Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 168: What Happened to Toys? | Ear Biscuits Ep. 168

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

G.I. Joe & Smurfs vs. Roblox & slime. R&L dive into the differences between how they played as children, and how their kids spend their recreational time nowadays. Sponsored By:Pocket: visit the Android/IOs App Stores, or getpocket.com to download for freeHelloFresh: Visit HelloFresh.com/EAR60, and ender EAR60, for $60 off your first 3 boxesSpotify: Download the free app and start listening to podcasts on Spotify (including Ear Biscuits!) today. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are exploring the question, what happened to toys? And we were just saying, wouldn't it be funny if you just like, you just go up to somebody, a friend, acquaintance, family member. Acquaintance.

And you're just like, you know what? I got this nagging question, what happened to toys? Because listen, something happened. A lot happened, y'all. Okay. And we're gonna get into it. Possibly. I'm also looking forward to getting into our past lives as children.

When we played with toys, when toys were still toys and we play, at least I did. I'm actually curious, cause I have some thoughts about you and I think I have an idea about you and I think I'm, I have an idea about Rhett as a child that I remember that may not even be true. But toys, toys have changed. Probably isn't true.

Toys have changed. But I'm interested in what it is. Do they even exist anymore by my definition? I don't know, is it a long lost thing that we can only experience through nostalgia over the course of this podcast? I can't know, is it a long lost thing that we can only experience through nostalgia over the course of this podcast? I can't wait. Little reminiscing, a little conjecturing.

As always, conjecturing, pulling things directly out of our butts and putting them on the internet and hoping that it will change lives. Yep. One pulled out of our butt at a time, a life is changed. And I am going to begin holding the microphone like this. Okay. That's my new thing.

All right. Because I wanna be able to turn. Loyal listener, I just want you to know that Rhett is now holding and hovering his microphone above the round table. And I may do a little mini bicep curl. Did you say this week at the round table, you didn't even say that.

You know what, I did say it. And I've noticed something, and it's been happening more and more often, you may need to go to the doctor at Dimline, you didn't even say that. You know what, I did say it and I've noticed something and it's been happening more and more often, you may need to go to the doctor. I know what you're talking about. Lately, we've been saying something and then in the middle of it. It's so cliche.

You say. Did you just say that? Did you just say that? Yeah. And I definitely did say it. Maybe it is a problem. I mean, it's happening weekly now. I feel like I'm crumbling.

Definitely emotionally after what happened last night. Oh, okay, yeah. I'm gonna link the two because I think that. I've never heard you use your name as a verb. I'm still kinda, I'm reeling, man. You should do that more often. And I'm glad you were there. I'm ready for you to tell me.

Oh, that's so stupid. Yeah, well, I thought that's what we're doing now. Okay. I'm still not over what happened and I'm sorry if you don't wanna hear us talk about magic and our interactions with it again, but that's not really what this is about. Yes, what happened last night did happen at a visit

to the Magic Castle with our friends. Which has become just a regular haunt of ours now. We got so many people who wanna go to the Magic Castle. But I am honestly reeling. And I know it's also funny, but I feel like, is it better if I tell the story if you tell the story from your perspective because? It's probably better if I tell it.

Okay, I agree with that. So tell it from your perspective. I'll just try not to interject too much just to clarify what was going on inside my mind at the time. And again, not to interject too much, just to clarify what was going on inside my mind at the time. And again, not to shatter the illusion that this is recorded on the date that you're hearing it. For us, we're recording this right around Halloween,

which means that we went to- But it's not dated because no one's heard it until right now when you're hearing it. Right, yeah, I'm not worried about it. That's all that matters. I'm just letting you know. It's fresh and only for you. So at the Magic Castle around Halloween,

they have a special thing that they do. Basically, they call it a murder mystery and you can wear, you know, you can dress up, you can wear costumes and another thing that happens is that the performers, the magicians, are all in costume as well and in character. They're not just normal magicians. Which is cool.

I will say that we completely abandoned, never even really started the murder mystery thing. They gave us a list of clues and you had to go read something. I was like, I don't wanna think this much at the magic castle. So we abandoned that. Apparently I didn't either.

But we went to the close up Magic Gallery, which is our favorite place. That's the place where our friend almost got into a fist fight with Jason Sudeikis. Holds a special place in our hearts. And the guy gets up there and he is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes, putting on a British accent dressed as Holmes himself and he begins pretending to be Sherlock Holmes, putting on a British accent dressed as Holmes himself,

and he begins to go through his act, and he's putting it all in terms of solving clues and intuition that Sherlock Holmes would have. I would say he was good. I would say he was good, yes. I would say he was very good. Yeah, I mean, he's a professional magician as far as I could tell.

But even the comedic banter, I thought was a nice aspect of it. And then, of course, for at least half of his act, he requires volunteers from the audience. Now Link is sitting on the first row in a very small, this place holds like 20 people, so it's very small. And if you listen to the other magic podcast, you know that last time I was standing in the back

and I still got made a fool out of. Yeah. I became the butt of the joke and I was happy. I was happy to be that. So he gets to this one trick and he says, "'For this, I need a volunteer.'" And he, you can see there's five people sitting on the front row, Link is one of those.

And he kinda looks at the five people and he avoids the see there's five people sitting on the front row, Link is one of those, and he kinda looks at the five people and he avoids the people directly in front of him because he had just used those two people, two of our friends, for the previous trick. So he's got the three people he's choosing from. And he looks at our friend Jenny, and she, as he looks at her, she's going. She's just hinking her head, kind of looking down.

Very emphatically saying, do not pick me. It's like when a horse makes that sound. But I will say. She did that motion. Silently. But she didn't make a horse sound. I will say that he looked at you first. Yeah. Now you had also just done something

in the previous trick where somebody had to say when they were gonna stop. They said, say stop when you're compelled to stop. And she never said stop, so I said stop. And I thought that was a funny joke to compel her to stop. Link grabbed the arm of the volunteer. Who was a friend of ours. And said, stop.

I thought it was funny. And then you could kinda see that the guy, when he began to figure out who he was gonna choose for the next trick, he looked at you and was like, not the guy that just interjected himself into this previous trick. He goes over to Jenny, she shakes her head, and then he's kind of at a loss.

Is he gonna go beyond you out to where Christy was sitting? And then he just lands back on you very reluctantly. And as he was picking you, I was thinking inside, no, no, no, don't pick, don't pick him, don't pick him, don't pick him. If this trick. I wasn't wanting to be picked, by the way. If this trick. I wasn't asking for it.

Requires a person to do things that a normal human being would do in response to a magician, you've made a mistake. That's what I was thinking. You know, again, the 95 out of 100 times that you pick somebody, they're gonna do the thing that the magician wants, and I know that you're in the elite. 5%.

I'll call it, of people who are not going to behave normally for a number of reasons. So the trick was. I don't know the reasons. The trick was he put a cup of colored markers in front of Link. Let's call them Sharpies, not a sponsor. And then gave Link a pad of paper

that had three shapes on it, circle, a square, and a rectangle. And he said, sir, what I want you to do is I want you to take one of the markers out of the cup, any color you want, and choose to color any of the shapes that you want. No, no, he didn't say that. He said, I'm gonna turn around and choose a marker

and then he said, color the triangle with your marker. Oh, he told you which was it. He was like, pick. But he didn't say the color. Color the triangle any color you want and then he's also facing away from us and he's coloring. Now right at the very beginning, you picked up a marker and then put it back down

and got another marker and at that point. Is that a crime? At that point I figured that probably screwed this guy up. Right, because it's probably based, I don't know how the trick works, but it has something to do with him knowing what you've chosen, and if you choose two of them, his whole trick is screwed, right?

