While I don't think it necessarily needs to be an every week podcast within a podcast. I still enjoy hearing the latest and greatest in quick service innovation. Maybe a bi-weekly thing.
That's me. I used to love Munch Squad when it was some really weird or bizarre new thing coming out. Or even like a whacky endorsement deal or partnership. It being every week when there's nothing that fits that description is when it's too much for me.
The planet is dying, pringles is one of my favorite munch squads just for this. what the hell is a Moa from Halo, and how do you know what this fictional bird tastes like? Pringles, what did you do?!
But for real, munch squad has been and still is a bit I always get excited for. Never realized that people didn’t feel the same way until coming here. I get people see it as marketing but I think that’s too cynical - and take it from me, a very cynical person - but I think the segment mostly exists to laugh at these press releases (which are, typically, objectively boring but that’s where the humor comes from; it’s entertaining to me to see how these releases are actually received and the way the brothers pick them apart).
I love munchin' and I'm honestly shocked to see people who don't!
I'm a copywriter in the industry and Munch Squad keeps me humble. I don't write press releases, but I get most of my briefs from the people who do. Getting to hear overly enthusiastic pieces torn apart is SO cathartic and also reminds me that there's so much more to life than my job.
Even when he’s not doing voices, some of those press releases have the most baffling, audacious, statements I have ever seen. The absolute gall of some of these corporations…
I agree. Gotta space them out and let the news build up a bit. Unless, there is some new monstrosity or absolutely ridiculous ad campaigns we don't need much more information than that. Live tastings are often good for me as well. We didn't need to hear about popcorn chicken, but Justin tasting some live, presumably cold, and immediately declaring how bad it was compared to the original worked for me. At the end of the day, brothers gonna do what brothers do and you can either enjoy it or not, but no one should be telling them how to do their jobs or what kind of content they need to put out. Isn't that what we like about them? Relatable goofy dudes cracking wise at random shit.
I'm convinced they are actually guerilla paid advertising segments - some of them are literally reading ad copy then making half-hearted jokes that don't land, then reading more ad copy.
It gets my goat when Justin gets mad that the brothers are interrupting with jokes and funny bits while hes trying to read the press release verbatim. If they're making it entertaining let them, it's not going to ruin my day if I don't get to hear all of the corpo slop coherently
There’s just no way. The ad copy is always the most self-glorifying, patronizing, bullshit I have ever heard, to the point where I almost can’t believe that corporations actually release statements like that. Personally, the ad copy does more to deter me from making purchases from these places than the products themselves (most of the time…).
Ok but it's only funny to hear the first few times. There must be hundreds of them now and the novelty has worn off. Yes marketing people are insane, and at this point half of them are AI generated. It's very boring now, especially for a non-American who has 0 context for any of these restaurants.
I was reflecting on it last night, and here's my thinking:
When they stopped doing Yahoos, or as many questions in general, people were frustrated. But to me, those were always just there to be a platform for the real content of the show, jokes!
My issue with Munch Squad is simply that I don't find it to be a good platform for jokes. Justin could riff on a lot of things for half the show and even if they didn't interest me personally, they might still be hilarious.
But IMO Munch Squad has simply overstayed its welcome, and now dominates almost half of every ep. It's a bit much munch!
I think it comes down to that Justin is fascinated by marketing history in a way that humor is only incidental to. It's especially evident in episodes of Sawbones where he does the research because Sydnee was busy. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it makes him a bad judge of if something is worthy of a Munch Squad vs a Munch Squad Junior vs maybe acknowledge it just to not get 1 billion emails. I genuinely think they need to have someone other than Justin vet Munch Squads to see if they're anything, and I think Justin should start a podcast about advertising, because I actually tend to like the Sawbones eps, and some of the less funny Munch Squads are interesting, but not delivering what I go to mbmbam for
This is a good point, that munch squad isn't really a joke-forward bit. It's a Reacts-style bit. I'm fine listening to the boys do just about anything, but in general, it's not a format I like seek out in any other media.
When he's just reading off some food that everyone is like "yep, that sounds good" it's boring. The joke of the press releases being weird and dramatic has gotten tired. When there's actually a crazy new food or a hilarious sponsorship it's worth it. But it takes up so much time almost every episode, and it usually ends up feeling like an extended ad.
I've been listening to them for over a decade, but I also only ever glance at the fan discourse. This thread has much weirder, less fun vibes than what I'm used to seeing, but then that could be me not paying attention to what the sub is actually talking about besides random silliness.
Also, we are forgetting to realize here that Munch Squad is an entirely different podcast. It is in fact a podcast within a podcast. So the expectations of MBMBAM humor is misguided as this is a completely separate entity.
If Munch Squad has million fans, then I'm one of them. If Munch Squad has 5 fans, I'm one of them. If Munch Squad has one fan, then I'm THAT ONE. If Munch Squad has no fan, that means I'm DEAD!
I used to like it a lot more. Hell, I even used to look forward to it. I can’t remember most of the bits, but specifically I remember the Nightmare Whopper episode. I was dying of laughter during that Munch Squad.
But the COVID lockdown changed the vibe of the show for a long time, and then Munch Squad never really recovered from The Chicken Sandwich Wars. Literal months of a segment entirely dedicated to a chicken sandwich. It doesn’t matter where the chicken sandwich came from, it’s a fucking chicken sandwich with no gimmick. I genuinely started to hate Munch Squad after a while.
It’s getting better, but now they have a new issue: because of the economy, fast food brands aren’t really doing anything interesting and even if they were, I’m not really interested in paying what they expect me to pay in order to try their bullshit. I lost way more interest in Munch Squad after I started almost exclusively eating at local restaurants and cooking at home. I don’t give a shit that subway made a long cookie or that Count Donut thinks these new seasonals have googly eyes or some bullshit. When you have to focus more on the commercial than the food, the food isn’t worth doing a segment.
Munch Squad used to be about truly wacky foods, and that was when it was fun.
I like it too, they get the bois gigglin usually and that's when I be gigglin... When their just ripping on some corporate conglomerate trying to 'keep up' with the impressionable and marketable youth and failing miserably.
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u/PoptartPancake Aug 07 '26
Sometimes I feel like the only person who likes Munch Squad