Hoot’n & Holler’n With Matt Mitchell

A vault episode from the early days, back when we were still calling the show Scattered and Covered and recording on location instead of in a studio. This one comes from Gamers Guild, a game shop in Jasper, Alabama, where we sat down in the middle of a Sunday night card tournament and talked to the folks running it. We get into trading cards and the people who collect them, a binder that turned out to be worth more than most people's retirement, '90s satanic panic, dorm-room LAN parties, the worst Captain D's sandwich ever assembled, and a serious investigation into how many people in the room were carrying swords. Mostly we just hang out and wander around one very chaotic shopping center. This is the last of our vault episodes — the fourth and final on-location recording we had in the can. Thanks for sticking with us from the beginning.

What happened to Happy Meal toys… and why did they used to be so much better? In this episode of Hoot’n and Holler’n, we’re heading back to the golden age of McDonald’s — when PlayPlaces ruled, Boo Buckets were a necessity, and the toy inside the box was engineered like a NASA space shuttle. We dive into the surprising history behind the 90s Happy Meal “arms race,” when competing designers were trying to outdo each other with wind-up cars, transforming food robots, licensed movie tie-ins, and toys that somehow lasted longer than most household appliances. Along the way we talk McNugget Buddies, Power Rangers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario Bros, Disney classics, Beanie Baby chaos, and the weird corporate decisions that changed kids’ meals forever. Plus: childhood memories, thrift store toy bins, fast food nostalgia, and the realization that today’s toys just don’t hit the same. If you grew up begging for a Happy Meal — or just miss when fast food felt a little more magical — this one’s for you. Grab some fries and come holler with us. © Ostrich Media, LLC 2026

🎮 Sleepover, Part 2 — The Video Game Years In Part 2 of our Sleepover series, we go full couch-co-op nostalgia and relive the golden age of growing up with a controller in your hand and a CRT TV buzzing in the corner. From split-screen GoldenEye chaos and screen-watching accusations to all-night seasons of NCAA Football, Tecmo Bowl, and Super Smash Bros, this episode is a love letter to when video games were something you did together. We swap stories about sleepovers that lasted until daylight, tournaments decided by broken controllers, and the unspoken rules that kept friendships intact (no Oddjob, no Kansas State, and absolutely no mercy). The conversation runs through iconic titles like Mortal Kombat, Blitz, Mario Party, Halo, GTA, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and the magical chaos of the Nintendo Wii era when everyone suddenly became an athlete in their living room. We also talk about how gaming slowly shifted from four people on one couch to everyone on their own screen, and why those old-school sleepover vibes can never quite be replicated. Add in stories about LAN parties in college dorms, cheat codes, memory cards, burned-in plasma TVs, and the weird social rules of multiplayer trash talk, and you’ve got an episode that hits right in the childhood. If you ever stayed up way too late chasing one more win, this one’s for you.

This week on Hootn and Hollern, the guys kick things off with a serious journalistic investigation into Taco Bell’s ever-rotating menu and whether a quesadilla can, in fact, ruin a man’s afternoon. From there, things spiral—naturally—into a deep dive on early MTV, including a genuinely surprising revelation about which artist absolutely monopolized the network in its infancy (spoiler: it’s way more Rod Stewart than anyone asked for). Along the way, the crew debates music video overexposure, remembers the lawless early days of MTV programming, and takes a hard left turn into TRL lore, questionable acronyms, and the physical toll hunger takes on a grown man who just wants a hot dog. There’s nostalgia, mild outrage, and the kind of arguments that only happen when everyone is technically right and still wrong. As always, the episode is held together by friendship, bad transitions, and the shared understanding that none of this needed to be researched—but all of it needed to be said.

In this episode of Hootin’ & Hollerin’, the guys take a nostalgic (and mildly traumatic) stroll through the early days of the internet—back when dial-up screamed like a wounded robot, pop-ups promised free cruises, and nobody trusted putting a credit card online.