All I knew was that everybody was watching me pick a marker, so I'm like, oh, I'm like fluttering my hand over the marker and then I'm like. Being a little extra. I agree. And then I'm like, oh, am I gonna choose this one? No, and then I let go of it and I chose another one

and then he said, color the triangle and I did it. And then two more times, did the same thing. And I'm just thinking, I'm just choosing markers, man. Now I will say. I'm trying to be fun, I'm trying to have silly, trying to have fun and be silly. You can have silly if you want. But I wasn't trying to do, I had no ill intent.

You were not, you didn't think. Honestly. That the trick hinged on you just grabbing a marker and holding it up, you're supposed to hold it up. How could it? And I'll say, because he continued on with the trick, I was like, oh, okay. Maybe he didn't screw it up.

Yeah, I did this three times, guys. I picked three different markers and colored the three different shapes. And then. As he continued to color shapes. After all three shapes were colored and the magician had colored his shapes, as he turned around and faced us,

I saw a look in his face of utter disappointment. He knew that his trick had failed. Busted. And he knew that it was your fault. The funny thing is, I didn't know. By the way, all the shapes were colored different colors. Than mine. And I was still hoping that it was part of the trick.

And then he just put it down on the floor. He put it on the floor and he said, usually that's very impressive. Yeah, and I was still hoping that it was part of the trick. And then he just put it down on the floor. He put it on the floor and he said, usually that's very impressive. Yeah, and I was like, but he said a few more things and he put it on the floor and then he continues with his act. Yeah. So then at the very end, he did like two more things,

they were great. I'm laughing, just having a silly time, bawling. And then, bawling. Then I realized he's done. He's like said his last thing, it's over. He's like telling everybody goodbye. You can stand up, here's the exit. And then I say, hold on a second.

I know that I colored that exactly how you told me to. So I know I didn't do something wrong. So why don't you show me the picture that you really drew? And then he said, that was it. And at that moment, after everyone else had already long realized this, I realized I blew his trick. It took me that long to realize it.

That's when you realized it? That's when I realized it. Because I. It took me that long to realize it. That's when you realized it? That's when I realized it. Because I thought, he's doing the long play. At the very end, he's gonna be like, and you know what, I do have the one that is exactly like his. I had that much faith in the guy.

And I also, because I had no ill intent, I really thought I hadn't screwed up his trick. And then as we're leaving, I'm like, it's really dawning on me, and I start turning everybody in the group, and I'm like, I messed up the guy his trick. And then as we're leaving, I'm like, it's really dawning on me and I start turning everybody in the group and I'm like, I messed up the guy's trick. Yeah.

I messed up his trick. And then as I'm doing that, some person not in our group storms up to me. I was talking to you at the time. Another patron, a woman. She was in some sort of a costume, but I couldn't tell you what it was. Go-go dancer, maybe?

I don't think so. She put her finger in my face. And what did she say? She said, by the way, sir, not cool. Not cool, she said it again. And then we talked. Then she stormed off. We talked to our friend.

I was like, as she was walking off, I was like, I didn't mean to. Right, but just to put things into perspective, this probably makes sense, but there is a, there is an understanding in the magician's community, I don't know what the technical term is for it, but people who know how a trick works, know enough about magic to know how a trick works,

and when picked to be a volunteer, purposely foil the trick. Yeah. For some own personal gain or just to be a troll. And so lots of people thought that you were a troll. And that woman who was a magician's aficionado, obviously, that's what she was dressed as. Oh, okay, yeah.

Kind of looked like a fairy but. And in retrospect, I understand why she did it. Because if you had done it intentionally, it was a complete douche thing to do. And especially at the end when I'm like, hold on, hold on, show the picture because I know I drew it how you told me to. Rubbing it in. And I thought I was giving him an opportunity, hold on, hold on, show the picture because I know I drew it how you told me to. Rubbing it in.

And I thought I was giving him an opportunity, I literally, as stupid as it sounds, I thought I was giving him an opportunity because I thought he was about to like blow our minds one last time. And you thought it required you to ask? I wasn't. You thought part of the act was you,

oh, I have to wait for him to ask me to finish the trick. I'm like a child. When I go into the Magic Castle, I'm like a child. With childlike wonder, I have to wait for him to ask me to finish the trick. I'm like a child. When I go into the Magic Castle, I'm like a child. With childlike wonder, I experience everything. Oh, I'm picking markers. Which one am I gonna pick? Maybe this one, nope, this one. And that's why I'm having so much fun.

I would never choose you as if I was doing a trick. But let me tell you. No, and he honestly, he tried not to choose you. I felt so bad after this that I was like, the person who invited us, like the member, I was like, I went up to her, I was like, listen. Her reputation is on the line. I was like, I wanna let you know

that I didn't do it intentionally. I am so sorry. I would, and you know, and then a few minutes later, I'm like, you know what, I'd like to talk to the guy. If there's any way I could talk to him, I apologize. That'll make it better. I ended up, she came and got me a few minutes later I'm like, you know what, I'd like to talk to the guy. If there's any way I could talk to him and apologize. That'll make it better. I ended up, she came and got me a little bit later and I went out there and Sherlock Holmes

was standing out there. Sad, disappointed. Yeah. He was apologetic, he's like, you know what, the first thing he said was I should have been more clear and I'm like, hold on, no, no, no. And then he starts talking, he's like, when you picked up the marker and I was like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't know how to do your trick. I don't want to know, I just want you to know. I wanna look into your eyes and I wanna say, I did not do that on purpose, I'm just an idiot. And I'm so sorry. That would be a good t-shirt. I did not do that on purpose, I'm just an idiot. I earned it, man, I felt sorry. That would be a good t-shirt. I did not do that on purpose. I'm just an idiot. I earned it, man.

I felt horrible. I put my forehead on his shoulder. That's how bad I felt. You did that on purpose. I've never done that to a stranger. I was like, that was a little bit later. I was like, I thought I was gonna start crying on the guy's shoulder.

Well, that would have been excessive. He probably thought I was a total idiot. Yeah. I couldn't go to probably thought I was a total idiot. Yeah. I couldn't go to sleep. I was thinking about it. Well, you have a reputation. I was like, I'm too impulsive. Because we were all dressed as the same thing.

I mean, I've experienced a lot of success from just going with it and just being impulsive, but I think maybe for the first time, this was a whoa buddy, look what you've done now. You've totally, I could have shaken the foundations of a magician's career. Unintentionally. You did, you did.

Well. But it was a small audience. I think he could, I think maybe it's good for him. I think he learned a lesson. First of all, go with the instinct to not pick the person that you think is gonna foil the trick and go to the second row. Go beyond foil the trick and go to the second row. Go beyond the first row, go to the second row. Or when that happens, you gotta have a contingency plan.

Yeah. You can't be dead in the water. As soon as you screwed up the trick, my advice would have been as soon as you screwed up the trick, he should have backed out and said something like, I'm getting some bad juju from you, I'm gonna use this other person. And then we would have been able to see the trick go.

But you know what? Nobody intended, you didn't have bad intentions. You haven't lived life until you know what it feels like to foil a magician's trick unintentionally. It's like being at a comedy club and a standup comedian is up there and you find yourself trying to like stand up, I'm gonna give you a compliment.

And then you end up like heckling him and decimating him. How is that even possible? That's what I feel like I did. But I don't think I need that in my life. I feel like I was- You're telling me that I haven't lived until I- Hey comedian, I think you're great and I wanna do everything I can to support you.

Ironically, I'm murdering you right now. That's what I felt like I did. Well, don't be so hard on yourself. Just don't do it again. I did. I do feel like I was making it about me because I was choosing the marker and that was just going on instinct.

And I don't know if I should back off of that because I've built a whole career on it. Well, I think that- But in that setting. I think the application of it is in the moment where you're supposed to be just behaving like a normal person, I can't do it.

