TODAY! END OF DRIVE HOOPLA!

Today — Friday, 3/28 — from 3pm to 5 pm ET, the McElroys are hosting a virtual pizza party on their YouTube channel, with a bunch of east coast Max Fun drive hosts like John Hodgman, the Secretly Incredibly Fascinating crew, and Dan and Stu from yours truly The Flop House! Directly following that, from 5pm to 9pm, the official Max Fun channel is hosting a listening party with highlights from various shows’ bonus content (including Flop House material) — hang out, listen, and chat with fans, then stick around for the network’s traditional livestream celebrating the end of the drive!

A Farewell to Max Fun Drive 2025

Today is the last day of the drive and I’d like to say a few last words and some thank-yous.

As someone who grew up in a household devoted to PBS, I understand that pledge drives can feel like a disruption. And — even though it becomes more and more clear how important non-corporate media is with every passing year — they can still be annoying! So I’d like to thank all of you very much for sticking with us. THANK YOU, thank you, thank you! While we do run ads, direct member support makes up something like 90% of our show revenue — money that pays for equipment, our producer, travel, new projects, and (most essentially) a paycheck to make sure that we can continue to prioritise the show.

Every drive, some tiny subset of the audience wants to argue the business model, and I won’t spend too much time responding to my internal straw man army, but the objection usually boils down to “You already gave us all this stuff for free! Fools! Why should I PAY now?!”

Well… this is our model, and this is our ask, and I believe in helping people the way they ask to be helped. You don’t hand someone who wants a sandwich a typewriter. It’s confusing to some, because it’s not based on withholding material in exchange for money. Instead, it’s based on a belief in people’s earnest desire to support the stuff they like. No one has to support. That’s part of the point. But they can, if they like.

And I think most folks in our audience do understand, because essentially it’s the oldest model there is — passing the hat. We’re like digital street performers. “You didn’t pay to watch, but — if you liked it, and find it of value to you — please, help keep this going.”

So: thank you to those out there who find enough merit in the show to help keep it going.

That said, not everyone can afford membership. If you are one of the many people from this and previous drives who HAVE been able and inclined to toss us a few bucks, we’re grateful. A thousand thank-yous for making this possible. But money isn’t the only form support can take, and all of your help is deeply appreciated. For everyone who’s kept us going through the years, whether by membership, seeing a live show, leaving a review on iTunes, joining a stream, telling a friend about this silly podcast you discovered, or just dropping us a line letting us know you like the stuff we do (which fills our hearts and sustains us more than you could know) — to all of you: THANK YOU. 

In case you missed it, here’s a goofy video I made, including some non-goofy genuine emotions. https://youtu.be/H0WckfoWlVo?si=Thj7LNCA64d-3gGI

Next on the Podcast

3/29 - We discuss our final movie with nary a Spider-Man in sight: the disastrous “Andy Kaufman & Bernadette Peters as robots in love” vehicle HEARTBEEPS. Next time we’ll be back to our regularly-scheduled docket of movies where there’s always the possibility that Spider-Man might drop by.

4/5 - Elliott takes us through an edition of “Cinematic Mechanic,” where we talk about robot movies in general, and how we might repair Heartbeeps in particular.

Plugging Away

Dan and Stuart guested on the most recent episode of Max Fun’s other comedy-focused movie podcast, Free With Ads, and they were nice enough to have us watch The Apartment, so we could discuss a good movie for a change.

Elliott’s still writing for D.C.’s sassiest antiheroine, Harley Quinn, and he hosts/writes a bite-sized quiz podcast, called Smartless Presents: Clueless, where he tries to stump Sean Hayes and friends with his insidious mind-games!

Stuart paints Warhammer models/chats with viewers most Fridays on his Twitch channel.

Dan’s personal newsletter, Dan McCoy’s Special Interests comes out every non-Flop Secrets week. His most recent installment was about comedy, public personas, and the ways in which comedy and mental health don’t necessarily mix.

You Made it to the End!

Thanks to your support we reached the stretch goal unlocking Dan’s “Flyscraper” bonus project, and (as of this writing) we’re in striking distance of the second goal — ANOTHER miniseries of FlopTales episodes in 2025 from game master Stuart!