Factually! with Adam Conover - The Secret History of Theme Parks with Defunctland

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

Theme park rides stand as one of the few forms of popular entertainment that can vanish with no way to experience them once again. So, how can such a cherished art form be preserved? Kevin Perjurer, the creative mind behind Defunctland, has made it his business to document the fleeting nature of theme parks, both the good and the bad. In this episode, Adam and Kevin discuss how theme parks shape the cultures that give rise to them, the extent to which our own history is molded and packaged for our entertainment, and the pivotal role YouTube historians play in dismantling the everyday myths we tell ourselves.SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAboutHeadgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creatingpremium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy toachieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to ourshows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgumSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me once again as I talk to an incredible expert about all the amazing things they know that I don't know and that you might not know. Now, I'm on record as being a big critic of the tech companies, including YouTube, the company whose website I'm publishing

this very podcast on. But at the same time, I have to acknowledge that YouTube has helped foster new forms of media, new forms of expression that have never existed before. And some of them are really cool. You know, I love mukbangs.

Unboxing videos can be great. I don't love those videos where a Shibu Inu illustration in a fedora complains about feminism, but that's okay. There are other forms like the video essay that I think are just

incredible displays of artistry, entertainment, and education. And you know, it would be better if there was a site other than YouTube where you could watch these videos and where creators could make money. It would be nice if we didn't live under a single company monopoly for online video, but we'll save that for another intro. This new genre of YouTube documentary is incredible because it often gives space for investigations that simply could not be done anywhere else.

And my guest today definitely falls into that camp. His name is Kevin Perjurer, and he runs the YouTube channel Defunctland, which has a fascinating focus on, in his words, the history of extinct theme parks and themed entertainment experiences. And the results aren't just addictively entertaining. It's also a really impressive example of fan culture as scholarship. Kevin covers his topic with a depth that you really cannot imagine until you see it, doing genuine historical analysis and original research.

I'm just such a fan of what he does, and I am thrilled to have him on the show today. But before we get to that interview, I want to remind you that if you want to support this channel, you can do so on Patreon. Just five bucks a month gets you every episode of the show ad-free. You can join our community Discord. We even do a live book club over Zoom.

It's so much fun. Patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Hope to see you there. And if you love stand-up comedy, just a reminder that I am on tour. Head to adamconover.net for all my tickets and tour dates, especially if you're in St. Louis or Providence, Rhode Island. Now to today's interview. In addition to publishing this podcast in audio form, we also do a YouTube version where you can watch me talk face-to-face with my guest of the week. But Kevin is a faceless creator. He has not revealed his visage to the public, and we respect that here.

So what we've come up with is a really cool little animation that will represent him to you rather than showing you his actual human meat face. I think you're really going to enjoy it. I know you're going to love this conversation with him. So please welcome Defunctland's Kevin Pergerer. Kevin, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks so much for having me. I'm such a fan of what you do. The depth of the depth, breadth and interest level of the documentaries that you put out on YouTube are unmatched, even though they're about some of the most specific subjects I have ever seen

anyone cover. You're just, I think, one of the most fascinating documentarians working in the medium. Just tell me, first of all, why theme parks? Why the world of Disney? What fascinates you about this topic that makes you want to make two hour long documentaries on the history of the line systems at Disney World. Yeah, well, I appreciate the kind words. I have so many reasons as to why I find this aspect of culture fascinating. The artistic reason is the creatives behind these theme parks, and we also discussed television shows,

and just medium probably related to children's entertainment or highly themed entertainment. I just I really enjoy. And I think it's done by people that are often overlooked from a creative aspect. You know, these are still, you know, artists making incredible work. And in the case of theme parks, Disney theme parks, universal theme parks, you know, you also get the best sculptors in the world and all sorts of weird trades. You also get the best sculptors in the world and all sorts of weird trades. And then from like a cultural level, I just think they're an incredible lens to look at history through, a very interesting and accessible lens.

And yeah, I just think they're a great entry point into many, many topics related to modern history and pop culture. Is there something about your personal history though, that drew you to, uh, Disney or, or theme parks? I mean, like, let me just say for myself personally, I'm not a Disney guy. I generally do not enjoy theme parks that much. I hate rides. I've thrown up on every ride I've ever been on from a very young age through adulthood. If I were to go on a ride now, I would be sick for three days. Um, I hate being in lines. There's things about it I enjoy. I'm a Nintendo guy. I'm a video game guy. If I were to make my version of your channel,

it would be about the history of Tingle from the Legend of Zelda games or whatever. And by the way, there's plenty of people doing that on YouTube, so I don't need to. But I sense a kindred spirit in the way that you dive into these topics. What is it about Disney specifically, though, for you? Well, Disney is fascinating because they invented the modern theme park in Disneyland,

and then they made multiple variations of it that were then replicated by other theme parks. I mean, in the medium of theme parks, they are the leader, and they still are. They're now being challenged aggressively by other major mega corporations which is interesting uh in modern you know today even and soon to be with with different companies but from a history level in the past 70 years it's been disney and so you have to if you really love theme parks this idea of this weird place that is highly intricately detailed to specific concepts, you gravitate towards Disney because they invented it, at least what we refer to it as today. There were theme parks before Disney, but not in the modern sense. But is it something that you had formative experiences with at a young age? Um, you know, I did go to Walt Disney world a couple of times. I'm from Kansas city.

And so I went twice, you know, throughout my youth and I went to Disneyland a few times. We're right in the middle, but my local theme park, my local, my local amusement park, I should say is a world's a fun, um, which is not at the scale of disneyland or walt disney world so they were always these distant concepts to me and i think maybe you know the origin story that i could derive is you know i would go the few times i did and they'd be years apart and things would be different and things that i remembered would be gone or things that i had heard about uh wouldn't be there or things wouldn't be out yet and so that probably drove a little bit of the fascination of wait you can just close a ride and never reopen it that's

it shouldn't be allowed and so that was a whole world full of full of people and animatronic animals and now they're all gone yeah you just destroy it it's i mean and that's that's why i gravitate so much toward theme parks especially the defunctness of it. Because, you know, you can't destroy a movie. You can try. You can try to erase a movie from existence. But it's really difficult to not be able to experience a film or music. But once that ride's gone, you're not riding it again.

So it's very temporary. Yeah, and the fact that they can become defunct is so defining to them. And that is part of the defining idea of your channel, Defunctland. That is where what it got started was not just exploring the history of theme parks, but exploring the sort of dead spaces or the parts of them that had fallen away. Yeah. There is something like really spooky and mysterious about that that we're really drawn to about the paths not taken or the paths that were taken and then discarded the places that you can no longer go there's there's like a little bit of there there's something that draws us to that like and i think that's part of what draws me to your work even though again i'm not

a disney guy it's like finding that absolutely yeah the i mean it's like that nostalgia in its truest dictionary definition of that painting that we you know not the current nostalgia that we think of when we're thinking of you know trying to recreate movies from the 80s and and that pop culture nostalgia but that that weird painting it's gone and i have a very specific weird feeling about it and you know that can range from scary of oh my gosh there's a ride and it it's closed and the animatronics are behind a wall and they're just sitting there in the dark and then also just sad and i mean it's a range of emotions and the reasons that they close are so often tied to non-theme park history reasons and that allows me to talk about those.