Bringing the attention onto yourself might be less than desirable for the person who the attention is on. I wasn't even trying to bring the attention to myself. I'm not even saying. Once I found that I had the attention, I was just gonna choose a marker. I'm not saying it was completely, I'm not saying that you were thinking about it. I'm not even saying. Once I found that I had the attention, I was just gonna choose a marker.

I'm not saying that you were thinking about it. I'm saying that in order to not do that, you would have to be intentional to be like, okay, I've been chosen as a mark in this thing and now I'm gonna behave as a normal human should. Did you notice what I did for the two other acts after that whenever they were choosing people? You looked down. I bowed my head.

Well, that was a good start. I bowed my head. Well, that was a- I bowed my head. That's a good start. In prayer that I would not be chosen again. Okay. And then I left early. But we gotta talk about- Couldn't stay. We gotta talk about toys. We could talk about the Magic Castle

over and over and over again. We probably will. Ad nauseum. But we're gonna talk about toys. But before that, we wanna let you know that Ear Biscuits is supported by HelloFresh. HelloFresh is a meal kit delivery service that shops, plans, and delivers step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients so you can just cook,

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Wow. Isn't that strange? As well as a bunch. Well, is that a question? Because my answer is no, it's not strange. It's just convenient. Well, it's meta. Oh, it's meta. Maybe I should just use the word meta. But it isn't just ours.

I mean, if you wanna cheat on us and listen to other podcasts, you can do that because, I mean, you've got time because there's a bunch more. Also, some of the most popular news and politics shows. We don't get into that, woo buddy! But you can find it on Spotify. Yeah, you can find it on Spotify.

What just happened to this ad read? Ah, it got good. It got better. To listen on Spotify, just open the app, tap search, type in your favorite show name and get streaming. Download the free app today and start listening to podcasts on Spotify. Now on with the biscuit. Whose freaking phone is that?

Oh, that's my computer. My wife is wanting to FaceTime with me. She's in Malaysia, I feel like I should take this. All right, do it. Oh gosh, she's in bed. Dude, you can't. Hey, I'm currently podcasting, but I really wanted to answer this.

And tell her that I'm here. Like, keep your covers up. I'm completely closed. It's early morning in Asia. Okay, should I give her my mic? Bring it over here so we can mic it. Well, I don't know if I should have this conversation. I think we should have this conversation later.

I love you. I love you too, stay right there. Okay, I'll call you when I'm done with this. You know what, let's just, let's not do this. You know, you've got a life. This is just our podcast. Okay. That was interesting.

You muted it, that's good. I did. Okay. That was a risk, man. Let's talk about toys. The other night I was tucking Lando into bed and he was, Lincoln wasn't going to bed because I think it was a weekend

and he was staying up watching a movie or something a little later, but Lando still needed to go to bed, but he doesn't like to go to sleep if Lincoln's not in the next room, okay? So I was like, you know what? I will stay in your room as long as you want and hang out with you while you go to sleep.

We installed this hammock swing that's like a seat beside his bed, he really wanted one of those. And I just installed it, I was like, I'm gonna sit in this hammock swing. Comes out of the ceiling? It's attached to the ceiling, yeah. It's a hangy down. In a joist.

In a joist, yeah, a cross beam. Lando has an exposed beam in his ceiling, if you must know. This is what you care about? How sturdily the, the story's not going to a failed swing. It has nothing to do with that. Okay, well I don't want your life to go to a failed swing. That's why I'm just checking in and making sure. Oh, thank you.

I was like, I'm gonna sit in your swing, you're gonna lay in the bed, and we're just gonna talk. You know? You know, talk, amabida, amabida. Like we do when we speak in the made up language. Amabida, amabida. We do, when we speak in the made up language. I was trying to say, I'm going nuts, man. I was gonna say, imagine that. Imagine that, we're just gonna sit here

and have a conversation as family members. Who does that? Who just talks to each other? Right, I thought it would be refreshing and cool and I didn't have anywhere to be. So I sit in the swing and he's laying there and we're talking and I'm looking around and I said, Lando, I'm realizing something.

There is something that I had a lot more of when I was your age than you have. And of course you know what this is because you already know what this podcast is about because we've already teased it, but he didn't know. So I'm like, can you guess? He's like looking around, he's like, hammock swings?

I'm like, no son, I actually didn't have a hammock swing. Good guess though. Your amazing father mounted this for you because you asked for it, but I didn't have one hammock swing. Good guess though. Your amazing father mounted this for you because you asked for it but I didn't have one when I was a kid. He was like, chairs? He was like looking around and seeing stuff. Which is actually, he should've been doing the opposite,

looking around for what he didn't see that I had. Right. And I was like, ultimately, after playing this game for 45 minutes. Not that long. I said, toys? He eventually guessed Legos because he has Legos in his room.

I was like, not Legos but broader than that. Just toys in general. Lando, when I was eight years old, I had a bunch of toys in my room. That was my thing. But you don't have any, man. You live in a totally different eight year old world than the world that I lived in.

Your room looks totally different. It's like you're a different, it's like you're on a different planet where toys don't exist, except for Legos and a few odd Nerf bullets. Planet Mabada Mabada. Mabada babadabababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababab but they don't have the number of different toys. Right, I mean. They may have a lot of a couple of things

because I think that's the case with my kids. Now, yeah, because I mean, all my kids have Legos. Lando has that. He also has like the bigger type of Lego called Bionicles. That's basically a version of Lego. That create men. He has the Bionicles. That's basically a version of Lego. That create men. He has the Bionicle Legos that are Star Wars.

You know, he has some pop figures because Lillian Lincoln really got into those like over the past few years that he started getting into that. Did he ever, did he go through the Duplo stage? Oh yeah, of course much earlier. You're talking about like three years old. But it's because of screens.

And of course, I started taking him through the toys that I play with and I'd like for us to do that with each other. But it's because of screens, man. They've got games and shows and at their beck and call at all points. And I was like, that's your problem, Lando. Of course, now his eyes are always like,

oh, you're attacking my screens. That's what you guys, you and mom are always talking about the screens. But I'm like, when we watch shows, it was, the only time kids shows came on was like Saturday morning and then after school for like a two hour window. It was not on demand. And then we were just left watching adult shows.

You know, like I'd watch reruns of Matlock or like game shows, stuff that was made for adults that like kids could tolerate, you know? On Thursday night as probably an eight year old, I guess I'd watch Dukes of Hazzard, but then of course I'd have to watch Dallas right after it at my grandma's house. I had to go to bed after Dukes of Hazzard.

Had to watch a little Dallas. I specifically remember the NBC, dong, dong, dong at the end of the show and I had to go to bed. But because the screens are so pervasive and any and everything you want, oh, it's like this show called Fuller House, Lando starts watching that

and then he just binge watches all of it. Well, and they also, it's the access they have to the number of shows, the number of shows that are kind of catered towards them. The fact that they can watch it at any time and the fact that there's more screens has created this situation where they're all watching things incredibly personalized.

So in any given time, everybody in your family is watching something different, right? On their own screen with their headphones on and in their own hammock. And I'm sure because it's so much more, it's a passive experience, not quite as much with games, but you're gonna gravitate towards that because it's limitless.

It's so easy and it's so enthralling. Because I think, because as we talk about the toys that we played with, my theory is that we're going to realize why given, Can't compete. You just give somebody the option between something they have to apply a lot of imagination to and then something that all the work's been done,

just the natural human response is to go towards that thing that's an easier thing, which ultimately could be a bad thing as well. I started to explain to Lando, I was like, Lando, when I was your age, I was in to these action figures called He-Man, I was in to these action figures called He-Man, it was actually called Masters of the Universe and then the main guy was called He-Man and he was a muscle bound

and I'm talking extremely muscle bound. Like if this was a real person, it would be like a bodybuilder who was six foot one but weighed 800 pounds. Like seriously. Yeah, had very large pecs. He had very large everything except for clothes, which he wore fur underwear and then he carried an ax and a sword

and he wore Uggs and he walked around in Eternia and fought a purple guy who had just as much muscle as he did, a matter of fact, he had exactly the same amount of muscles. Same mold. It was the same mold, but his head was a purple hood with a yellow skull in it. Skeletor, man.

