Podcast: The Ride - AstroWorld with Nick Mundy

Episode Date: July 27, 2018

From a magic land. On a magic day. Past the twinkling stars. And the milky way. Came a magical man. And he came to stay. A Texas man named Nick Mundy (Team Tiger Awesome, Conan). He tells us about the gone, but not forgotten, Astroworld. Also: MARVEL MCFEY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhbkBpw1ho0 Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/ 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

Aloha! Podcast The Ride is doing its first live show August 9th in Sherman Oaks, California in a beautiful abandoned sports authority with special guest Tony Baxter Can you believe, I still kind of can't believe it you two. Yeah, I can't believe it It's our hero who we've talked about on most episodes

and a guy I've been obsessed with since I was 10 years old and he did all my favorite things and we're gonna talk to him in front of people. Yeah, and it's going to be embarrassing for us, but also hopefully sweet. So like, please come out. Like, this is going to be a fun. It's 10 bucks. I mean, come on.

Gotta do it. And you'll get to see this amazing gallery of the collection of Richard Kraft, who we're also going to talk to as all this. You get to take photos with Dumbo cars and monorail innards. And gears, probably, too. Yeah. You know, with severed limbs from sea serpents from the submarine voyage. I don't know exactly what's there. It's things like that.

The exhibition is free and is running for most of the month of August. Tickets for separate events, like our show, again, $10. Or there's a signing with the artist shag. Paul Shearer is doing a show. Alan Menken is doing a show at the end of the month. This is starting to sound desperate.

I think we should ease off the throttle and just let people enjoy going to our site. Good. Look in the show description. You're going to come. It's going to be chill. You're going to have a great time. And. You're going to have a great time. And now you're going to have a great time listening to our regular episode. Warning.

The following podcast may contain neck damage, heel turns, and an aggressive look at Houston's astral world with guest Nick Mundy. Grab your cool teen friends. It's podcast The Ride. Welcome to Podcast The Ride, hosted by three guys who in high school did way less coming out and socializing than the grim grinning ghosts. They come out and socialize. What's that? What does that mean? Joining us. Hey, I'm Scott Gairdner and joining me is always Mike Carlson. Hey, yeah, those ghosts partied hard and I did not.

Yeah, they know over 900 other ghosts. Yeah. That's saying a lot. They're like, they rode bikes. They did a lot of fun. They popped up behind gravestones, headstones. And yeah, they had a whole. They knew girls.

Girl ghosts. They were real cool and I was not real cool. Yeah. I bet another ghost admirer is Jason Sheridan. Hi, yeah, I love those ghosts. I don't know, I was reasonably social, and then there would be times where it's like I wouldn't leave the house on the weekend. Yeah, yeah.

And when I did, I usually had a handwritten list of what comics were coming out and on what dates, just so I didn't miss anything. You had a handwritten list really yeah sure huh because i would look i had it all up here in my brain i never wrote it down what comics i was getting i knew on wednesday i knew which date the uncanny x-men would come out and i would just know and then i would go there that's true some years i had subscriptions so they would just come to my house um i had i had subscriptions too for a few months but they would just come to my house. I had subscriptions, too, for a few months.

But they would come after the release date. Usually after the release date. And I hated that. So I canceled my subscription because I could not wait for the new issues. Yeah, that was annoying. I mean, nowadays people would be up in arms. Because I think if you pre-order a new release video game, it arrives the day it comes out. So yeah, that was unacceptable. How did you guys order your comic books um i'll you guys keep uh no no we're done

uh we don't have to talk when i was in detention i was bored and i asked my like the kid sitting next to me if i could read his oh sure that makes In character. That was the voice of... I don't even know what that means exactly. That was the voice of a highly anticipated guest. We're so excited he's here. He's finally here. From the Team Tiger Awesome Show podcast, from Conan and The Rock's best friend, it's Nick Mundy, ladies and gentlemen. Hey, guys.

Thanks for having me. Hello. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. Yeah yeah I'm a little under the weather so I apologize if I sound nasally but I'm sure you guys can run a filter through that and yeah I'll clean that up in post yeah just like more more bass or higher again maybe both whatever I'm not sure these microphones are plugged in so yeah we're luring you to hang out with us. We're pretending we're recording it.