So, and let me just say, before we get into that piece of it, I think nostalgia gets a bad rap in society because it's often peddled as, as, uh, as you say, you know, just talking about, Oh, you know, here's a movie about all the shit you remember from the eighties and it's back again and blah, blah, blah. Um, and there's, there's certainly that cheap version of it. you know, here's a movie about all the shit you remember from the 80s and it's back again and blah, blah, blah. And there's certainly that cheap version of it. You know, I can go watch the Super Mario movie and say, oh, this is designed to, you know, just get my dollar because I remember this from when I was a kid. But then there's also the different feeling I get when I go into a cardboard box that I currently have in my home office that's full of old Nintendo Power magazines that I had when I was a child. And I packed that box full of those magazines

when I was 13 years old. I got the magazines when I was nine or 10. The covers are tattered. I pull them out and I feel a pain. I feel, wait, I was this person in the past. I'm no longer this person now. And here's a physical object that transports me to that time.

It's a, it's like a deep, profound, confusing, complex feeling that I, that I'm often just drawn to examine that I still don't quite know what it means. I think it's like, it's, it's a really rich experience to, to mine. And, and so I often push back a little bit when people say, oh, that's just nostalgia content. No, there's something in there. I mean, that's why fucking Marcel Proust wrote a whole, I don't know, gigantic novel cycle about his past. This is meaningful to people. And I think that's why people are drawn to your work is because they connect to it on that level. Do you feel that way? Absolutely. Yeah. And I think when you look at something like theme parks specifically, they're always tied to some experience you have with another person because they are something you most often experience as a family or with a brother or sister or a friend or someone that is close to you. And because it's a physical space that and that physical space is is very constant and in our culture at least in the past since

disneyland opened in 1955 and magic kingdom in 71 and all these parks um it's a very stagnant place which allows you to have the warm feeling of nostalgia but when it changes even slightly you get you get a different type of nostalgia where it's the same place. It's the same location. It's the same layout. But this is different. And I rode that ride with my dad. And it's not there anymore. And then why isn't there anymore? And now all of a sudden you're fascinated in the fun fact of why isn't that ride there anymore.

But there's that underlying this was a place where people went to have fun together. And so it's, you know, you get to play. And that's why I like this arena to answer fun together. And so it's, you know, you get to play. And that's why I like this arena to answer the questions. Cause I just, you just get to play with a lot of different, different emotions, which is fun. There's so much, there's so much in there happening for people. Um, and one of the things I love about what you just said, uh, an answer back about the, you can examine the reasons that things change that had nothing to do with theme parks. Uh, I love that in your work, you don't shy away from these more complex explanations.

You know, I watched your episode on, uh, the craziest party Walt Disney ever through. And, you know, you're, you have a very clear eyed view of Walt Disney, right? That he was, he was brilliant at some things. He was an awful person to the people who worked for him in other respects. And he had this penchant for grandiosity. He also was trying to – he threw this giant party partially to help destroy a burgeoning employee union, which is like wrapped up in the history of labor in Hollywood, which is something I'm intimately involved in. And you, I'm, you know, frankly amazed by, you know, the degree of historical breadth and clear-eyed view that you have in your work. I'm so curious, you know, how do you, how do you pull the sources together for these pieces? You know, like,

I imagine some of it is, what is your research process for a piece like that? Well, it's different every time, and it depends on what the hook is. So if it's about a ride that will lead me down a certain path, and if it's about something abstract like a party that's even more specific or, you know, as an event, you have to find information on that. So,

I mean, if there's books, that's a great place to start. Obviously there are people that write about this stuff. Um, in the case of like Walt Disney throwing that party and the labor disputes, Walt Disney had multiple biographies that those people had access to archives that are not accessible to me.

And then newspapers, archives, auctions. I mean. And then newspapers, archives, auctions. I mean, it's just what I, what I find most fun is taking and creating the narrative that is true and exists, but you have to piece it together.

And so I'll find that someone in 2013 auction something off in that had a descriptor on the auction that explains something. And you'd mentioned the, the strike party episode. And I remember in that episode, there was an auction site that archived a previous auction from like 10 years ago, but it had a blurb about the party because it was a brochure from the party. So, okay, well now I have a brochure that they handed out to the employees before they went to the party. And this gave me six pieces of information that will make great story beats or, or character moments or, you know,

just more color for the story. And so it's, it's, it's a lot of weird avenues like that, but it's always, it's always fun. Um, that's probably one of my most favorite parts is,

is actually going to create the story because my favorite stories to tell in the documentary space especially in the way that i do them which is very ken burns style or it's narration based most of the time um although we've done other things um is that is that the most interesting thing to do is to take something that's never been there it's not you can't go read the article that has the beginning middle and, and end to what I'm telling you. I created that. Everything in it is real. Everything in it is true and has sources and has proof. But the actual, I'm going to start the story here. It's going to talk about this person here, and it's going to end here. That's really exciting to me. Yeah. I mean, there's so many pieces of what you do that is real historical work.

I mean, I spoke with a historian on an episode of Adam Ruins Everything who was on set with me years ago. And this man was an actual academic historian. And he pointed out to me like the difference between what people think of as history and the real work of a historian. Because people think of history as like, oh, there's just someone like telling you the story of George Washington that you've already heard, but they've written like a new book about it. He's like, no, actual history is finding new information about what happened in the past. A, like literally turning it up, finding new things we did not know that happened in history. And then B, you know, combining that with what we already know and telling the story, not just in a new way but telling an actually

new story that we didn't realize. A story that's hopefully truer and more accurate or at the very least a different version than what we've already heard. And then C is presentation of course. You go to the average bookstore and you pull off a biography off the shelf

it's just of whatever founding father that's just, uh, you know, whatever founding father, that's just someone who wrote a new book about the same old shit, but actually going through and finding, Hey, I found a new primary source or I found a new, you know, uh, actual information, uh, is, is something else entirely. And, you know, by the way, I put myself in the more basic category when I do history, most of the time I'm like adding – I'm working off the work of other people and making it funny and hopefully making it more accessible. I have utmost respect for people who actually go and do the primary research as you so often do. I'd love to talk about your episode about the history of the Disney Channel theme, which, uh, let me be honest. I never watched

the Disney channel one time. All right. Like when I, when those episodes that you're talking about were on, I was a little bit too old. I, you know, I was like, uh, I was outside of the demo for that. So Raven, you know, um, and yeah, I was trying to the demo for that. So Raven, what, what, what you're never outside of the demo for that. So Raven, what you're never outside of the demo for that so and by the oh it was an excellent show and i and i met raven simone in a party once recently and i was awestruck okay because um incredible person uh but you know at the time that was not my childhood right my childhood was was the internet and video games um and uh nickelodeon some years earlier but um but i i i accessed so quickly that you know the fascination that people had with this little four note melody um and you

actually went and found the person who composed it which is something we actually did not know and in so doing uncovered uh not just a whole bunch of really fascinating broadcast history which really interests me but like uh god you you had stuff to say about the nature of creativity itself in that piece um and uh i'm curious if you went into it knowing that that was where it was going to take you or with an inkling of that or did those themes uh you know of high art versus low art commercial art versus you know uh youtube versus documentary all those themes coming together um did you have an inkling of that or did it develop as you were making the piece uh yes it definitely developed it was it was the opposite it was supposed to be something short that i could get out 20 minutes that i could be

done with because i was working on another bigger project that I'm still working on. And I just thought, well, I just got to get something out this year or just something short. Let's do a 20, 30 minute thing on this Disney Channel four note mnemonic. It'll be super simple. And my idea was I'll find the person that made this. Can't be that hard. That was not true, but I'll find the person that made this. Can't be that hard. That was not true. But I'll find the person that made it. I'll interview them and ask them all of these intense questions about their thought process and their creativity. And then their response would be,

I don't remember. It was 20 years ago. It's four notes. And it would be a funny punchline. And that was the hypothesis or that was my first draft as I went on working on it. And when I get lucky, because all documentarians in my mind get lucky, the only way you can find the best stories are getting super, super lucky. And the more initial 20-minute version, I look back and I'm like, that would be a terrible video.

