981 - Down in the Mall (10/27/25)
It’s a call-in show! We respond to nineteen calls ranging from serious predictions about the Trump era and beyond, the future of the Middle East, Warren Zevon stories, books for kids and high schoolers, and trying to wean a friend off H3H3. Also: gossip about John Fetterman and Jair Bolsonaro.
YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology is back on sale! Buy it at https://badegg.co/products/year-zero-1?srsltid=AfmBOorU_XyRGGmg4OR6YweG7W3-f8OlX8gHnKQwph6vJNUL4fZYJYiX Hurry while supplies last!
Comments (215)
Idk if this helps the listener, but I sold my mom on more leftish media by showing her the QAA episodes where two nice Jewish boys talk about ghosts
LOTR: Everyone offers a skillset and is beautiful in their own way. Despite our faults, we can stand up the worst excesses of greed if we learn to work together. Felix: This is fascist bullshit
GUERILLA TOSS MENTION??!?!??? i'm home
Felix just like me for real...lol my mom explained Terminator to me when it was on Network Television one Sunday afternoon after we got rid of cable. Lol
Halo reference? Have my prayers been answered? Is the next season of The Players Club a Halo retrospective?
Much thanks, y’all make me feel like starting a Warren Zevon tribute band in 2020 wasn’t a total fool’s errand
2024 onward have been a particularly Zevonish time. We all zevonnaxxing
What is the song that plays at the end? I want to annoy my gf with it.
among the hardest i have ever laughed at this show is that episode’s list of names from the Dan Quinn universe, one of which was “Rick Cheek”
Fuck the Jon jones take. He’s fucking evil, tragedy my ass— tragedy happens all the time, and it metastasizes into evil all the time, and guess who was there to make it happen- DANA fucking WHITE. Jon jones is what the UFC deserved.
How do I submit a question?
Why did they take down ep 196 now?
Down in the mall / feeling so small Down in the mall / losin’ my soul
Had to sit down when Felix dropped the alphabet of manliness
If the Saudis really want to break into the NFL forget the Dallas Cowboys, go after the Cincinnati Bengals. They’d be greeted as liberators.
Gooner son or h3h3 daughter?
Gooner son. Obviously.
GEESE AND CAMERON WINTER
i have a friend in yale grad rn and chris christie just had cuomo visit to speak like a week ago. like buddy you don’t have anything more important to do? lmao
christie is currently hosting a course on Governors, broadly. fucking pea brain
The UAE are officially the proud owners of YOUR LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Peepee poopoo why is Saudi doing all this?? *existing as a modern state*
fuck off mbs
I will not sit here and tolerate Chris’ subtle jabs at the Yamaha DX7 (1983).
the DX7 is ass I fucking hate FM synth
It never occurred to me that there were people out there watching JJ string Aspinall along and thinking this is the absolute last straw with this guy
no disrespect to the caller, I'm from upstate (jones apologist)
Would also add classic Mad Magazine was so formative and gave me random political knowledge and critique beyond my years
Water From Your Eyes is the worst band I have ever seen live. I saw them open for Spoon a couple of years ago and it made me angry.
Listening too these bands and it's AI generated music. Chapo music fail number 50000
Really appreciate the Dan Quinn explainer this is prob of the best lore dump I’ve heard
@will I think easiest way to conceptualize about Afrikaners is that are like to Dutch/British people like Israelis are to regular western Jewish people. I mean, heck, their army during apartheid was literally called the SADF
Tbf I’m a brown South African most Afrikaners you meet in public / work are good normal people though slightly culturally conservative. But this is a great description of the Afrikaans people who’ll be “fleeing as refugees.” They’re a big joke here and have been dubbed the Amerikaners now
I fw “well-renumerated” becoming house style on Chapo
Another episode, another moment where Felix puts his foot in his mouth with assertions about LOTR lol - he has a very poor understanding of the material and of Tolkien generally (spoiler alert Tolkien is a documented anti fascist)
My no-shit prediction for Cuomo is he gets a pundit show at Bari Weiss' CBS
i was thinking msnbc or cnn but i think you nailed it
Music: Ryan Davis
As a high school teacher, I do not share the boys optimism about children today. The phones and the internet brainrot has made them borderline illiterate.
if the whole world spoke Chinese in 2025, why was all the metadata subbed in English? Who was that for?
