Doughboys’ Mike Mitchell Talks New England Chains and Celebrating Summer

Over the past eight years, listeners of the Doughboys podcast have been reminded by comedian Mike Mitchell that he hails from Quincy, Massachusetts, as either he or his co-host Nick Wiger reference it in nearly every episode. Mitchell isn’t the only significant figure to emerge from the Boston suburb, as the beloved coffee chain Dunkin’ was also birthed in Quincy, with the original location still active to this day. Between not only Dunkin’s iced coffees being a popular item for the summer, but also the beloved summer spectacle Jaws taking place off the coast of New England near the fictional Amity Island, it marked the perfect time to catch up with the comedian to reflect on other chains of the region and how he celebrates the summer.

Headgum describes the Doughboys podcast, “The podcast about chain restaurants. Comedians Mike Mitchell and Nick Wiger review fast food/sit-down chains and generally argue about food/everything.” With the proper Doughboys podcast barely containing all the banter between Mitchell and Wiger, the hosts have also expanded the brand into the Doughboys Double through Patreon, allowing them to dive deeper into movies, video games, and anything else they want to talk about, as well as having delivered live shows across the country.

ComicBook.com caught up with Mitchell to talk the podcast, beloved chains from New England, and more.

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike.

ComicBook.com: About a year ago, I interviewed Jason Mantzoukas, who’s the voice of Dunkin’. Brian Cox has got McDonald’s. Ving Rhames has got Arby’s. Do you have a fast food chain that you feel like you would want to do some voiceover for, whether it’s because you love it or you feel like you fit the spirit of what they’re offering? Would you like to be a spokesperson for any fast food chain? 

Mike Mitchell: When you think about those three actors there, you’ve got Jason Mantzoukas, you’ve got Ving Rhames, and you’ve got Brian Cox. All three of them have great, distinctive voices. But, and this is the thing I think about acting, too, I’m like, “Man, to be blessed with such a cool voice.” And, also, all three of those guys are extremely talented people. But I just sound like a dweeb. So I don’t know what the best fast food chain for me would be because I’m not baritone enough. 

Brian Cox has a distinguished voice. And Mantzoukas has a hilarious voice. I just have a boring, dorky voice. It’s not that cool. So maybe something like Wienerschnitzel or something would be good for me. I’m like, “Come on, eat at Wienerschnitzel,” or something. Something that’s one of the more pathetic chains, I guess, would probably be better for me. Not that Wienerschnitzel is pathetic. I don’t think that at all.

You could go into, “Take it from me. I’m a wiener and I eat at Wienerschnitzel.”

I think that would maybe work, honestly. But yeah, I don’t find my voice that interesting. John Hodgman, interesting voice. A lot of people who I know, interesting voices, and I find my voice boring. Maybe it’s just because it’s me, but the sound of my voice, I think, is boring.

I don’t know. I think millions of Doughboys fans will beg to differ in how much they enjoy listening. The millions upon millions that are out there.

I would love to help a chain out that’s hurting right now, like Papa Gino’s, or Bertucci’s, or D’Angelo back in my hometown. I would love to, and I would play it up for sure.

My absolute favorite New England chain is Friendly’s because I didn’t realize until I first moved to Chicago that Friendly’s wasn’t everywhere. It feels like every time I go back to New England, they have closed another location, and also tripled their prices. D’Angelo is good, but I want to see you use your star power to bring back Friendly’s, personally.

It’s not looking good for a lot of New England chains. It kills me.

There’s also the nostalgia factor, of course, but outside of that, which I think people don’t believe I can do, outside of that, Friendly’s was great. You’ve been there, it was great. It was a great place to get a hamburger or a hot dog, the buttery bun, grilled on the flat top. Get yourself a nice little sundae afterwards. It’s surprising to me that its staying power has finally evaporated.

I don’t really understand it, but there’s some other local ice cream spots there. But Friendly’s covered everything. It had good food, too. I mean, Brigham’s went the same way. Brigham’s got bought out by Hood and then eventually they just destroyed all of them, so that’s the world we live in, this corporate world, and eventually you see all of them fade, whether it’s by someone buying them out and they’re not meeting quarterly profits, or their time is over. There’s a new, cooler place to go to. Remember, Pinkberry killed so many ice cream places and now Pinkberry’s almost gone. 

So it’s the corporate circle of life, I guess. But it does, it makes me sad. I find myself rooting for, I say this a lot, but I find myself rooting for smaller chains, which is a crazy thing to do. I rooted for a lot of local spots, and now I have to root for localized chains. It’s like, someday I’ll be rooting for Target, maybe. Is that how bad it will get? Maybe. But that’s the way it goes.

It’s weird. Because I do feel, especially Friendly’s, I remember they started experimenting with the burgers where the buns were grilled cheese. Like, two individual grilled cheeses and then a burger in the middle. I know it now has a Doritos Cool Ranch cheeseburger. They’re getting so wild. I feel like it would totally fall in line with Doughboys audiences and fans. We grew up to, “Oh yeah, that’s that place that did the Fribbles,” but now it’s, “Oh, that’s that place that’s doing grilled-cheese-bun burgers”

I know. Which, it feels desperate a little bit, but I mean, I’ve got a lot of love for Friendly’s. I hope that they can turn it around, or just keep a few locations. You know what I mean? That’s what I think I’m looking for, for all of them. D’Angelo I love, and their bread is great. And they get it from a specific bakery, which I should know the name of, but it’s like, man, I hope at least a couple of spots can stay open. Same with Papa Gino’s and the same with Bertucci’s. Bertucci’s is one of the places that got bought out and then the quality has dipped quite a bit since they were bought out. It feels like they’re about to go down. I think that that’s my guess for the first of those restaurants to go down. But I hope it’s not the case.

