Podcast: The Ride - A Very Covid-Safe Christmas

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

We visited some of Southern California's finest, modified, theme park-like Christmas Experiences! Including: -A Partially Open Downtown Disney -Knott's Taste Of Merry Farm -Six Flags Magic Mountain's Holiday In The Park Drive-Thru McGruff 2 Episode and Smart Teens EP up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Orlando Hotel and Hospitality Workers Local 737 Fundraiser: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/unite-here-local-737 Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County: https://www.feedoc.org Los Angeles Regional Food Bank:  https://www.lafoodbank.org Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FOREVER! DOG! Cyborg, a mean topical Ebenezer Scrooge, a man from the candy cane realm, a pound and a half of fudge, a truly ill-synced Zoom sing-along, and due to his breaking of current travel laws, no appearance by Santa Claus. And now, here's your host, the regular host. hosts welcome to 2020's final podcast the ride a podcast about theme parks where after this year we wish we chose a different podcast topic i'm scott gardner uh joined by jason sheridan uh i mean you know what are you gonna do you know it it's just good that we love delving into the past. I like that our hearts are in the 80s and 90s and such so much because, boy, if it was all like new rides opening this year, that's a rough one. Mike Carlson. Yeah, I'm here. that maybe we should have done a podcast about like jeff bezos's fortune maybe because this year

we would have been so excited to see the fortune grow as uh people got put out needed uh his services more and he got more more money and people got put out of work and we would be thriving if that's all we talked about on this show uh yeah yeah um yeah i know what's a good good topic for the year i mean if you if it was already a podcast about germ paranoia this would have been a boon time yeah that would have been a good idea for a podcast i mean a podcast about hand washing um prior to this year but may it might have been a dull listen i don't know there might be one and it might have been a dull listen. I don't know. There might be one, and it might have been great for many years until now. But I think 2020 is when the Wash Wash Boys really peak. Yeah, the Wash Wash Boys, this would have been the biggest year in Wash Wash Boys history for sure yeah

I think probably next year people are going to be sick of the Wash Wash Boys honestly yeah yeah yeah and they're going to like they're trying to branch out they're talking about like video games and Marvel movies it's not working really well

you can hear about those things anywhere so they're talking about Star Wars and stuff but they try to like there's like they're talking about star wars and stuff but they have to like tie it into hand washing and like do you think dj and last jedi washed his hands do you think holdo did she just come back from the bathroom and she washed her hands like but it doesn't really work it's not really what the show was about and i guess you you know you have to ask at this point, just with all this news, has Disney washed their hands of Rian Johnson's announced trilogy?

Seems like maybe they have just scrubbed the whole thing. Was it mixed in with the 50 other announcements they strung out over four hours? Yeah, that's what people, people think they didn't announce it, but it was in there. Just everyone

blacked out. Everyone took a nap at the exact same time. So yeah, Wash Wash Boys. I'm glad we're not doing it, but it would have been smart. It would have been at least smart to do an offshoot. Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll make a spin off immediately. Let's hedge our bets

from now on and just pick five random things to do podcasts about and see if they're they come into fruition down the road um as of now we're doing a podcast about theme parks and uh this is the last one of the year on the main feed uh there are some treats waiting for you next week on podcast or the second gate at patreon.com slash podcast the ride but we're winding it down uh here for the year uh the uh uh sort of corny earnest thing i want to say at the top is just uh a big thanks to the audience of this show for uh for for sticking with us uh um you know what i liked was doing a show where we got to like go see the audience and they

got to come see us and how much I liked that we're starting to tour. And last year we got to end the year doing this like cozy little show in a little black box theater that felt like such a nice way to like hang with everybody and talk to everyone after. And now that same event would be like a highly illegal super spreader. And I wish this wasn't the case. But the audience, nonetheless, in this virtual setting, I just thank everyone for sticking with us, even in this weird way of doing the show. And we're so glad we didn't have to stop doing the show.

Yes, I think about this often, that I did have a few times maybe in march and april where i went oh everyone's just gonna stop listening right everyone's it's more important things to do right now than listen uh to us uh you make jokes about admiral holdo but uh i appreciate uh i really very much appreciate everyone sticking with us and still having fun. And I wish we could be together. Once every podcast I listened to was doing the same thing and developing the same, encountering the same like obstacles and, you know, overcoming the same challenges we were. I was like, oh, OK, this is all right. Thank God.

We're dealing with it. I mean, it would be funny if like dough boys was like no we're doing it in person still forever like we defy the governor we're drop we're gonna shoot droplets into each other's mouths for these 10 months they did it in the hospital they got it at the same time and had to do it between edit-out ventilator hits. Right. And it annoyed the other patients, but the doughboys maintained, even in the ICU. Of course.

So, yes. God bless all of you if you don't believe in God. I'm using that in a way where I mean like, you know, just a general, like, you know, nice God version. I'm not saying anything in a specific religious way. You know, I'm spiritual. Praise the nice, thank the nice feeling you have

for sticking with us. Yeah. Yeah. No, Siri, it's just been such a like sanity life raft and such a difficult, and how many people have had to drop the thing that they do? And it's been great getting to do the thing that we do. And thanks to you guys, too.

It's just been... I look forward to these a lot, even more than before. Yes. It's a four... I think maybe you said it, Scott. I forget if it's like... It's like we have to be forced to be like, have fun. It's a forced two hours of fun.

It's on the schedule. We set up a link and you click the link. There's a link to have fun. So get on it and do it. That's good. So yes, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, yeah. Nice to have the reason.

And to our audience, there's one more thing that we need to address. And that is this uh if if you can remember the first podcast the ride of 2020 and that's a big if because who can possibly who can remember what life was in january 2020 um but something that was said think, at the top of the very first show, it sort of pimped a thing from me to you, Mike especially, was that 2020 will be the year that we do the Country Bear Jamboree. Now, my feeling is, and I think we started feeling as the year ticked on, why would we take this attraction that we love so much and curse it and force this attraction to like exist under the the the the shadowy specter of the worst year ever and that's why we have decided to remove we we we're calling an

audible 2020 does not count. When I said we'll cover it this year, I meant like the regular year that was supposed to happen, not this year, the one that did. And I guess with that, Mike, I turn it to you for anything that you would like to say about our future handling of the Country Bear Jamboree. And if I get emotional at any point during this, please just forgive me.

I think I'll be able to hold it together, though. First of all, I do think that we said initially, Scott, you sprung it on me. I can't help but feel maybe it was a bit of a curse to side swipe me with that, blindside me with that, because it's such a big, important topic.

And I was reeling. So I feel like maybe the universe got kind of knocked out of whack. But look, I shouldn't put that on you. That's not fair. I think it's perfectly fair and it's all my fault. But moving forward, moving on. Moving forward. I will say this.

I have a vision for the country bear episode of podcast a ride and it just cannot work in zoom okay it's it's just i thought about it i thought is there a way we can do it and i don't there is but it's like i know it's gonna lack the in-person energy so we and we thought about doing oh we're gonna do the we could just do the movie but that feels It's like, I know it's going to lack the in-person energy. So, and we thought about doing, oh, we can just do the movie, but that feels like we're just going to give you like a half-assed version just to placate everyone. And it's like, well, we'll get to the movie, but we should probably do main show first. And I also thought about like Christmas show, summer show. Should we just do that instead and then do the main one later? But no, we should start with the main one we should do it and the good news i think

and hopefully vaccine permitting the first in-person recording that we do will be the country bears so i apologize for not getting it done this year, but the first one we do where we get to look into each other's eyes inside of a place, uh, will be the country bears. And I will say the thing I will add just as a little bit of a tease is I want to have a real jamboree and my co-hosts don't quite know what I'm talking about.

And I 75% know what I'm talking about. But I'm still working on some logistics of it. But I want to have a jamboree for real. So whatever that means to you, imagine it. And just know that a good jamboree is coming on the Country Bear Jamboree episode. So I apologize. What I like about this is you are allowing yourself

wiggle room. Something I think we are good at when we say we'll do something because it's like the first in-person episode back could be any number of upcoming months based on constantly changing factors.

Sure, depending on how ambitious we get, on how further worse our state gets, the one we record the podcast in. There's a lot going on here. Yes. State of California, individual mental psychological states. Which...

You know, so I'm glad this is malleable, and I'm also glad there's not a firm deadline because sometimes stuff is said on this show and i do not remember it uh when we uh sometimes handle logistical stuff before or right after recording i usually have a legal pad in my hand or a pocket notebook because like if i don't see it directly in front of me i will i will just totally space right based on the conversation well then let's uh uh okay that being said jason we turn to you we uh we assume that you have prepared your rendition of oh holy night to close out the christmas season and go ahead and go oh you did you did. Okay. Didn't need the legal pad.

The church my family used to go to growing up, there was an older guy who every Christmas Eve would just belt O Holy Night and would just kill it. And it's hard to find a rendition of a baritone or a bass singer really belting that song. That's why we gave it to you. You're a deep baritone. Oh, sure. Yep.

All right. Well, that's pretty big news that's big news there went now just as a clue and this this completely tells you why we can't do it over zoom uh the dictionary definition of jamboree is go ahead a large celebration or party typically a lavish and boisterous one well that's a clue that's what i'm thinking uh i i do think i mean i guess now that i'm thinking about it i mean maybe we would need to have more than the three of us so maybe logistically we have to figure out you know who's gotten when is who got pfizer who got moderna when did they get like there will be some of that logistic because i think it would just be more than the three of us but i do think that's accurate maybe big big is relative you know big for us might be having two guests on

you know because usually it's just one guest um well i don't know that that many members of the wrecking crew are still kicking around are they well uh not the wrecking crew you know about okay i got a different wrecking crew, brother. Are they all bears? They're all bears. It's the three? Okay, I'll reveal it now. I'm releasing three live bears into the apartment when we record while the Country Bears episode is going on.