Anna Karenina was a torture chamber
Love the huge shoutout to Redwall!!
my very conservative father, who also happens to be a music freak, turned me on to Zevon as a kid. how amusing it’s been to hear my socialist podcast friends sing his praises as well
Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily in e-sports, especially Counter Strike 2. They run a tier 1 tournament (with rumors of paid crowds lol) and own Team Falcons, which in CS2 at least has spent tens of millions of dollars signing some of the best players in the world only to inevitably choke every tournament
There’s also a steam account rumored to be owned by a young Saudi royal with an inventory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of extremely rare skins
Look at Chris with all the good jams! Love water from your eyes and Viagra Boys. New OPN will be awesome as well next month! It is 1997 again!
Future archeology will either think all furry fur suits were team mascots, or that all team mascots were used for anonymous sex.
I think the first r-rated movies my dad let me watch were Doom, 300, Strange Wilderness, and The Hangover
Research chemicals is the best viagra boys song
I like shrimp shack for having most of the same musical elements as research chemicals but having lyrics that I like better
When I was a student at Humboldt State University in the mid-90s (Go Lumberjacks!), I wanted to start a band for the sole purpose of naming its second album "Oh No, Not That Damn Drinking Bird Again!"
Warren Zevon
Damn I just looked up Dan Quinn after years of not looking him up and holy shit he is looking rough. He goes to take his shirt off in a video and a lady can be heard saying, "no, dont take off your shirt..." in the same way you'd talk to a toddler.
Give your child the catcher in the rye to weed out if they suck and don’t sink anymore time into a predestined loser.
Dan Quinn, Demonius X and Jellyroll in studio when?
Shoutout Gore Vidal! -resident Vidal head
Chris sounds different in this episode but I can’t quite put my finger on it…
i thought so at first but that's spencer asking the listener questions. he's been filling in for chris. chris speaks a few times and he sounds like the good ol' chris we know and love
My Cuomo prediction is a podcast with Sliwa where they just talk shit about Mamdani but mostly it just turns into them arguing with each other
Calvin and Hobbes fans stay winning
Richard Scarry books are so beautiful, such a cherished memory of mine that I've shared with my kids. If you haven't yet you should check them out. The books I mean, not my kids
Saudis were absolutely not spooked by the reaction to Khashoggi. They are in a tribal rivalry with Emirates and will build their own Dubai and get the approval of Mr. Wonderful and America. It's why they own parts of major sports team, Spotify, Twitter etc. They want in on American slop cultural production. They do genuinely love Pimp My Ride and WWE that's more of a special interest not an agenda.
Biden was taking pure H2O but Kamala made him switch to water
the demonius x video where he talks about his time working at boston market and how the chicken is secretly microwaved comes to my brain randomly once a month
describing the customers at Boston market "paying top dollar" lmao
RELEASE THE DAN QUINN CUT!
For the caller with the anti-Zionist-Bandurist neighbour. Instead of cookies you should bring them a bowl of кутя (kutia). It’s a “dessert” of boiled wheat germ with honey and poppy seeds. I grew up having to eat it when my family would celebrate Ruthenian Uniate Church Christmas. It’s disgusting, they’ll love it
Genius thank you! If I get the courage to invite him over to watch the Bears Bengals game I’ll pull that out in the 4th quarter.
