Free Legal Advice

You stumble upon a rogue podcast. It greets you warmly. To respond in kind, go to Episode 260. To ask it to repeat itself, go to Episode 383. To sit down, douse yourself in gasoline, and light a match, go to Episode 8.

Your lifestyle, nay, your entire personality, will consist of nothing but purchasing items with our logo on them. That will be the sum total of who you are as a human being. Your life will be measured by dollars spent on us. That is, if we did this thing right. Otherwise, it'll be business as usual. Your life will be measured by dollars spent on something else.

Matt's got another cold-open-em-up for all you Hoggies out there in Listenerland. And for you non-Hoggies, we've got a special treat this week: The same episode the Hoggies get! That's right, instead of your usual 35-minute-long backwards recording of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass played over the sounds of old men weeping, this week you're actually getting the real episode! It's for one week only, though, so don't get used to it (unless you send us four burritos and become a Hoggie).

This had better be the last time Ben does an entire episode of cold opens. Not because these are bad, or anything like that. It's just that I'm running out of alliterative titles for them. I've already used "Podcast Potpourri" and "Audio Assortment." I'm running on fumes, here.

This week, we're presented with a problem, and, just like all other weeks, that problem is easily solved by applying a solution from the world of professional wrestling. WAIT, DON'T GO YET! This episode is NOT about pro wrestling, seriously. It's about movies, more than anything. Everyone likes movies, right? PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T GO! Crap, I shouldn't have even mentioned the wrestling part...

Traditions in America only go back a couple of centuries, and they're weird enough as it is. In Britain, the traditions go back a thousand years, and boy, do they get weird. Weird enough that they involve royalty calling dibs on particular swans.

Look for these warning signs in your children: Do they know way too much about nuclear stuff? Do they care way too much about nuclear stuff? Is their room full of way too much nuclear stuff? Do they have a colorful glow around them? It can be any color, they're all equally bad. If you answered yes to any of these questions, your child may be nearing the completion of a dangerous and deadly homemade nuclear device. If you answered yes to all of these questions, your child has just detonated their dangerous and deadly homemade nuclear device.

You can be the person on the inside if you just listen to the podcast. We'll never know that you did it! It'll be your little secret. You'll know all of our private thoughts and feelings. This is infiltration! You're already doing it! Officers, arrest them.

These hypotheticals, well, they... they define an era, like the title said. What more do you need? They're already offering era definition! That should be enough. Anyway, this week we discover who would win between various factions, and it's fun.

People who fix things for a living are just like you and me: They're bad at their jobs, but get paid anyway. When you think about it like that, it makes perfect sense that we have so many stories of them screwing up our houses.

It's war. The oldest conflict that earth has seen: Man vs. bird. And this time, like every time, the same side wins. But maybe we'll get those bastards next time...

It's true, though: The ending of every movie sucks. Go ahead, name a movie. Seriously, name any movie. Think of any movie at all. Its ending sucks. Try thinking of another movie. That ending sucks, too. See? They all suck! Luckily, we're here to fix that.

Here's a little legal tip for you: Buffets are legally obligated to serve you until the heat death of the universe. Remember that one. It comes in handy every once in a while.

How do you get people into the theaters? It's the age-old question that has plagued mankind for millennia. Is the answer to make a good movie? No way, that can't be it; that's way too hard! Maybe if you just do a bunch of stupid crap, you can trick people into going? I mean, people are basically cattle, right? This sounds foolproof to me.

Matt's got a few historical nuggets for us to dip into our history sauce packets, chew on with our history teeth, digest with our history bowels, develop heart disease with our history arteries, and die an early death and be buried in our history graves. Come to think of it, it doesn't actually sound like a good idea at all.

Who's to say what shape the earth is, anyway? I say it's the shape of Lincoln's head, but WITHOUT the stovepipe hat. That's what the science supports, and I'm brave enough to believe in science. And don't worry: Now that we've exposed the myths of the flat earth, no one believes in it anymore.

These questions were asked under the caveat that there are no stupid questions, which makes it impossible to make fun of them for being stupid. Damn 8th amendment. But, thanks to a legal loophole, we ARE able to make fun of them for being dumb. Thank you, 23rd amendment.

Who can say that they don't want to drive a speedboat? Not one single living human being, including members of uncontacted tribes in New Guinea. Though they know nothing of the outside world, each and every single one of them dreams of piloting a 1000 horsepower fiberglass beauty across the waves.