And it wasn't supposed to be anything grand. But what happened was I eventually do find who made it. I learn about them, their philosophy. And I get to then go backward and interview people. Well, I interviewed people along the way. And it was just one of these times where the story took over and the themes took over. And then I was beholden to that because I always feel that the most important thing is you, you are most, the, the, the most important thing is the people that you're telling the story about. That's number one. That's you,

you have to respect them. You have to do them them justice even if they're a character that may be in your in your story that is not looked on correct like uh in a good light you still have to do the due diligence to make sure everything you're saying is true and fair and then the next thing you have you're beholden to is the audience and the story because it's and that was one of those times where it's like no this has to be an hour and a half even though it's about four notes because it has to be because it's asking to be and it keeps giving and that's where it gets really exciting so in a topic like this it just kept giving more and i kept getting more interested and the people that were involved kept giving me great answers and it just happened to become this thing and And then eventually I just realized while making it,

what we're talking about here is, is the working artist, the artist that is not, you know, on a mountainside painting the sunset and is doing things just for them. It's, it's what a lot of people are and a lot of what I am in some ways and what a lot of my friends are,

which is people that are working, they're artists, but they're being told what to do. They have deadlines, they're contracting all these different things. And how you grapple with, is that what you thought you were going to be doing? Is that noble? All those things. And then trying to reach a conclusion and then using the person who actually spoke on this, the person that wrote the theme had commentary on this concept and kind of integrating that all together. So it was, I wish I could just say, well, it's because I just just know i know it has to be that way but no it's

it's such an accident and i'm very lucky that the documentary gods pushed me toward making that and you know that's it was an accident as is the what it was a really long answer to say no it was not me that was a big one that was a big one i, no, I do think it was still you because I think it takes a lot of artistry and a lot of thoughtfulness to be able to see that opportunity when it comes. I mean it's such a beautiful statement on the role of the working artist. And it's – I mean the footage that you have of the people who – I don't want to spoil the end of this. People should go watch it if they haven't. But the footage that you have of the folks who worked with the composer of this theme, who's someone who, again, nobody knew his name, but people are just going,

oh my God, he was a genius. He was incredible. What an incredible creative mind, you know, was, it was so moving, right? To be able to be connected to this artist whose name I would have never known otherwise. There's some incredible surprises and payoffs. But what I love the most is you connecting it to your own process

as a documentarian on YouTube. You make a little joke early on in the video about, you know, I'm a documentarian. Oh, people are going to get mad at me in the comments and say, oh, fuck you. You're just a YouTuber. I guess I'm a YouTuber, right? I make that kind of joke all the time in my work. Um, and then at the end, you talk about that in a way that makes it clear. This is something that you actually think a lot about. Um, and you think about the role of yourself as someone who's making, you know, material for YouTube rather

than let's say for Netflix or for, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, sort of document sort of documentary. Someone might sit in a theater and watch at can or South by Southwest. Uh, and I'd love to just hear you, hear you talk a little bit about how, how do you think about that division? I mean, the work that you're doing again is such a top shelf research and analysis, and yet you're doing it in a medium that I think as someone who also publishes there, I think we can both say a lot of people don't take it seriously and be clear eyed about that. So how, how do you, how do you think about that? Well, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts. I'll, you know, I think the, the, the, the thing that I come back to when I think about that and you'll, you see it a little bit in the, in the documentary when I, when I talk about it, I really, you know, I think the thing that I come back to when I think about that, and you'll, you see it a little bit in the documentary when I talk about it.

I really, in that, in the Disney Channel documentary, only want to talk about my own personal feelings, about my own artistry and documentary to further influence the point of the person that I was trying, you know, as a tribute to this person and their artistic philosophy um that wrote the theme um me i think the hardest thing for for me and i think maybe you as well and people of our who are currently working in new media we didn't grow up looking up to new media because new media didn't really exist you know traditional media was the oh my gosh i want to have a movie in a theater i want to see the credits when the lights dim i want to to see my name, you know, I want to be on a red carpet and X, Y, and Z. Um, and, and I'm, and I know you've obviously had a lot more experience with traditional media than, than I have, but you've obviously done both and, and that you're still able to make something that is just as moving just as important it doesn't

matter medium doesn't matter and in some ways i would say that youtube and new media and podcasts and all of this allows you to hit emotions and talk to people in ways that maybe traditional media doesn't but it is that weird thing where the the the person or the artist or the the working artist or that i thought i was going to be just isn't there because and not because it's not there for anyone just because I really like what I'm doing and then that was what I was trying to get through in the doc documentary was it was like I like this I really like making documentaries on YouTube I like being able to talk about subjects that are so specific that no person in their right mind would ever greenlight them

you know for you know for a hundred million dollar project about four notes that were written 25 years ago i don't even know what that would look like but this medium allows me to make a documentary that's an hour and a half about four notes and you know who cares and then like the year before i did a documentary as you mentioned about waiting in line and that was 90 minutes and it's just who what what and and so it's trying to emphasize my gratitude to exist but also acknowledge that i didn't know this was going to exist i thought it was going to be south by southwest i thought it was going to and i thought it was going to be sundance and maybe it will be someday but the documentary was a cathartic way of expressing that

and just basically the conclusion being, it doesn't matter. As long as you're making something that's touching people and affecting people, it doesn't matter where it's showing or where you premiere it or what you personally are viewed as. It's about the product and about what you're doing with it. And so that was the conclusion. And i felt that for a long time ever since i kind of started doing youtube and saying i'm gonna do youtube instead of pursuing something else and so it was just a way of of cementing that that that that feeling but i do always love to reiterate whenever i talk about this i'm like i love being able to make stuff on youtube when When you say YouTuber though, to a random person, they're not thinking of the documentaries. They're thinking of, they're thinking of, of, of prank videos and other

things. It's a very, it's a wide breadth of content on the platform. They're thinking of kids open, they're thinking of what their kids watch, where they're opening the boxes and watching the cars go around the loop-de-loops and all that kind of thing. But I don't know. I mean, the more, the longer I do it, the more I think that that other world that I've sometimes participated in and sometimes not is, it's just, it has all the constraints that one has on YouTube, just in a different form, you know, it's, and the idea that it's a higher form is, you know is ultimately nothing but a pose. I mean, I would say that there's plenty of documentaries that cover subjects just as small.

If you look at the original documentary Catfish, right, or if you look at – what is it? Two Identical Strangers, I think is the name of the documentary, right? Yeah. Oh, documentaries about small mysteries that telescope into something larger. that telescope into something larger. You know, someone was just able to pitch that story well enough and had a history of doing documentary that they were able to pitch that to financers or, you know, whoever green-lit it and et cetera.

And people watched it because of the pledge, but it still had to conform to certain commercial expectations in the same way that, you know, if you and I are putting something on YouTube, we have to think what is the algorithm going to like? What does the audience want? How is it monetized? Let's make sure that it's, I can monetize it effectively. So I have enough, you know, working funds to make another one. Like these are all, uh, you know, the, the, the idea of a distinction, uh, uh, between high and low art here is, is somewhat like illusory.

