Heights Hotline | The Best Thanksgiving Side Dish, Dry Ass Turkey & Is Halloween the New Christmas?

Halloween is actually a better holiday than Christmas. You're a f***ing idiot, Thaddeus. Christmas is going on, but Halloween's the best. I'm trying to think in like what world somebody would think Halloween is better. And the only thing that makes sense is that their parents gave them a s*** Christmas. So if you put that on Thaddeus' parents. I'm definitely putting that on Thaddeus' parents. That's the only possible way Thaddeus thinks that is that his parents gave them a s*** Christmas. If I'm just gonna be honest, I'm kind of with Thaddeus in this one. Well apparently Brandon's parents gave him a s*** Christmas as well. Welcome to this bonus episode of New Heights, a Wondry show and we're your host Travis Kelsey. This is my big brother Jason Kelsey. Subscribe on YouTube, Wondry Plus or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on all social media at New Heights Show with 1S. And Jason is now going to tell you what exactly you get in this bonus episode. That's right. Welcome to today's bonus episode. That's right. Maybe you're here because you stumbled across us on your phone or internet or whatever your device is. Maybe you're here to see Travis Kelsey or listen to his voice. Just maybe you're here to listen to some holiday hot takes from some of the 92%ers, Collins and other shenanigans about holidays and hot takes. All right, here we go. All right, we got a few options. The bold ones seem to be the ones that they prefer us talking about. I say you just go ahead and hit the bold ones. All right, holiday, Halloween better than Christmas. I can already know this is not accurate. This is Thaddeus from Kansas City. Thaddeus. Thaddeus, great name. Great name. My holiday hot take is that Halloween is actually a better holiday than Christmas. You're a fucking idiot, Thaddeus. That is a creation. Dad, you had us with Thaddeus and then you lost us. Just better all around vibes. You get to spook kids and play pranks. And Christmas is going on, but Halloween's the best. All right, 80. It's a hot take. I mean, he does share your love of scaring children. It's a very hot take. I love Halloween. It's great. I'm very on board with Halloween. You can spook kids in Christmas too. That's the thing about spooking is that you can spook kids whenever. Yeah, Christmas is the greatest holiday on the planet. There's not even something that compares to it. Yeah, I'm just, there's just nothing that gets like people happy like Christmas does. It moves the stock market. That's how influential it is. Consumer products. This is so ingrained into our culture and so unanimously. I knew Jewish people that celebrated Christmas. Don't say who they are because then they will be frowned upon. I think it's pretty commonplace at this point. I think, I bet if you, it's gone beyond religion at this point. It's like so ingrained into American culture and it comes not a family giving the holiday spirit, like all of it. Like it's just, it's a fantastic holiday and I love Halloween, but I mean, it couldn't sniff a fart of Christmas to be close to it. Two weeks off on Halloween. That's right. That alone. It's remarkable. It's a hot take. It's a very bad take. All right, next one. Yeah, it's tough. Thaddeus though. Great name. Great name. Horrible take on Christmas. This guy was getting cold for fucking presents every year. I just, the joy that Christmas gives you, just seeing the decorations, going to Christmas parties, the thanks, the joy of seeing another person open a present you give them. What is this going to be? It's underrated. Like I just don't know that there's any, I'm trying to think in like what world somebody would think Halloween is better. And the only thing that makes sense is that their parents gave them a shitty Christmas. Like I don't know what else they can fucking give them. Don't you put that on Thaddeus' parents? I'm definitely putting that on Thaddeus' parents. That's the only possible way Thaddeus thinks that is that his parents gave them a shitty Christmas. He's just got to see it clear. He's got, he's got candy vision. He's got spooky vision. He's just got to see it for what it is. But Halloween has, I mean, Christmas has candy too. Candy canes. You hate candy canes. I love candy canes. What? You don't like candy canes? Oh, you hate candy corn. Candy corn is shit. Yes. Exactly. The candy that represents Halloween and the candy that represents Christmas is night and day better for Christmas. They don't make a Christmas Reese's. Yes, they do. It's a Christmas tree. The trees. Yeah, they make them. Yeah. But that's not a stop. It's the same. You put candy in the stocking. It's basically the same thing, but you don't have to walk to other strangers' houses. You just get them from your loved ones. Nice. Thaddeus, you're kind of right, though. Christmas candies, no. Not that we've done Halloween candy. I'm