Ok that flag combo from da Chicago guy is very much something you would see in the greater Seattle-Tacoma region
My grandma turns 100 on Saturday and no one has told her my 70 year old aunt is gay
We're telling her on the recorded zoom call
Ep 196 isn't on patreon! 🥲
The Big Ten is opening up to Private Investment - The PIF will own 49% by 2027
There's a big anti wet leg zoomer constituency in the ODD nashville music scene
I will be rocking my Zapata oil hat to Viagra Boys in STL next week
YES TRANSVERSE CITY MENTIONED!!! Zevons most underrated record 🔥🔥🔥
real talk for the H3 teen- watch the channel “cruel mind happy world”’s video about ethan with her- her analysis comes to a similar conclusion to hasan/chapoverse but delivers it in a measured, sympathetic way that might not alienate H3 fans to the same extent
Chris is wrong. New Viagra Boys album is better than Cave World
new album is GREAT I think Cave World was a bit more conceptually unified (and certainly solidified what their Whole POV was going in to Viag Raboys). Plus just super strong individual songs Aint No Thief, Troglodyte, Big Boy, Punk Rock Loser, Return to Monke all top tier VB jams. Plus just hit exactly the right wavelength of the devolved post-covid 2022 moment (look at me relating everything to covid to defend my mutant rockist ideology). New material continues to deliver along the same lines tho and they're one of the most killer live rock acts working. Seb is probably the best rock front man in the world right now.
Maybe it’s the way I read the underworld USA trilogy but is Elroy really conservative? Maybe it’s just my own confirmation bias but all the events portrayed seem to be indicting the US intelligence community and alluding to it being no better than the organized crime groups they’re lock step with in the novels
He has a long history of Nazi and antisemitic statements, some of which is probably genuinely held and a lot of which is probably attention seeking and trolling. He had a really tough upbringing (sexually obsessed with his own mother, who was later raped and murdered when he was 10) so his Nazi outbursts in his school days, at least, seem like typical disordered bad kid behavior.
my name is will, my name is felix, and we are joined by producer chris
Dude the moment right after the election where Biden gets pissed on a zoom call with the head of the NAACP and shouts "I'm the only white boy you know who DID IT! OUT HERE! EVERY TIME! PERIOD!" is when I knew Matt was absolutely correct. Extremely Quinn-coded.
Have that guy’s sister listen to Stavvy’s World and So True with Caleb Hearon
good recs for her
Ep 196 doesn't exist on Pateron! Just checked. Goes 195 to 197. Edit: ah, there's my Chippy https://on.soundcloud.com/cBA1cdLe9vT1Zt3mQR
real heads remeber when only the premium eps were posted to the pateron and you had to double-fist RSS feeds
felix is getting a lot of mileage with his andrew schultz impression
It’s so good. Schultz is hard to stomach. In his recent interview with Mamdani he’s giving him political advice and calling Hochul “Kathy,” lol. Felix captures his desperate need to be cool so well.
I want thank Chris for something he said. I lost my dad recently, and have been thinking a lot about what he did and didn't pass on to me, wondering if maybe I'm forgetting some of the things, or if he maybe just wasn't as interested in sharing his favorites with me as much I wish he'd been. I've also been worried about whether I'm sharing enough with my own 10-year-old daughter. She passed quickly through the reading aloud period. Now she just wants to read by herself. Have I been neglecting her? Anyway, when Chris talked about helping his kid develop their own taste, it really struck a chord and helped me reframe how I've parented in this regard. My kid has exquisite taste, which she's constantly expanding and refining. She goes into the library and finds rafts of books. She's constantly discovering new music. So, by giving her that latitude, I feel like she's really gotten to blossom without me trying to foist my stuff onto her. That way, when she comes to it, it'll be in her own time, and will probably mean more to her. Thinking about her excellence and my role in helping her develop it, that made me feel good.
bug fan of wills warren zevon obsession. My parents were loose industry friends with him and his wife and if you looked up warren zevon wife on google the third or forth picture was him with my mom for like 10 years lmao.
A friend of mine put together a compilation album of (mostly Sacramento) bands doimg songs based around Dan Quinn samples: https://quinncore.bandcamp.com/album/stevia-in-the-raw
Damn it's actually good too. I love art.