And I think the same thing is true for the artists who you're talking about, right? Because when you look at the work being done by the, you know, theme park designers or the channel bumpers in the middle of the Disney channel, these are artists often working at the very top of their craft. And that, again, is what appealed to me about that piece. I've also always been fascinated by the bumpers between television shows. And I remember watching them going, as a kid, oh, that one is so funny and cool. And then now I'm like, oh, the bumpers aren't as funny and cool as they used to be because

we don't have cable. People aren't watching cable television anymore. What explains that burst in creativity that existed in the late 90s, you know, in kids TV? And you're actually going down that rabbit hole introducing us to those artists. Incredibly, incredibly rewarding. And, you know, there's so much more about this I want to ask you about, but we got to take a really quick break. We'll be right back with more Kevin Perger. Okay. We're back with Kevin Perger talking about his wonderful YouTube series defunct land. Um, uh, we were just talking about all of the unsung workers and artists who

make a theme park, what it is, or make any piece of commercial art what it is, how underappreciated they often are. Tell me about, you know, in theme parks, there's so many of them, which are the ones that, you know, whose stories you're most drawn to? Oh man, that's a good question. I mean, the entire concept of making theme parks is a relatively new concept. You know, the dark ride has gone back you know more than 100 years now but what we consider the modern dark ride is very new so there's a lot of artists in the in the 50s and 60s that were the trailblazers the second generation through the 80s and 90s made a lot of the rides that i love um and then you know there's still artists in this space today i'm trying to think of i mean yale gracie's illusions and pirates of the caribbean just start

name dropping imagineers you know claude coates yeah these are the these are my rock stars i guess um you know the these people that are just that you know walt disney would walk into a room and say this room in this bride needs to be on fire and then they would he would leave and they would spend the next year trying to figure out how to make a room be on fire all day without it burning down and then he would come back you know and say good job and hopefully and then he would leave and you know that that that person is fascinating to me i was you know i make this room full of ghosts okay yeah okay let me figure it out but there's there's an even longer history history beyond the theme park of people trying to do this kind of thing, of trying to create a physical environment that will cause an audience of the public to have the reaction that they want them to have. And that's the sort of artist that I've always been fascinated by. I think it's part of why I'm fascinated by video games, because similarly, it's an environment that you move through using your own agency,

but the artist wants you to have a particular reaction at a particular time, whether it's a reaction of fun or awe or frighten or surprise. And when I think about, for instance, when I've read about Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect, or the thought that went into the World's Fairs, or the great museums of beginning in the late 19th century. whether that's a feeling of awe or well-being or whatever it is, there's like a long continuum of artistic expression that theme parks play a part in. Do you feel that way? Absolutely. I mean, it's not for-purpose architecture.

And it's, you know, there is purpose, but it is not just that. It is meant to do more than just be a sturdy building it's to look a certain way to evoke a certain emotion i mean and you can follow theme parks down probably 12 or 13 different lineages you want to the theater route of pepper's ghost effects on stage and magicians and or you can follow it down the architecture route and then you're at world's fairs and even before that you know you'll go back to the the architecture around the world i mean that sculpting there's just that's why it's this weird conglomerate of everything and you can choose any one of those routes and be like oh well yeah the haunted mansion well pepper's ghost was invented in the late 1800s early 1900s and they did it on stage

and oh you know go back to the world's fairs or something like Epcot. And it's it is this weird new version of something that's been going on for a long time. It just happens to be they combined everything in one and then did it all at once, you know. Fascinating to me. Just today I started watching. I was like, all right, let me just bone up for the interview with Kevin. Let me watch one of his other most popular videos, the history of the Disney Fast Pass. I was like, an hour and a half long? How could this possibly be an hour and a half long? Okay, let me load it up. And then immediately you're telling me about the history of crowd management, line management, philosophically, the engineering problems that it poses,

philosophically, the engineering problems that it poses, the history of the different ways that they would try to engineer the experience of standing in line to prevent you from being bored and walking off or et cetera. I was immediately fascinated by this topic. What fascinated you about it? Well, I think initially, and this is not how they all start, but this is my second answer in a row where I was like, it'd be funny if I made a video about standing in line because it's boring in theory because that's what standing in line is. It's boring. But in my mind, I knew that there's something fascinating about standing in line, and I'm the type of nerd that stands in a line and thinks, okay, how fast are we going? When's the last time we moved? What's the arrival rate? What's the arrival rate? What's the service rate? And stuff like that. And trying to think of,

it's a weird intellectual challenge of, okay, this is a very, I mean, it's an engineering, it's industrial engineering. How do you make that interesting and accessible? More than just saying like, Disney has lines. Is that enough to interest you for an hour and a half? And I don't think it is. So having to, So having to add more to it of, okay, what is the history of lines? What are different cultures stand in lines different? That's weird. Why? And how our modern idea of the line is influenced.

And then eventually once people start to use technology to solve lines and doing the research and getting to talk to and do interviews with people at disney or that used to be at disney that did this um where they would their job was to uh you know move crowds work with line management getting to talk to them and being like oh this is such a weird thing and again it was one of those things where it just kept giving and then i realized oh it's like a monster movie because you know it it becomes Because it becomes, you start out in a lab and we have this little idea. And as far as Fastpass goes, let's solve lines. It's a very noble idea. And then it just builds and builds.

And then the monster gets bigger and bigger. And I said, oh, that's a perfect structure. It's a monster movie. And that's how a lot of this goes. Similar to Disney Channel was a modern noir. It's just, if you can ever tie a documentary to narrative filmmaking i always feel that's a really great structural way of doing things so that's a and i just i i don't know i find it fascinating i think people think about it without thinking

about it because everybody stands in line we all do it i i do the same thing you know i fly so much and i uh the boarding process for the different airlines, I have such strong opinions about, like people, people shit on Southwest. United is the worst one because United has, if you're in group one, so they have two lanes. They have lane one and lane two, right? But the groups are also numbered group one, two, three, four, five. And so it makes sense for group one and group two. They're like group one, go to lane one, group two, go to lane two.

Right. And then they start going group three, go to lane two. But if you're in group one, you can still go to lane one because you could board a little faster, et cetera. And people start bottlenecking. They just, there comes a point where I think everyone's had this experience waiting for a plane, like waiting to board a plane where like the line breaks down, whatever fucking little rope barrier they had up,

like people just stop obeying it. And the flight attendants go, please make an order. And people just don't do it. And they just start like skipping and shit. And you're like, this is just hire somebody from Disney. Who's thought about this,

who could tell you the right way to do it, right? It's maddening. Yeah. And it's just so rewarding to watch someone dive into it. But I mean, do you encounter at Disney, you're like, hold on a second, they actually forgot the lessons of the past. They did it wrong this time.

Well, of course. I mean, and that's where all these people's, and that's why I think, you know, historians are so important to, you know, to segue that into making my job the most important. Historians are important, but, uh, no, the, you know, these people's jobs aren't to remember what they did. Their jobs are to do their job. And so, you know, they, new people come in and they forget the lessons of the past. And, and so, yeah, there's times where it's like, oh my gosh, this is, this is not how you do it. Like, why did you not build, you know, the, the new, for instance, I'll use a specific example.

Why not? There's a new roller coaster at Epcot. And you look at the queue and you're like, why is there not triple the amount of queue? And then there's an outdoor queue with umbrellas. It's like 900 degrees. I'm like, what is going on? Why is it? You knew that people were going to go to this.

And so it's a and so the the solutions now are just getting more complicated and what the documentary shows and what i also tie it to which you know is not a stretch because it's it's not like i'm doing oh it's a metaphor for capitalism but it's it's very clearly influenced by capitalism and it's and it's just like oh of course like what happens if everybody stand in line in order and you'll all get served eventually? Well, what if I could pay to skip the line? And, and that's, and so it all, it all became a much bigger idea, but yeah, no, I am, I am constantly still every time I'm standing in line, I'm just thinking. And sometimes I think egotistically, I'm like, I wonder if anybody else has seen my video. And also if I could talk to them about this line.