And we have to sort of just navigate that. Avoid them while we... So we're not going to be like singing or anything the theme of the we're just going to be like and then in 1978 oh god then they added the christmas oh shit shit shit yes it's going to be it's dodging bears no singing yeah yeah yeah um a very creepy array of like uh hitchcock-esque birds just went by as you were describing bear attacks. So forgive me for getting distracted. I don't like to say the stuff that's happening

outside the house, but in that case, straight from bear attack into really creepy bird sounds. There's some real ominous stuff going on as we make these plans. You're tempting the universe. Like we're tempting the universe again i think by saying oh my god are we yeah by even discussing the country bears plant is the whole the state of the world writing on how we cover the country bear jamboree we're gonna have a country bear

on the books and then there's it's gonna be like there's a new virus and it's like shuts everything down again and then somebody like some mad scientist going to have to run up to us and be like, it's you. You're doing this. You can't do this country bears on your podcast. I've been listening to every podcast for clues. It's taken me hours and hours and days and weeks and years. I haven't slept except when the podcast put me to sleep, which happens very often. Yes, it happens very often.

Yes, it's too long. You go on for too long. Hours and hours. Come now. Yeah. Well, very exciting. Jamborees to come. Jamborees, you'd have to say, are among the things not allowed, right? Now, jamborees have been banned by local and state

officials what a year a year of no jamborees very sad yeah so yeah again why would we have the country bear jamboree in a year of no jamborees we will not uh so when things are safe that will be the sign that will be the flags triumphantly re-raising. And that's when you, the listener, will know that the world is healed and that we were the virus. When Mayor Eric Garcetti puts on his overalls and pulls out his jug and blows on it three times, then we know jamborees are safe. Well, then we know he will establish a commission to examine jug music uh yeah the jug music the viability the um surveying canton chambery task force devoted to pushing the ball forward on jug blowing initiatives yeah yeah he wanted to he wanted to get that job in Biden's cabinet Examining jug blowing

Techniques but Mayor Pete got it Mayor Pete is the jug blowing secretary Secretary of jug blowing And he's oddly amazing at it He's very talented The guy he plays piano He speaks languages,

he plays a mean jug. Makes sense to me. That's a thing. Whatever the upload scientist jack into the port in the back of his skull, he's A+. Whatever Morpheus uploads into the computer. Whatever, yeah, $6 million man.

Initiate jug playing protocol. I that also if we're doing like a year in review, I think it really like dates everything that there was a point in this calendar year where the politician we were the most mad at was Pete Buttigieg. Boy, if only we knew what was to come i don't remember that and if i do it's like a dream 10 years ago i had it's crazy the whole thing is madness sometimes when i sit and reflect on just everything i just you go oh i see how you would lose your i see how the joker would become the joker you kind of see how a person could lose their mind sure and i haven't been through nearly as much as the joker this year so you can imagine if i'm like oh i can't i can feel that thread if you pull on it a little

more it's important to remember i mean we everybody's had their problems and their stresses but no one has had it as bad as the Joker. Arthur Fleck. Arthur Fleck. Is that right? That's what we were most scared of in fall 2019. That's right. The dreaded Joker. That was the scariest thing we had to deal with.

It was the Joker was going to create many Jokers, multiple Jokers. But then the virus came dancing down the stairs. That's right. Rock and roll part 19. In my mind, it looks like Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park dancing, but he's obviously mean. It's like Mr. DNA, but he's mean. Big old smile, big old tap shoes. Yeah.

So, yeah. Year in review uh weird yeah uh if i had to say yeah the year in theme parks well i guess i'd have to start with weird weird wild stuff weird stuff yeah and um you know with some of the things we're going to be talking about today i don't want to go jumping to our final observations but um i would have to say um based on our recent theme park experiences i don't know for me with theme parks i gotta say it's all about the rides Call me crazy, but I do like rides. Food as well. Not having a constant sense of fear and paranoia. Some of my favorite things about the theme park experience. Yeah. I have to concur.

We did get some food. We did get some food. No, food was part of it. Let's say officially what we're doing here. We're going to be discussing and reviewing the recent slate of Southern California COVID-safe theme park experiences. This is a lineup that has changed greatly in the last two weeks. The last two hours. That's true.

There was a further development. Might have changed again. But yeah, there probably was there. Are you going to spring something on us? Oh my God. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Is it in one of the parks?

I guess we wait on that. Yeah. Oh boy. It's in the second thing. Oh my God. But I feel like there's a happy end it's one of these parks well i will give a lot of credit to for rolling with the punches for a while for months now they they have been managing i think very well absolutely and um yeah

and there will be a happy ending to this episode entirely this This, I will promise, put a pause button on that. You'll hear it later. But for now, I mean, look, a lot of fun was had. We went and covered a lot of ground between the three of us. I did all three of the things on this roster, and I wasn't sure that I was going to do all of them. But last night, I completed the trilogy. And the completion of the trilogy being the Disneyland holiday experience. I went to Downtown Disney and to what remains of Buena Vista Street. If you aren't in California,

I haven't been following it closely. Um, here's the deal. Uh, downtown Disney has been open for a little while. I hadn't been, I don't think any of us have been, uh, last night. Uh, um, well, yeah, I mean, I went and did it, but the, a couple of weeks ago they finally, and I was very excited that they finally opened up a little bit of California adventure. Finally, you were able to go on to theme park property proper and that lasted for two weeks how long did it go before something like that california got way way way more strict because it's been been insane here and if you can forget you know like all the stuff's

good you know the you know it is icu shortage and all that stuff that we're dealing with again. So I guess it had to be done. But they didn't close it entirely. Yeah, if you don't know, it was opened briefly. And there were restaurants open. There were a couple of restaurants you could go to. We've all been clamoring to go to Smokejumper's Grill. Give me those hamburgers again chicken sandwich i guess iceberg lettuce at the counter right where you put you take pieces of iceberg lettuce and manually put them on is that right

jason toppings bar yes yes they did have i don't know that they came back with a full toppings bar. Seems like not the best plan. Fuddruckers closed out here, so now I guess I am craving a toppings bar. I know, it's the little things. Yeah. Anyway, Smokejumpers, we all miss it. We want that toppings bar. I, of course, you know, I was excited because they were going to reopen my beloved Carthay Circle Lounge, albeit in an outdoor setting. And it was certainly my hope that after this crazy year that I could close the episode and say, and then.

But after all that, I got to enjoy a Carthay Manhattan. And it was like none of it happened. And I had the reservation and then everything shut down three days before. Yeah. All set to do it. 2020. Yep. Yeah, that's it in a nutshell.

The writing was on the wall. It was like, because in California, it's been all these like, okay, if we tip into the purple zone, then you'll know and then like by the time that sentence is finishing being said by the governor or whatever we are in the purple zone right we've had to add we added colors before the press conference was over so it all went away the the thing did not shut down though it is basically just open as like a minimal shopping mall uh which is what it felt like basically it kind of was like the grove or the americana um albeit with less to do it was all right very strange i would say and and just and just to say obviously messed up hand washing uh sanitizing all this you know i i

it it was very safe. I felt safe. If you guys wanted to do it, I would say it makes sense to do it. Especially with eliminating. I didn't see anything alarming going on. Not too many people. Sort of a ghost town. Probably due to the fact that there's

nothing to do there. It's basically taking a walk. Instead of taking a walk in my neighborhood, took a walk there um a very surreal experience for more reasons than one i'm driving into disneyland just having not done that drive since march i'm driving in just like i'm a different person than the last time i was here like besides enduring all of this stuff the last time I was here. Like besides enduring all of this stuff, the last time I was driving onto this property, I was changing out of an orange space suit because of a pop-up show we did in a closing electronics store. And now I'm coming in as a father who doesn't go anywhere or do anything.

I'm driving into a theme park that is darkened. I don't know if you guys know this. I was curious what it was going to be when I drove in. The black spires are extra black. They're not lit up. Mickey's fun wheel is not fun. It is dark. There is nothing lit anywhere.

It's like this odd, you know, many levels deep of flag half-mast um just very strange to drive up that seems scary um i think we're about to talk about well in a little bit we'll talk about it i had a similar vibe going on for part of it and i got a chill ran up my spine anytime you see a large uh area like that with large structures and it's just completely black darkness i find that's very eerie because i think you immediately kind of go to this is the apocalypse this is what the apocalypse looks like i mean so much i've had i've had a number of things this year where i i despite being at the thing and constantly thinking boy this is apocalyptic i'm still like close enough sort of close to fun that's kind of what all this was uh i think everything we're going to talk about so very surreal you go in and if you don't know what they did it's basically like you

can walk into california adventure um through the buena vista Street area and their shops and they minimize the people who can go into the shops. You can go look at the Carthay Circle building and marquee. You can walk not very close up to Smokejumper's Grill and the ride Soarin' that I miss very much and you can walk much deeper

into the Hollywood backlot area of California Adventure, which is of course the ugot area of California Adventure, which is, of course, the ugliest area of California Adventure. Can you see Guardians Tower or no? Probably not, right? They do light it. They light it.

And it's so exciting. It's so nice to see. Yes, that did my heart well. See, I mean, just looking at Carthay Circle was really nice. I know the bar is so low, but seriously, just seeing all these things still was heartwarming. Let's talk real quick, bad boy stuff. How far could you get before security tackled you into California Adventure? Could you make it to the front of Tanalir Tavon's

house? Let's see. I think if you had advanced knowledge of backstage areas and you could duck and weave, I think if you dressed in dark clothing, and especially dark clothing that might blend into

your surroundings, like if you pick a pattern that is kind of the level of tan of a California Adventure wall, you might be able... Because it's not the most staffed. I mean, I'm sure you get sniped.

You still probably get sniped. Maybe you could get 10 feet closer than you imagined and then you would be shot in the legs. You think they have a shoot on site edict? Perhaps in these times. You can't mess around with it. Yeah, things are scary.