Alright Chris the CAN shout out was on point mad respect!
Those live releases from the last few years are sick, including the complementary album art designs
Gary fucking Paulsen
Comic issue is fixed!
Maybe a bit cliche but I think every American should read The Grapes of Wrath. It legitimately changed my views on a few things.
It should 100% be one of the handful of books everyone is forced to read in high school, and there is a reason that isn’t the case
Cuomo DWTS
Can't find 196
not sure if this will help but when i've had trouble finding past eps of podcasts on the patreon app i try searching on a desktop and have then been successful. this app kinda sucks for searching for old eps
Holy fuck lol I know the exact house caller 4 is talking about
This is Raggedy Ann erasure. Those were the first chapter books I read and remain childhood favorites. They have gorgeous illustrations and a pleasantly high amount of bad guys getting their ass beat.
I am indeed stuck in Fetterman trunk. Help! He’s taking me to a birthday party !
Gotta listen to the new album by Geese, “Getting killed”
no mention of geese was a surprise; that album takes the cake this year
Anybody got all the music and books mentioned? I'm too fucking lazy to listen back
For music I caught Wet leg Viagra boys Water from your eyes Emily Allen Pulp Automatic Activity DeAngelo
Wait, which cut of Payback?
Someone got a list of the music recommendations handy?
For music I caught Wet leg Viagra boys Water from your eyes Emily Allen Pulp Automatic Activity DeAngelo I gotcha Karl
Show your kids Blazing Saddles at 11 like my dad. Only way to make sure your kid isn't racist and isn't too precious.
jokes aside, i am 100% here as a subscriber because of cumtown
GET OUT
“can he beat 9?” is another seminal piece of dan quinn lore. trust a man who knows the difference between what’s simply water weight and pure h2o.
The Saudis buying the Lakers would be too funny or like Will said, buying the Yankees, but every 9/11 they do a memorial for Charlie Kirk instead
Warren Zevon stories 😁🤯
Simpsons seasons 1-10
andrew cuomo next job: guest judge on dancing with the stars
Funny that questions from ‘a girl’ were answered in an attempt to distract from the reality that the Chapo fanbase isn’t mostly incel. See the Patreon chat. Smells like a place a manifesto is being written
Hot take my guy lmao
REDWALL MENTIONED
High school kids might like Gibson's Neuromancer
Ban the Boer
What a surprise to add Fetterman to the seemingly endless list of psychotic Israel supporters who’ve allegedly behaved inappropriately toward minors.
This is why they support Israel. So they can move there when the allegations come out.
For books surprised that there was no Steinbeck; would've said The Grapes of Wrath and Catch-22 fs
Grapes of Wrath was absolutely the book that knocked me off my too cool for school pedestal in hs and made me like reading. Also hilariously Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full. Just thinking about the ending of Grapes of wrath gives me goosebumps.
Thank you Chris! Sprinting back to 196 right now
enjoy your vacation, im taking this one off too
God bless the guy who called in to ask if the dan quinn felix talks about is the football coach. it took me like four years to figure out there was another dan quinn 😭
I just learned that from your comment lol; you're clearly ahead of me in the episode
The guy who asked the Saudi question is an idiot. His British accent should have tipped me before the content of his question.
Sentimental Hygiene also rules
404 error trying to get the comic
They say it's fixed now. BTW the comic book is great
when Will said he would read his son a book they just talked about on the show I thought he was gonna say that guy’s star wars book
dying at bolsonaro watching the robotic dog dance like that scene in bitter lake when the kids and the old guys stop to watch the Hawaiian dancer toy
When I lived in Florida, there was an older white South African culture that I would ride bikes with regularly. They were "nice", but slowly I learned they were super conservatives. My favorite was a discussion we had where they believed everyone could simply save their money so they could be millionaires in retirement. So between them and Elon (they are big fans), the stereotypes stick.
