For the better part of a decade, Justin, Travis and Griffin McElroy have built a small empire of comedy podcasts on the Maximum Fun network and, on October 21 and 22, they’ll bring their two flagship podcasts — My Brother, My Brother and Me and The Adventure Zone — to TPAC’s Jackson Hall.
Launched in 2010, My Brother, My Brother and Me (a.k.a. MBMBAM) is ostensibly an advice show, in which the McElroy brothers give listeners and unwitting Yahoo! Answers users advice that, as the disclaimer at the beginning of each show states, “should never be followed.” But, more than that, MBMBAM is a weekly parade of silliness where minutes-long runs on the hypothetical dojo "Tim McGraw's Krav Magaw" and glass pool sharks can thrive. The series has also been adapted for television on the NBC-owned digital comedy platform Seeso.
In 2014, as the brothers searched for ways to create podcast paternal leave for the eldest Justin, they fell backward into The Adventure Zone, wherein the brothers play Dungeons & Dragons with their dad. What started as a goof has sprawled to become a three-year-long fantasy epic, but, you know, funny and with an extremely loose regard for the actual rules of D&D. TAZ's original score, composed by youngest brother and Dungeon Master Griffin, has been lauded by Pitchfork, and a graphic novel chronicling the show's first story arc is due out next year.
Both podcasts will be staged live at TPAC, with My Brother, My Brother and Me landing on Oct. 21 and The Adventure Zone on Oct. 22. Tickets for both will go on sale Friday, July 28, at noon. The boys have a history of crashing websites due to high ticket demand, so if any of you cool babies out there want to jump on this particular goof train — especially The Adventure Zone, which will only be staged in Nashville and Tacoma, Wash. — be sure to get your ticket-buying fingers warmed up.