I think I always, this is always, I'm always, you know, because we're good boys, but I always have like bad boy instincts sometimes. So that does interest me to go like well what are they really doing could i make it inside and do one ride on guardians before security got me um i'd have to know how to operate i guess to start it or i was gonna say like climb up the elevator shaft yourself like a gym rope oh do a manual do a manual drop I'll have, I want you back on my phone in headphones, and I just slide up and down the cord that holds the elevator, or holds that little box. Yeah, you're up. High dive into the bay.

High dive, launch yourself like a Jason Bourne or an Ethan Hunt type, escaping a building into a body of water into the the world of color uh bay don't uh if you're listening don't try this but have fun fantasizing about breaking disney rules yeah and jumping into a ride um yeah yeah just go go up to it look at it stroke your chin like what if and then walk away um yeah so yeah you can't get that close to you can there's a new marquee of philhar magic uh that it's like a like neon sign that's nice but then like great so much of what is open are just those areas that are scaffolding in the backs of buildings and pipes. A lot of it is, but if you miss all of the Hollywood pipes, you can go see them. And it just costs $10 to park.

It does. I do miss Hollywood pipes. That was my question. Still does, yeah. Well, when they first... Hollywood pipes is a different uh rock and roll band though too that johnny depp is in no yes those are for the people who built it out yeah like that holy night singer he's right well when they first announced this was happening in the

first couple days of it um it seemed like chaos because there was like multi-hour lines every step that lines to get into the esplanade from either side lines to get into downtown disney lines to get into buena vista street lines to get into the shops and the carthay list and then eventually they started doing reservations for carthay but i I read a piece, I think it was from a San Francisco Chronicle reporter who seemed like a regular, who seemed like they had covered the parks before and knew the stuff to expect. And they stayed for a few hours and just tapped out. They're like, I can't do this.

And so that was my point of like, okay, I'm not rushing down, but maybe if I let it go for a couple weeks, maybe go on a weekday, go real early, real late. Scott, you opted for real late. Of course, now very heavily scaled back from the original presentation. Extremely. It truly is, do you want to go take a walk near some stuff that made you happy before and for me i don't know i am like uh seeing the gates and like at least looking at the train station or whatever um seeing the uh shuttered uva bar like there's all of the bottles i didn't

think about that there's like a little door shutting them off. Scott's nightmare. I will be having nightmares about all this for weeks. You should have had a video of you just on your knees outside the Uva bar, screaming in pain that it was closed. I mean, I've never seen it closed. Maybe early, maybe very early. But it's always open. It's always got people there. It's such a hive of activity.

A jamboree. A constant jamboree at the jamboree yeah um it was upsetting yeah yeah no i'm gonna go camp out there uh with a recall newsome sign um that was the last straw for me everything else has been fine but everything not my thing because it's outdoors. On the bright side. Uva bar. Yeah. Yeah. But you also, you got all your Christmas shopping done at Sugar Boo and Co. Hey, how about that? You got your signs. You got your sign that just says imagine.

Did you get your Tom Petty sign that says I'm free, free fallen, and it's a big piece of wood, and it was $150? Yeah, definitely. And all of the rest of the lyrics of the song are all embedded in his hair if you look close. It's all the different strands. It's a really moving piece.

I did do a little Christmas shopping at a thing called the Backlot Premiere Shop. They converted a soundstage. They've used it for like, you know, here's a seasonal Frozen experience. You know, just various odds and ends have happened. It is just like a big empty soundstage in the Hollywood area.

And this is, I want to say, the most depressing thing I've ever seen on Disney property. This was like Disney doing a spirit Halloween store. Like truly in every way, because you know that's not what's supposed to be in there. There's walls like spirit telling you, like they're trying to trick you into thinking there's not more building, but you can see that there is. And just kind of like words projected and monitors and you know very megan trainery music blasting to convince you that it's fun um i still bought a couple ornaments um and yet with all that weirdness it was pretty cool because this building

is where they hosted the attraction who wants to to Be a Millionaire? Play It. And if you haven't seen this on Twitter, as you're exiting, you exit past the big orange words, Play It. Really strange. And again, just where my bar is, we're like, yeah, wow, I saw the Play It sign. I think I told Erin all this. How was it? I saw the play it sign. I think I told Erin all this.

How was it? I saw the play it sign, and she blinked so loud that it made a little dink. It made a cartoon dink. Like Looney Tunes, yeah. Wow, the play it sign. I mean, I am a little jealous that you got to see the play it sign, because it's still there. It's a remnant of the past. I think what's exciting to me about it is if there was a Superstar Limo

sign hidden somewhere I would make a point to go see it once in a while oh absolutely knowing there was this odd secret insiders only and it was cool also

going into this building is like you enter not through the park, but through the outside of the park. And you walk through like an employee parking lot. You have to wind through parking spaces that say gold sticker only. And then you go past a chain link fence that has a step and repeat plastered onto it and you're looking up and there's like a not lit sign for the leslie jones supermarket sweep and some like ryan reynolds thing i just and then the chain link fence is covering up like a giant vent like some air conditioning unit i like i can't believe how not disney this was and as we talk

about some of these other things i'm curious your guys feelings but i think of the three things we're going to talk about i think disney loses i think by holding out and not preparing for this and thinking we should do some kind of semi-open situation i think they ended up with the most bummer event of the three well it sounds like it yeah i think i i think the um giant bureaucracy that is the walt disney company i mean slightly less giant with their uh kind of uh gruesome layoffs but i think there's still a lot of levels of approval to go through that some of these other parks do not have to go through, and that really hampered their...

I think they were all in on, like, we're going to open in July. Yeah, I remember it. I was still horrified by that prospect. That was Jason Sheridan's prediction when Disneyland would open was July 4th. That was my Sheridan's prediction when Disneyland would open. It was July 4th. That was my first, yeah,

first projection. And then they, they stuck on that for a while. Like, you know, people would, people have been looking in, like,

the gates of Disneyland and Universal for some time and going like, oh, I see the distance markers. I see the hand sanitizers. So, I mean,

at a certain point, you just have to, you know, you bought those things and you want to put them in anyway. But, oh, I see the distance markers. I see the hand sanitizers. So, I mean, at a certain point, you just have to, you know, you bought those things and you want to put them in anyway. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, they even unrelated, only kind of related, they were supposed to open the villas at the Grand Californian because of, I don't know, timeshare law or regulations. So there was a chance that downtown Disney would be open, Buena Vista Street would be open, and a chunk of the hotel would be open for DVC members.

Because of timeshare law? Well, there's a certain thing, because those are people technically own those residents. Those are shared partnerships. Timeshare law, though, is it like martial law? Is it like maritime law? Anything goes in a timeshare? Do anything you want in a timeshare. Knowing

a little how timeshares works, probably closer to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is bird law. The episode where Charlie convinces himself he's an expert in bird law concerns okay um so yeah uh but they scrapped that too because i think the writing was on the wall that uh recreational hotel hotels still many of them still open for emergency purposes um but for for like casual jaunts not really an option.

There were just some windows lit up in the Disneyland Hotel, which was so unnerving. Imagining being up there, how creepy it would be if you were the only person staying in the Disneyland Hotel. Yeah, I am. It's sounding much actually more depressing than I thought it would sound, especially with the park being dark and everything. But now it actually makes me a little bit more intrigued to go down there because I missed out on haunts this year. And there's nothing scarier than like a rundown, desolate Disneyland. That's the biggest nightmare of all. The happiest place on Earth is gone.

It's shuttered. And I guess you would get a piece of that. I would get that true fear. Sitting on a bench on the side of the long-closed Rainforest Cafe, which is pretty dimly lit over there, and there was nobody. Again, you're going to go and, like, not bump into people. It is really, especially at night, you know, yeah, if you're looking for a thing where you'll be plenty distant. So just like sitting and staring at the non-branded, non-functional Rainforest Cafe. Yeah, that was my haunt for the year. I'll put on like a Phantom of the Opera mask that also covers my nose and mouth and a cloak.

And I'll go in the dead of night and I'll try to pick up a sandwich from Earl of Sandwich. Is that open? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Okay, good. To go, I'll mobile order it and then I'll pull my cape over my face and just like the night I'll be gone. Yes, I'll get to dress up like it's Halloween and I'll get to see all the spookiness. You could get Ralph Brennan gumbo to go and eat it in the car.

You could drive home with gumbo. That's something you can do. Okay. That's from the Express, the Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen Express, which is, right? Or is it the restaurant proper? Is anything of that?

No, that's the Express. The to-go window's open. I think you can only get beignets and gumbo or almost nothing else. There was a po' boy. Nothing wrong with that. We had a wonderful time at Ralph Brennan's actual restaurant, and I have tried the Express a couple times, and the beignets are good, but I had a po' boy, and it was dog shit.

It was horrible. It was too much bread, and the bread was bad, and the breaded shrimp was bad. Recalling the Downtown Disney ordeal, as I walked through a largely empty Downtown Disney and the bread was bad and the fried or the breaded shrimp was bad you know recalling the downtown disney ordeal as i walked through a largely empty downtown disney it was like this is kind of the world that we imagined that we forced onto ourselves during the downtown disney ordeal oh yeah where this fun experience is close but you can't go on them or participate in them and in this case they are they are literally limits, and they are darkened. It's like they've been taken off a map.

It's a video game level that hasn't been unlocked. I mean, you were in the underworld. You were in the underworld. Oh, my God. Even the upper world became the underworld. It's all the underworld now. And none of us have visited the City walk underworld right no one's been up to city walk since that went takeaway only well i don't think there actually is technically stuff

yeah i don't think there technically is an underworld because we didn't put that in the myth the mythology there is yeah that's right there is no city walk underworld as far as we know as we know we could always you never know what the keeper is going to spring never know right so gosh um very strange we can we can wind it down i i just you know the whole thing felt like i i don't mean to convey like truly like getting to see these things that i liked again was very nice and i kept it quick and i kept it safe but the whole thing you know it i i was thinking of it as like it's like seeing a relative in the hospital um and it's you're you're pretty sure they're gonna pull through you know you're a fighter you're gonna be okay i feel good i'm just glad to know that you're uh you're you're still alive

and kicking that is the feeling right now of going to disneyland well wow i think as soon as everybody just put their podcast on pause and hopped in the car you gotta get there you gotta do it um on a more uplifting note on the way home as i showed you guys i i uh for the first time ran through the portillo's drive-thru in the greatest city on earth the buena park in the park california and what was the order what order? I didn't do a cake shake because I didn't think I could handle it. I've never actually done it. Oh, really? Really. Oh.

