Three Guys Around a Table and The Best Of…
Three buddies sitting around a table debating the best of everything and discussing what is on their minds
Three Guys Around a Table and The Best Of…
Nostalgia Showdown: Cartoon Brackets and Childhood Memories Unleashed
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Ready for a hearty dose of nostalgia and laughter? Join us in this week's episode of "Three Guys Around the Table" as we tackle a listener-requested cartoon bracket curated by our longtime friend Ric Mellin. We kick things off with a hilarious exchange about Ric's age, featuring a live call that sets the tone for the spirited debates to come. First up, it's He-Man versus the Super Friends! Our passionate discussion is filled with fond recollections and humorous banter, ultimately crowning the Super Friends as the victor. Expect a trip down memory lane as we relive our childhood Saturday mornings and the classic cartoons that shaped them.
But the fun doesn't stop there! We dive into a heated debate over cartoon icons like Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons, and Captain Caveman. Amidst our arguments, we reminisce about our favorite childhood cereals and share comical breakfast anecdotes. Our conversation meanders through cherished TV shows like "My Three Sons" and "Three's Company," and we challenge Ric to send more topics for us to explore. With laughter and shared memories, we wrap up the episode eagerly anticipating Ric's future contributions, especially his take on the enigmatic "triple lindy." Tune in for a blend of humor, nostalgia, and engaging conversation celebrating the golden age of cartoons and TV shows.
three guys around the table and by three guys.
Speaker 3We're talking about three friends a lawyer, an engineer and a school superintendent and just like our personalities, our opinions vary and we certainly don't always agree. Whether we're discussing the best of or giving our tips and tricks of things in everyday life, you're sure to learn something if you stick around, all right.
Speaker 2So today we have a very special episode of three guys around the table. The best of we are witness a listener request. This is a listener request um it's more than a request. The listener put it together for us. He did. And uh, my, my, uh, my very dear friend, like a brother.
Speaker 3Rick Mellon, a brother from another mother. Is that Thornton's son? He is not Thornton's son, can you?
Speaker 2do a triple. Lindy Rick is a principal down in the beautiful state of Florida One of those people. And has been a long-term friend of mine, and I love Rick and his wife Leslie. They're awesome people and we consider them family and Rick is a loyal listener to the show.
Speaker 1Do you consider Rick family?
Speaker 3I'm feeling a little bit of excitement.
Speaker 1You should. I'm good with it. Let's do it.
Speaker 2Rick sent an episode idea of doing a cartoon bracket Cartoons when we were kids Time out.
Speaker 3Steamboat Willie was when Chris and I were cartoons, when we were kids time out. Steamboat willie was, uh, when chris and our children yeah, hold on, I'm looking at this list. How old is?
Speaker 2rick. Can we call him out on this? Rick is rick is my age. I mean, rick is so a little younger than me, not so 79 did rick had cable television uh look, not everybody had three residents.
Speaker 3I'm sure, I sure Rick had cable TV. Okay, moving on.
Speaker 1Did everybody have three residences going?
Speaker 3on Shut up, I'm going to head two, yeah, I think he's what was a rental house Shut up?
Speaker 2Moving on. Oh, actually he's texting me right now. He is driving home listening to it now, the one we just did. Oh, should have called him out on it Listening and driving. Hold on. Do you know what I'm going to bring?
Speaker 3him in on this call. He's calling him up. Oh wow, this is live on the air.
Speaker 2We very rarely do this.
Speaker 3Hello, shut up, I'm listening Hello.
Speaker 2Hey, you are live on the air, rick Mellon. Believe it or not, go for it? Hey, you are live on the air, rick Mellon.
Speaker 1Believe it or not, go for it. Hey, rick, he sounds excited. Hey.
Speaker 3Rick, I've got a question for you On the triple Lindy. Did your father teach you how to land that properly or did you just come by it naturally?
Speaker 2They're going with the easy jokes, Rick. So, look, we are doing an episode right now on the cartoon bracket. We have just begun it. We're two minutes and 48 seconds into it. Okay, and uh, I just wanted to give you full props and credit and put you on the air so you don't have to stay for the whole thing. Uh, you're going to be surprised by the who wins. Um, but they've already asked how old you were, because they think I'm like 78.
Speaker 1No we don't think Early 50s. Rick, did you have cable TV when you were growing up?
Speaker 4I did, but the cable TV box in order to change a channel. It was on a cable. It was on a cable so you had to. You had this little cable box that was on a line that was connected to the TV. But if you got a, it was like 20 feet long so you could like walk across the room with it and then turn the dial on the cable TV.