Skeletor! And also. And it started just, he was like, what? This is crazy. And he rode a cat, a tiger, that, well first of all, you gotta talk about the fact that- A green cat with orange stripes called Battle Cat. He was a lot like Superman in that he had

a normal non-He-Man persona that was Adam. Right. Which is a great name for your non-super persona. He wore pink and he liked to bake. And what was? Seriously. What was the cat's name? Cringer.

Cringer and then Cringer became? Battle Cat. Battle Cat. A tiger, a green tiger that had a saddle. And all he did was put a helmet on, right? And that's when he became? Yeah, I don't know what would make him. I can't read that, what's it say? Prince Adam.

Prince Adam, yeah, he was a prince. Well, so, okay, so you had that. I had the whole set. I had the castle. Oh, you did? Yeah, I had Skeletor's castle. And, because he had it, there was another little guy,

like a short ghost. There was like a short ghost guy. Orko. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember whose side he was on. He was like an oracle, like it was kind of on both people's side, I don't know. He was kind of like the Jar Jar Binks of Eternia.

And it like, he was just, you looked inside his face and it was just eyeballs and it was dark. Yeah. Anyway, I had that whole set and spent quite a bit of time playing with it. And you had the castle as well? Oh yeah, I had a castle gray skull. I had it at home.

I also had one at Nana and Papa's house. Oh, you had a backup. Well, I just, you know, it's kind of like when you get old, you have reading glasses everywhere. Everywhere I went, I had to have another Castle Grayskull, which it wasn't Skeletor's castle. And you know, this is something I only learned from watching the Netflix documentary,

which I'll go ahead and plug it. I wanna make sure I get it right. The toys that made us. If you're 40 years old, if you're 35 years old now, then you're gonna love watching that and hearing all the backstory about it. So I highly recommend it. And that's why it's so fresh in my mind

because I've been watching this some of the times with the kids and they get a kick out of it. Castle Grayskull was, whoever had both sides of the sword, that Skeletor had one half of the sword, one side of the sword and He-Man had the other side and whoever could get both sides and put them together could then unlock Castle Grayskull and go inside

and have the power of, by the power of Grayskull, you could become amazing. So who lived in Castle Grayskull? Well, here's the thing, I actually didn't watch the cartoons or read the comics that came with the He-Men, is what I call them. You didn't watch the cartoons or read the comics that came with the He-Men, is what I called them. Watch the cartoons? I didn't even watch, I just played with them. I didn't even know the stories.

I didn't know what I just told you about combining the swords. I just like collecting these super weird characters like Beastman or Mecha-Neck, a guy whose neck went up or like. That's all from Masters of the Universe? Yeah. Did you have them all like many faces?

Many faces, I had many faces. You would twist his head and he would have different faces. Okay, so, but just describe to me, well, I'll just quickly say, because I want to come back to how you played with those, but like, as I was kind of thinking back, the list I made was those action figure sets that were based on properties that existed,

TV shows, movies. He-Man is the one that was the first in my mind because it was big but of course I had G.I. Joe, not to the degree you did. I had the whole Thundercats set which was actually my brother's that was handed down to me. So all the Thundercats and whatever came with them. I had a absolute crap ton of Smurfs.

What? Because the thing, when I would go to your house, I think we were older when I started going to your house. I think that's what it was because my theory was you didn't play with many toys. Because what I remember the first time I went to your house was posters of basketball players, Michael Jordan, Spud Webb dunking in your bedroom.

I don't remember any toys anywhere. Well, by the time- But that must've been later. I mean, I definitely, I'm fairly confident that I stopped playing with them on a regular basis before you did. I mean, none of this made it to middle school. Like not a chance.

Definitely didn't make it to sixth grade. For me, this is like first grade through fourth grade, maybe into fifth grade. Also, the way- By the time you turn eight, typically you're getting out of of action figure play type thing. Maybe nine years old. The other thing that I think is a little different,

and this is evidenced by the way that you treated your WWF action figure set, is that when I had somebody over, I was like, that's not time to play with toys. I was like, oh, I've got somebody over. We're going to go outside. Yeah. We're gonna go outside.

We're gonna get into something. These toys are for when it's raining and I have to be in my room. Last resort. The toys were not something I, I was super excited about them initially. I would set them up, but then within seven days, I was missing pieces of it, it was kind of weird

and kind of off, and I never tried to, did you create stories with them? Because I would play with them a little bit and then I would combine a bunch of them and then I would kind of lose interest and move on to something else. Broom them into a box that you wouldn't open. Well yeah, knowing the you now as well as I do

and applying that backwards, I would say you probably lost interest, whereas I would dig deep. I remember for G.I. Joe was the one and I was telling Lando this too, I was like, it's army men, but they're like fully articulated, imposable. And that's when I realized, I told him, I was like,

you know, I didn't so much as play with my G.I. Joe men as A, collect them and then I read a lot about, like they had like dossiers and like they're on the back of the packaging, it would like describe all of their detailing. But A, I would collect them and B, I would just, I'd set up, I would pose them, you, I would just, I'd set up a, I would pose them.

They had a hole in their boot and then they had pegs on all their vehicles. And so you could stand them up and like put them in dynamic poses. And as I was telling Lando this, I realized, you know what, I didn't play with my toys. I created still life. Like that's what I did. I would, I remember't play with my toys. I created still life. Like that's what I did.

I would, I remember I got the mobile command center, like the biggest thing that GI Joe had made. Like it opened up like a three tier tackle box and it was as huge as this table, at least in my memory. And I would take all of my GI Joe guys and I would position them all over it and pose them. And then once I got it exactly how I wanted it, I'd leave it.

And when I came back to it, I would just look at it as if I were walking through a museum and someone had created a still life. Yeah, and if I ever went to the trouble of setting it up and again, I would put, it wasn't like Castle Grayskull just had He-Man, it was like Castle Grayskull could have Smurfs in my world. I think it's hilarious that you were big into Smurfs.

Like what do you mean, I don't even know what you mean. They were little, non-articulating. Figurines? I know what Smurfs are. No, no, I'm specifically describing them. They were about this tall, they were rubber. They were three inches tall, four inches tall? They were rubber and they were not articulating.

They were all stuck in a pose, kind of like the California raisins. Oh, I collected all those, the Hardee's. But Smurfs had way more than the California raisins. Do you collect all of them? I don't remember. But again, for me, it wasn't about collecting. It wasn't like, ah, I've gotta get the Papa Smurf

because I don't have the full set. It was about putting them into a situation, and again, this is usually on a rainy day, getting it set up and then just destroying all of it. You know what I'm saying? It was just like, okay, who's the, Lionor. Lion, Lion-O, yeah. Lion-o, yeah. Lion-o, Lionor.

Lion-o's gonna come through and Thundercat on the Smurfs, whatever that involves, you know what I'm saying? And a Thundercat can take out 12 Smurfs at a time. Oh gosh. Lion-o has no problem with Smurfs. Right, just. And it was just. They're both good though, right? It was just a time. Oh gosh. Yeah, Lion-O has no problem with Smurfs. Right, just. And it was just. They're both good though, right?

It was just a hodgepodge. You didn't even stick to like good versus evil. You were like good decimates good. No, in my world Skeletor and He-Man could be buddies. They could team up, they could both ride Cringer at the same time, that was fun. Cringer didn't complain. Battle Cap, I mean.