I thought I was missing out on a big thing. I might have been. I got a vanilla shake, and they were pretty insistent on, like, you got to put some peppermint in there. And it is the holidays. And I did. So that was like, they just crumbled up a candy cane. Okay. All right. And you're just getting pieces of candy cane as you're eating your milkshake um it's it's a real tooth rotter

that's for sure i liked it a lot but i had to bail for the sake of my teeth um but a nice nice drive back um my only complaint with portillo's is because i mean i think you were dying that you could go into dying but they really should put some of the great photos that are inside of Portillo's outside for this period. Like the Jim Belushi with Dick Portillo, the founder of Portillo's, should be outside and it should be blown up. Dick Portillo with Carmen Electra should be outside. The other photo of Dick Portillo and Jim Belushi that's inside should be outside. The other photo of Dick Portillo and Jim Belushi that's inside should be outside. Multiple pictures of the founder of Portillo's

with Jim Belushi. And they're in every Portillo's. He's had copies of these photos made, and they are in every Portillo's, at least I've been in. They are there. Believe it, I did it. I've lived quite a life.

I've met Jim Belushi twice. And I can have hot dogs whenever I want. Dick Portillo. So, yeah, that's the Disney experience. Let's keep heading elsewhere into Orange County. Is that correct? Yes. Still in Buena Park.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, just stop skipping a jump away. Yeah. Jason and I both did Knott's Taste of Mary Farm. They're, you know, by framing it as a food tasting event, which it is, and it is a good one of those, they've let the park be open for eating and drinking. Yes.

Now, this was the one I was alluding to. There has been developments hours before we started recording. The Taste of Berry Farm was the second or third tasting event that Knott's had done. Basically, they open up the whole park and there's different food stations. You don't really pay for entry. You pay for a tasting card. And it was $40. And you got five items to choose from.

And like Scott said, we had a great time. You know, I felt very safe. This was kind of my first experience about eating outside. And I had a feeling that turned out correct, which is like, oh, the whole park's going to be open. And it's pretty large. You forget how big Knott's is because you don't think it's a huge footprint, but it is large. So very easy to get a table away from people and then take your mask off, eat, put it back on, and then head to the next thing.

So Taste of Merry Farm was tabled with the current stay-at-home rules, and they were going to start selling tickets again a few weeks out, December 27 27th to january 3rd but just a couple hours ago um when we record this they just pulled the plug and canceled it that said they are doing a number of dates for what they're calling the christmas crafts village which is a lot of the outdoor vendors, woodworkers, and jewelry makers. Basically, you can go into the park and get some Christmas gifts and support some local artists and stuff.

Knott's, I think, has been one of the more resilient SoCal parks. I went down and got that chicken back in the summer. The marketplace is doing takeout still, and the shop is open so there's still some stuff to do at knots and um the sir it was great i i jane and i had a great time we went down we uh we loved it uh uh yeah i had a great time uh um the i mean also notable for me this was this was aaron and i his first uh date since having a baby this is the first time so wild yeah yeah and what yeah by that point like seven months in or something in another world uh certainly would have happened multiple times by that but it just doesn't uh yeah it doesn't make

sense like even if you got out like where would you go um so this was thank god for theme parks because you know aaron also joined me on the last thing we're going to talk about. I, yeah, they've like some of the only things that we've done. And this one was the most satisfying food. Great. We had stuff we really enjoyed. I guess it's weird now to be, you know, like hyping an event that you, the listener can't go to. Sorry. So, but I had a nice time. It's a little, it's a photo album now um if there is this craft village thing happening let me shout out calico carver i've had my eye on on a wooden sign for a long time the wood signs that they make it knots and we got one it says the gardeners and i have

never felt uh more like we're a family than putting that sign up. I said I would post it on Instagram and I haven't done that. I said that to the gentleman, but I'll do one better and say, I'll say it on a podcast. Yeah, check out Calico Carbon. If you go to that thing, buy a sign. They're fantastic.

It's great quality. And yeah, it's got a bear and it's so cozy. Now I feel like we live in a Lake Arrowhead cabin. It's great. Or in a country bear theater. Yes. There you go. It is a little slice of that shiny theme park wood.

It's really nice. I want to say fake wood. It's not fake wood. It's definitely real wood. I use fake as a compliment. It feels like fake wood. It's definitely real wood. I use fake as a compliment. It feels like fake wood in the best way. Like you're in a cartoon. Is there a real wood Final Four that we could do?

Is there enough real wood? There has to be, right? Yeah. There's plenty of wood. Many, many structures and theme parks are made from wood. Yes. We like wood. Of wood. We love love wood big wood fans so

maybe maybe we'll talk about this i was by a wooden structure at knots i i'll set this up a little because it it touches on something we were talking about recently which was the carnival episode uh we played a game when we were down there because they had some of the games running too. And in carny lingo, this game is called a hanky pank, which means you always, everyone who plays wins a prize. And it was very funny because they were very upfront. It was a classic carnival game. It's a bunch of rubber duckies going around in a row and you kind of have to pick two that match.

But they were like, okay, just play until you win. And it costs $5 if you want one of those, $10 if you want one of those, or $15 if you want one of those. So basically, it's like, what stuffed animal do you want to buy and have a little fun to get? So we played, immediately got a pairing, and got this lovely Snoopy. It's a little minimalist Snoopy.

Sort of like Japan style a little bit. That's great. Yeah, and I immediately was holding him, and I was like, I love him. I remembered as a kid I had a giant stuffed Snoopy, and I forget which relative gave it to us, but my parents for years were like, please, it's mildewing.

It's falling apart. Let's get rid of it and and eventually i acquiesced uh they made you take it out back and dismember it to put it in the it doesn't fit into the the trash you have to take it apart jason this is a learning experience oh yeah your old yellow moment shoot it with a fluff gun. My old yeller moment. Fluffy bullets. Scott, I'm sorry. I do have to tell you this very cute minimalist Snoopy. The tag, the official name of this line is... I'm so sorry. It's called Squishmallows.

So soft, cuddle and squeeze me. And I feel like I knew... You know, I had to read. I just had to. I know that probably sent chills up your spine could that be worse than toofy spooder um wish mellows a name for me spood me he's he's just so cute and hey look you're talking about wood uh let's say nots you know they of all the parks,

they remember the reason for the season because I got my picture with this giant nativity scene. Wow. Yeah, big nativity. Big nativity. Hell yeah. I can see, whoa, let me squint. I can see the ghost of Walter Knott.

And he's to the side of the nativity and he's just smiling and nodding. Wow. And he's got a MAGA hat on. Yes. And he's saying, stop the steal. Stop the steal. And you know, with the marketplace open and the craft fair, it turns out, he was right.

Free Enterprise survived. And of course, a nativity scene set up under a massive roller coaster. Yeah, the flip side, what you're looking at in the photo is yeah bright orange roller coaster it's so insane that that's there yeah yeah we kind of forgot and there's a bunch of missions around what a weird part oh the missions are very cute they should add uh they should add that to the log ride during christmas time like instead of that alien and uh band with the bear um on the timber mountain log ride they should just put a nativity at the end um doing a yeah there's christmas overlays but nowhere has done a nativity right overlay um it came up earlier in this episode but if you if

you could time out the music to where when you did the drop, you heard the part of Oh Holy Night fall on your knees. Fall on your knees. And hear. Let's see, what else? What if the bear, wait, hold on. And then as you go by the bear, he goes, Oh Holy Night. Not Happy Halloween.

Christ the Savior is born. The actors, there was a lot of actors. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the actors were really good, and there were some characters. Santa Snoopy was a real highlight. Oh, yeah. A distant photo. Yes.

A little in front of. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Up on the second floor of a saloon or something was an Ebenezer Scrooge, who was one of the funniest people I have seen in a theme park. He was so funny, just like pointing and making fun of people below. People below are trying to get the upper hand on him. Somebody's making fun of him and says,

Hello, governor. And then he looks down and says, So I'm the governor now? Wonderful. More power for me. And then what was the thing? Oh, he pointed at a baby and said, Why isn't he working?

They should be working in one of my mines. They should be getting gold for me. Was he, uh, playing Walter? Not we also didn't know they were doing a Christmas Carol overlay. And only the first thing we saw was just this old man screaming at everyone

from the rafters. And I was like, all this ghost town actors they have a lot of fun and then but apparently there was even more stuff like around i think um uh eva anderson went to this at some point too and she said he that he said something about like merry recession everyone jesus whoa wow dark topical comedy Don't see that in a theme park. Yeah, they can be, I mean, they can get religious. They can get bawdy at knots.

That's the fun of knots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Less standards. Things can get wild. Wild. As bawdy as you want to be. Mm-hmm.

Also, we learned at Camp Snoopy they have uh child-sized benches this is an amazing photo wow whoa jane ran to get something and just gesture was like take a seat on that bench and didn't realize what it was and i went uh okay man man. And so I did. And it's... Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. I was wrong. She was owning my ass. She said it's adjacent size.