Yeah. How do you feel about bringing capitalism into it, right? You're analyzing the work of these artists whose work you often love, right? Or you have deep respect for, as you said, but they are operating, you know, in one of the most capitalist industries that artists can operate under being, you know, pulled back and forth by the demands of capital, even when working for Walt Disney, the man, as you point out, he was a businessman. He was a brilliant businessman more than he was an artist. And our sort of first blush reaction to that is often to say, well, if the art is subordinate to the money, then it's not quality art, right? That's sort of our

overall ethos about now, once you start doing art of any kind, you realize there's no such thing in a, in capitalism as, as art that's not subordinate to, to money at the end of the day, but it's, it's still an uncomfortable juxtaposition. Um, and is that part of what animates you is, is sort of peeling apart where those divisions are, or how do you think about that piece of it? I think theme parks in general are just this weird – I mean, the most common capitalism take to have online right now about theme parks is, well, Americans love theme parks because we have no walkable spaces because of capitalism. And it's a walkable space. And maybe, who knows, partly – and that's where it's yes but, and also there's a thousand reasons how capitalism interacts with this thing.

You know, the place needs sponsors from corporations. So now all of a sudden we have Exxon and a park, and now we have the, you know, company. Why is Exxon having a commercial about oil in this theme park? And it just builds like that because these are giant. builds like that because these are giant the i don't know if the theme park could exist in any economic structure besides capitalism because it is so big and so expensive and so the fur in disneyland was just one man that had enough capital to you know build what he wanted and you can you know have whatever idea of what that was or take on that but it was what he wanted to build and then everything after that is just okay well we have enough ticket prices to make this it's all

very connected and on every level whether it's other companies coming in to the equation synergy whether it's just the economics of a family trying to afford it, who can go, who is this accessible for, who does this appeal to? Why? I mean, it's, it's unavoidable. And I think,

you know, I, I'm not levied with that criticism. Like, Oh, you bring it up too much because I think I, it's just there. It's,

it's unavoidable. It's like, try to talk about studio filmmaking without mentioning capitalism. Like you can't, because that's the whole thing. It is, it is all, it's just one of those. It. Like you can't, because that's the whole thing. It is, this is all, it's just one of those.

It's as a documentarian, it would be irresponsible not to bring it up when it's so like right there. I mean, it's theme park specifically for a thousand reasons are weird reactions to, to the structure, not just economic and capitalism, but just societal structure. You know,

you could take it in any direction, like with the walkable spaces, that's not just capitalism. We're all know we have virtual spaces we're doing an interview virtually right now so to have these places dedicated spaces where you can charge money to be in a physical space with other people in that is you know curated and manufactured for enjoyment only i mean it's i could talk about it for hours i'll try to stop talking about now but yeah yes i talk about that and it does not, I don't know what the question was, right? I love video games, again, which are my favorite art form to dissect and understand and experience, and yet these things only were created so that people might make money, you know?

And the art is always incidental. Oh, as long as we can charge people 60 bucks, we don't really care what it is. And, you know, occasionally an artist gets enough power, they're able to make a wonderful piece of art and charge $60 for it. But then once you are, once you're talking about the thing that you love, well, of course you have to talk about the capitalism. The capitalism ends up being, becoming an interesting part of your analysis and talking about why, why did this make money? Why did that lose money? What were the pressures of capital on it? I mean, if you were to not talk about it, you'd be ignoring a huge piece of it. And the clear-eyed nature of your work is something I really love about it. that they exist as a respite from car culture. Absolutely true in Southern California. I mean, people will drive an hour and a half

to park their car, pay $40 to park it, pay $100 to get in just to walk around. You know, what if you, I just, a couple months ago, I was in Buffalo, New York, and I was like, wow, Buffalo, New York is just like the whole thing is Disneyland, you know, because it was a city

that was laid out in the late 19th century before cars. And, you know, it's the whole place is, the whole place is walkable and whole thing is Disneyland, you know, because it was a city that was laid out in the late 19th century before cars. And, you know, it's the whole place is the whole place is walkable and leafy and nice. You know what I mean? And people like literally pay money to have that experience in Southern California because it doesn't exist in like its natural habitat. Absolutely. And to give credit to Walt Disney,

I don't think I know of a famous figure that hated cars more than Walt Disney did. He loved trains. That man loved trains more than anything. He invented public transportation. You're making me love Walt Disney. You're making me love Walt Disney. That's the complicated nature

of history. One second you'll hear about him trying to break up a strike and then the next moment he's like, I hate cars'm building this thing it's called a people mover build it figure it out it's gonna move people without cars that's my walt disney impression it's not anywhere close but i just love the idea of a guy that just really hates cars and has the capital to do the wild idea i want to train but it's smaller and it's just one person per car. Yeah. Figure it out.

I can make my paradise. God damn it. And that's a very compelling thing. It's a compelling thing to understand. You know, I, I really started to become, uh,

uh, I understand why people get obsessed with this kind of figure. You know, there is a, uh, sort of reappraisal of the star Wars prequels that's happened in recent years where people are going back and saying, you know, these movies were maligned for so many years. And then once the Star Wars sequels came out, people started going back and saying,

you know what was great? This is my version of what they were saying. You know what was great about the Star Wars prequels? At least it was just one megalomaniac going nuts. Like the movies are bad, right? But at least it's just George Lucas's weird ideas. You know, just one guy who no one, no one could say no to, and he could cast, you know, people who had no business in the parts. He, he could do effects that look terrible just because he felt like it. And there's something about that, that we love. We, you know, again, it's a privilege. It's often only given to white men who are already wealthy and all these other sorts of problems.

And yet it's so fun just to watch one maniac go nuts when no one can say no to them. Is that part of the appeal of Walt Disney for you? And how much does he loom over all the work that you do? Well, him as a figure definitely looms. I feel like I've made peace with his complexity a while ago, especially because I spent about a year dissecting him. I've also dissected other people who history looks upon with less complexity in a positive light. and very, very inspired by it. And it's not like there's a really big dark side to Jim Henson. You know, he was not a perfect person, but there is something very human,

even with all the qualifiers of, and even the question of, should one person have this much power over this many artists? And even by qualifying and saying, well, he didn't make that, or he didn't build this. He was not just in an office,

in a skyscraper. He was saying, I want it to look like this, change this, do this, be like this. And I think it's just a very human thing while also being not human because that's not a really – it's like humanity in that it's a person, but it's also removed from humanity because very, very few people in humankind have that amount of control and power. So it's that weird dichotomy of it. Like with George Lucas, I don't, I, you know, obviously, uh, I'm not going to get my prequel hot takes right now, but I mean, it, it, you know, we'd love to hear him, but maybe in a future video. Right, right, right, right.

Yeah. Next episode. The, uh, but in the same way, it's, it is a person's idea. But in the same way, it is a person's idea. And I think today the rebuttal or the gravitation towards that is because a lot of things feel like they are by committee is a phrase you'll hear a lot or whatever the modern reason for that is. But you can tell when someone is wanting this to happen, regardless of how if you think it's a good movie or if it's a good theme park or whatever, you could tell that somebody wanted this, like some one person wanted this. And there's something, something fascinating about that, that I really, I really like talking about. Yeah. Well, and it, it, in many ways doesn't exist in American society, uh, the way it used to if you look at the the walt disney period right if you look at the middle part of last century it was a time when you had these figures who were able to build whatever the fuck they

wanted look at robert moses in new york who completely transformed the city built freeways where nobody wanted them but him you know said i'm going to build a freeway to the beach but the bus things are going to be too low so black children can't go to the beach, but the bus things are going to be too low. So black children can't go to the beach, you know, like he was just able to do it. Right. He was able to just never held elected office. Yeah. He never held elected office. He just had enough power, right. That he could just run a freeway through your neighborhood and kick you out. And now, you know, there was, there were a lot of horrible results of that. But now if you know, you live in New York city, New York, hasn't been able to build anything on that scale for 30 years because it's the power has become so diffuse, which has many good things about it. But also it means it takes them, you know, 50 years just to build two extra subway stops on a subway line.