I mean, seriously, what else was this episode ever going to be called? It's about Godzilla, so it should be called FLAPzilla. Duh. I'm sure one of my brothers would suggest that I'd call it something like "Don't Go Fishing in the Rain" or "The Price of Unrelenting Hubris is about $4.99", but I only considered those titles for a couple minutes, SO THERE.

I listen to this podcast every week, and every week it's great. But this week, the episode wasn't even about the French Revolution. The proprietors of this establishment assured me, as their patron, that this wouldn't happen again, and that all future episodes would be about the French Revolution, purely to please me. They made an excuse, saying that the unexpected explosion of two of the four brothers this morning made it difficult to meet my unpredictable and unstated needs, but that's bush league. It was my birthday! I was listening to this as part of my birthday party, and as a result, my birthday party was ruined! Someone explodes, and suddenly you can't meet my unpredictable and unstated needs? Service 1/5 stars, atmosphere 1/5 stars, sound quality 1/5 stars, overall 3/5 stars, big fan.

You know how when you lift up a big rock or a log, sometimes you find some kind of bizarre, hideous bug underneath that you've never seen before. Well, today we found the human equivalent of that, and it's both funny and sad.

Old video games did many things right, like not having microtransactions, not having day 1 patches, not having the ability to have racial epithets hurled at you by teenagers across the globe, and not having the game disappear into thin air because the publisher stopped caring. But they also had some other, possibly questionable aspects, as well, and today we examine those and decide if they should be brought back.

This week's episode is about scams. On an unrelated note, please listen to this podcast. You see, my car broke down a few miles back, and I just need a few downloads to get it running again.

Most mistakes can be forgiven, but some are so inexcusable, so heinous, that there can never be any reconciliation. OR CAN THERE?!!!?!!?!?!!!?!!!?? Today on the Free Legal Advice podcast, we will examine some mistakes and evaluate them, then one of my brothers will have a chance to redeem the biggest mistake of their lives. It's an unmissable episode today, folks.

...especially Cyndi. She's always so happy when I come in, and she loves to pay attention to me. Sometimes she dances on other guys, but she's got a job to do, you know. I don't mind.

Not because we're so profane, or anything like that. They'd just have the good sense to know that people shouldn't hear this stuff. Is it dangerous or incendiary? Criminal? Treasonous? No. They'd just hear it and think, "Why, though?" The censors are right sometimes, is what I'm saying.

...and it's the good middle one, too. You know, the one that's darker and cooler, but doesn't have the weight of conclusion on its shoulders? If you can't tell, we're talking about trilogies today, and we'll be turning some of the most beloved* movies in FLAP history into trilogies of their own. *movies may actually be hated

I'm not joking. Send me a topic. You guys used to do it all the time. If you like today's episode, then the only way we'll ever get to a Part 2 is by sending me topics. And if you don't like today's episode, then the only way to ensure that you'll be listening to something you'll enjoy is by sending me topics.

Why do science projects exist? I think it's really strange that, once a year, teachers are allowed to assign homework to our parents. Who made this rule? Why do they get to make our parents slap together a project at the last minute and then pretend that we did it? I guess there are some mysteries that aren't meant to be solved.

Why watch a movie when you can just look at a movie poster? Do you have an answer for that? Didn't think so.

Ever watched a Hallmark Christmas movie? ...why?

This episode has nothing to do with Highlander, although that is a mistake on my part. I'm sure it would have been a far more awesome episode if it was about Highlander, but it's not. That's my fault, and I'm owning it. We just have to collect ourselves and move on. Why don't we try to just enjoy whatever this week's episode actually IS about? I'm sure it's good. Well, I'm sure it's fine. Probably.

I could have easily called this episode "What's the Deal with FLAP?", but that's a lazy Seinfeld impression, and I want nothing to do with it. This week, we do a truly astounding job at creating Seinfeld episode premises in a quiz, of sorts, that Ben runs for us. Either we're incredibly good at it, or it's incredibly easy. I'm genuinely not sure which it is.

Cory found some junk online, and we don't know who it's for. Wait a minute - that was already in the title! I did it! The title described what the episode was about! Start playing Yub Nub!!!

World Cup of what, you may ask? Well, not that it matters (and it doesn't), but we are organizing the world championship of Domestic Item Toss. Throwing a thing into another thing. Everyone does it; who's the best? Does anyone care? Shut up!

