YMMV / My Brother, My Brother and Me

• Awesome Music:
  • The boys changed their theme song from ABBA's "Take a Chance On Me" to the feel-good rocker "(It's A) Departure" by John Roderick and the Long Winters after moving to Maximum Fun. Roderick has been known to open the brothers' live shows by playing part of the song live when he's available.
  • Before also ending with "Departure", the show's ending music was the back half of the mashup masterpiece "Play Your Part (Pt. 2)" by Girl Talk.
  • "Fugue For Brotherhorns (Ghost Horse)", a parody version of a Guys and Dolls song re-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and sung by the boys about their favorite subject...undead horses.
  • The newest theme song, “My Life Is Better With You” by Montaigne, is a fun and catchy tune befitting the podcast. Montaigne and the brothers even collaborated on a music video for it.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Just about every episode.
  Justin: WAAAAIT A MINUTE!!! Stop the world, I want to get off! Did you just say "sow your seed in a field of pussies"!? What kind of ship are you running here!?
  • Particularly during a sponsors-only episode where their dad answers a Yahoo about music to play during lovemaking, much to Travis's amusement and Griffin and (especially) Justin's horror.
    Justin: You fuckin' stop that on my show, I built an empire, you will not destroy it!
• Fandom VIP: The "McElroy Spirit Guides", which are the fans who send the most yahoo questions to the show, and are also very known with the fanbase. These include Drew Davenport, Zoe Kinsky, Rachel Rosing, Ira Wray, Jakob Locker, Morgan Davy, Seth Carlson, and a lot more.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Episode 315 had a tangent where the brothers talked about Kevin Spacey's increasingly bizarre career choices, with Travis jokingly suggesting that someone might be using sensitive information to blackmail Spacey. The following year, numerous people stepped forward to accuse Spacey of sexual harassment, including Anthony Rapp, who claimed that Spacey made unwanted sexual advances towards him when he was only 14.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In the first episode of The McElroy Brothers Will Be in Trolls 2, the three brothers take bets on which voice actors from the first Trolls movie they will be able to get as guests on their podcast. The second actor Justin suggests is Ron Funches; Griffin says they have a 10% chance of getting Ron on the show, while Travis suggests a more optimistic 65% chance. The three brothers have since genuinely befriended Funches, with Ron occasionally filling in on MBMBAM when one of them is on leave and Ron being their first guest on the McElroy Family Clubhouse livestream.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In episode 48 (from 2011), the brothers received a message with the sender giving a "internet fist-bump" to Griffin, who right after said he just fist-bumped his monitor, and having no idea why he just did that.
  • Travis invents a key Pokémon Go mechanic in episode 152 (2013):
  "I hope you're listening Pokemon Game developers: If you want to evolve your Pokemon, you have to make them eat another Pokemon of the same type"
  • The early Running Gag about how Griffin is the only single member of the team, especially now that he's married. Ditto the jokes about no longer being funny after having kids, because he's a dad.
  • The brothers apologizing for Small Reference Pools for making jokes about Dungeons & Dragons ("She's a freak in the bedroll.") and video games, considering many recent fans got into them through their D&D shenanigans or Justin and Griffin playing video games. Ditto Justin in episode 113 joking that recording an episode of them playing D&D is about as likely as recording an entire episode high on salvia.
    • Early on in episode 97, they're asked for advice on how to leave a D&D party, and they suggest having the character retire and die of old age. Griffin takes a moment to point out that playing out a natural death is something that people have probably done without joking. Five years later, at the end of The Adventure Zone: Balance, the exact situation happens with Travis' character Magnus, played completely seriously.
    • The comment about them recording an entire episode high is doubly funny given that the first episode of The McElroy Brothers Will Be in Trolls 2 was indeed recorded while they were all high (albeit on cannabis edibles, not salvia).
  • Justin mentioning a new follower in Episode 58 named @babylonian. That's Nick Robinson, who would later become Justin and Griffin's co-worker at Polygon (and Griffin's co-host on both Car Boys, Touch the Skyrim, and Cool Games Inc.) Became Harsher in Hindsight after Nick's Role-Ending Misdemeanor that led to him being fired by Polygon (check the Car Boys page for further explanation) and basically becoming an Un-person to the fanbases of Nick's former shows.