Oh, okay. Thank you, Jane, for clarifying. She wanted credit for that slam. Yeah. There's a bunch of empty space there. And I wish that Mike and i were there to join you to sit down with you and once we sat you get launched uh the weight launches you across camp snoopy onto one of the rides hopefully face down in a like a balloon bucket and like yeah

woodstock boots of a train balloon or into the yeah into a snoopy show maybe when he just has jason just has to like to go with it right yeah there wasn't really a show but line at like rotating characters were on stage waving and um yeah there was a lot of very cute uh woodstocks just extra woodstocks just everywhere in scarves and earmuffs and was i was spike anywhere to be found i didn't see a spike um he was still avoiding snoopy's drifter relative yeah and if anyone listened to our peanuts episode jason and i tried multiple times when we were at knotsott's to get a picture with Spike, and he kept avoiding us.

It was really... It did feel personal, honestly. I did find this great... Spike doesn't like people. I never noticed this rock work with Charlie Brown, Snoopy sleeping on his lap, which you rarely see, and then a brass woodstock.

Yeah, I just thought that was really great. And then, I believe, Scott, you and Aaron got this, too, this fun little bunt cake with an ice cream cone Christmas tree on top. Very, very fun. Really fun. Took it all the way home to go, despite being very precarious and hard to hold. Then got home, took a bite into the icing, which was not edible, at least not by that point.

The ornaments were not. The lower half was good. The cake and the icing was good. But yes, the cone was not great. I figured out a way to rig it up. I asked for a large soda cup, and I covered it on the plate. That's really smart. Oh, jeez. Yeah, yeah. I figured out a way to rig it up. I asked for a large soda cup, and I covered it on the plate, and I had a- Oh, jeez. Yeah.

We're dangling that thing all the way back. Hopefully, they restart these events for Peanuts Festival and Peanuts Celebration, Boysenberry Festival, kind of do tasting events like this because the portions were huge like we ate like two things and we're like what do we do with the rest of these taste it like we are like just doing laps to walk off the food before we can eat any others yeah massive ice cream sandwiches it was great the food was great um the awesome beer and again as i said like well you know you add the new parent thing to it like oh my god we are out uh baby's safe with grandma and we are getting to enjoy a beer with a view of fake rocks and they did turn the log flume on we're watching water come out of it uh it's so nice to

see it was the sweetest beer we've ever had, and not just because it was full of berry flavoring. We shared a drink that was like sparkling wine with a scoop of boysenberry ice cream in it, and it was the sweetest thing I've ever had, but it was pretty good. Scott, I really think you need to, if you want to compete with Jason and I,

I think you need to start getting your tolerance a little higher for sugar, okay? revealed last was it last week yeah you haven't had nearly the amount of sugar cereals we've had and i just think maybe it's like you weren't like you weren't trained on it as much as a youth and i think maybe you should start every morning now taking uh like a big spoonful of sugar and just getting your taste buds numb like ours are. Well, I'm never going to give up wine, which has natural sugar to it. But maybe what I need to do is just dump half a box of sugar into the wine, mix it up, and

then I will match the drinking taste of the rest of the show. Yeah, I think That's yeah. I think that's good. Cause yeah, then you'll be able to really experience all the treats and then, yeah, you should probably just start, uh,

probably just have a little cup of lucky charms for every meal. Just a side, like a little appetizer, lucky charms or a fruity pebbles. Well, I'll just either, neither you, you had though,

right? You said, um, I, or I'm just not sure I've had lucky charms but not never none of it on the the regular really uh um i mean just i think the big thing impeding me in the recent past has been that i am not a child and haven't been for a number of years so that's in my way but but this podcast you do would suggest otherwise huh that's interesting that's yeah yeah that's a that's that's fair uh um i well look uh i'm probably gonna have more of that stuff in the house with the baby and maybe what i do is start like weaving it like

i still make myself like a nice salmon or, but I bred it in Lucky Charms, all of Planet Hollywood. You don't get to go to those anymore. I'll bring Planet Hollywood to me. This thing was great. Clearly, the victor over Disneyland. First of all, my thought to Disneyland is open up that whole park. Get it all open, even if it is just like little stores and kiosks. I felt so much safer.

Of course, I felt safer going to Vista Street, but there was something about like, oh, my God, the whole park is open at Knott's. Well, there's plenty of room for everybody, and they've capped the capacity. And I think for these remaining months, however many many more there are i hope it's not a ton but there certainly will be some uh before these places are opening and i think we'll find ourselves in these weird in between it's kind of open and i think disney has to take a page from the knots book and they have they've done it before big thunder mountain is basically a dressed up knots ride you can steal ideas from knots start doing it again uh because knots pulled it off they did it better well uh yes i think uh disney yeah they disney likes they were just like we want it all or nothing and then they sort of acquiesced at the end of the year and it was too

late so we'll see we'll see what happens will bob eiger join joe biden's cabinet like i read today as an ambassador that's not a joke by the way that's really wow yeah possible that's possible so i don't know i don't know if it's a chapek thing it's eiger we'll see maybe that will happen for a couple months it would be it would be nice to go they have those little box those little vendor boxes for the food and wine yes they should do food and wine i think they'd be that'd be huge they yeah they got those pieces already um and my other thought uh and forgive me because this isn't so comedic but i'm curious if you guys agree. Okay, this weird time that hopefully will be limited, but before the theme parks are open,

I do think that some limited, like I love that they started trying to do this stuff. And I'm at knots just realizing like, oh, doing a big outdoor food thing makes so much sense. And it felt like I have seen things, I've passed by things on the street and seen with my own eyes stuff that shouldn't be happening. It is way more dangerous than what's happening at Knott's. So the whole, like, we're just not going to do theme parks at all. Basically like not thinking of theme parks as one thing, an amusement park is one type of thing. And that is all that it is. It doesn't make any sense to me because An amusement park is one type of thing and that is all that it is. It doesn't make any sense to me because a theme park is indoor space

and outdoor space. It's restaurants and it's outdoor rides and it's indoor rides where you should limit capacity or not do them at all for a while. But isn't there something to the governor looking at theme parks with a more nuanced eye and saying like okay so you can't run

this this and this and this but you can do some of this and start getting people back to work because i like that knots thing i just like there was so much of it that felt perfectly safe to me and will especially feel uh absolutely safe come May when people are starting to have the vaccine more and more. Yeah, I Todd Martin's are very, like thoughtful, and, you know, like you're saying nuanced piece about going down, and he made it in, I think, to Carthay, either on Thanksgiving or Black Friday. And, you know, I think similar, similar feelings of like, it's nice to be near this stuff.

It is a little melancholy. But to your point, I believe he, you know, referred to, you can think about these places as like outdoor sculpture gardens or large, you know, cultural, like pop culture centers, you know? Yeah pop culture centers you know yeah um experiences and and yeah i think i think that where the problem comes in is i think knots is you know kind of a neighborhood park it is a smaller park and i think you... There's stuff that has its fandoms like a Disney or if Universal was like, we're opening just the Harry Potter restaurant.

That would get slammed. So then you have to build the infrastructure for reservations or drawings of who gets in. And I think that's where the complications arise. Yeah. Well, it's just, I mean, look, if you're asking for my Fauci-like wisdom on this,

and that you're a man who reads his Reddit, it's like, first of all, the whole thing is confusing. This is going to get very boring very fast. The whole thing is confusing because everyone's fighting a different battle on different playing fields, essentially. Like, probably everything should just be closed, except for grocery stores and hospitals. Oh, of course.

That's what it should have been at the very beginning for a limited amount of time, and this shit would be over. Right. And it should have been. And then at that point, masks until vaccine, blah, blah, blah, and spread, blah, blah, blah, monitor everything. So then that's out the window the government has i mean california is doing an okay job with unemployment an okay job but the government has abandoned workers essentially now yeah which is fucking crazy now we're getting serious here and i understand why people like i need to go back to work like you're stranding me without money so i'm sympathetic to

that but it's hard because it's like if it's just purely like if disney opens even with like only outdoor rides which i do think would probably be mostly safe if it's just big thunder if it's just i don't know whatever other open air right goofy sky school for instance yeah it's like that all would be safe but then now you have thousands of people coming in from other states they have to stay somewhere maybe they are getting together in a restaurant like you are moving people around so it's like i do get the idea that like disney is its own thing it's not knots people aren't traveling as much from out of state, especially to knots, just to eat a fun Christmas tree. Yeah, yeah, right.

Which is fun, but so I get that idea, but then I'm also like, everything is screwed and I don't know what to do. Yeah, you're right. I'm not saying do this tomorrow. God knows it's terrible. I'm talking about like, in September, are we still going to be, and I don't know where things are going to be at in September, but like is it still just going to be unilaterally there are no amusement park anything of any kind. That's what I don't quite get. I feel like you

have to start easing into the water a little bit. Well, it depends. I mean, I also think that there was an argument to be made like maybe around now or the last couple months where it was like all the vaccines failed. They're all bad. And you go, well, are we going to do this for six years? Like, how long are we going to do this? Let's just like all like we can sort of collectively figure something out. But it does seem like and I don't want to say jinx anything, but it does seem like we have two vaccines that work.

We have a decent amount of them. A lot of people are going to get the disease, unfortunately. And it feels like the spread will be going down by the spring. And by September, I would imagine a nice amount of America will have been vaccinated. And just by the natural nature of the cycle of these things, I do probably think that the transmission rate at that point will be so low that we'll probably be in some version of open again. I think. This is my reading Reddit. This is my guess based on reddit sure sure um yeah which

it is well informed mine none of mine is it don't quote me on it if i'm way off the mark on anything i've said i do not uh disclaimer scott garner does not uh claim to be a scientist or know anything about anything this is a joke this is a podcast for jokes I don't think you are, but I mean, I think it's going to be a long time to rebuild, because the failure at local, state, and federal level of governance. I mean, someone on a podcast, on like Chap or something,

years ago said, you think the bare minimum function of a country is to keep its citizens alive and 2020 has shown we are not a functioning state uh so right you know uh and and then on top of that with all these mixed messages then you have 300 million people living in i don't know, a hundred different million realities. So no one can agree on a shared reality anymore besides the American tradition of disdain for the poor. Yeah, so I get where you're coming from because just in a bubble,

to use a phrase people have been using, in a bubble that makes sense that you could walk around outside and even get on a ride or two on outside and it's probably gonna be okay but i'm not necessarily saying it by the way because just because i want to do it i mean sure but i don't want to do it till it's safe uh it's just more like uh i don't know just to like get the gears going again in the tiniestiniest degree, and still in a very modest way. How about just Mickey's Fun Wheel opens in January? Open air, the cars aren't.

