 - The brothers record again after the event and show. Everyone enjoyed the show. Justin has a monster yawn. The tip sheet is a total mess. They run down the list of celebrities they met and didn't meet.

79:40 - Griffin runs down everyone's celebrity-meeting styles: Griffin tries to treat them like average people on the street. Travis either wants to be everyone's friend or is never going to see anyone else again (or sometimes, he freezes up). Justin just yells as if the person has just pulled a gun on him.

82:02 - The boys recap their devastating Al Roker experience.

84:18 - The boys thank Jimmy Buffett and end the show.

Quotes
"Fuck me, I'm so scared." - Griffin

"This is like Saw but specifically for the McElroy brothers." - Travis

"Quick family meeting, I need you to not stand on the side of the ropes saying "This is fine" or "This is hell" while making a grim mask of death with your face." - Griffin

"What the hell are you doing here?" "That's a great question." - Brenda Vaccaro & Travis

"I like that he said 'tits'." - Griffin, on Ethan Suplee

“Is that Matt Doyle?” -Justin

"Al Roker just made fun of us so bad that we can't do a podcast any more!" - Justin

"When I woke up this morning I was worried that we were gonna do a bad job. What I should have been worried about was the fact that Al Roker was mere hours away from melting my ass in front of everyone." - Griffin

Trivia

 * Unfortunately, this is not the first podcast to be recorded on the red carpet. Pistol Shrimps Radio released an episode on April 5, 2016, that was recorded on the red carpet of the TriBeCa Film Festival. Also, the Gilmore Guys have an episode recorded on the red carpet.[citation needed]