We've solved Thanksgiving. Just FYI, it's solved now. The solution was sitting right in front of us the whole time. Thanksgiving is about doing the same thing you normally do, but you do it to ridiculous excess. In this episode, we solve Thanksgiving by doing it to ridiculous excess. It's pretty straightforward.

So Ben recently found* some VHS tapes* at a local thrift store*, and they turned out to be a treasure trove* of accidental Mexican silliness* the likes of which you cannot believe. I didn't put an asterisk on that last part because it's actually true.

People apparently flock to Reddit to explain the situations in their lives that make them wonder, "Am I the asshole?" It turns out all of these people either ARE the asshole, or they're enabling the asshole to such an unbelievable degree that, for all intents and purposes, they, too, are also the asshole. So the answer is yes. Yes, you are.

Sometimes the people who come up with ads don't know what they're doing. It is then that we, your podcast hosts, step in to make fun of them. Coming up with ideas for advertisements isn't as easy as they make it seem on Mad Men. Hey, that name sounds like "Ad Men", which is what they were! How do you like that?

Remember disco? It was incredibly popular at one time. Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? So what happened to it, you ask? The Chicago White Sox done blew it up.

Neither the people reading this description, nor the man writing it, truly have a grasp on how far away from nature our civilization is. Not one of us. Many of us, however, DO understand that we don't understand it. The few who don't get it think they can just go to an island and create a civilization. Living in actual civilization is easy; how hard could it be to make one by myself with no knowledge and a reluctance to accept sound advice?

A FOURTH hundo? Seriously?! What the hell, guys. Look, the first hundo was a blast. Everyone loved it. The second hundo was unexpected, but we kept it interesting. A gentleman would have stopped there, though. The third hundo was almost a commentary on that fact. Like, hey look, we've done yet another hundo! We know it's rude, get it? That's the point! It worked, in a sort of self-referential way. But now it's just pathetic. This is "Let's Twist Again" in podcast form. This is like seeing an ad for the "Joe the Plumber Podcast." Remember that guy? You shouldn't, because he should have gone away a long, long time ago. At this point, the only hope is that by the fifth hundo it will have come back around to being funny again.

Everyone is interested in something embarrassing, and for many people, that thing is disc golf. Now, the fact that everyone has something like this SHOULD make us more accepting of each other, and prevent us from making fun of these things. It should, but it doesn't. Anyway, this week's episode is about disc golf.

Are we playing "Produce, Marry, Kill" again? Yes. Did I add some new rules this time? Yes. Are the rules needlessly complicated? Yes. Did I describe the rules incorrectly during the episode, then edit that part out? Yes. Did I do a bad job of running this dumb game? Yes. Are there still funny things to be heard? Yes.

I'm going to repeat the title: All bands should have wizards. Wizards, really, should be added to everything. What could they possibly NOT improve? This is relevant because we watched a movie called Stunt Rock that heavily features the band Sorcery, which employed not just one but TWO wizards. That is why they are universally acknowledged as the greatest band of all time.

If you have any familiarity with the Insane Clown Posse, it probably relates to the universally yearned-for answer to the greatest question of our age: Fuckin' magnets, how do they work? It should not surprise you in the least to learn that we do not answer that question in this week's episode. That question is unanswerable. We do answer some others, though, and to see if we answer something useful for a change, give this episode a listen.

Every single successful thing (and many unsuccessful things) will inspire rip-offs. Since the dawn of time, there have been people copying other people's ideas, but pretending they're brand new creations. Even the Olympics have apparently inspired a rip-off event, which is what we discuss this week. I wonder if in ancient Gaul they created their own ripoff of the ancient Greek Olympics? I just answered my own question: Of course they did. And they were surely called the Gaulympics. And they surely sucked.

To traverse the landscape, learn to read the signs and signals. The landscape, in this case, is the city, and the signs and signals are the various things you hear and smell in the city. Especially the things you smell. And basically all of them are bad.

Can you believe it? It's the return of silly pitches! If you listened to my brothers make fun of me a few episodes ago, I bet you can believe it. Did it turn out to be a bad idea, just like they said? You'll have to listen to find out! But yes, it did.

Ben went with another rambler this time. Big shot, thinks he's so great, Mr. Doesn't-Have-To-Come-Up-With-A-Topic, ooh, look at me, I'm Ben, I can just show up and start talking. Some bullshit, right there.