Maybe one person per car. One party. Oh, one person. Not even one party. Yeah, not even a party. One person. One person? Okay.

Okay. Yeah. And so, yeah, and the Florida situation is different. Not even one party. Not even party. One person. One person. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. And the Florida situation is different. Florida is lawless. International waters. A whole state that's international waters.

Yeah. I don't know. Timeshare law. Yeah. It's timeshare law in Florida. Timeshare law. Yeah. And writ large statewide. And also, there's some contact tracing, but I still feel like we don't have some crazy, crazy, we should have had some crazy contract tracing apparatus that would have really been able to track every single person eating at our inner side of the restaurant, going to Disney World, tracking all of them for a couple months and really determining like, hey, no one's gotten sick.

Right, right. them for a couple months and really determining like, hey, no one's gotten sick from doing that. There would have been information because we're all still sort of grasping it like, I think this is good. Anyway, I don't know. I really don't know, but those are my thoughts. Those are my loose thoughts.

The transition time for sure is going to be insane. Oh my God, it's's gonna be awful it's gonna be like we haven't prepared ourselves 25 million people have the vaccine and they'll be like i'm fine i'm going and then things are fine yeah you'll get bullied by other friends like let's go and you're like well i only got one half of the pfizer vaccine they're like that's enough you're young and it's provides some safety they say. It's going to be all, it's going to be bedlam is what's going to happen. But yeah, I mean, I think for sure, whatever stimulus, God willing, passes needs to help the tourism industry.

I mean, less the Walt Disney Company, you know, LLC or whatever, but more like the employees of said company, the people on the ground. And all the surrounding businesses and everything that do benefit from these places. Oh, yeah. Yeah, hospitality and restaurants. Captain Kidd's been closed, do we know? We have to save Captain Kidd's.

I don't know where they're at, but it can't be anywhere good. So if Captain Kidd is in peril, we gotta rescue him. We gotta be Captain Kidd's little buccaneers and get Captain Kidd that PPP loan. That's

what modern day pirates need is PPP loans. That's their treasure. Yar, there be Pp loans up ahead oh let's get into magic mountain let's uh okay yes what yeah i was just gonna say we'll get into it on the harbor hold on uh uh what um let's discuss this off fair okay uh okay we drove our cars through a theme park we drove our cars into six flags i assume i assume six flags and they did like a holiday light special but i assume six flags thought of the idea because uh teenage boys are constantly driving cars into their theme park anyway their girlfriend who works there cheated on them they

drive into the theme park all angry and this happens a couple times a week and screeches to a halt in front of a roller coaster look linda you cheated on me what are you doing i'm not moving this car until you get back together with until you're in it i assume this happens constantly it takes flags so this is they're like ah yes this is a good way to reopen yeah well i i should say first off we're talking about six legs holiday in the park drive-through experience uh this was not my first time riding a sedan through the walkways of six legs because I went to a construction tour once and I must have been one of the later people there

because they were like, oh yeah, we already took the golf carts off. Someone said, oh, I'll take them up. I'm going up there. And I just got in like a Nissan Sentra with one of the media people and he like floored it through the park up to like the construction site.

So this was definitely the slower speed experience of driving through six flags um i i love it i want more experiences where you drive a vehicle through a six flags it's the greatest thing it's so funny it felt so silly making our way in i mean you know the three of us all in the same car together were laughing so hard. Boy, we were just laughing so much that we were spitting, like spittle was coming out of our mouths onto each other.

It made us, oh man, it was so funny. Us and our ten friends in the back. All from different households. We rented a school bus. But we only sat in the front. We all jammed together in the front just for peak camaraderie. Of course.

Oh, yeah. This whole thing... Just to be clear, because things are... Bits are... In this case, safety is involved. We each individually drove our sedans

with our school bus we each drove a school bus through would they let a school bus through if you showed up in a school bus are they or is there would there not be the clearance you need depending on the valencia team that worked there that on that day you might get an okay a clean all clear and how stoned are they yeah Yeah, they might send you right through. Jason and I went on a press night, so they had the top people working. And we got greeted with a phrase I love to hear. Okay, great, you're checked in.

Here's your 3D glasses and your pound and a half of fudge yes we got a pound and a half of fudge on our way into this man and boy we were excited about it wow just texting each other like uh once at a stop fudge i thought jason made a joke on the text chain because he was there a little bit early a couple minutes earlier and i thought he was there a little bit earlier, a couple of minutes earlier. And I thought he was joking. And then I went, oh, what? We got a big, big, heavy, heavy. Really? I felt like it was two and a half pounds.

It was very heavy. Different kinds of fudge, like four different kinds. Jason, do you remember the flavors? Yeah. Okay. It was chocolate. There was like a cookie dough one. There was candy cane and like a green peppermint.

Oh, there might have been a rocky road and then a chocolate peanut butter. Wow. I don't even remember, but they were sweet as hell. They were good. They were good. Yeah. And you can buy them. You can buy like some treats coming or going from this. Well, is this open still?

Yes. So this is not only still open, it has been extended. I think it goes nightly through January 10th and then weekends through January 31st. But due to the drive-thru nature, it is still open. And you can do this and I'll say this 20 bucks a head like this is a reasonable thing you can do

and then you can add on if you want like hot chocolate or popcorn or like lanyards or fudge yeah you can buy a fudge as an add on we of course are VIPs we received complimentary fudge so yes well after the

regard that we have shown six flags time and time again we of course are given free things by them it makes perfect sense sure hey all press is good press six flags says it says it under the sign when you go in what what else about the sign when you go in guys what else did you know about the sign okay so so we're driving up to to valencia and six flags magic mound is in an odd spot it's the middle of nowhere basically there's like there's like a wendy's close by and maybe a couple other restaurants maybe is there like a friday's or something there's or something there's a red lobster we sat and had like weird pink

drinks and the cheddar biscuits one time so it's when you're driving up it's in a weird spot it's kind of desolate and then during a pandemic when most of the park isn't open a lot of the roller coasters are not illuminated

which immediately as I said earlier struck a little fear like a little terror like oh like you kind of get a chill because it's creepy um and then we saw a lot of cars obviously a lot of people going to this and the sign that says six flags uh the s is out the S is not illuminated so now you just see it says X flags and could a six flags trip start in a better way I don't think so it ended for me

it started with X flags and then there was another ominous warning as I was getting back on the freeway and we'll get to that are we sure that it isn't that it wasn't it's not X but Roman numeral I X because they changed it to

nine flags I am not sure about that that would be a fun like a test market they're trying it out around here they're gonna add more flags to people we know more flags more fun yeah so why not in this trying year add more flags finally well there are six flags people are sitting around a table

and like okay what should we do should we make the rides better should we expensive expensive uh should we paint any of our buildings painting Painting is a pain in the butt. We did it eight years ago. Why would we need to paint a building? I'm so high. Nobody sees it. And it's like somebody's like, where is the paint even? I don't even know.

Where would we find the paint? In a closet somewhere? Throw it away. We put it in the river. Yeah. So then they're like, what away we put it in the river yeah so then they're like what about more flags more flags do i have this correct that the equation we use internally is more flags equal more fun yeah when they figured it out i think we have it then they figured out they could do this trick so they can save on sign money.

Then we don't have to just turn off the S. Then it's nine, obviously. You know, and then it'll be clear that more flags equal more fudge. Oh, I misspoke. I said fudge instead of fun. Wait a sec. More fudge is more fun. Oh, yeah. That's exactly what happened uh we're having a lot of fun uh

but i gotta say i thought these light displays were nice oh yeah oh completely yes yeah i i would i mean this is fun uh at 20 dollars head it's about an hour i'd say doing the experience they say it's 30 minutes and then there's a little bit of line to get in you gotta go around the parking lot um you go in through the employee like and you know press and backstage entrance which is cool um there's a lot there's a couple fun things that i'd like to talk about now early on you see mr six's bus which is great it's very exciting i really liked that i will say and this is only because i and scott you will answer this question is jason and i did not see something that we know existed there did you scott see the looney tunes characters waving at you or anything i did not i did not

have they been doing that okay because i saw on mice chat dusty sage head of mice chat in case you don't know what i'm talking about mice chat is another website they have a podcast uh doug barnes from season pass does that but dusty sage who is the main man at mice chat posted a picture a video of the looney tunes waving at him as he drove by whoa and i got enraged because we did not see the looney tunes and my sister did this on a different night and she did not see looney tunes either i feel like there was a vip theme park media tier that got to see the looney tunes or something feel like there was a vip theme park media tier that got to see the looney tunes or something and we were shut out and i think it's horseshit gonna be a

big wig i saw dusty sage household name dusty sage right finally we're talking about him on the show head of mice chat a different theme park uh outlet thing i saw a different drive through the park that was theme park insider uh uh did a drive through and there the characters were waving um by the fountain the loony like uh i think it was bugs and sylvester were waving by the fountain towards the end and i didn't see them there either uh also i will say uh if anyone everyone is listening to this the website theme park insider are the ones who uh they are the ones on the mythos banner best restaurant and they're currently doing voting uh for best restaurant in 2020 so if everyone listening could go to the theme park insider website and vote

for mythos, then they will have to, and they win. If it, if we can get it to win, then they'll have to make a new banner with another year on it. And that would just warm my heart. Yeah.

So you want anyway, back to six flags. Yeah. We had a great meal. We had a great time. We were down there last year. It was very good. Yes.