kind of with that. If I'm just going to be honest, I'm kind of with that. Isn't this one? Apparently Brandon's parents gave him a shitty Christmas as well. Oh, God. This is a failure. Anybody who thinks Halloween is better than Christmas, their parents have failed them. I had a great Christmas. I just, I've turned into a Halloween guy in my old age. I don't know how that happened. Halloween's fine, but it's no good. Hold a candle to Christmas. What were you? What were you this year, Brandon? Me? Oh, we did it one battle after another. I was Benicio del Toro. I was Sensei. Oh, that's right. I saw that. Lord was in the caprio. Yeah. Great costume. The dog was Sean Penn from that movie. Great costume. If you ever tried to put a wig on a dog on Christmas, see, that's a Halloween thing. Thank you to our partner, Gillette. All right. Now, Jason, you've been retired for a full year. Let's talk pregame rituals. Do you miss them? Still have them? I kind of have one, I guess, for Monday Night Countdown. Like I kind of, I go to the production meeting, then I kind of iron out what's happening in the rundown. Then I go to the makeup lady, then I go to the hair, and then I go on set. I was just curious to see if you were putting that same game day energy into your new broadcasting routine. That's all. Well, first and foremost, it includes making sure that this beard is looking real nice, which is finally starting to show some of my grays again after dying it. I'm getting those natural colors back. Thank you. Thanks so much. But yeah, I have some grooming individuals that make sure it's looking nice and tidy. If you were looking for a tool to help wrangle it in a little bit, look no further than Gillette Labs NFL License Razor. Special Edition Razors have those long-lasting Gillette Labs blades and the precision trimmer on the back. It's perfect for cleaning up this guy. Nice. I hear it's a must have for NFL fans this season and clearly you too. Sold available now in 12 teams, including the Eagles and Chiefs. Get it while you can at Gillette.com slash NFL. Gillette, the best a fan can get. Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Reese's Oreo Cups. Oh, Reese's Oreo. Nice. Reese's Cups with Oreo Cookie Crumbs included. You asked for it. We definitely asked for it and it is finally happening. For those of you that don't know, we just said Reese's Oreo Cups. That's right. They also have regular Oreos with peanut butter in the middle. Two fan favorites coming together to make everyone's day a million times better. Wait a minute. Could Reese's Oreo Cups be like the Kelsey brothers of candy? Which one of us is Reese's and which one of us is Oreo? Which one of us is Reese's and which one of us is Oreo? Yeah. Are we talking about Oreo with peanut butter in the middle or Oreo with white in the middle? Just regular Oreo. I mean, I'm clearly Oreo. I'm a little bit darker. You got to love it. So grab these Reese's Oreo Cups today. Wherever candy is sold better yet. Grab them right now or we're going to grab them first because they are seriously that good. They are. And we wouldn't lie to you. They're very good. Thank you to our sponsor KFC. Are you a dark meter breast cali guy? When you get KFC, you can get it all. Just put it in that bucket. That's true. Thanks, Yanny's coming up and KFC is starting a little holiday debate. Turkey or chicken? Not much of a debate if you ask me. Yeah, let's be real. It's the unique gravy to survive at Bird. It's beige of all the birds. Let's be honest. Is it really worth spending eight hours cooking a turkey when you could just get something better, especially if it just causes you to go through a drive-thru and get a bucket of it, maybe? How about KFC's extra crispy chicken, juicy, crispy and always finger-licking good, baby? Extra crispy does sound good. It's the underdog choice for all your holiday gatherings. KFC is saying, cook turkey this Thanksgiving. That's right. We're inviting all of you to give dry turkey the bird. It's time to ditch the dry boring bird this holiday and order KFC instead. You can't go wrong with a bucket of chicken, a good game or movie, or just some good times with friends and family. Everybody's going to love it. If you show up to a Thanksgiving meal with extra crispy chicken from KFC, people are going to love you. Especially a bucket of it. If you come with a bucket of extra crispy fried chicken from KFC, you're going to get some thank yous. This year, skip the turkey and celebrate with KFC's extra crispy chicken. Hi, dear driver. I would like to give an extreme hot take since it's the damn season. That is turkey is one of the worst dishes on Thanksgiving of all times. Hard to agree. It's so dry and people who like it, just so weird. Thank you. Listen, I'm fully, this is why I fry turkey. It's hard to eat turkey unless it's deep fried and then like, you know, boiled and fat grease. We never had turkey. We agree. We purposely never had