When I was out there last summer I was going to D’Angelo multiple times a week for their Thanksgiving sandwich. 

It’s really good. It is good. It’s weird how a place won’t catch on nationally. I mean, they’ve never tried to expand that much, but I’m like, this place is really good, and even regionally it can’t do well? What’s the deal? You also got Jersey Mike’s coming in and that’s a really good spot. So I don’t know why D’Angelo went down the tubes, but I love it, personally.

Well, this is going to be the big push. Once this article gets published, this is going to be the push that D’Angelo and Friendly’s needs. We’re going to bring them back personally. 

Make it a D’Angelo and Friendly’s summer. And if you can, hit up Papa Gino’s, and, look, Bertucci’s needs you, too. Hit up all these chain spots. The local chains need your help. Get out there. I think we just have to say make it a D’Angelo summer. If we have to just put this down to one thing, make it a D’Angelo summer. 

Especially their Thanksgiving sandwich when it is 105 degrees with humidity and you’re heading to Cape Cod, make sure to pack up those sandwiches at 10 in the morning, leave them out in the sun all day.

Nothing beats the August heat like a 12-inch sub. That’s what I say. 

I do want to make note that I’m doing this interview before the potential, or which seems very likely, SAG. I just want to point that out.

Oh yeah. Definitely. I know how nightmarish that is for you, and SAG, and what’s going on with the writers.

Yeah. People like to yell at you, too. 

You’re such a fan of so many different things like Star Wars, or video games, or even sports, especially how big of a fan you are for New England Sports. Celtics, Patriots and all that sort of stuff. When you look back on being a kid, was there a certain thing that you really connected with, that you really nerded out over that? It could be sports, which is not typically what “nerds” align with, it’s more sci-fi or whatever. But was there a thing that you realized you connected with and resonated with more than some of your friends or what was popular? 

I wish that I connected more with sports because I was not a great athlete and my favorite sport was baseball, and that’s the one I connected with the most as a kid, probably, but even still wouldn’t, if you quizzed little-kid me, which I feel like now every young kid in New England knows everything about all the popular sports. They know everything about the Patriots, Celtics, Bruins, and they know everything about every player. And as a kid, I didn’t really know that. I wanted to connect more to stuff, but I loved TV, and I liked video games, and I leaned more that way. I wished that I was more of a sport … As I got older, I grew to appreciate it more. By the time I was in high school, I was definitely watching stuff and enjoying it.

But as a kid, Nintendo all the way for me was such a huge … And PlayStation. But I mean, I was a Nintendo kid. I was born in 1982 and I remember my dad bringing home a Nintendo and playing it. And that was a life-changing thing for me in a lot of ways. Bought Super Nintendo the first day it came out with first communion money at Child World, which is another New England chain that’s gone away. It also is horrifying-sounding, so maybe it’s better that it’s gone. 

I bought Nintendo 64 the first day it came out. I was crazy about video games. And I was crazy, as a kid, about Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtles. I was so nuts about the two of them. Anyhow, those movies came out when I was right at the right age. So all that stuff I loved. And I just got sucked up into the world of TV and movies, especially back then. I loved going to the movies. I still do. It’s one of my favorite things in the world is to go see a movie. And so video games, movies, TV, Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, all that stuff was, that’s what my world revolved around. 

With your love of movies, are there summer movies you have to revisit to get you into the summer mood?

Jurassic Park was a summer movie, right?

Yeah, June of ’93.

That, to me, is one of the most magical movie experiences. For me, as an 11-year-old kid or 10-year-old kid, I guess, at the time, seeing that movie, I’m sure for people who saw Jaws or E.T., it was a similar experience, but I love that movie. And a huge one for me, because it was like, “Oh, is there going to be a big movie like this every summer?” Even though I didn’t realize that there already was. 

Independence Day did kind of start a string of the Will Smith blockbusters and stuff like that. But Independence Day, I remember seeing down in Cape Cod, and it was the start of summer, and I was like, I just loved it. I was in a theater. The theater was packed. It was July 3rd or whatever, and it was life-changing in a lot of ways. I loved it.

I think I’ve been chasing that ever since. That, for me, is … It’s not like, “Oh, it’s summertime, I’ve got to watch Independence Day,” but Jaws is 100% one where, obviously it came out before I was born, but being down Cape Cod in the summertime, and Shark Week would be on, and then they’d also show Jaws during the summer. Being in a Cape house, coming back from the beach and turning those on, and being terrified of the waters I was just in. You know what I mean? I loved it. Eating some Cape Cod potato chips. It’s a dream. I wish I could go back. 

It wasn’t until I did my first watch of Jaws after moving out of Massachusetts that I felt homesick, because those beaches that are always overcast, and those fences with the super skinny pieces of wood that are barely holding together, it would immediately transport me to how much I took those beaches for granted.

The dunes of the Cape. I mean, they sing about it in the Pina Colada song. 

You can catch up with Doughboys wherever you get your podcasts. The Doughboys Double is available through Patreon. Mitchell will appear in Twisted Metal when it premieres on Peacock on July 27th.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.