Hoot’n & Holler’n With Matt Mitchell

Epizode

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  Coke Bottle Full of Rocks: The Golden Age of Sideline Football 18.08.2026 39min

  Before you were old enough to suit up on Friday nights, you were out there anyway just running routes on a strip of grass by the bleachers, using whatever you could find (or steal) for a football. This week Matt, Eric, Drake, and Joey rank the unofficial hierarchy of sideline football gear, from the elite stolen-from-the-field-house ball down to the dreaded three-liter Coke bottle stuffed with rocks. They get into tackle vs. tag rules, pretending to be Cowboys or Bills for a quarter, and the eternal question of when you're too old to still be playing keep-away on the walking track. Plus: two all-time fashion-fail stories, including a bootleg Elmo shirt from a Galleria kiosk that's now going for $85 on eBay, and the night Drake's silk Rock-inspired button-up got ripped clean down the middle mid-game.
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  A Southerner's Guide to Gulf Shores & Orange Beach 12.08.2026 31min

  A Southerner's Guide to Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Yes, Alabama has beaches — barely enough to earn the plural, but they're ours and we love them. This week the boys take you down to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, the biggest non-Florida beach on the Gulf Coast and the reigning rival to Panama City. We get into it all: which states send the most tourists down to our sand (Louisiana's got no beaches of their own, apparently), the smallest Hooters in the entire world, the Souvenir City shark you've had your picture made in for 40 years, and that glorious moment coming over the bridge when the windows come down no matter the temperature. Then we rank the food — Fish River Grill, Docs, DeSoto's, Shrimp Basket, Lulu's, and the great Waffle House fog — before spending entirely too long on our shared hatred of Lambert's and their throwed rolls (a cautionary tale involving a fumbled roll, an innocent lady, and a drink spilled straight into a lap). Plus rainy day survival: Fat Daddy's arcade, mosquito-infested putt-putt, and the maze that is the Foley outlets. Grab a koozie and roll the windows down. It's time to Hoot and Holler. New episodes every Wednesday. 🏖️
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  Death of the Southern Buffet: Big Fat Yeast Rolls 05.08.2026 59min

  The fellas are hungry and getting nostalgic about the all-you-can-eat buffet — a dying breed. Matt, Eric, and Joey dig into Golden Corral, Ryan's, Quincy's, Shoney's, and Western Sizzling, stumble into the wild web of Southern restaurant founders behind Captain D's and Shoney's Big Boy, argue the unwritten rules of the buffet line, and remember every gross thing they ever saw at Ryan's. Plus: big fat yeast rolls, a South Carolina Quincy's phone call, and a plan for the 100th episode. Drake's out on a birthday trip, so nobody's reviewing the food. Grab merch at gettinplace.com and use code HOOT for a free mystery koozie. Check out hootnandhollern.com for bios on the crew and their social links.
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  Bro Country: Who Killed Country Radio? 29.07.2026 45min

  Bro Country: Who Killed Country Radio? Matt, Eric, Drake, and Joey pour one out for country radio and try to pin down exactly when it all went sideways. What is bro country? A New York Magazine writer coined the term in 2013, but the guys trace the rot back much further — through Kenny Chesney's abs, Jason Aldean's dirt roads, and a fateful night watching Luke Bryan shake it for a tornado benefit crowd. Along the way they litigate whether Johnny Cash invented rap, why nobody puts effort into a chorus anymore, and how "Chicken Fried" became the most overrated song in the genre. It's not all hate, though. This is a safe space, and confessions get made: guilty-pleasure Sam Hunt deep cuts, Florida Georgia Line bangers, and at least one full-throated defense of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk." Plus: award shows are a sham, Yellowstone is bro country in TV form, and we'd pay real money to watch Eminem battle Jason Aldean in a country-fried remake of 8 Mile. Grab a red Solo cup and settle in. 
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  VBS Fight Club 22.07.2026 37min