turkey. Mom would make pork chops or some other meat. I love everything else about, well, I take that back. I love most other things about Thanksgiving fair, right? I'm a big mashed potatoes guy. I'm a big corn guy. Kylie makes a badass green bean casserole. Fucking love that dish. Mama Kelsey dinner rolls. Like everything else about Thanksgiving is so fantastic. And then it gets kind of muddled down with, for the most part, the way most people make it, a dry ass bird that you got to slather gravy and cranberry sauce on to redeem anything about it. I mean, it's just the honest, you got to fry it. You got to fry it or you got to be in that thing nonstop, injecting it with like. You got to fry it or you got to fucking spatch cock that sucker. There you go. Spatch cock it. Or what you haven't tried yet is turducken. You got to stuff that thing with the duck. You're right. I have not tried the turducken, but I'm very in on it. The premise of it sounds incredible. I'm out. What else was it? Oh, the other thing that I don't. Pumpkin pie is okay, but I think it's also commonplace for a lot of people. Maybe I'm wrong on this. Apple pie around Thanksgiving. I'll go on this. Apple pie is going to be the most overrated dessert on the fucking history of top shelf desserts. It's got to be, there's got to be a fuck ton of cinnamon in that thing. It's got to be a fuck ton of cinnamon and butter. And I got to fucking, that's got to overpower the apple. I'm just not. Apple pie just doesn't. I like ice cream. So like when you put it with ice cream, I'll do it. That's the thing. That's another thing. I am definitely more of a cake guy than a pie guy. Although, um, Stephen cookies down the shore, they make a mean blueberry pie. It is fucking incredible. See blueberry pie, different type of pie. And this is, they do it weird to it. Like isn't as like, I guess like jello-y, you know what I mean? Like the, a lot of the pie is like a texture. And I just don't really, warm fruit doesn't make me excited. Not like cold fruit. Noted. I'm trying to think there are pies that I like though. Pumpkin pie is not bad. Pumpkin pie is the only option. Key lime, cold fruit. Key lime is a cold pie. Cold fruit, a cold pie. Key lime pie is the closest thing to like cheesecake that I'll ever have. I feel like raspberries would be good in a pie. It's got to have a little bit more like tartness for it to be good. Apples just don't bring that, like no, that really makes me enjoy it that much. I need something in the inside that doesn't just like give me like a comp. You know what I mean? Like a, like a, like a comp. You know what I'm talking about? I think it's, COMPTE is what you're thinking about. There it is. Yeah. But it's, is it compote? It's compote. COMPOTE, right? There you go. I think it's compote. I think I know it's compote. Either way, I don't like that. That stuff I'm out on. I don't mind if it's cold. I just, there's something about the warmness of pie that it just out. Desserts, I don't like warm desserts. Were you ever, were you ever an apple, a caramel apple guy? Desserts, that's not true. I'll take that back. What? Were you ever a caramel apple guy? No. I don't like it. I like apples. I will eat an apple by itself. Apple with caramel? I'm not a big like dressin'. I like apple and peanut butter. I'll throw some peanut butter on that apple. So you don't like caramels or anything? I like caramel on certain things. I just don't really. The other thing is like a caramel apple for me with a beard to eat is just like sounds like the biggest disaster of all time. Like it's going to be fucking everywhere. I'm not, yeah. Yeah, you can cut it up. I suppose I just, like I like caramel and certain things. I like caramel mixed with chocolate. I don't like caramel with apple. No. All right. Nice, noted. Yeah. Anyways, I don't know what we just got. I don't know where that even came from or how we got there. Yeah. So yes, we agree. Turkey sucks. All right. Sweet potatoes. Let's go. Sear it. Okay. So my Thanksgiving holiday hot take is that sweet potatoes have no place in the Thanksgiving menu. Whipped, mashed, roasted. They are just the least of the least. They're the worst thing on the table. You're fucking on your mind. I was on top with maple syrup. It just, it's a dessert. Yeah. You're ready to cook and pie already. What are you trying to watch your calories? Put a marshmallow on top. Put a meringue on top. Just have both. Where is this guy at? Sweet potatoes on your menu. You've got, you could do roasted root vegetables. You can do your mashed. Roasted root vegetables? All kinds of other things. Carrots, honey glazed carrots. Honey on me, honey glazed carrots. Now you're just getting carrots to dessert, Ted. Honey glazed carrots. Yeah. And they just don't go well. They don't know as well. All those other things. They just eat your dish basically in a whole bunch of savory stuff. You're not going to put your gravy over your sweet