Elon Musk, right? Elon Musk is able to kick down sandcastles, but the amount that he's able to build physically in the world has not been, you know, anywhere near on the scale of when you look at, you know, the sort of business titans, you know, 50 or 100 years ago, because there's just the world is more complicated than it used to be. And so he bills himself as having more power than that. And people are attracted to it. But I think that's because we have a craving almost to see man's power wrought upon the world in this way. Even when it's horrible, as it often was in the cases of Moses and Disney, we have this – there's this fascination with it. Yeah. I mean I'm fascinated with these, with these figures from a history level.

Again, it's one of those things where I cannot see, I cannot tell you if it's my personal fascination or if it's a necessity to understand where we are. Cause I think in a lot of ways, these figures that you would name, I mean, just because the history of the United States,

if we're, you know, don't want to look at it from a global perspective and just from our country, it's so short. There wasn't a lot of time. There's not a lot of generations. And what I loved when I was researching the World's Fairs, just the almost postmodern thought that the people designing these fairs had where they're like, we don't have a culture as a country. And Paris is going to be coming to this fair, like France. France is going to be coming to this fair,

and they're going to send people from Paris, and they're going to laugh at us. So what is our culture? And that's such a postmodern idea. And maybe it's always been around, and I just need to go back further. But just this idea of we're a country now. Countries have cultures. What do we do?

And then eventually Walt Disney comes along and gives us a culture some people love it some people are you know i think it's for children whatever your opinion on of it is you can't ignore that a large part of what we consider american culture was shaped and set in stone by walt disney whether it's our idea of what the past looks like the fact that if I say main street, the image that goes into your head is the same as mine. That was just a guy who grew up in Missouri and was like, I want to, you know, I'm going to build something that's kind of like that.

And then a thousand artists helped him accomplish it. But that, that idea of, of just like, Oh, I'm just going to change. When I say main street, you think of,

it's this weird call response that still works because of one person really missing their hometown or their idea of their hometown. Tell me about that. You're saying Walt Disney created that idea of Main Street that we have today. Yeah, I think I, you know, if you look at the 50s as a post-war, I mean, this is when Disneyland's built, booming economy, not no war or pre cold war in a lot of ways, but post us industrializing for world war two, it's now, we're now in this weird middle where the fifties are the place where, you know,

white people specifically, Oh, I love the fifties, but you know, it's not great for everybody, but it's this idea of we're on the world stage in a way that we have never been. And Walt Disney having this nostalgia for where he grew up in the early,

you know, in the early, you know, in the turn of the century and just, I mean, other people did too. Uh, um, Norman Rockwell, um,

other artists trying to define America, Americana, this concept in a, in a way that we didn't before as much. Um, and just here's what you will. And because, you know,

I think as we get further along on our journey into postmodernism in our lives, we look at saying, yeah, that that is what Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney. This is what America is. Here's a painting that represents America. Here's my main street. This is turn of the century living. Here's Frontierland. Here's what the Wild West was or the Old West. Here's what the Old West was.

It's it's such a bizarre concept but it sticks and you know it's always like walt in my mind as i study history it's always walt disney and someone else that you know walt disney and buffalo bill cody that that gave us the idea of here's what the wild west here's the old west is here's what main street is it's because you know walt disney just had so much power on a cultural entertainment level and i and you know it's proof as to why entertainment is a very powerful concept um and why you can do a lot in shaping people's opinions and ideas of things um just by creating really bizarre things which is which is a cool concept now then you take it into directions maybe you shouldn't, but the base is cool. Like you can affect people with your art and then no value judgment on everything after that.

Well, it's endlessly fascinating to me how often our notion of what history was like is actually something that was sold to us by someone in the intermediate past, right? Like our actual past is an image created by someone. Our idea of what it was like a hundred years ago was actually sold to us by somebody 50 years ago.

Right. You know, like I think I looked up once the history of, because I was writing an episode of Adam Ruins Everything and we wanted to have like an old timey strong man, like with the mustache and the striped bathing suit and the giant barbells that are round on either end. And me and the Adam ruins everything writing staff were like, where'd that come from? And it was like an image of a turn of the century strong man that was

repopularized in the fifties. Right. Right. And so my memory of it is actually from the fifties, not from the 1890s or whatever that I think it's from. And that comes up all the time. Just literally yesterday I was reading Herman Melville's Wikipedia page. It turns out Herman Melville was not popular during his life. He became popular in like the early 20th century, 50 years after his death. And there was like this huge booster ism of like Melville studies. Oh, we all love Herman Melville now.

And there was like this huge boosterism of like Melville studies. Oh, we all love Herman Melville now. That happened like much later. And so the degree to which our own history is produced and sold to us and then we forget that that's what happened is stunning to me. I'm curious. How do you avoid doing that as a historical documentarian, right? Because you could very well do the same thing and, you know, create history that people never actually experienced for them. Well, I'm sure, gosh, I'm sure I've done it many times accidentally. I'm trying my best. I'm just doing my best trying to do everything right. But it's funny. Yeah. I mean, like the same way our

version of the fifties is the eighties version of the fifties because the eighties, they were obsessed with the fifties. I mean, it's, and it just keeps going like that and hey what are the 80s like stranger things that's what they're like it wasn't like that you know if you went to the 80s and that's why it's so funny i i joke with my friends i'll show i was i'm doing this archive project right now and i'm showing them photos that i'm i'm collecting and archiving and i'm like see this is a photo from the 80s but that bench is from the 50s those clothes are from the 70s because nothing exists only, you know, it's never like the postcard. And that's all of history. And so, you know, as far as depiction, I get off easy because I use archival photos and imagery and those are from them.

And then I don't have to do anything. I don't have to set dress. So I don't envy the set dressers to period piece shows. to set dress so i don't i don't envy the set dressers to uh period piece shows but the uh but from a from a history perspective it's always trying to because there's multiple times where i'll find something that goes against my personal narrative and you know when you say that your mind goes to the cultural or the you know the the kind of the oh well that's that's against my personal biases and it's not even that sometimes it is although i i hope to have the the the good empathetic opinions that that rarely happens but the uh but as far as little silly things like you'll just be looking at

a car from the 50s in it because i'm doing something on cars for some reason and you look at the car from the 50s and you're like that's not a car from the 50s and it's like yes it is that's a car from 1955 where i'm working on a project for epcot right now and i'm and this is like a weird bias that i think a lot of people have that i'm just having to get over that epcot was built and designed through 1978 1979 constructed in 80 81 82 but if people say epcot you think 80s synth you know weird 80s and it's like it's not it it was open in the 80s but it was designed in the 70s and if and once you realize that everything begins to fall into place not just about epcot although i will talk about epcot longer but the uh but just everything is like once you recognize like okay my initial narrative of

of every decade being so perfect or every year every historical figure being just right and every war being exactly what i thought it was which is a big thing for me like oh like just go if you want to do this just go look up when wars began and ended because there's no way unless you are a big war buff that you will know exactly and you'll say wait that war didn't end until then, or that war started, then that's not right. And so you have to constantly be just trying. I hope that gets me far.