Okay yeah, get it straight. So, and my room was way too messy to create any sort of like lasting scene or like set it up. And of course, my kids are exactly the same way. Like there's not, we'll get into what they have and what they have had, but it's not set up in a way, it's set up in a way to interact with violently and then destroy at some point and then have to be replaced.

Yeah, to me it was just about the scene, the perfect scene that you wouldn't touch. And if people came over, like my younger cousins, like Kurt, one of his first memories is coming over and getting very upset that I wouldn't let him touch anything in my room. Yeah, it's not playing. And like his mom, my aunt, Aunt Teezy was like,

she thought I was, I mean, she knew I was strange, but at that point she was like, that boy is strange. And I also think because I'm an only child and I was like, I was in my room and you know, it was my haven and I had to build these worlds that like then I would just admire and like perfect. You know, I think that's the operative word, right? I've gotta get, I've gotta perfect the collection

then I can perfect the scene and don't touch it. And this is my, this is where I'm God, I'm in control and it felt really good to have it all together. And I also didn't have, like you, an older brother that was like, well, I do this and if you wanna be cool and aspire to be older, then you might wanna do that. So at first, maybe that's a little Thundercat action when he's not looking, you're gonna steal it

and decimate your Smurfs. But then later it's like, hey man, I'm kinda done with toys, I'm more of like a cool sports dude, so why don't you come outside or we're gonna play a game where we hide in the woods in the dark. Be like, uh-uh, count me out. The things that Cole would do with you, right?

We were definitely outside. If you could be outside, we were outside. And it wasn't that I didn't go outside, but me going outside was an extension of becoming GI Joe. I don't know if you remember this, but I had this, I invented this elite group of kids in Harnett County called the Army Investigators. and I had a trapper keeper that had a dossier in it and missions

and I drew maps of my neighborhood and I would go out, me and, well I was the only member. But then you would come over and I would take you on these missions and I would have Jimmy, my stepdad at the time, his gift to me would always be stuff from the Army surplus store, which was really cool if you think about it

because he took my love for G.I. Joe and he said, hey, let's bring this into the real world, not with guns but with like belts and binoculars. Vests. Like the binoculars, vests, like the binoculars that are in our book that I still have at home in my bedroom now when I spy on my neighbors. He gave me those camouflage binoculars and I would take them out into the-

Well, and I wasn't a part of that and then we did the same thing. So I think this is just, it shows you what the geography does, the fact that we live like two miles apart was, it might as well, before we were riding bikes across town to see each other. Right, right. So, because Jeremy Fisher, who lived on my street, and then my brother Cole and I were the explorers,

and we called ourselves the explorers because we had duck boots that said Explorers on them. Okay. And so that, you know how like behind my house, there was Buies Creek went behind my house and down into the woods and how all those different parts of the creek were named different forts? Like Fort You and Fort Deadman and then Fort Buies Creek.

What are you talking about? Did you didn't know about this? No. Fort Silverstone. You are you talking about? Did you didn't know about this? No. Fort Silverstone. You made up these names? Jeremy was, so my brother was like three years older and Jeremy was like two years older. And then me and then like Peter Dinklage next door

were kind of all a part of it. And you named different points in the creek fort, different fort names. Yeah, and then we would go out there. Seeing it was Jeremy Fisher, the older guy, who kinda like. Well yeah, cause I mean you played with all the kids in your neighborhood.

So, and then later I would spend a bunch of time out there by myself. I was like, I gotta go check on Fort Buies Creek today. See, the only guys in my neighborhood were those two twins who lived on the other side of the Cat Lady, Miss Bolden. Yeah. And the Shoe Twins or something. I can't remember their names.

Sounds like a nursery rhyme. S-C-H-U-E. The Shoe Twins, lived in a shoe. They were older, they were scary, and they rode dirt bikes. I'm like, I'm staying away from those guys. When the army went out investigating, it's clear the dirt bikes.

What else did you play with besides Smurfs? Obviously Transformers, I had Transformers. I had a lot of Transformers too. To me, Transformers were, they're separate from this first group, which is like poseable, because there's a mission with those. Like you change them, they're active.

You change them from one thing to another. And they weren't easy. No, and. So it's like a puzzle. So I had a bunch of those. Do you have Optimus Prime? Optimus Prime was my favorite thing. I played with him a lot.

I had the third generation, maybe a second generation. Do you remember the Constructicons? I think is what it's called. It was like construction equipment like Bulldozer. They were yellow and purple and they were bad guys and they each transformed. Were they in the Transformers world? Oh yeah, they were Decepticons.

And they would, but they would all transform into one huge thing, so it was like Voltron. That was awesome. So you had to collect each one and then when you got all of them, you could create a huge robot. Did you do this successfully? Oh yeah, man.

I would have never been capable of that. I posed the hell out of that guy. Before I- I would set never been capable of that. I posed the hell out of that guy. Before I- I would set him up and let him lay. Yeah, I mean, before I got to, one of them would have broken too significantly before I was able to collect all of them and put them together.

Look at the picture, man. Okay, I remember that guy. That's a lot, I mean, one, two, three, four, five, there's at least six guys in there. And I also had- That's cool, man. Go bots. No, you didn, That's cool, man. Go bots. No you didn't.

Yeah, I did. You had the cheap stepchild of Transformers. And they were, They had a cartoon too. Now the interesting thing is, so I was looking these up, because I was like, what were those called? And I just put in Transformers rip offs.

And I got a list of the 10 worst Transformers rip offs. See if you remember any of these, because I only remember GoBots. GoBots is number 10. And they were all, don't you remember, they made the same thing. We're looking at this picture of- Oh wow, a lot of cars made a man.

I just remember that- I didn't play in the GoBot world, man. I was loyal. Like super simple cars that became this other guy. Now, there was also Roboforce. Nope, never heard of it. Convertors. Never heard of it.

Zybots. Z-Y-bots? Yeah, Stariorz, like Stariorz, like warriors but with a star. It's a cool name. Roadbots. Roadbots? No. Robotron. Nope. Road bots. Road bots? No. Robo-tron.

Nope. Mysterians. Nope. Rocks and bugs and things. Are you reading an ad now? No, no. Skip it. No, that's it. Transforming things.

Oh. And then rock lords that turned into rocks. Yeah, that's sadly derivative and just sad. It transforms into a rock, give me a break. The Transformers were amazing, but the funny thing is, I never watched the television show or the movie and the movie is like a cult classic. The original.

Yeah, and they talk about it in the Netflix series. Well, I don't know if I wanna, of course I can spoil it, right? Spoiler alert, if you wanna watch the amazing Transformers movie, which I personally still have not seen, then mute right now, because I'm about to say Optimus Prime dies.

He dies. You talking about the one made in the 80s that was like stop motion? Yeah, oh yeah, the animated movie in the 80s. I'm not talking about the Michael Bay. Yeah, yeah, Like stop motion? Yeah, oh yeah, the animated movie. Oh, animated. I'm not talking about the Michael Bay. Yeah, yeah, I know that. Well, I wanted to ask you because I have a theory. So my favorite toys were what I call

the subversive category of toys. What? Garbage Pail Kids. Oh. And then Mad Balls. I do not know what a Mad Ball is. Oh, you don't know what a Mad Ball, Mad Balls were probably my favorite toy that I had.

Because Garbage Pail Kids were like baseball cards but they were demented children who all had like something nasty about them. Yeah, don't you remember these Madballs? They were. Oh, you're talking about like a, it's like a. It's like a kush ball but it's.

It's like a. It's a monster's head and my favorite one was the eyeball. It's a smushable ball that you can throw that's like made of like that smushing material but not the stress material that we have today. It was perfect for me because it was a ball. So it was this thing that- Super gross.