Yeah. Um, so back to six flags. Anyway, I want to take away. I did enjoy myself. I just was, we didn't see the Looney Tunes and I feel like that would be the perfect, the cherry on top to this whole experience.

Man. Yes, the bus was a thrill. A friend of the show, Marissa Strickland, went and she described seeing the bus as a celeb sighting. And I think the only thing that also could have made it better is if the man himself was there dancing well why right how why that one another one is an easy layup i feel like

yeah just having a six flags man dancing out there would have been masked you put him in a mask that's an authority figure maybe you listen to him um i uh you know he might have more authority than the people who are running for for the for the presidency this year especially because he is younger than both of them it's very good point um so yeah so if they did this again which i assume they hopefully not in our lifetime they'll have to do this again but i i do think maybe there could be a hybrid event during Fright Nights where people are walking around and people are driving their cars just to make it a little more interesting.

Oh, yeah. There should be derbies through this thing. Yeah, 100%. Rallies, whatever you want to call them. Hey, you saw another character. One of our favorite characters from the world of advertising, the Happy Honda Days Moral Oral. That's what I assume his name is.

He's the claymation character who looks exactly like Adult Swim's Moral Oral. They just took the character and put it in Honda ads. He's the boy with no other characteristics and he was inflatable and all along the car path several times. I don't remember that. There's the ads every year of a blue shirted boy and other boys that he knows. I have no other

descriptors for this but it was the most prominent character i feel the most prominent ip at six flags at this time i do know i do know who you're talking about but i don't remember that on the tour wow wow was it not there maybe they hadn't uh they hadn't set them up yet the sponsors the check hadn't cleared it's a very good question uh we'll check. Maybe that was a late addition. I like plussing up. I'm not against it if they were like,

you know what, we don't always have the Looney Tunes, but we'll have the little blue shirt boy. Because that's something. That's a character you like. That's a friendly face. Yeah. We have to know that happy Honda days are ahead. I think the biggest, the most excitement I got

for the first couple minutes was seeing uh an unlit johnny rockets i got excited to see that because it was there was no lights on it whatsoever now they did a pretty good job at this because this is a huge park this park is massive and there's some sections that are like really really well lit and then there's some sections that are kind of dead so i got very excited when we get into a dead section With it like the Johnny Rockets Not being lit up Darkened food courts

Several times Because of that yeah post apocalyptic There were a few times when I was driving through that it almost felt like a haunt Like early on There was like some things where you You're like this is a little spooky we kept several times we said what is this area is this like this is like a service road that they opened up for this this isn't like open to the guests and then we'd see like a coke sign and

go nope this is a sidewalk this is a place where guests go even though it's full of like peligro signs yeah i i was thinking there would be something like that too but no i believe everything This is a place where guests go, even though it's full of, like, peligro signs. Yeah, I was thinking there would be something like that, too. But no, I believe everything we were driving on is just regular guest walkway, which is pretty crazy. I will say. Yes. I was hoping, just for the fun of it, that, you know, like, one of the cars would veer off the road onto the roller coaster track. Or, like, there would be just ducks crossing for an hour and cars couldn't move. I was hoping for some more

antics, but the cars moved in and out. It was almost like they planned to have all the Six Flags walkways car accessible. Yeah, oddly, because you couldn't do that in Disneyland probably. You couldn't drive through in disneyland probably there's a time you can drive through fantasyland i wouldn't think yeah no i don't think with a smart car perhaps but that's about it um so yeah everything was smooth as far as the actual driving it was i definitely imagined like what if i just veered to the left and just crashed into that dasani machine what would happen? Yeah that was

the fun was fantasizing about how much you could racket six flags with your car while you were in there with your like while you were in your car like there would be a couple times there was a part where they were playing later on they were playing like a Dolly Parton Christmas song which I found really nice there was a lot of lights it was really you know what I'm

talking about it was like kind of later in the I'd have been a different scene with me, but. But then I was like, oh, I was not thinking about Six Flags at that moment. I was thinking about the holidays and everything there. But then the rest of the time, I would be like, hey, there's the Hall of Justice. Could I get my car in the door of the Hall of Justice? Start ramming robots that seems like a spot like have batman there have superman yes there you go this is what i was they had a stilt walker a one single guy and he was great he was talking to all of us uh and he

was like he was doing bits with the cars and stuff in front of the Hall of Justice. But give me... Yeah, give me... And a stilt man is a character from the Marvel comics, so they couldn't have done stilt man, which would be an easy character to use when a guy's on stilts. But yeah, give us a character. Give us... Who has robot legs in the DC universe, Jason? Come on.

Cyborg, I guess? Oh, who has robot... Cyborg, I guess. He's in the ride. He has long legs now, and he's wearing a Jester's outfit. Just call him Cyborg. Hey, I'm Cyborg. I'm dressed up for the season. I

saw some original characters. Well, one I saw in person, and then the other I saw in video. Later on, once you got to the... What is usually the Scream Punk District for the holidays is the Gleam Punk District, and that's a lot of fun. And the Gleam Punk District was Jewish this year.

Yes. It was all Hanukkah. It was Steampunk Hanukkah, which that is by far my favorite part of the whole thing. It was Steampunk Hanukkah, which that is by far my favorite part of the whole thing. It was Steampunk Hanukkah. Yeah, lots of manure. There was like a copper pipe with like light bulbs on top, menorah, and there was a big dreidel and a lot of beautiful blue lights.

There was like a copper steampunk menorah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which I thought was an interesting choice i i feel like i was like yeah checking out at the end i think maybe is why like like that was in the latter half yes and and while i while i did like this a lot there was a point where you just go

boy this is it's been a while now we We have been driving slowly through Six Flags. And we didn't stop on the way. So I've just had my foot on the gas for the whole drive there. And then through the thing. And one thing I will say about this. They close with Santa. Which makes sense. And that's fun.

But I think if they were to do this again. And I hope they don't have to for christmas 2021 but like it didn't like build i feel like the best lights probably were in uh hall of justice area and then they didn't like go out with a bang it was just like and now more sometimes smaller and less and now you're not in it anymore. I think it could climax a little better. The doll, whatever that Dolly area was, I think is my favorite part.

I think that had the most lights. And I think that part was really like felt special to me. And maybe you were checked out by that point, Scott. It was a little later in the experience. Cause I kept going, Oh, we're done.

Like I did, I did that drive through experience at Halloween. And I remember going, Oh, we must have like 20 20 more minutes and then we turned a corner and we were out and i went huh and then this one i was like oh we're probably done seven minutes later not done another seven minutes oh we're probably done just like good which is good you got a size you get a nice chunk and i do remember though i was fading a little bit and then we got to gleam punk uh steampunk hanukkah and i did come to life again uh yeah and then i was making i was making jokes like uh where like the local uh dreidel works was you know like they should have done

more with that and had like steam powered dreidel spinning and if they really wanted to go all the way with it. There was a man with gears on a top hat on a big tall bicycle that had gears on it and he was yelling, not Happy Halloween, that would have been very funny if he was yelling Happy Halloween.

They messed it up. There was a lot of thematic touches in the Gleampunk district, but when I was watching the video yeah, there was a lot of thematic touches in the Gleam Punk district. But when I was watching the video back, I did not see the stilt man with candy cane legs and candy cane arms who was yelling at car, uh, cars greetings from the candy cane realm. And I'm like, well, I wish you were in the rest of the park. You nightmare.

You walking nightmare. Maybe that's who we saw, and he just did not introduce himself from the candy cane realm. Because I would have remembered the candy cane realm. What do you mean? Just everything's candy canes there? That's what they have instead of bones? Maybe it's just limbs are candy canes.

Everyone's limbs are candy canes. Which is so easily shatterable if there's war in the on the candy cane realm you win that war whoever you are or it's like kind of lightly smack into one of them and they shatter into a million pieces there's an x-men character named marrow who can take her own bones out and they'll grow back real quick and she can use her own bones as weapons. So maybe it's like that where you pull out your candy cane rib

and you can stab someone with it and then it'll grow right back. They grow back and they do get sharp. Oh god, I'm counting out the candy cane realm. I thought this would be an easy fight. They got my number. They should do that as a... The sharpened candy cane arm. They should do that as a Sharpened candy cane arm

They should do that as a Fright Fest maze Candy cane arm Oh there's a lot there yes And do that during Halloween you have a demented Christmas thing that's really scary And yeah they did a little of that At Halloween Horror Nights They've done like a 12 or like 12 month

Holiday thing with like Evil Santa and stuff, I think. Or Santa was going to be just getting murdered. Maybe he's just getting murdered. I forget exactly what was happening to Santa. So yeah. We'll do that here. They're turning Santa into a candy cane.

He's in the process of being candy caned and he's like half of his face is red and white now. It's like embalming a mummy. And that's like the Knott's M embalming a mummy and that's like the knots maze whack wax works oh that's right turning people into wax figures before they're while they're alive oh yeah this is good well maybe we can we write this for them yeah not i mean we've been begging to do this for anyone for years so please i mean six flags invented Six Flags invented it. You gotta do it. We'll give it to them. They've been good to us. They did a good holiday experience. We want to write Candy Cane Realm of the Maze. We should

be in charge of everything at Six Flags. They should just hand us the keys to the... We should have written this whole drive-thru show, and I'm not being facetious. There's no reason not to have let us do this. Give us a week and $10,000, and you wouldn't recognize the place. Just give Jason a box of fudge, and he'll do it.

Yeah, I'll work for fudge. Two pounds this time, please. Two pounds. Playing hardball. Yeah, I'm playing hardball. Yeah, I mean, I think everything you're saying is right there. Yeah, there's a long stretch where you go up around Tatsu and then down. And there were some stretches where, like, there was, like, winter, winter, you know, witches or I don't know, people kind of on stilts in big outfits and some musicians and some dancers.