Speaker 3So, rick, besides being wealthy, what else occurred in your life as a child?
Speaker 2and, by the way, this is coming from the guy that lived in three different residences.
Speaker 4You do realize that I've listened to all of your podcasts and I can hear your background.
Speaker 2On that note, I will let you focus on driving and we will be publishing this later this evening. All right, sounds good.
Speaker 4See you, Rick. See you, buddy.
Speaker 3So great call right there and I just want to follow up and say that my parents owned a house and we owned the little house next to us called the Little House. It was a rental home.
Speaker 1The Little House was bigger than any house I've ever owned In the hood in the ghetto neighborhood.
Speaker 3It was in the hood neighborhood.
Speaker 1Why is it got to be the hood?
Speaker 3It was in the hood. Nobody goes there after dark. It's nobody goes after darkness.
Speaker 2Now not the end back then they were all 95 plus, and when those people died off is when it got really bad anyway.
Speaker 3So I will reiterate that. Rick, thank you for knowing my background. Now we're moving on anywho.
Speaker 2Um so rick has created a bracket and he actually went to effort at this.
Speaker 3This is oh yeah, this is big. Hey. By the way, real Rick, pick the next topic, do the same thing. Buddy, you've got the bracket, give us another one. This is fun. This is really fun. I actually do like the brackets. Yeah, man, I like it. Let's go.
Speaker 2In the top of the bracket. We've got it looks like. Let's see.
Speaker 3This is Saturday morning cartoons.
Speaker 2Saturday morning cartoons. How many we got here? 1, 2, 3, 16? Yeah, 16 teams Sweet 16,. I like it. In the first matchup we've got He-Man versus the Super Friends.
Speaker 1I don't know who the Super.
Speaker 2Friends are oh my gosh really.
Speaker 3Form of Wonder Twins activate.
Speaker 1Form of a light sword He-Man. He-man, that was easy.
Speaker 3Super Friends done. He-man was the dumbest show ever by the power of Grayskull. I have the power.
Speaker 1What are you talking about by the power of Grayskull? Bad Skeletor is another reason why, it automatically wins.
Speaker 2I'm going to have to say on this one that it's got to be Super Friends.
Speaker 3Done. I'm sorry Because.
Speaker 2This is a tough first round matchup.
Speaker 3No, it is not, because the Hall of Justice is in Cincinnati and I know those people.
Speaker 2But here's the thing If this was a true bracket, this would be like number one seed versus number 16 or whatever right, so Superfans is a 16 seed.
Speaker 1I agree. Time out Superfans.
Speaker 3No chance Time out Super Friends is Spider-Man, superman, aquaman, batman, wonder Woman, and you're taking He-Man over those people.
Speaker 1I didn't know what Super Friends was by a vote of two to one.
Speaker 2Super Friends is one. Hang on, what was?
Speaker 3the name of the people that did the Wonder Twins, never mind the Wonder Twins.
Speaker 1Wonder Twins Activist, One was Animal one was Ice.
Speaker 2Super Friends won the first one All right, lead us into the next one, chris.
Speaker 3The Transformers, or Jabberjaw, jab, jab, jab, jab jab. I got to go Transformers.
Speaker 1Transformers. Transformers yeah, more than meets the eye More than meets the eye Easy. All right.
Speaker 3Were you an Autobot or a Decepticon? Oh, I'm always.
Speaker 1Madcast, I'm always Decepticon Autobots roll out. All right, greg, scooby-doo and Garfield, two classics here I gotta go Scooby-Doo for the cartoon yeah, I gotta go Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 3Just because of Channel 19, wxix, cincinnati 3 pm.
Speaker 2Channel 19. Wxix Doo, doo do.
Speaker 3I didn't have that channel in Little Mudge I did Home of Bob Braun. Thanks to that Scooby-Doo 3 pm every weekday.
Speaker 2Scooby-Doo a million times out of a million for me, and I love Garfield Time out, time out, if we're going to have been Scooby, velma or Daphne.
Speaker 3Everybody want to be Fred Shut up. I think everyone want to be Fred because, Fred's always hanging out with Velma Right.
Speaker 1No, daphne, I'm sorry. Sorry, daphne, daphne was where it was at.
Speaker 3Fred would be like Daphne, come with me in this dark scary cave. Velma Shaggy and Scooby, you go off, velma, you go with the dog and the pothead Go over here I'll be hanging out.
Speaker 2Alright, we got Scooby-Doo moving forward, Alright. Next one is DuckTales and the Chippendale.
Speaker 1Rescue.