potatoes. You're not going to, you know, take a Brussels sprout and dip it in your sweet potato. Brussels sprout? Weird. You can't eat it over the place. Or anything that's got marshmallows, maple syrup. And that's it. It's wrong. It should not be on a Thanksgiving table. That's my best hot take. Well, you're wrong. Sweet potatoes and marshmallows and freaking. I think potatoes and sweet potatoes both should be on the table. You don't need to have one or the other. And sweet potato fries. If somebody made sweet potato fries, I'd be fucking jazzed personally. I don't understand the roasted root vegetable. Like this guy walks fucking. Where the fuck is the, oh, that is, you want to talk about a hot take. You want beats in here? Like what are we talking about? And then he said, like you can't, you can't candy up the sweet potato, but you can have candy carrots with honey glaze on them. Listen, if you gave me the choice of honey glaze carrots or sweet potatoes or marshmallow on them, I'm taking the sweet potatoes and marshmallow all day. Some roasted honey carrots are good though, man. I don't, I'm not in on the honey carrots. Dude, I got you. Yeah. No. Carrots, when they get roasted, they just get mushy. They get too mushy for me. No, you still got to have that crunch a little bit of that. Yeah, but it's hard. Yeah, if it has, if it's cooked perfectly, I could do it. Yeah. But I just, I prefer carrot cake. That's how I prefer my carrots. See, now we're talking. Cream cheese frosting. Dude, I didn't know you were a carrot cake guy. Next time you're in the city, I got a place. Dude. Get these little carrot cupcakes and make you feel like you're not doing too much. I'm not a big frosting guy. The only reason I think I like carrot cake is because of the cream cheese frosting. It is. Dude, I got a place for you. God damn it's good. It's so good. I got the place for you. Like, what do we make an apple pie for? Just put the carrots in there. Jack Stack has one of the best carrot cakes ever, dude. It's so good that people like just like go in and get the carrot cake like cupcakes just so that they don't feel too bad about getting the entire fucking mammoth of a cake that you could get there. We have a couple of spots around here that we'll go and specifically just get the carrot cake and then we'll eat it like two fatties all day. Oh, that's the best, dude. It's the best. And they do it. They just slab that fucking cheesecake icing on there. It's so fucking good. No doubt. We're big stocks people as well in Philadelphia. That's a big dessert one for us. I don't know how we keep getting back to desserts. We keep getting back to desserts. All right, we're talking about sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are fine. They're good. They're fucking awesome. I mean, you can have sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes. I don't think you have to differentiate between these two and I disagree. Like you can do sweet potatoes with marshmallows and the maple glaze and then at the end of the day you can have your dessert too. Like what do we, we're not calorie counting on Thanksgiving. No, that's not what we're doing here. We're making the most delicious thing possible. If that may mean throwing marshmallows on top of it, bring it on brother. Bring it on, throw that shit on top. Throwing roasted root vegetables. Like that's fucking going to get it done. Unless you're throwing fucking marshmallows. This guy's coming with beets. I don't even know if I'd like that. Yeah, I don't even know. I mean, I like beets, but that's if you like put it with goat cheese and smother a bunch of fucking salad dressing on it. I just had a beet beer in Las Vegas. It was a, it was like a beet sour. It actually wasn't bad. Your curiosity to know what shit tastes like blows my mind. The fact that you actually had a beet, you'll try, you'll try any kind of fucking beer and it's absolutely disgusting. You're right. You gave me a fucking blueberry beer one time and I wanted to fucking shoot myself. Probably great. It was disgusting. I like experimenting. I like a little citrus lime or something or like a little garage beer lime. I got you. I like it. I like a cider. I'll drink a cider. Ciders, I'm not a big cider guy. It's too much. It's too sweet. But beet beer was good. It was okay. I wouldn't want to drink a bunch of it, but for one glass, it was a unique flavor profile. It had like a borsh, soury kind of thing happening. It was not bad. That's all I got for his sweet potato take. Yeah, sweet potatoes. I mean, that was a rough take. That was a rough take. This is my last question coming from me just based on that conversation. Oh gosh. Really quick. No, though, this is good. This is good. Last question real quick. What is the best Thanksgiving side dish? One, two, three, go. Ready? Green bean casserole. Ooh. Travis. Mac and cheese. Mac and cheese. Yeah. Okay. I knew. I knew it was more of a Travis on this