It was gross and it was like a character, but it was also a ball that could be thrown, it could be thrown at Smurfs. If they can kill a Smurf, Rhett's into it. You could wipe out a horde of Smurfs with one Madball. You're like a homicidal maniac with the Smurfs, man. No, no, I'm just supposed to get. What do you got against Smurfs?

They're easy targets, man. They're just sitting there looking so happy. They need to have their world ruined from time to time. You are Gargamel. You are. I love Gargamel. Yes, you are him incarnate. I always connected with the darker characters. Gargamel's a cat guy though. Well, he's him incarnate. I always connected with the darker characters.

Gargamel's a cat guy though. Well he's got his flaws. He's not perfect. But did you have, you didn't have Madballs because you didn't know about it, but did you have Garbage Pail Kids? I had Garbage Pail Kids but I didn't feel good about it. Right, so my theory was is that those things

that were a little bit, that were darker, you moved away from and were like, I don't know, that's real trashy. It was twisted, man, it made me feel. But what were you afraid of, what was gonna happen? And we didn't talk about this. The funny thing is is that we were best friends and we spent a lot of time together but.

It felt. You didn't talk about your feelings about Garbage Pail Kids. Yeah, let's get into the finer points about what's your hangup with Garbage Pail. I mean, I'm surprised that was your friend. I never went to your house and saw you decimate Smurfs because that would have been the end.

I didn't, again, that was something I did on my own. Rhett, I was a sweet, tender child. And again, you've seen me at the Magic Castle. I'm just, I'm pure, man. But I still mess things up, you know, it's. Like, I mean mean you look at. They're back too by the way, I'm sure. Garbage Pail Kids had a resurgence.

Look at Barf and Barbara. She's literally vomiting into the thing she's cooking on the stove. It's pretty awesome. They're so great, you know, and you can have that and it was. Tell me another one, tell me another one. We got Choking Cooper.

Oh gosh. What the crap? Choking Cooper is being constricted by a large snake. He's dying. Yeah, he's dying. He's being killed by a snake. Vincent Van Gone. Oh, this is a kid who has cut his own ear off. Just like Vincent Van Gogh.

Oh my gosh. Shepherd would love this. Sharp Shawl. A kid whose ridiculously large teeth have punctured his own face. The people who come up with this are the type of people, well, they're like you. Big hearted Beverly is hugging two boys so hard

that they are suffocating. That is so wrong, man. Oh, smiling Stan, that's just Stan Lee. Stan Lee was a garbage pet? No, that is a reissue, I believe, or that may just be a Photoshop. Oh yeah, Paris embarrassed. Yeah, see.

We got into these. Yeah, you got into some modern takes, some meme-ified Garbage Pail Kids. But like Drippy Debbie. I did have them because a lot of people had them at school and I felt in order to be cool, I had to at least represent. For me, there was just something about things that were.

You're exactly right. You know, we were in such a, I mean, we were in the world of kids, you know, and you wanna subvert that a little bit just to feel alive. See, the thing that I, I think the last toys that I ever had were my WWF, now WWE, I guess, action, well, they're not action figures, they were not poseable, they were like made of, they were thick and they were made of rubber

and they didn't move. But you could buy the wrestling ring and I had a lot of those. Yeah and those were very cool, they were very big. And here's the thing, toys back then, I remember I would go to Sky City and I put my bridge layer, my G.I. Joe bridge layer on layaway and I'd pay like $4 at a time until I could spend the $30

to bring it home. But I'd also go there and buy, whenever I went, I would look to see what wrestlers they had. It was hard to get toys. Like the whole collecting thing, it was very difficult because it was all about local inventory. And they may not have the one you want. Oh yeah, so I never had any good wrestlers.

I never had Macho Man, I never had Hulk Hogan. I mean, I would just go and be so desperate to get a wrestler, I'd buy a crappy wrestler like Bruno San Martino. Like, I'm not saying he's a crappy wrestler, but for a guy, I mean like, he didn't, I never saw that guy wrestle. He was like a, like, he's an old school wrestler

that for some reason, for nostalgia's sake, they made. I didn't know who he was but I bought him because I needed to buy a wrestler. There's always like Todd Johnson, like a guy who's just wearing like a singlet. Well no, they were all legitimate wrestlers but I never owned Hulk Hogan or Andre the Giant. Really, wow.

Because they didn't exist and there was no Amazon. So nowadays, I mean there's a resurgence in all these toys for adults because we wanna, the experience I'm having right now is the reason why you can go on eBay and you can buy a Skeletor or a Hulk Hogan, I never got that Hulk Hogan, I'ma get it now, I'ma put it on my desk, man. That kind of thing.

You know, there's a booming business of collectibles for that stuff, there's that place in Pasadena, you know, where they have like the glass closets and they've got all the collectible stuff in it. But it's not like, yeah my kids could get anything they wanted, yet they don't want any of it because it can't compete with the endless supply of digital screenage, man. Well okay, so I wanted to talk a little bit about

the toys that weren't screen based that our kids had because I think that there's a lot of crossover here between our kids. Yeah. And some of these things are in common with what we had. Nerf. We had Nerf. But for us, Nerf was, for me,

Nerf was mostly just a Nerf football. That was what I thought of as Nerf. I didn't have, that I recall, any Nerf guns. I had, at Nan and Papa's house, we had a bunch of blasters, they call them. Oh, we did have the ones that shot the little suction cups. Mm-hmm.

And now the Nerf blasters, I mean, there was a point at which I actually- Arsenals. I built a- An arsenal. I built this giant, I got some of that stuff that you put in your shop so you can hang up tools. With the holes in it, yeah. With the holes in it and I built it

and put it on Locke's wall so that he could have all his Nerf blasters just ready for the taking. And he and Lincoln wanted to start a channel where they reviewed Nerf guns because that was a thing for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So that was something that they, and it was super active, I mean you can

draw your own conclusions or have your own opinions about whether or not it's good for kids to have fake guns. But the next thing was Legos. But they had a lot of that and it was super active. They all had Legos. And we did too. Legos is like, that is amazing how the staying power that they have, I mean I think it's through the licensing

of all the movies and whatnot. Well and in my house, there's still to this day is just a couple of giant bins of Legos. At your house there's a bunch of bins of Legos but they're like meticulously organized. Actually not anymore. Really, there's times when I would come over to your house and your kids would have every color organized

in a different bin and building something specific. I passed the disease along. But now what we do is, Lando's the only one who still plays with him and we'll lay out a bedspread and we'll dump out the bin on it and then he'll start playing. But the last time he did that, it broke my heart because when I dumped out the thing in the bottom,

there were like 85% complete sets that I remember putting together with Lincoln, I don't know, six years ago, and then they were in the bottom of this bin just like eroding, and I just, I couldn't take it. But Lando didn't care, and he was just playing with all of them, and we don't buy anymore. He's eight, he's getting out take it. But Lando didn't care and he was just playing with all of them and we don't buy anymore. He's eight, he's getting out of it.

Right, well some people don't, some people stay on. Beyblades. Yeah they play with those. That was cool. Like Locke was so into Beyblades. Explain what it is. So basically it's a, I believe that it may have been a TV show first.

I don't think so. It ended up becoming a TV show. Anyway, it is these spinning tops that you rip, you pull this rip cord to start spinning the tops and the two Beyblades go into an arena and battle each other and the first one to stop spinning loses. And like you would get, you'd get a collection of Beyblades. He played it with his cousins, he played it with me.

You know, that was something that we got into a lot. I just remember him as like a four year old, Bey-bey, Bey-bey, Bey-bey, he wanted them so bad. That was a cool toy. Yeah. Cause it was competition that you had to pull a ripcord at least, you gotta work out. That's a very like 80s style toy. Yeah. Because it was competition, you had to pull a ripcord at least, you gotta work out. That's a very like 80s style toy. Yeah.