Speaker 2Rangers.
Speaker 3I never watched either one of these.
Speaker 4Chippendales was two squirrels right.
Speaker 3Well, they're chipmunks, but it's cool.
Speaker 2This is going to be an easy win in the next round for Scooby-Doo in my opinion.
Speaker 4Let's go.
Speaker 3Who are you picking?
Speaker 2I'm going to go DuckTales.
Speaker 3So I'm going to go Chip and Dale because they were on the.
Speaker 2Disney side.
Speaker 3Okay, I'll go Chip and Dale, because Rangers Rescue Rangers, yeah.
Speaker 2That sounds great.
Speaker 1Inspector Gadget versus the Pink Panther. Now wait a minute.
Speaker 2This could go either way because the Inspector Gadget was my all-time favorite.
Speaker 3in a weird humor kind of way, I'm a Pink Panther Pink.
Speaker 2Panther, pink Panther.
Speaker 3Done. Do you remember the Pink Panther?
Speaker 1Yeah, all right. What about Inspector Gadget?
Speaker 3The dog was so cool. The dog was the one that said.
Speaker 1Then you just said okay.
Speaker 3Pink Panther. Well, the Pink Panther was weird, but Inspector Gadget had the dog. That saved the day and nobody knew about it, right?
Speaker 2See the next one for me is difficult. You've got a fun one here. The next one for me is difficult. I know this one Grape Ape or.
Speaker 4Captain Caveman.
Speaker 1Grape Ape, captain Caveman, I gotta go with Captain Caveman, captain Caveman for me. Even though I like Grape Ape because he rode on top of that car, grape Ape.
Speaker 2I'm going to go Grape Ape, just to be the dissenting voice. And what was his buddy's name? Grape Ape? Hello, Bigley Bigley. Captain Caveman moves on All right. So it's back to me. I'm probably going to lose this one Guaranteed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Hong Kong Fooey.
Speaker 3Hong Kong Fooey.
Speaker 1How would you lose that? I thought you all would go.
Speaker 3Mutant Ninja Turtles I have never seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 1I've never seen that cartoon.
Speaker 3Hong Kong Foo was legit. The dog was awesome.
Speaker 2Hong Kong. Foo is the man A million times out of a million Hong Kong Foo-y.
Speaker 3Number one super guy.
Speaker 4Oh yeah, that's what I meant. Come on now.
Speaker 1Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, heroes in a half shell. I was all about the rat, or whatever it was.
Speaker 3There was a rat on, there Was it Janie's dog. Yeah it was.
Speaker 2You got the last one here.
Speaker 1Chris, this one's a difficult one.
Speaker 3This is different because I'm thinking about Christmas time here Alvin and the Chipmunks, or the Jetsons.
Speaker 2This is a pretty easy one. It's easy for me.
Speaker 1It's good, jetsons jetsons jetsons yep hands down, all right why all right?
Speaker 3it was futuristic. It is realistic, all right, mr sprocket greg, you're starting us off into round two the quarterfinals so we're going with super friends, or? Or it was transformers no, no, it was Super Friends. Yeah, super Friends versus.
Speaker 1I know how a bracket works. You are a bracket racer. I'm going Transformers because I still don't know who Super Friends are.
Speaker 3Super Friends. I'm going Transformers because they're more than meets. The Aquaman puts me over the top. Aquaman puts me over the top. He can ride dolphins. He can telekinesis whatever.
Speaker 1I'm going'll be the tie-breaking vote and I'm going super friends.
Speaker 2Yeah, there you go. Hall of justice just useless. The next one's unanimous and it's quick yeah, scooby-doo versus scooby-doo whoever won the other one?
Speaker 3who cares? Scooby-doo, baby chippendale was the other one yep scooby-doo moving forward.
Speaker 1All right, greg uh, then this the next one is Pink Panther versus Captain Caveman. I'm going, captain Caveman, pink Panther.
Speaker 2I got to go, captain Caveman.
Speaker 3Oh, it's a mutiny Pink.
Speaker 2Panther.
Speaker 1I really enjoyed, but Captain Caveman was special, absolutely All right, that was an upset for me. Yes, you're up, hong Kong. Fooey and the Jetsons Hong.
Speaker 3Kong Fooey and the Jetsons, jetsons, hong Kong Fooey, hong Kong Fooey.
Speaker 4What was the vacuum?
Speaker 3maiden's name? Is that Betty?
Speaker 2I gotta go, jetsons here.
Speaker 3What was the vacuum? Maiden's name Rosie.
Speaker 1It's Mark's dog.