  VBS Fight Club Grab a Dixie cup of watered-down Kool-Aid and pull up a folding chair — this week the boys are digging into Vacation Bible School, that summertime rite of passage for every kid raised in a Southern Baptist stronghold. Matt, Eric, Drake, and Joey trace VBS from its surprising origins (a rented beer hall in New York City, believe it or not) all the way to today's megachurch productions with parking attendants and Monsters Inc. themed sanctuaries. Along the way they get into the stuff you actually remember: the sand-flavored cookies, the "spy Jesus" who crept around one church in a wig and a football jersey, the infamous Rickshaw Rally theme nobody wants to talk about anymore, human videos and white-glove dramatic dances, a pie-eating contest gone wrong, and yes — the kid who tried to start a fight club in the middle of VBS. Plus getting dragged to the altar for admitting you don't like reading the Bible, and one unforgettable gravel-slinging exit from the church parking lot. Was the slapped-together backwoods VBS of the old days better than the polished version kids get now? The fellas hash it out. New episodes every week — if you enjoy it, do us a favor and subscribe.
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  Go to Church or the Devil'll Get You 15.07.2026 39min

  Go to Church or the Devil'll Get You Pull over, we're stopping. This week the boys are riding shotgun through the South's greatest (and grimmest) roadside attractions — the giant Tin Man outside Demopolis, W.C. Rice's Cross Garden, the chrome bumper chicken, and that peach water tower that looks suspiciously like a butt. We rank the go-to stops (Peach Park cobbler, forever), crown the most overrated (sorry, Biltmore), and settle whether a man standing on his porch counts as a landmark. From See Rock City barns to Buc-ee's, Ruby Falls to a $15 mud house in the middle of Colorado, it's a love letter to every billboard that ever talked you into pulling off the interstate. Grab a bag of boiled peanuts and ride along. New episodes every week. If we're your favorite roadside attraction, do us a favor and hit subscribe.
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  Come On Down: The Game Show Episode 08.07.2026 37min

  The gang is playing along at home this week as we run the whole game show gauntlet — from the daytime classics you watched while faking sick to the chaos of late-night Japanese TV. Matt, Eric, Drake, and Joey get into Price Is Right, Wheel of Fortune, and the Pat Sajak / Vanna White era, then argue about Steve Harvey's reign on Family Feud (and every host before him — Richard Dawson and that very long microphone, Ray Combs, Louie Anderson, and the "Al Borland" guy). We hit the big-money primetime boom with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Deal or No Deal, the celebrity editions nobody asked for, and the panel-show heyday of Hollywood Squares, Match Game, and $10,000 Pyramid. Then things get physical: American Gladiators, Pros vs. Joes, Fear Factor, Wipeout, MXC, and the Nickelodeon hall of fame — Double Dare, Guts, the Aggro Crag, and Legends of the Hidden Temple. Plus Game Show Network nostalgia, a mystery early-2000s show nobody can name, and a childhood teacher who actually went on Double Dare and won. Where's the line between a game show and a reality show? Is Survivor a game show? The Bachelor? Naked and Afraid? We don't fully settle it, but we have a great time trying.
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  A Southern Guide to the 4th of July 01.07.2026 39min

  A Southern Guide to the 4th of July The South does Independence Day different, and we've got the receipts to prove it. This episode breaks down why TNT Fireworks (the nation's largest fireworks distributor) calls Alabama home, the unwritten rules of haggling at a firework stand, and exactly when it's socially acceptable to stop shooting off Roman candles in your neighbor's driveway. We also get into the surprisingly heavy overlap between church and country on the 4th — LifeWay's data on pastors working patriotic music into Sunday service, the unofficial ranking of National Anthem performances (Whitney Houston vs. Chris Stapleton vs. an all-time Fergie disaster), and why "God Bless the USA" might be the most-sung song in America you didn't know had a survey behind it. Then it's on to the cookout: burgers vs. hot dogs vs. ribs by the numbers, the baked beans vs. potato salad standoff, and why a giant flag-frosted cookie cake might be the most patriotic dessert in America. Grab a cold one, fire up the grill, and let us walk you through how it's really done here. 
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  A Night at the Card Tournament 24.06.2026 54min

  A vault episode from the early days, back when we were still calling the show Scattered and Covered and recording on location instead of in a studio. This one comes from Gamers Guild, a game shop in Jasper, Alabama, where we sat down in the middle of a Sunday night card tournament and talked to the folks running it. We get into trading cards and the people who collect them, a binder that turned out to be worth more than most people's retirement, '90s satanic panic, dorm-room LAN parties, the worst Captain D's sandwich ever assembled, and a serious investigation into how many people in the room were carrying swords. Mostly we just hang out and wander around one very chaotic shopping center. This is the last of our vault episodes — the fourth and final on-location recording we had in the can. Thanks for sticking with us from the beginning.
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  Appalachian Superstitions We Still Can't Shake 16.06.2026 38min