one. I knew we were locked in. The problem with mac and cheese is it's not. No, that's where you're wrong. The problem, there is no problem. The indi- Well, here's the problem. Here's the problem. If anything. It's an everyday thing. Not the way, not the way you make it on Thanksgiving. Yes, it is. It's not anything. You guys make it all the time? You guys are like, you guys are not just doing out of the box? You do it. I've had it baked a thousand times too. Yes. Like, I don't, it's not always out of the box. I'm not. Green bean casserole is like an exclusive thing to Thanksgiving. Really? Maybe in your household. I mean, pretty much. Not mine. The sweet potatoes? Travis is having an every goddamn day. I'm having it never. Travis is not having green bean casserole. That's true. I, it's mac and cheese. Mac and cheese is the answer. I'll go one step further. Mac and cheese the day after. Get that congealed. I'll go one step further. And the mac and cheese is the most overrated dessert or a side item. It's not, I'm not a big mac and cheese guy. Travis has always been a big mac and cheese guy. I've never been a big mac and cheese guy. So now we have Canada mad at us. We have the mac and cheese fans mad at us. We're just going down. It's okay. I just think it's overrated. It's not, I, there's a thousand other things you can have cheesy and I would prefer it. I think when you get it just right and it's got like that baked crust, that is. Yeah. I hear you. I hear you on you can add cheese. If you get the, if you get the crunchies to it. Get the crunchies. It's good. It's good. You also can fuck it up real good too. I've seen some people deliver some wet ass noodles. It is not good. I don't like shit too cheesy. That green bean casserole. God damn, I can't wait. Wait, does Kylie make that? What's in this green bean? What do you make on Thanksgiving, Jason? What do you help with? I fry the turkey and Kylie doesn't even eat that. So I pretty much make a turkey for myself. This guy is so fucking funny. Kylie we're all good in here. She doesn't trust me cooking this shit, cooking it right. What's in this casserole? I believe, I could be wrong because I've never made it. Green beans are a component. I believe it's like this mushroom. Oh my gosh. What's it called? It's like a cream mushroom thing that is like the base of it. Yeah. It's like a creamy texture. Oh, Travis is out. I know, we've lost it. And then it's got fried onions on top of it basically. Like it's across the board. I think Travis is not a big fan of green bean casserole. I think when I was there, I tried it just because I was appreciative and thankful. Like my dad always taught me. I'm looking at pictures of it. I know Travis is out on this. This is the anti-Travis Kelsey dish. One thing we never had growing up that I'm a big fan of is cranberry sauce. But Kylie only likes the canned cranberry sauce. She's correct. I don't like the canned cranberry sauce as much as I like. Like I've actually made cranberry sauce. Yeah, because canned isn't actually made. Well, it's like more, I like a fresh cranberry sauce made rather than a cranberry sauce that's. I want to see the ridges. I want to see the outline. You like it more? I don't like that. I don't want to see the ridges. I don't like that. I want to see the ridges, brother. I don't like it. I'm out on the ridges. I want that thing to come plopping out and don't even touch it. Just let it sit as a cylinder. Like spam. Yeah. That's what it looks like. Let it be nasty. All right. So you like Jello. Exactly. That's what it is. Jello is technically cold fruit. I always steered clear Jello because it was always like hospital food. That is a little weird. I feel like pudding is more of a hospital food in my mind. I would like eat the Jello packs like they were fun dip. I wouldn't. I wouldn't fucking. I wouldn't. I wasn't very, very in on that. That's very funny. That is so funny. Yeah. Just dipping your little finger in there. Like that's like a Kool-Aid play. That's odd you would do that with Jello pack. Why are you like, this is just powdered sugar. You know what that might be? No, I think it was Jello. I think it was Jello. I think you could statically do it with Jello too. It's just sugar and fruit powder. Yeah. Little Travis Kelsey with just green ass fingers. I wonder what he's been doing. All right. And that wraps up another edition of Heights Hotline. That's right. We'll have some more bonus content for you all in December. So stay tuned for what that might be. All right. Now once again, new Heights A Wondry Show. Please follow the show on all social media at new heights show with 1S. And we give a big shout out and a thank you to our production crew for always making this so much easier and so much more fun than it could ever be. And thank you to the 92%ers for listening to us talk about absolutely nothing, but kind of something. Yes. All at the same time. We love you guys. Happy Thanksgiving.