Speaker 2Alright, so now we're down to the semis.
Speaker 3So we're down to Super Friends and Scooby-Doo, I'm going Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 1I've been anti Super Friends the whole time.
Speaker 3This is a hard one man.
Classic Cartoon Character Debate
Speaker 2I'll make it easy Scooby-Doo, I was going to say Scooby-Doo. I would say Scooby-Doo as well.
Speaker 1Look if you ain't got a Great Dane in your cartoon. You're wrong, that's right.
Speaker 3Look, if you don't have the Harlem Globetrotters on your show, there's a problem.
Speaker 1Right, yep I mean you've got to unmask the bad person every time.
Speaker 2And look every time here into the next semifinal. It looks like we've got Captain Caveman and the Jetsons, jetsons for me Done.
Speaker 4I've got to go, jetsons, what was?
Speaker 3the little kid's name. What was his little name? Little boy Oswell.
Speaker 1Elroy, I'm going to go, captain Caveman, because I've lost, but it's okay.
Speaker 2We're in the finals, we're down to the Jetsons. Now you've got to say why.
Speaker 1I have my choice. You lead us, Greg. My choice is Scooby-Doo. Tell us why You've got a great Dane in it. First of all, You've got an ever-changing story with different mysteries, why would you call?
Speaker 2Thelma, a good name. It's Velma, by the way. It is Velma.
Speaker 1Getting a phone call in the middle of a podcast is rude, by the way.
Speaker 2Let's be turning it on. And the fact that they let it ring three times. That's a pet peeve of mine, pet peeves episode three Leading off, I'm going Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 1Yep, you don't have Jetson snacks either, but you still got Scooby snacks out. Yep, you know.
Speaker 2I'd ask Chris, but it looks like he's worried about his phone call. I'm ready.
Speaker 1Scooby-Doo is where it's at number one.
Speaker 3So gentlemen, I think you're thinking of two different time frames here.
Speaker 2Okay, Mark's time frame is that Is this time to criticize Thornton Mellon's son. Yet Absolutely not.
Speaker 3We have to.
Speaker 2My friend is not criticizable.
Speaker 3We have to criticize him, everybody's criticizable. Just for the record, according to Greg, he's breathing.
Speaker 1That's true, that's valid.
Speaker 3But I will set us up for a future episode. He left off the Flintstones, which was the predecessor to the Jetsons.
Speaker 2But again, that was way back in the 60s.
Speaker 3So was.
Speaker 2Scooby-Doo. Scooby-doo started in 69. Way back in the 60s.
Speaker 3Greg, did you know the 69 was not in the 60s.
Speaker 2Did you know that? That is crazy? It's not way back in the 60s.
Speaker 1Oh yeah.
Speaker 3So you're going, I will tell you that he's?
Speaker 2complaining because Scrappy-Doo isn't mentioned here.
Speaker 1I think that you probably like the new Wildcat too. You like Scratch better than the old school Wildcat. Oh, that's so wrong.
Speaker 3I absolutely 100%, am on board with saying that Scooby-Doo wins this bracket and wins this championship, because I got to tell you I would watch it morning, noon and night. It was always something different and I somehow would know who the bad person was, and it took them a little longer.
Speaker 1So you outsmarted Scooby-Doo? Yes, yes.
Speaker 2I think it was because of the substance of the day, right the original mystery machine, the original scooby-doo, hands down one of my favorites of all time agreed I agree um the new scooby-doo mysteries, all these different ones that have come about in different times. They're all. They're all okay. The original is the best. It always is. Scooby-doo wins this hands down Zoinks.
Speaker 1All right, exactly so what were you eating when you were watching Scooby-Doo?
Speaker 2Cap'n Crunch.
Speaker 1Fruity.
Speaker 3Pebbles. Okay, we didn't really eat cereal.
Speaker 1I mean, remember we had this, we had Cheerios, they had poached eggs.
Speaker 2May I please have some.
Speaker 3G-Chanese on my poached eggs, mother. If you guys only knew I was eating bagels and lox, my mother will come across the street and beat you. I didn't want like a fine English breakfast this morning.
Speaker 1I will tell you this. He had the brown beans with his scrambled eggs and links All right, I hate you both.
Speaker 3I am going to tell a quick story, real quick.
Speaker 2We did eat cereal Stop it.
Speaker 3I hate you both we were too good for cereal. My mother would not allow us to have cereal.
Speaker 1We had a real breakfast of salmon and homemade crepes.
Speaker 3They're pronounced crepes. Since you guys keep pounding on, I'm sitting here in defense of I'm going to tell you a story real quick.
