Lunchbox Reaction

This week we review a brand new word building game called Alphabet Stoop by game designer Charlie McCarron and Pops & Bejou Games. The game is for 2-5 players ages 6+.

The Marvels is a superhero film that combines the forces of Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Ms. Marvel. When the powers of the three heroes become entangled, they need to learn to work as a team to defeat the villainous Dar-Benn and her Kree army.

Bananagrams is a word game that feels like a cross between Boggle and Scrabble. In the game, each player takes a number of letter tiles from a central group of 144, then arranges those tiles to form any number of connected words in a crossword-like shape. Once a player uses all their starting letters, they call "peel" and each player takes an additional letter to add to their growing maze of words. This process continues until all the tiles in the center are used. Race against your opponents to use all your letters first and win the game!

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a 16 episode animated series that premiered on the Disney Channel in February 2023, and was subsequently released on Disney+.

The show follows the day-to-day adventures of 13 year old Lunella Lafayette, a whip-smart girl living in New York, who discovers a mysterious portal generator under her apartment. When she activates it, a giant red tyrannosaurus steps through, and becomes her trusty pal. With the help of Lunella's friend Casey, the two become the super-hero team Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

Taskmaster is a British comedy television show where a group of 5 comedians compete in a series of odd and silly tasks. Points are awarded by the host, and the winner of each episode gets to bring home some valuable and not-so-valuable prizes.

The show premiered in 2015, and has had 16 series since that time. For our episode this week, we watched the first series of 6 episodes, and found ourselves quite delighted by the contestants.

The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 stop-motion animated short by Aardman Animations. The 29 minute film features the characters of Wallace and Gromit, who first appeared in the 1989 short A Grand Day Out.

This film finds the duo short on money, and with bills to pay, Wallace decides to rent a room to a chicken. Unbeknownst to him, the chicken is none other than a criminal penguin in disguise, who plans on using a pair of techno-trousers to steal a large diamond from a museum.

One Piece is an 8 episode fantasy pirate adventure series that premiered on Netflix in August of 2023. The series was adapted from the manga and anime of the same name by author Eiichiro Oda. The show tells the story of a young boy named Monkey D. Luffy who dreams of becoming the king of the pirates, and assembles a crew to sail the seas in a quest to recover the famous treasure known as the One Piece.

This week, Linnea and Brian discuss their recent visit to a college fair.

This week we celebrate our (belated) 3rd anniversary of podcasting by revisiting some of our favorite clips from the past year. Join us as we remember some fun highlights such as British teens solving mysteries, how a Roomba is like a maid, and how Linnea is the family Boggle champion.

The 2023 Disney/Pixar animated movie Elemental tells the story of two elements, Ember (fire) and Wade (water), who meet, fall in love, and have to deal with society's preconceived notions of cultural and ethnic diversity.