  You don't walk under a ladder, you don't break a mirror, and you sure don't walk on a grave — not because anybody explained why, but because Grandma said so. This week we get into Appalachian superstitions: death coming in threes, black cats, cows lying down before a rain, holding your breath past the graveyard, and eating turnip greens for money on New Year's (still hasn't worked). We don't believe any of it. We just aren't going to test it either.
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  Child Labor & Other Fond Memories 10.06.2026 39min

  First jobs, worst jobs, and the ones we quit in three days flat.
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  Gatlinburg or Nothing 03.06.2026 41min

  For half the South, there's no debate: it's Gatlinburg or nothing. This week we make the great Southern pilgrimage up to G-Berg — Sevier County, Tennessee, a.k.a. the Smokies, a.k.a. the only vacation some families have ever taken. We get into all of it: the saltwater taffy and the fudge, the moonshine that took over the strip, the airbrush tees and glow-in-the-dark mini golf, the great debate over which pancake house actually wins, and whether you can really skip the national park (you can't). We argue about Cades Cove bear jams, the dinner shows, the aquarium, and the proper way to ride the chairlift up the mountain.
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  Things on Sticks: A County Fair Conversation 26.05.2026 39min

  We climbed into machines bolted together by strangers, ate things on sticks that had no business being on sticks, and lived to talk about it.
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  Pawpaw Ain't Got Shorts 20.05.2026 42min

  Summer in the rural South wasn't a vacation. It was a system. You got dropped off at grandma's in the morning, ate something, went outside, came back in for more food, went back outside, and came in at dark. Every day. For three months. In this episode, the boys break down everything that made a Southern summer in the 80s and 90s what it was. The ice cream truck. The Little Hugs from the deep freeze. Cornbread and buttermilk for lunch. Watermelon on a newspaper. Magnolia grenade wars in the front yard. Driveway basketball where the only thing worse than missing a shot was losing the ball down the holler. Plus a long detour into pawpaw culture including the khakis, the coveralls, the missing fingers, the steadfast refusal to own a single pair of shorts, carry an umbrella, or learn to swim unless his life depended on it. This is a summer episode for anybody who spent their childhood with grass-stained knees, a belly full of hose-water, and a grandma who'd make you snap beans if you tried to come back inside.
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  90s NBA: Backboards & Baggy Shorts 13.05.2026 44min

  Most of us remember the 90s NBA as a Chicago story. The Bulls dynasty. The Dream Team. The commercials we still quote at each other thirty years later. But spend a little time digging into the decade and a different picture comes together...one that doesn't get talked about nearly as much. Michael Jordan was from Wilmington, North Carolina. Scottie Pippen grew up in central Arkansas. The teal and purple craze that swept four professional sports leagues started with a Chapel Hill designer. The Magic duo that almost broke up the Bulls dynasty came out of LSU and Memphis. The Rockets team that interrupted the Bulls run with back-to-back rings was anchored by a Phi Slamma Jamma Cougar who never left Texas. And the fastest-selling rookie signature shoe of the entire decade outside of Jordan's was worn by a Duke kid from Dallas. This week, Matt, Joey, Eric, and Drake sit down to talk about arguably the greatest decade in professional basketball — Reggie Miller and Spike Lee, the New Orleans Jazz somehow ending up in Salt Lake City, the Larry Johnson Grandmama commercials, John Tesh's Roundball Rock, courtside celebrity hecklers, the Bulls dynasty, the Hornets, the shoes, and the time Dennis Rodman went missing in Vegas in the middle of the season. The 90s NBA may have looked like a Chicago story. But it definitely got the assist from the South.
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  Pork Skins and Throwing Stars: The Death of the Southern Flea Market 05.05.2026 38min