Jerry Jones would never sell the cowboys but his dumb ass son definitely would
I still can’t get over Felix thinking LOTR is bad storytelling but MGS is
Reminder: he thinks Avatar was a good movie.
"I tortured so many people for this view" - bolsonaro at the dippin' dots kiosk
Yay Chris is back! Now give us back the full theme song lol. Shits killing me
The only guy in American politics to ever just go away………….. Virgil
Mbs wouldn't buy the Bengals and browns? Jimmy would sell out for so little
The first time I heard DAngelo’s music was in RDR2, something I’m sure a lot of other Gen Z folks can relate to. That scene of riding your horse back to camp after the Guarma chapter will live in my head forever, mostly for DAngelo’s music.
What an audacious project - a revisionist western with music by Daniel Lanois, D’Angelo, Rhiannon Giddens and Nas, and it completely works.
The Dear America series and their various spinoffs were a big chunk of my childhood. Reading about the history of America from the perspective of a child (usually a girl) during different points of history (from the witch trials, to children living in slavery, both world wars, and all the way up to Vietnam) writing in their diaries was quite unique in terms of historical fiction.
With the deep dive show Players Club and all the callouts to Redwall over multiple episodes now, I think we need a deep dive series on Redwall now.
all the people who did anything worth remembering in history were absolute freaks of their time
“Glad Matt is on the mend again” please tell me he didn’t have a setback
Maybe just an old call
30:20 Felix first suicide mention let's go
I can see Cuomo on SNL.
I’m also a high school English teacher, and I have to thank Felix. The system right now has it backwards: it thinks kids need to be pandered to but treats them as totally guileless (meaning they won’t use ChatGPT if wrongly if trusted). It’s the total opposite: they’re motivated and want to rise to the occasion. They just need structure to remove some of the temptations that come with the modern world.
On the book question, The Wind in the Willows is definitely in the “old-fashioned but a classic for a reason” category. The chapter of the sailor rat telling travel stories to Water Rat is wonderful.
The "Uncle" books are great. Imagine an upper-class British version of Looney Tunes.
inshallah let Ethan Klein sue chapo for antisemitism
lol I got three kids and they’ve all seen shogun assassin multiple times.
Transverse City referenced
I'm only going to let my children read the chapo traphouse guide to revolution (a manifesto against logic, facts, and reason)
Hate to be that guy but I have to point out that the Trump admin isn't tearing up posse comitatus. They can't because it was already struck down during the Obama administration. All of these deployments are legal, doesn't make them right but all of this is yet another thing that we can say "thanks Obama" for
Welcome back Chris! Congrats on your progeny
Tom waits and Warren zevon. The only things I'm letting my kids know about
I like Spencer’s additions
Felix begins speaking at 3 minutes and 23 seconds in the past
SA, if you buy the falcons and get a ring or two all is forgiven on the whole 9/11 business
Felix “you gotta rise to the occasion” 😭
My sister and I still talk about Redwall and Animorphs! Brother Methuselah is mentioned like once a week 😩
Hey Chris glad your back! Too add to your rock list I think you should check out the band geese. They just released their best album yet :)
Love Geese, saw them at Kilby this year. Haven't really sat with the new album yet but understand it's fantastic. Love the nick x adam x geese fancam https://x.com/oncinemafan/status/1982825924728123725
I managed to convince my 12yo daughter to read Redwall, actually all based off Will's previous recommendations because I never read them as a kid. The media thing I'm most proud of getting her into is probably early Simpsons, I did try to get her to watch Flying High/Airplane! with us but her mum vetoed it when the pilot picked up a magazine called Daily Sperm or something at the newsagent.
12 is the perfect age to watch Airplane!. Make her watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
In the Dan Quinn video where he’s monologging in the Starbucks bathroom it’s also the women’s room, he’s also eating a Wendy’s burger while ranting, and the second time the woman knocks at like 15 minutes of him taking up the bathroom he snaps “bitch I said I’m busy!!”… DQ is top tier content. Thank you Felix
This man sounds more and more like Spike Milligan.