  • Griffin asking if Alexander Hamilton was a president, when they discussed that their friend Lin-Manuel Miranda, well-known in theater circles for the Tony-award winning In the Heights but otherwise a bit obscure, was making a musical based on Hamilton's life...
  • Episode 85: Justin suggesting a hypothetical show in which Tilda Swinton plays a vampire. She eventually did, although it was a movie, not a TV show. Eventually, she also played a vampire in a TV show as well.
  • Episode 199: Griffin asks if Travis' arachnophobia is public knowledge. If the fanbase didn't know then, they certainly do after watching the TV show.
  • Episode 204: Griffin's looking forward to The Sims 4. Monster Factory fans will know he's gotten a lot of mileage out of that game, leading to such gems as My Two Dads and "Sweeps Week".
  • Episode 238: Griffin pitches "Toy Story, but with pets." Looks like Griffin wasn't the only person on board with that idea.
  • Episode 334 opened up with the brothers discussing the then-announced DuckTales (2017) reboot, with Travis semi-jokingly suggesting that they cast Lin-Manuel Miranda as Gizmoduck. Then the first season came out, lo and behold, Miranda was exactly who they cast. During episode 367 (the first episode after the series premiered), Travis revealed that the day after episode 334 came out, Miranda (who was in fact secretly already cast) personally texted Travis, fearing that someone had actually leaked private knowledge to him.
  • In Episode 356, while talking about the revival of Twin Peaks, the brothers give out fake spoilers involving "Doug Cooper", Dale Cooper's identical twin brother. The third episode of the revival reveals that Agent Cooper has a doppelgänger named Dougie.
  • Episode 465 (recorded mid-2019): During a discussion about Shaquille O'Neal's then-new investment in Papa John's Pizzas, the brothers joke about how it might end up using Shaq's identity for free publicity, specifically suggesting a "Shaq-a-roni and cheese" item. A year later, Papa John's and Shaq announced the Shaq-a-roni for real, though in this case it's an extra-large pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni (the brothers would indeed cover this on a Munch Squad in episode 516).
  • Episode 526: One segment has the brother discuss why there hasn't been a wizard-themed professional wrestler, brainstorming several possibilities for a wizard wrestler who used all sorts of magic spells. In April 2022, Chris Jericho revealed to the world on AEW Dynamite his new gimmick as "The Wizard", complete with throwing (practical!) fireballs.
• LGBT Fanbase: The podcast is very popular within LGBT circles, particularly on Tumblr. Some of this is cross over from the fandom of The Adventure Zone (which has prominent LGBT characters), but part of it existed before it as well. It can be somewhat surprising considering the brothers are three straight, cis, men from West Virginia, but for their part they have been very accepting of the community and have consciously made efforts to be inclusive and improve their previous lack of knowledge on various topics.
• Memetic Mutation: Where to begin? These good good boys are a veritable Fountain of Memes.
  • Comparing any person or character with a round face, short hair, and glasses to Griffin, which Griffin himself has commented on.
  • I abandoned my boy!^note Griffin's most iconic quote from "The Clown Box", which became a popular reaction image/gif for many a scenario.
• Moment of Awesome: In the 2017 New York live show, Lin-Manuel Miranda opened for the show by singing a song about the memetic powerhouse "Shrimp Heaven Now", then seguing into their normal theme song, The Long Winters' "(It's A) Departure".
• Nightmare Fuel: The TV show has Griffin's invention, the Clown Box. It's made more terrifying due to the episode ending with Clint sitting alone next to three empty plates instead of the usual wrap-up with the brothers, implying that it killed them. They're fine in the next episode, but still.
  • Nightmare Retardant: The mentioned reason for the entire Clown Box sequence basically negates any horror. The entire reason the scene exists was that Griffin said 'I want a clown box' out of the blue before the episode was filmed, and refused to elaborate on it at all. The brothers decided to just go with it anyways.
• Squick: Travis reaction to the "Is it weird to kiss your dad on the lips?" question and Justin making it the sign-off for the show. Justin and Griffin react differently to the question.
  Justin: I've been looking for a good sign-off for the show for so long, and I think "Kiss your dad square on the lips" is probably...
  Griffin: Square on his sweet, plump lips.
  Justin: Kiss your dad.
  Travis: Oh god. I'm so disgusted right now.