  It don't get more American than going to the yard sale and the flea market on a Saturday morning. But the version we had down here in the South was never quite the same as the one they had everywhere else, and somewhere around 2010, it just stopped. This week on Hoot'n & Holler'n, Matt, Eric, Drake, and Joey walk one more lap through the sacred aisles of the Southern flea market. We get into the booths we lived for: the camo guy, the pork skin man, the Coke can airplane artist, the wind chime guy who hated to see Drake coming, the wood-burned Bear Bryant clock that didn't run, and the baseball card man who would not let your sticky little fingers anywhere near a Topps rookie. We talk about the weapons our parents let us bring home (switchblade combs, survival knives with broken compasses, throwing stars going clean through vinyl siding), the AM radio trading post show, the consignment-sale takeover of the modern yard sale, and the inexplicable rise of the indoor flea mall. Plus: a true crime detour into the Jasper flea market's body count, a found-cassette mystery worthy of a Netflix doc, and Matt's open letter to Mark Zuckerberg about a man named Joe in Northport, Alabama. It's a long goodbye to a Southern institution. Pull up a chair, dig out a dollar, and let's go. 🎙 New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
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  Arcades in All the Wrong Places 28.04.2026 48min

  Out in the rural South, a real arcade was a 45-minute drive and a pilgrimage to Charles Entertainment Cheese himself. The rest of the time, you made do with what you had....and what we had was one Pac-Man at the Pizza Hut, a Street Fighter at Dips and Dogs, and a beat-up row of cabinets up front at Walmart next to the kiddie ride that smelled like feed and chicken pox. This week on Hoot'n & Holler'n, Matt, Joey, Eric, and Drake pull up a chair, drop in a quarter, and talk through the arcade games that defined growing up Southern in the 80s and 90s. The favorites worth every quarter (Cruisin' USA, Mortal Kombat II, WWF Superstars, and the Super Street Fighter II moment that changed Matt forever). The ones that get way too much credit (looking at you, Pac-Man). The hidden gems nobody talks about anymore (Burger Time, Paperboy, Golden Tee). And the multiplayer classics that nearly ended friendships — NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and a few rounds of air hockey played way too aggressively. Plus: bratty kids pretending to play NASCAR, pirate money jammed in coin slots, the Satanic Panic coming for your joystick, and the eternal mystery of how that one Walmart arcade machine was still standing after a decade of abuse. Pull up a chair. Drop in a quarter. Let's do some Hoot'n & Holler'n.
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  Chicken Boo and the Saturday Morning Cartoon Era 21.04.2026 34min

  He's not a man. He's a Chicken Boo. On this episode, we're looking back at the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons. That sacred five-hour window between 7 AM and noon when kids across America parked themselves two feet from the TV and disappeared into a bowl of sugary cereal and animated chaos. We're talking Doug. X-Men. Animaniacs. Masters of the Universe. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Rugrats. Tailspin. DuckTales. Darkwing Duck. Batman: The Animated Series. And yes, Chicken Boo gets his due. We're also getting into the cartoons we hated, the theme songs we can still sing word-for-word decades later, the toy marketing machines disguised as TV shows, and how Saturday morning looked a little different if you grew up down here in the South than it did for kids everywhere else. Grab a bowl of Lucky Charms, plant yourself in front of the screen, and let's get to Hoot'n and Holler'n.
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  Three Helmets and a Duffel Bag - Little League in the South 15.04.2026 39min

  There is no experience more uniquely Southern than Little League Baseball in small-town Alabama. Everywhere else in the country, it's a program. Down here, it's a situation. This week, Matt, Drake, Joey, and Eric are taking it back to the dusty infields, the borrowed helmets, and the army-green duffel bags of Dizzy Dean and Dixie Youth baseball. We're talking about the equipment that barely worked, the jerseys with vinyl numbers that would sooner take the shirt with them than peel off, and the bats so worn out nobody could tell you what brand they were. We're talking about fields that were technically pastures, dugouts that were technically a bench and a fence, and coaches who were technically just dads that didn't work Saturdays. We're also talking about the real reason any of us showed up....the concession stand. Slush puppies. Nachos. Hot dogs steamed in tinfoil. Sour Punch straws that were basically cocaine for children. And at least one kid on every team who had already given up on playing and was just eating his way through the fifth inning. If you grew up playing ball in the South, this one's going to hit like a cold aluminum bat on an April night. You'll know exactly what that means.
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  Southern Spring Break: Club La Vela vs. Club La MeeMaw 07.04.2026 33min

  Spring break in the South meant one of two things: Panama City chaos or a week at Meemaw’s and we’re breaking down both. From AEA Week and road trip nostalgia to boogie boards, Shoney’s, and wild beach stories, this episode is a full throwback to Southern spring breaks in the 80s and 90s.