Speaker 1The palatial palace that your mother lives in, literally across the street, I'm going to tell you a story about my mother.
Speaker 3If she could hear this, she would come across the street and kill all of you.
Speaker 2Did we have an RV parked out front?
Speaker 1Mark can tell some stories about your mother.
Speaker 3Oh my God, I digress Anyhow long story. Real quick. I told you before we always had Cheerios or Life or Rice Krispies or, at Best, fruit Loops. You know, mom wouldn't buy us the good sugar stuff, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, because you all were too good dude. Unhealthy food, I'll tell you you all had the high dollar cereal. I'll tell you, you had Mueslix, the German cereal.
Speaker 3I'll tell two stories real quick. One of them for breakfast one morning. I have never had oatmeal in my life. To this day I still never eat oatmeal. But we had Quaker Oats because Dad on occasion would make oatmeal cookies and they were great and that's how I've had oatmeal.
Speaker 1I've never had oatmeal cookies made for me by my dad. Dads were amazing, so anyhow long story.
Speaker 3Long story. One morning, Dad decides to get up and he's going. I grew up with hot dog omelets. For God's sakes, it was a hot dog omelet day.
Speaker 1But Dad decided he wanted a bowl of One item that may not be posh.
Speaker 3He decides that Dad wants a bowl of oatmeal.
Speaker 1Did you all have to go to the other?
Speaker 3house when you ate.
Speaker 1It was a rental home. Stop. So Dad decides, so you had secondary income sources when you were growing up.
Speaker 3Dad decides to fix a bowl of oatmeal for himself. That's what he wanted. So he's sitting there and he's like this is crunchy. What are these dark specks in this oatmeal? Well, apparently you know, quaker Oats used to come in that big oval container. They still do.
Speaker 2Okay, they do. Okay, yeah, it's a cylinder.
Speaker 3Yeah, engineer, I'm sorry, two-dimensional three-dimensional, whatever.
Speaker 1A cylinder is three-dimensional, but whatever.
Speaker 3And he asked my mom right, I'm thinking two-dimensional. He asked my mom, he goes did you put pepper in this oatmeal for some reason? And he's like chunking on it. And they realized mites had gotten into the oatmeal. Yeah, baby. And they're crunching down on extra protein.
Speaker 1Yes, that's number one. So what's the issue? Issue he was getting games.
Speaker 3Number two. I'll tell you there used to be a butcher shop up on Shinkalang.
Speaker 1I never, go to butcher shops. I wouldn't know when I was growing up what a butcher shop was. Hold on, we had to get our meat off of the road.
Speaker 3I was probably five or six and we went up there.
Childhood Memories and TV Shows
Speaker 1Normally we don't like shopping at Kroger, kind of like Tony Soprano, you had your own butcher shop. Oh yeah, you knew what your weekly order was. The pork store.
Speaker 3We go up there and I'll never forget my mom goes to back.
Speaker 1Yes, I mean goes in the back to get your food. Of course she can't be with the common folk I. Carmen, I was like do you have my weekly? Order already processed and ready to go.
Speaker 3That's now, that wasn't. Then she goes yes, I need a pound of bologna please. And I looked at mom. I was like what's bologna? We eat bologna. And the guy looks at me like high five little boy. I got you right here right, yes, so that's my story. We talking about the one time, the one time they ever had bologna.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly, I gotta eat bologna now it's more expensive than anything else well so rick, scooby-doo, rick, rick killed it, but can we ask for a part two? Rick number one. Can we ask for part two of cartoon characters?
Speaker 2well, we can do, can do cartoon characters. That'd be a good one, rick. Another one would be TV shows from our childhood. Not necessarily cartoons it doesn't have to even be childhood, it can just be, TV shows.
Speaker 3Yeah, like my three sons and that kind of stuff yeah that's cool. Three's company Knock on my door. Hey, anything Rick wants to send us is awesome. Yep, rick, the challenge is out, buddy.
Speaker 2Yeah, send us anything, we'll do it the next time, rick, you're gonna actually be brought in. Uh live, I think it was his time.
Speaker 3Well, yeah but he's gonna be part of the part of the discussion very good I want to hear more about this triple lindy that you know that started in Lima. Is that?
Speaker 1where it was Seriously yeah.
Speaker 2Lindy sounds a little like Lima. There's an L in it.
Speaker 3So is. I am still confused about Lima.
Speaker 1Well, you should be I mean, we've talked about it so many times.
Speaker 3It's Michael's fault. It is Michael's fault.