That's completely, the whole deal is analog and very tangible. Beyblades, Beyblades, let it rip. And they were into that. And then they, and I think Lincoln had the same thing. And the funny thing is is like, Shepard really didn't care about Beyblades because the difference between a 14 year old

and a 10 year old even, 13 and eight or nine, is that our youngest two kids kind of came up with, screens were a bigger part of their playtime than for our older kids who had more of those tangible toys. Yeah. Because we never did, you know, Shepard has Legos, but he doesn't play with them as much as Locke did and he doesn't have any Beyblades.

He played with the Nerf Blasters, but not as much as Locke did. They also had those Spider-Man wrist things that could shoot stuff. But again, here's the thing. Like yeah, they had those gimmicky one-off toys like the modern day version of the Hulk hands. You put the big Hulk hand over your hand,

you smash it together, it says Hulk smash. But that's not a line of action figures. That's not a robust world of toys that then you could watch a cartoon or a movie about, you know, or create your own. I mean, it wasn't an immersive type thing. I was trying to search for that. I was like, what action figures exist now?

I think that's what I Googled. And then Google told me- What'd you learn? Just Marvel movie stuff. I mean, just movie action figures, basically. But it's not a big deal. Like if you walk down a toy aisle, you'll see Infinity War poseable characters,

but it's not, it's derivative, you know? It's like, it's not the main thing. Of course the Star Wars toys are still around, so those are action figures now. But the magic is gone, man. But the action figures, if it's just an action figure that doesn't do anything, if it doesn't shoot something, if it doesn't light up,

if it's not part of some AR experience, then it really, beyond collecting, you're basically just in the world of collecting things. And there's only so many kids who care about that. And I mean, the pristine example of collecting things now are these pop figures, which all my kids, I think Lily and Lincoln are finally getting out of it, but still, and this kind of goes into adulthood,

like if you really like a property, you wanna have that thing sitting around. And if you're my kids, you don't wanna take it out of the box. You know, you have the Hawkman pop figure, somebody sent that to you. Actually, I have a bunch of Hawkman figurines, you know, different versions of him

that people have sent me in our office. They want to have a physical representation of their best screen experience. So Toys just fills that slot. It's like, what can I have in the real world that represents my jam, which is the screen world. But they don't spend time posing or doing voices for, playing, they don't play with them, they just lay there.

There's probably some kids out there who are doing it. They display them and that's it. Well and one of the things that kind of ties into this is it's not just about screens, because I wanna talk about how we counteract that a little bit with some of the tangible toys. But it definitely is the death of retail is a big part of this.

So obviously this is the year that Toys R Us went under for good. And at least, do they still have a website? Or is it, I don't know. But the retail, all the stores closed. And I would have thought, okay, well, they closed because of Amazon, right? They're being impacted in the same way

that lots of retail stores are, and that's true. They're being impacted by online shopping. But it wasn't, it didn't follow suit that all the purchases that were taking place in retail moved online because year over year in September, Nerf was down 30% and this is largely attributed to the death of Toys R Us. Okay, so they still have.

A website. A website. But because there is something about being in the presence of toys going to, we used to go to Brindle's, we talked about that. Yeah. Brindle's was a weird department store that had, for some reason, my dad had decided that Brindle's

is where we get toys for the boys. And lawn care equipment. You get anything there, it was kind of like a Sears. And, but there's something about going and seeing it, picking it up, picking it up in the package, that is a completely different experience than just looking at something on the internet. I mean, we experienced the beginning of this.

I remember going, the change. I remember going to Toys R Us, and instead of walking down the toy aisle, I would go straight for the Nintendo and Sega aisle. And what they would have is they had retrofitted aisles that used to have toys on them and it would have, it was flat and it was like laminated cards, you remember this?

That you'd flip up and you could look at what would be the front packaging of the video game and then if you flipped it up you could read what would be the back of the packaging of the video game but it wasn't, it was a representation of it where you could read about it in person and then they had locked cabinets where if you got some, you're like, I want Street Fighter II.

Yes, it cost $75 in 1990 whatever it was. I mean, late 80s. But I'm gonna get that and then they pull it out of a glass case and give it to you. It was just like, it was laminated flappers. And they dedicated a whole long row of Toys R Us for that. And that was the beginning of the downfall.

It's like, well, yeah, I can read flappers on the internet. Once the internet happens, yeah. I think the operable question is, but what do we do with our kids at this point? You know, it's like, I feel like Lily, she's 15, she's basically not a child. Locke's not that type of a child,

they're not a toy child, they're gone. Lincoln's gone. It's really just Lando and Shepard. I mean, so with Locke, in fact. We failed them. I was talking with Locke the in fact. We failed them. I was talking with Locke the other day. You know, he's playing basketball.

He's taking, you know, these difficult courses or whatever. He's got this AP course. And he was like, we were talking about Red Dead Redemption 2 coming out. And he was like, I mean, first of all, he didn't play the first one. He didn't play games that much, but he was like, I'm never gonna play that because I don't play video games.

He's like, I honestly don't have any time. He's like, I do homework, I practice basketball, and I do some social stuff, but it's just like, there's not a place for video games in my life anymore. Like, I've been feeling that way for 20 years but and he's probably a little exceptional because they play so much basketball. Right, like yeah, Lincoln's big into the games

that he plays on Xbox. But it's like, I feel like with the older ones, it's kinda like, okay, they've kinda got their thing. Again, once you- Whether they play video games or not, they're kinda on this track, they're gonna do what they want to do. Once you're eight or nine, you really don't play with toys anymore.

I'm feeling this a lot with Shepard, who's 10, and right now, as was evidenced by the call from my wife, she's out of town. I am taking care of the boys by myself. I don't even know where they're at right now. No, someone's watching them right now. But. He-Man would know.

I am, you know, I've got Shepard and. The perfect specimen of muscularity and masculinity. He would know if he were a dad. Locke is. He's sterile though. Is taking, you know, Locke's got all his stuff figured out, but Shepard is like, just wants to be on screens, man.

He just wants to play games. Yeah. Roblox is his thing, on the computer, or be watching something, and I'm like, and he has a limit on each one of those, and I'm like, Shepard, okay, time's up. You have to do something else. And I'm like, go outsideard, okay, time's up. You have to do something else. And I'm like, go outside.

Now, first of all, it's not like it was when we grew up. I can't just say go outside and roam the neighborhood. You're basically, you're confined to our yard. But what if we said, yeah, because Lando is a similar situation. The different, the thing with Lando though, he's very craft oriented. He's very like inventive and artistic.

And you know, basically that boils down to being obsessed with slime. Like he loves slime, because he makes it from scratch. And he makes all different types, and he looks at the videos on how to make the different types. But he also does other art projects as well. And so he's not as screen oriented, maybe as how you're describing Shepard,

but still, it's very much, it's so much easier just to turn to the screen. We have to get him on his projects and get him all his materials. But I'm wondering, what if we kill two birds with one stone? Go on eBay, start buying all these vintage toys to like restart my collection. I can't believe I sold all my GI Joes

in a big cardboard box at a yard sale in my nanny's front yard for like 20 bucks. I sold my entire, I sold them all except for Medic and Gung Ho, my two favorites. And I still have Medic. I still have both of them. Right. But all the others I got rid of. Medic is in the Medic. I still have both of them. Right. But all the others I got rid of.

Medic is in the books. So I'm gonna collect all of them and I'm gonna say that it's so that Lando can experience toys but that's really not the truth. But that's a side benefit. We're gonna play together with toys. My toys. I think that's a bad plan.