I was very excited to learn, though, because I remember when I went on the hottest day in 2008, there was one of those mini Panda Expresses where you only have two options. That licensing deal is done. It is now a restaurant called Chop 6, and I thought that was very funny. So, High Markster Chopsticks. We did drive by the Full Throttle Bar which is where

Anthony, Gio and I pre-gamed before the epic Fright Fest episode of Podcast The Ride and I did see that but it was not lit up I was hoping for some sort of Christmas decoration there. Of course Full Throttle Bar has one of the tiniest bathrooms I've ever seen,

uh, upstairs at least, um, see the tiniest bathroom in the world. Well, we'll look, we will, I promise the audience we'll get back to six flags next year.

Uh, I was thinking, I was joking already on the show and on Twitter, like, should I get the trial vaccine just to go to fright fest if it was open in october and i didn't even have the option it was not even possible yeah yeah yeah so um but here's what i'll say for opening back up imagine a commercial you know people unlock maybe a hand unlocking the, flipping all the lights on, and then the person turns around

and it's Mr. Six, and he goes, we're back! And he starts dancing. I mean, can you, I think that in the new world when everything opens back up. Didn't you pitch this

on the Mr. Six episode? But I, I, again. It's haunting you every waking moment of your life? Is that what you're trying to say? No, I'm saying sometimes I don't remember what I pitched. Oh, yeah, sure, sure.

Because I'm just a fountain of great ideas. But I'm saying even if I did, it would have such a more magnificent impact once it opens back up. I'd love to see him open up everything that's been closed. Let's see him opening Disneyland up. Yeah. We're back

at Disneyland. Restaurant brands, anything that has El Torito, it doesn't matter. He's the mascot of the reopening. We all start dancing like him. We all put on our bow ties because we're

going to value going out again and we're gonna look our best put effort into our appearance like mr six does right it's gonna be a whole new world yeah yeah something emulate um does that does that cover the the six flags yeah i just like it was funny weird yeah sorry we didn't drive our car off a cliff or something or have more antics uh yeah oh my omen leaving six flags so i i uh when i left the park and got back on the main road i i knew there was an office building there that was like a some sort of corporate office for sun kiss but i couldn't see that sign from the angle i was coming from instead i saw a new sign i'd never seen before and it was just a dark office building with a illuminated sign that just said scorpion

and i was like what in god's name is scorpion and like with everything dark around it i was like what is this ominous and i went to their website and i still don't know it appears to be some sort of digital marketing concern but it's just a lot of jargon on the website but just in the pitch black night a giant glowing white sign that just says scorpion oh my god there's a scorpion outside scott's window that just appeared oh on the window scott turn around uh it's a flock of them that's what was cooing earlier oh my god the famous call of the scorpion. No, they're crawling on my window.

I can't even see outside anymore. They've darkened the whole thing. Unleash your scarabs to take care of the scorpions. Out of my mouth? Yeah. Ah, talima, or whatever he says. There they go. All right.

They're going to fight out there for a while. I guess that's a sign of the apocalypse, just as everything we've experienced in these last few weeks has been. Yeah. You know, look, we had fun at all of these things. Yeah. We got some smiles and some some chuckles out of all of the socially distant things that we went to. But look, is this the note that we wanted to end 2020 on? I don't know that it is.

How great would it have been if we'd been able to say, oh, but then things were back to normal and we had our Manhattans and we all reconvened. We did an episode in person. All that would have been great. But it's not how it played out. It is hard to come up with a positive note to end 2020 on, but I thought that we had to try. We had to give it a college try. That is why I have prepared a little scene. This, I think, is maybe the way that we should go out of 2020. It's a scene of hope and positivity. I emailed it to you guys.

If you want to take a second, find it. You guys haven't seen it before, so this will be a cold read. So it'll put your acting chops to the test, but I think you'll— Okay, good. I trust you.... Okay, good. I trust you. I believe in you. It'll also be a tech rehearsal on my part. So if there's some music cues dropped, it's not ready to face the public yet, maybe, but

we'll just give it a go. So here's what I'm thinking here. Obviously, terrible year. And we could be pessimists about where the next year is going. We were earlier. We had that discussion about like, oh, it's going to be this transition year and nobody will agree. And will things really be ready? And, you know, there's every reason to be pessimistic about 2021.

Now, I don't think we could do that. We're good boys and we have to have good feelings about the next year. I think we have to have good feelings about the next year i think we have to be optimistic and maybe we can imagine a 2021 that is like what the ultimate optimist would have imagined walt disney i believe that walt disney would have imagined a 2021 that's better that's full of hope, and that is full of, as I pull up OQ, of 2021, that is full of progress. Oh, wow. Well, here we are.

2021. And things just keep getting better. Why, the economy's booming again. Ever since Nancy Pelosi got everyone in America $600. Boy, that'll buy a lot of sarsaparilla. And now they want everybody to take this thing called a vaccine. It'll never work. Say, we got a new fella in the White House, Joe Biden. And that last fella, Donald Trump, he got sent straight to jail.

We all watched it live on TV. On the way in, he slipped and fell right on his rump. Boy, little Michael and I sure got a kick out of it, didn't we? Now, Scott, I'm signing in so we can watch Matrix 3. Wait, Matrix 3? Are you sure? Oh, Matrix 4. I'm sorry.

I should have made the script bigger. Oh, that's okay. You're behind that scrim over there. It's a little bit tough to see. Yeah, Matrix 4. You know, I almost forgot. They got that's okay. You're behind that scrim over there. It's a little bit tough to see. Yeah. Yeah. Matrix 4. You know, I almost forgot. They got this thing now. HBO Max. It's a real hoot. Sure is.

The Warner Brothers stream all the best movies right to our home. Yep. No need to get in the rat race and head all the way to the theater. I'm glad those things are gone. I can't wait for Space Jam 2. It's got that new fella, LeBron James.

My favorite brands, Nike and Xbox. And oh, that Lola Bonnie. Now, Michael. Now, Michael, hang on there. You remember that talk we had about body content. Sorry, Scott. Boys will be boys. You know, there's so many great things about 2021. Trap music is the cat's meow.

No celebrities we like have died. One billion people all deleted Zoom at the exact same time. And the best part is, we're hanging out with our friends again, in real life. Why, I've been seeing all my pals, except Uncle Jason. Haven't seen him since 20-spenny, 20-spenny, haven't seen him since 2020, which he spent self-inoculating in a bathtub. Maybe I'll give him a call. Hello? Uncle Jason? No privacy at all around this place. Uncle Jason, you're still in the bathtub?

The lockdown's been over for months. They can lift restrictions, but they can't take away my privacy. And you're cooling the room with a big block of ice? We've had air conditioning for 75 years. Look, man, get off Uncle Jason's ass. Just leave me and my bath donut in privacy. Sorry, Jason. Well, some things never change.

But lucky for us, some things do. For the better. And this year is way better than the last, since the bar couldn't possibly be any lower. Hey, Scott, what do you say we sing our song? Sounds like the bee's knees. Jason? Jason, have you been bathing in milk this whole time? Yeah, and dipping cookies into it, too.

Play the damn song. right sounds great wait let me just share the screen and then we go okay okay share the screen scott why did you delete this i am i'm doing why did you have to re-download it all right look we're not off we're not off zoom yet this is a play okay you put it up hold on full screen so my lyrics go away. Oh, shoot. I'll pull it up on my phone. I got it. I got it.

I got it. I got it. One thing that'll be better next year is coordinating in mass sing-alongs to end little plays. Okay. All right, fellas. Hey, let's sing our song. Here we go. There's a great big beautiful tomorrow.

After the shitty year we've had. There's a great big beautiful tomorrow next year we assume will be less bad. Man eats a bat and that's the start. Not everyone's been depressed since March, but when we achieve herd immunity We can eat inside of our jellies So there's a great big beautiful tomorrow All we need is for the year to change

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow Just two weeks away wow fellas that was absolutely perfect really proved the value of the old zoom machine maybe we shouldn't all delete the app

no notes it's like being right here with all of you it was as precise as robots would be. Boy, a beautiful show. Great rehearsal. I'm sure it'll work out all the case when we do it for real. Scott?

Your hand fell off. I feel more positive, don't you? Yes, I feel great. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think we all do. It's going to be a great, big, beautiful 2021. You survived Podcast The Ride. You survived 2020.

And congrats on doing it. More fun will be had next year. Hopefully, by the end of the year, we're not only doing the show in person, we are jamboreeing in person. That is the goal. And that's when you'll know that uh that we succeeded that the human race won that is this was our independence day jason will you learn to play the jug now for a few in the next few months um yes yeah yeah if you can help me find one i'm sure you can learn how to do anything on youtube

yeah all right well that's another guarantee for the next year jason is learning how to play a jug do we do we think that it has to be learned i'm sure there's a technique to it it's maybe not the hardest instrument in the world but i'm sure there are jug playing techniques that i even i don't know about a jug playing aficionado should should we then in another one of these like year marking things should jason in an early episode in 2021 play the jug play a jug at his current um level of skill And then by the last episode of the year, I will find him a jug online. I'll get it for Christmas for him. And then,

yeah, we'll see where you start. And then your jug playing is going to be so good. By the time we jamboree, people will be very impressed at all the practice. I like silence. I like it. Just. I like it. Just considering it all in.

All right. Well, there you have it, folks. What a tease for this new year. Yeah, boy. What a tease. Jug playing. And if it spittles all over us in the process, that'll be A-OK. We welcome it in that instance.

We'll love it. We're all going to swim in each other's spittle because we're so glad it's 2021. More spittle, please. More spittle and more subscriptions, please, to the Second Gate Podcast, The Ride, the Second Gate at patreon.com slash podcasttheride. Fun stuff there. We've already recorded, and you're going to like it,

and you're going to like the stuff we haven't done yet either. So much great stuff to come. Happy holiday. Happy Honda days, everyone. And join us next week on the second gate for a little more stuff. A little more stuff. How does O Holy Night

end? Hear the angels' voice from the night to vaunt home. Oh, there he is! A holy night is coming forever! Dog! This has been

a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gardner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.