And I know that I'm sure even in my past work, and hopefully not in my most recent work, but I've fallen into that pitfall of like, well, I've heard this before. So that's the narrative. And sometimes it is. And a lot of times it is because if it's created by historians that are also doing their best, a lot of times they're just right. And they, cause they did the work for you and you can trust them. But sometimes you do have to challenge yourself and say, you know, look at that timeline again, look at that character again, look at that

photo again. And that's, that's the fun part. That's not the scary part or the part that's, that makes me uncomfortable or no, it's like whenever I find out something that goes against what I knew or what I thought to know to be true, that's when I'm like, okay, this is exciting. Cause that's interesting. And, and then, you know, double check it to make sure it's right. And you can just find something online. But yeah, that's fun. That's always – I love doing that. Yeah, I mean that's what gets me going as well is I love – we carry these myths around in our heads or these stories or these narratives, legends. And you often don't even know that it exists until you find that piece of information that contradicts it.

And you're like, oh, hold on a second. The barbell man was sold to me, right, by some other historian. It wasn't real. I had it in my head. And that's when, you know, the entire world sort of looks different to you. I'm curious, though, that your work on YouTube, I assume one of the reasons it gets many, many views is there's many, many Disney fans out there who just like love watching the Disney content. You know what I mean? And, you know, so your work as a historian interacts much more directly with fan culture than the work of, say, an academic historian might. And I'm curious how you think about that, that, you know, fan culture has a lot of wonderful things about it. It also has a lot of very toxic elements sometimes. People often don't want the revisionist history, right? They want to hear the version that they already know told to them again. When you watch those sort of documentaries that they have on Netflix,

oh, the toys that made us or whatever, they're just saying, oh yeah, remember Stretch Armstrong? Sure was neat. And a lot of people, they just want that version, right? No offense to people who made those documentaries at all because of course they're great artists

working under capitalism as we all are. But what do you think about contemporary fan culture know how do you how do what do you think about contemporary fan culture and how do you try to interact with it in your work sure no i mean that's a great question i've never been asked that's a really great question um so i'll try to formulate my best response the uh well first off you know whenever i think it's very difficult to enter any arena or make any art that doesn't have an existing fan base. Whether you mean even I'm going to make my own movie and it's going to be about space. Okay, well, there's a bunch of movies about space and you're going to run into those people that are already sci-fi fans or genre fans.

But nowadays it is more specific to pop culture and specific to companies even sometimes, which is interesting. Very fascinating. Another reason I'm fascinated into this. So you can be a fan of a company, you know, just a company. pop culture and and specific to companies even sometimes which is interesting um very fascinating another reason i'm fascinated into this so you can be a fan of a company you know just a company with like an llc i'm fucking i have nintendo deep in my heart right and and i will be a nintendo fan until i die and they've got my money no matter what so i'm familiar with this feeling and maybe and maybe you're a fan of the branding more so than the articles of incorporation that the LLC wrote at the beginning. But it is this idea that you're having to interact with this group of people that are very, very knowledgeable on this. But maybe they are knowledgeable on a version that isn't 100% accurate.

But often I think of everybody that could possibly be watching my videos. And I think of the person that doesn't like Disney, the person that loves Disney, the person that doesn't like Universal, the person that loves Universal, or the person that doesn't even care about any of this stuff. And I try to give each person something. So, and I do it, and I feel like I've gotten better at it, hopefully, over the years. But just little things like, okay, I'm going to say a fact that this person knows but this person doesn't let me wait to reveal it at a point in the narrative that will excite the person that knows it but will still interest the person that doesn't so you know disneyland opened in 1955 you know that is a very that's a way that where

someone who's a fan of this thing would say oh i know and they're like i get it and i try now to make that land or put that in a point in the story where they're like yes like i recently did something on the wiggles and i talk about the formation of the wiggles what is the wiggles i don't know what the wiggles is i'm sorry are you are you don't know what the wiggles are what's the the wiggles? I don't know. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not your kind of freak, man.

All right. I know, I know a lot about Pikmin. I don't know a lot about the wiggles. Okay. I got a different kink from you. All right. I'm sorry.

I mean, okay. So the, but I want to know, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Sorry.

It's just, I love that. I love that. I got. I'm going to do it. Sorry. It's just, I love that. I love that. I got you that we're having such a good interview and, and you just like exposed your fandom where you were just like, so shocked in that moment that I don't know what the wiggles is. I don't know how anybody doesn't know what the wiggles are. Okay.

Okay. I mean, that's fine. That's fine. I'm I'm I'll, I'm happy to tell you what the wiggles are. I'm thrilled. Actually. I've never been happier to tell anyone anything. Okay. Okay. Okay. I mean, that's fine. That's fine. I'm, I'm, I'm happy to tell you what the wiggles are. I'm thrilled. Actually.

I've never been happier to sell anyone anything. Okay. So the wiggles are four adult Australian men that wear different colored turtlenecks and sing songs about potatoes and salad. Okay. And these four men took over the world and they're the highest grossing artists in australia they beat out like nicole kidman and hugh jackman they're the the most by far the most profitable entertainers in australia and eventually the most popular children's entertainment

entertainers in the world i have no idea why i mentioned the wiggles now but yeah the wiggles oh okay i don't know how to segue but yeah the way you've never heard of hot potato or fruit salad yummy yummy are any of these words meaning anything to you no i mean you have to understand what it's like for me as someone who's not heard of it to have someone say to you so earnestly you've never heard of fruit salad yummy yummy you've never heard no man i fucking havenestly you've never heard of fruit salad yummy yummy you've never heard no man i fucking haven't you've never heard to chug a chug a big red car i don't know do any of those words no man have you ever heard wait i'm sorry you don't know baby beluga in the deep blue sea

that's like what i know that i mean of course i don't i don't you don't know to to chug a chug a big red car okay that's funny that's crazy to me. That's okay. That's so cool. Okay, well. Yeah. No, look, I'm a blank slate. I'm a blank slate. I'll tell you all about the Wiggles. I got to go.

I've never been able to. I guess, yeah. I mean, the echo chambers we live in. Incredible. And that's the problem with America today. Let's bring it back to the. Yeah, is that we all live in echo chambers and our filter bubbles are preventing us from knowing about the wiggles thanks for having me i just i just leave that's what the wiggles are the wiggles are what you really want to have happen in around minute

50 of a podcast is is go this far off the rails the wiggles are social media incarnate the uh the wiggles the wiggles are a group of four aust men that sing about, they drive around in a big red car and they have a dinosaur. And their best friend is a pirate named Captain Feathersword. Stop me when you've heard it before. It's all brand new to me. You could be making it all up for all I know. I hope it's not a prank. They have a dog named Wags.

His name is Wags the dog. Okay. I'll stop explaining what it is but that's the wiggles i mean it's it i'll be honest it hasn't come together yet for me i you're listing a lot of things i don't know if i totally understand it even though okay so one of the guys his name is jeff and he's he sleeps he falls asleep all the time that's his thing and so during the middle of the song he'll fall asleep and they'll say, Jeff, it's time to wake up. And,

and, and he'll be like, and he'll wake up and say, and they say, well, everybody with the wiggles. And they'll say it like that. Cause they're Australian.

And one of the guys names Murray and he plays the guitar and they're all wearing skivvies, which is what turtlenecks are called in australia like it's just cute that's just that's distressing they oh their door is sentient it has a face its name is floridor it was originally a scary door but they changed it because kids got too scared because the door was scary and so they go up to the door and say can you open the wiggle house for us and and i know that sounds like a beatles impression but they oh and so they had this it was called wiggles mania like because because it was such a big deal that's why i'm so amazed you've never heard of it like wiggles mania is was a huge deal i completely missed wiggles mania i must have been asleep or

really busy working on a project or something when wiggles mania come around because mania was huge and and it was like it was a big deal and then yeah there was a bunch of shake-up in the group and that's what the documentary i made is about is about how well first off i mean all these people the the the toll that it took on their body was like actually killing them because because they were wiggling so hard you're fucking fucking with me. No, it's true. You're fucking with me. Well, they also had. Like they're professional wrestlers. Like they're getting concussions and like, and repetitive stress injuries from wiggling.