I don't think that's gonna work. Well I was getting kind of excited about it. Thanks for crapping all over it. Well I think that's a bad plan. I don't think that's gonna work. Well I was getting kind of excited about it. Thanks for crapping all over it. Well I think that you just, I mean first of all, if Lando is, can I get He-Man? Really into the crafty stuff, you just keep giving him more opportunities to do that. If he can occupy himself with that.

But I think he could get into He-Man, She-Ra, Tila, Cobra Khan. I don I think he could get into He-Man, She-Ra, T-La, Cobra Khan. I don't think he will. I think he might observe you doing it. That would be an interesting study of his father. Okay, Lando, get off the screen. You're gonna watch me play with He-Man again.

Play with He-Man. I could bring some Smurfs over. Rhett's coming over with his Smurf victims. Yeah, I could teach your kids how to kill Smurfs. That's kinda funny. Let's get out the blowtorch and burn some. Let's have play dates. Just me and you?

No, with the boys. Okay, all right. They're almost too old for this, but. I'll bring Lion-O. Let's have a play date. Who was the blue Thundercat? I actually liked him more. He was voiced by the dad on Cosby Show.

Remember when we found that out a couple of years ago? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By Cliff's dad or by Claire's dad. I think it was Claire's dad was the voice of the bald, he was more of the tech guy. He was like what Donatello was to the Ninja Turtles. Oh, and I actually think after wrestlers, by the way, I think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the last toys that I actually collected.

I never got into them. And those are still around. That's an action figure set and a world that still exists for younger kids and I think that may be what I'm looking for. Well I think what I'm looking for is I was looking at the. He-Man was nuts though man. If you don't know about these characters,

they're all so ridiculous because they were invented from thin air by a toy company. Here's my theory and I think you talking about the crafty stuff is what is giving me this theory because there's like, we've done a couple of things like robot kits and the sciency kit kind of thing. That's a big no. And Shepard gets into those.

It's partly my fault and partly my wife's fault. We're not patient and so if it's partly my fault and partly my wife's fault. We're not patient. And so if it's just like, can you help me with this? Can you help me make this slime thing happen? If it requires me to step in, I just don't have a lot of patience. Yeah. And I'm just like, just do what I did

and just figure it out, man. Yeah, man, you don't really have to be a parent. Take some Smurfs and murder them. Yeah. But in looking- You're basically trying to be to be a parent. Take some Smurfs and murder them. Yeah. But in looking- You're basically trying to be an 80s parent. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, my parents didn't pay attention to me.

I don't wanna pay attention to my kids. Parents nowadays, ironically, there is an expectation that parents are supposed to play with the kids. Guys, you're too involved. That didn't happen in the 80s. Let the kids be free. Learn some stuff on their own.

That didn't happen in the 80s. Let the kids be free. Learn some stuff on their own. But I'm looking at the toy insider hot list for 2018. What is it? Well, first of all, I'm gonna skip a lot of these because they're just dumb. Now, okay, Shepard has a Nintendo Switch and this Labo stuff, you can make all this crap.

But then you're still, you're building a steering wheel and a gas pedal out of cardboard, but then you're playing a video game. Don't fall for that. Well, okay. You're still playing a screen. But the time, the crafty time that goes into building that, that's pretty interesting.

Well. Okay, first of all, there's a freaking game you can play with your Amazon Alexa called Win in Rome, and Alexa keeps score. That's cool, I read about that because people from various regions give quizzes from where they are in their own accents and you play with your family.

I think board games and like family-based or party-based games, those are still happening. And I think that's a very important aspect of toys that still exist and that I'm personally passionate about. But I'm getting to the thing, along the way I wanna point out a couple things. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Epic Sewer Layer Playset.

That's bigger than my mobile command set. This is giant, it's taller than this child. That's very 80s. Child's on his knees, right? Yeah, well, I think you kinda ruined it. It's got a slide and Michelangelo is coming down the slide on a skateboard, it's pretty awesome. That's pretty throwback.

But the thing that I saw that I was interested in that looked like a combination of a lot of things was this last one when I get to it. This, the Thrill Rides Bionic Blast Rollercoaster Building Set. Oh wow, okay, well. Okay, so this has a couple of things, right? Looks like Tinker Toys. It has, you have the ability to build the rollercoaster.

And you put a marble on it? No, you put a coaster on it. A coaster? No marbles involved, man. Because for many years, there was a marble run thing that you could build like that. But then it's included, included is a cardboard VR viewer, which I guess you hook up to your,

you put your phone in there. No, no, no, listen, because this gets them in because it's still about screens. Because now they can look at it from the perspective of the roller coaster and then you see it and you ride the thing that you just built. I think that the future is can you bring, and that's why I got-

It's like roller coaster tycoon Sims in the real world. That's why I like the Labo stuff because it's based on the fact that they've got this interest already in video games and screens, but it's bringing them out into the real world into some sort of tangible analog experience. Can I have that whenever Shepard's done with it after two days?

Well yeah, we're gonna do it and then I'm gonna put a bunch of Smurfs on it and we're gonna run those Smurfs over with the car. So you're gonna teach him a life lesson. So you're gonna eBay Smurfs? Thinking about it. You're joking. You're not gonna do the Smurf part.

But that's just, Don't get my hopes up. But that's something that, you know, sure, once he builds it and plays with it a few times, eh, we'll bring it to your house, but. And then it won't have all the pieces. But at least next time I'm like, Shepard. Can I use it first? I guarantee you we'll keep all the pieces,

then Shepard can have it. It'll be like mint condition. No, no, I mean, you can buy it and give it to me if you wanna do that. I'm not gonna buy it so your family can have it first. That's ridiculous. I mean, I might get it for your family can have it first. That's ridiculous. I might get it for your kids as a Christmas present. Since when have you bought my kids a Christmas present?

Every year. No you haven't. Yes I have. Why did you buy them last year? There's a bunch of Smurfs. No you didn't. We get your kids birthday presents. And that's the kind of thing that we.

Hold on, do I give your kids birthday presents? Our wives handle that, man. But yes. They have hearts. They have feelings. They care about our kids' futures. You know, we're kinda just along for the ride. Not true, we care about our kids' futures, gosh! What is, so what, all right,

let's go into conclusion zone. You're gonna buy Shepard a VR-based Tinker toy set. Well, I'm gonna go. And call it a day. I'm saying that I feel like. I'm gonna resurrect my He-Man collection. No, I'm gonna buy more toys. I'm gonna get more toys for the kids because I actually want to get them toys

so they'll get off of screens. And if there's a transitional moment where they have to use toys that also use screens, then so be it. You're not, just for Shepard. Locke's, he's gone. Whatever I screwed up with Locke is done. Right.

You know what I'm saying? His personality is set. Me too. The trauma is locked in. You know, he is who he's gonna be. Right, but those younger, Lando and Shepard, they're gonna have some muscular toys. Shepard got a couple more years of malleability. It's really ages three through five

that you have to worry about, and that's over for us. We've blown it. I wish I had read a book about parenting. Oh gosh, I miss toys, man. I just want, I wanna be a child. This is not about my kids. Who am I kidding? What happened to toys?

That was the question that we were answering. They're done, they're over. They became digital, man. They went on a screen. They are gone. Yeah. With rare exception. It's just for weird people who go to coffee shops.

I love family board games. I love tabletop games and I love party games. Those are an exception. Not what we've been talking about. But the quintessential action figure world is gone. And I mourn it. We'll speak at you again next week. Thanks for hanging out with us and let us know,

hashtag Ear Biscuits, what toy you were obsessed with as a kid. And what toys your kids are playing with right now. Maybe there's something that we should be getting for our kids who are still of the toy age and you can tell us what we should get them. Yeah, let's do it. We'll talk at you next week because we love you so much.

Yeah.