They dodged my question about cleaning a pegging kit in a high end Bosch dishwasher.
Too Broad City
Thanks for answering my 🇵🇸+🟥⬛️ flag neighbor question, gonna invite him over next week for the bears game. Shout out to my west town neighbors who protected the Erie Clinic from ice last Friday. Pray for us in Chicago
I have been reading Calvin Hobbes with my 8 year old for years and it’s wonderful, as well as being almost through the first animorphs book where I read a page and a half, he reads a half, repeat.. showing him T2 when he was 5 or 6 was good and he loved that, but I think getting them onto cool and rated R movies too young can be a mistake. He doesn’t give a shit about a lot of cool stuff because of overexposure too young. Something to be said for making them want it… we spent the night in the Raleigh airport in July sleeping on a bench after a cancellation, the three of us with his mother watched Mohicans on my phone and he didn’t give a shit.. we watched the ring last night for Halloween prep, he loved the fog, I know did summer.. there was this phenomenon a few years ago where 5 year old YouTube was all about these videos where the kids making the content would pretend Micheal myers or Jason or pennywise or whatever was attacking them in their home and it would be their dad in a mask out the window, then chasing them around the house as they hide and escape. It was all the craze, every kid was all about it, and it lead to his generation being into horror. He and his friends at 8 years old are like already over all the great horror characters even if they haven’t seen most the movies. But he’s getting old enough now… fun question…
I... Good golly Miss Molly!
Go Go Gadget Just one more thing🕵♂️
G Toss are friends of the show?? Used to go see them/hang out at Deep Thoughts in Jamaica Plain all the time back in college
I'm suprised Noone brought up the other possible landing spot for cuomo: maga rebrand
I think fox news and cnn talking head is likely
That Chicagoan found the legendary, elusive "Pro-Palestinian Banderist (1/1)". Impressive.
It was sick to hear Chris but I can't believe my question got on the show.
Looks like the comic link 404s
the period in the sentence is also in the href attribute of the a tag. If you delete it from the 404ing url you get to the product page (but whoever is in charge of the post should fix that up)
A woman calling in to Chapo? At this time of year? At this time of day?
Finding new stuff isn't a teen thing, Chris! Going to the library early and browsing the stacks is the start.
hook up Matt to the Stephen Hawking machine and get him RIFFING AGAIN
Agree on the Robert Fisk recommendation. I read it when it came out, and then re-read it recently (because it's sadly relevant again), and it made me 100 times more pissed off to realize that there's no one that the west considers credible documenting Israels crimes this time. Fuck them all forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEkaMxPdA4U
Redwall?? EULAAAAALIIIIAAAA
I was going to call in and ask Will when he’s gonna put a ring on Katherine but it felt a bit pointed, maybe next time I’ll loop in our forever bachelor Felix to balance it all out
that exact dog toy from the episode thumbnail is one of my daughters favorite toys lol
W
Like everyone here, I'm very first and strongly gay.
as am i as well
I was planning on calling in to convey a long tirade from Xi Jinping in Mandarin yelling at Will for mispronouncing his name all the time (It's "shee", not "jzi" or whatever the fuck). He was also gonna ask "when are you going to do another board game" episode, but they ended up doing it anyways. Probably wouldn't have passed muster. Still, for fuck sake, stop with the weird pronunciation. It's like nails on a chalkboard.
Hell YEAH wonderful to hear Mr Chris Wade in the building folks
CHRIS IS BACK LET’S GO!
haven't started yet but im excited for the warren zevon story promised in the description i love warren zevon so much
one of the greatest rock and rollers the world has seen
My comic came with a torn cover, Thanks for reminding me I need to email them about it
Second and Gay
Super gay and fourth
Oh no I forgot to call in about the anus problem I’ve been having
I actually got first comment this time! Im so proud of myself and also feeling like a loser...
Third!
First. Not gay. Although that would be totally fine.
FIRST
shitlib