They had chronic health issues that were being exacerbated by their wiggling. And so. I can't believe you talked about them for a full five minutes. And this is for the first time you mentioned. Oh, and they actually wiggled though. To a distressing degree i i i can't feed it all to you on a spoon how did we get on this i think the reason was you wanted to i want you asked me about fan culture and so then i said in that video about the wiggles and this doesn't make any sense anymore but actually it does this

is perfect i can bring it back i got this okay the it so for someone that doesn't know what the wiggles are okay okay so somebody that doesn't know what the wiggles are when i say the wiggles were formed in 1998 or whenever you would say okay and now you're learning but the place i put it in that documentary is i have a shot of the Wiggles coming up into frame, get a big smile. And I say the Wiggles. And so the people that like the Wiggles are like, yay. So it's like this fun moment for them. And so it's trying to like, okay, I like to, to have some sort of nonverbal, but still editing or imagery or inflection or script, uh, communication with the audience that i know that you know this

i know like because that's where i when i'm watching stuff that i'm a fan of i check out whenever someone's saying something to me like you know disneyland opened in 1955 i bet you didn't know that you idiot and it's like i know but when it has that tone but when it has the tone of i know you know this but stick with me me. And that to me, I think, tries to fill those boxes. In general, though, fans have been very kind. And I think what I try to do is I really try to reach out to fan pages that study these attractions. is uh or theme parks or tv shows or whatever i'm doing if i'm doing an episode on on the wiggles who were at a theme park in australia called dream world which do you know what dream world is no okay well am i in trouble for not knowing no that's fine i didn't know what it was either but a man a man went to disneyland and then he came back to australia and he said i'm gonna build disneyland and then he did and it's like the same whoa and so like it's a rip off of disneyland

yeah it has a main street and a riverboat and a river and everything and he made his own version of multiple disney attractions wow anyways and so eventually they made a ride a theme park ride to the wiggles because as i've so clearly stated the wiggles are a very popular band that spawned a theme park ride. And so it was in the big red car. I don't know where I was going with that. I'm just on the Wiggles again. But the point is that when I did that, I reached out to multiple fan pages that study only that park in Australia. Because not only do they have great information, but it's also a way of saying, okay, well, what do you know about this?

And then just by doing that and linking back to them and saying, Hey, go check these people out. They're doing great historical work more specific than even I am doing it. Like their entire Facebook page is just looking at dream world or their entire blog is just looking at the wiggles saying, okay, these people helped me.

If you're interested in this, go down the rabbit hole and like pointing people in the next direction and i hope that creates a good like a good spirited uh environment for fans to be like okay this is awesome like you're referencing fan pages that i like and you're yeah and you're you're interested in this more than oh wiggles has a huge seo boost so i'm gonna make a video about it because the wiggles are very well known and their seo is very lucrative i guess i gotta start making wiggles content that's why my youtube channel isn't as hot as yours because i have not yet harnessed the uh power of wiggles uh of the wiggles or wiggles the wiggles the wiggles i mean it could be wiggling more it will be careful

because i could hurt myself yeah apparently you wiggle too much um no but i love that you're not just interacting with fan culture you are because you know fan fans have their obsessive nature right they dive really deep into stuff they they chronicle it for god knows what reason but you know you as a historian documentarian are able to pull it out and say well this is actually they've done some good actual research here that we can sort of pull up and elevate and give due credit for, which is something that I feel like is not often done in mainstream historical work. Yeah. I mean, I really always, when people say, oh, this is, they really like the stuff, which is awesome. I love that they like the stuff. I'm like, this is not possible without archivists and people that

are writing blog entries, people from 20 years ago, people that haven't posted since 2007, have an article about something that I'm talking about. And I like to think that my presentation will add something that will make it accessible or it'll take it in a direction that will give it new light. But at the end of the day, a lot of what i do is not possible without the work of them thankless work so i try as much as i can to thank them link them push people that way and then that just creates a good web of because i might go back to that person or they i've had people after having them in my thing they reach out to me and say hey do you know anything about this and then i give them and it and that that open door nature of historical work especially

is super important because we're able to do that now we all have access to information we can we can double check and fact check one another and then the historical record is improved and archives are improved and i think uh and that's what you know i on my website i have i ask people to send in their home videos and photos from theme parks. And then we archive them and chronicle them and ask them, do you want credit for this? How can people use this? So, you know, future creators in this space can go to the website and be like, I need a photo of Pirates of the Caribbean. And there it is with the person that took it and you can credit them and use it. And I just, I, I try to try to give credit and try to show that like this is i'm not

making this in a vacuum even if i'm not even if i don't have a crew of 100 people like some productions i i have i have so many people to thank and yeah so but if you did if you were to make that leap into the into the bigger world right if you of of media if you did have that 100 person crew or even a 20 person crew as as some documentarians have, is there more that you feel that you could do? Well, I think that maybe I think that there are definitely certain production levels that I could reach. Um, and there are certain topics that maybe I could get and maybe access, maybe there's archives that with the right amount of money, they would open their door to you or with the right person involved,

you could get an interview that I wouldn't otherwise be able to get. That stuff is, that stuff is more attractive to me than just the idea of a bigger budget as a concept. But in general, I am ideating and creating in scope, which I think is something that is one of the most important things that anybody can do.

This creating anything is being constantly aware of scope and going maybe one step outside of it just for ambition purposes yeah but and that's that's something that took me years and i'm still working on honestly as i say oh i know all about scope and i'm like i've been working on this for three years it's still not out but you know this i this idea that if you know what you're capable of and can and can ideate within what you're able to make you'll make something that is good and you'll make something that you can be able to control to make sure that it it affects people the way you want it to and so when you know of course maybe someday and maybe that maybe i will but at the moment i'm very comfortable with the scope that i'm in and that's where all my ideas are flowing from like what can i do not what would

happen if somebody offered me this what would happen if I had this many people it's like well I have this and I'm gonna be creating so more ideas for what I can do and then you know and I and and to wrap that up it's just you know I am progressing slowly I've taught myself programs and effects and and writing and editing and music and all sorts of stuff that I wouldn't have been able to do three years ago. So just always progressing personally as well to be able to communicate with artists in those spaces, being able to better communicate with musicians and editors and stuff like that, writers. Well, I love your work so much. And I'm sure so many people watching or listening to this have seen it. But if you haven't, please go check out

Defunctland on YouTube. Where else can people find your work, Kevin? YouTube.com slash Defunctland, Defunctland.com. I have a Twitter account that I sometimes post behind-the-scenes stuff, visual effects I'm making, but is it an X account now? Is that the joke? I guess. You have to make it every time you mention Twitter. I guess it's called X now. Yeah.

Can laughter. make it every time you mentioned twitter i guess it's called x now yeah canned laughter um but uh the uh but yeah so uh yeah mainly youtube.com slash defunctland that's where the big projects go so i appreciate it well uh i really appreciate you being here and hey maybe uh next time you're in la come we'll go to super mario world and you can tell me everything that they do wrong in the lines and you can tell me everything about Nintendo. I'd love to. I'll wear my vintage 80s Nintendo employee jacket and we can really dive into it.

What is Nintendo? You don't know what Nintendo is? I know. You don't know? Oh my god. We gotta end the interview right now. Kevin, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome. Well, my god, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome. Well, my God,

thank you once again to Kevin for coming on the show. I loved that conversation. I loved learning about the Wiggles. I hope you did too. I know you all know what the Wiggles is, but, you know,

DM me about it if you want to yell at me. It's completely fine. I want to thank everybody who supports this show on Patreon as well, especially those of you who support us

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