We think if it's an official enough reason, he'll come. Yeah, yeah. I don't know why I said that. I think I'm like, because it felt like a mild bully move. Like, hey, let me read your comic. Hey, dweeb, give me your comic book. No, it wasn't a bully move. It was just like, hey, I'm bored. What are you reading? Let me read your comic. Hey, dweeb, give me your comic. No, it wasn't a bully move. It was just like, hey, I'm bored.

What are you reading? Let me read it. That, to me, reads as like business person on a commuter train. Like, excuse me, are you reading the sports section? No, it wasn't that nice. Thank you. But it was like, hey, I want to read it too. But would you take it?

No. Did you ever take stuff from like dweebs in high school? No. I never picked on dweebs. I picked on the popular kids. Okay. So you were like kind of in the middle? Yeah.

I was just kind of for the last two years of high school, like a burnout. Okay. But do you have like a good group of friends or was you? Yeah, no, I had a good group of friends. Okay. And they were all burnouts or they were like a mix of kids? Yeah, it was like mostly burnouts. Okay.

So you would harass cool kids? I didn't harass anyone okay i'm just saying like you would you would goof on the popular kids sure and it was kind of like you were a robin hood you were stealing the coolness from the bully i made some jokes it's like just because i remind you of all of your bullies collectively i also avoided uh not just bullies, but all people so thoroughly in high school that I think I maybe I put you on the bully end of the spectrum because I don't know any better. I was gregarious. Yeah, that seems true. And, you know, talk like Beavis.

So. Oh, really? Well, no, just like inadvertently. But OK. It was like, let me see that comic book. Is that like the cartoon so you were like the paulie shore character from a goofy movie more or less yes that sounds fun yeah which i didn't watch until like a year ago because my wife made me because that was just the friend paulie shore the guy who sounds like paulie shore who said i haven't seen it since i

was a kid i gotta re-watchwatch that. The Cheese Whiz. He does. Oh, the Cheese God. Yeah. Whatever the line is in it. Sure. Yeah. Goofy Movie, of course, has the best Disney song, which is I Die.

The Powerline song? Yeah, Powerline. What do you think, having not grown up with it? Because it seems like there is like there's been this groundswell of people. I feel like everybody was quiet about how much they love the Goofy Movie. And it is just it is back full force at this point it's a cultural phenomenon that completely passed me by yeah right it's just shit do you know you didn't like it it sucks oh okay oh these are i don't get it you're bullying

our audience already who i just like look if you like it cool i mean you know i'm not gonna get all carlton last jedi on it but uh i just edit half hour tangent from podcast all right we're back so you were saying about goofy movie yeah it didn't uh it did it didn't click i mean yeah it just i missed a lot of stuff out like when i was a kid because my parents were never like hey here's like a disney movie here's like a cartoon i remember the day before fourth grade my dad dad was like, hey, I rented two movies. And there were Total Recop and Robocop 2. Total Recop?

I mean, Total Recall and Robocop 2. A kick-ass merger, though. You were just all cool, like, action films from day one, it sounds like. Yes, that's all I had. Because my grandmother also had HBO, and she would tape every movie. And so she had this, like like unauthorized library of every single steven seagal jean-claude van damme chuck norris so like so just ultra violence that yeah she would yeah class of 1999 uh day of the prayer of the roller boys um it would be like

completely organized oh yeah no check out prayer of the roller boys do you not know about what a title the post-apocalyptic movie that takes place in 1999 about Corey Haim taking down a white supremacist roller gang? I have never heard of this. Oh my God. Not even heard of it at all.

I was busy watching the Goofy movie as a child. We're all watching a Goofy movie and you're watching Prayer of the Roller Boys. Cybercop. What was the one that you made me watch

and I fell asleep during it no retreat no surrender no retreat no surrender i really felt like i disappointed you that was like your your like philosophical core movie yeah that was a karate kid ripoff where instead of mr miyagi it was bruce lee's ghost whoa weird and jean-claude van damme was the russian bad guy no retreat no surrender is what i say when I get to the buffet portion, the dessert portion of a buffet. Like I'm already probably too full. I shouldn't have more than just like one bite

and I still come back with a dinner plate full of treats. Because you paid. Yeah. Yeah, and you got to get the most out of it. Well, I also don't know what I'm going to like, so I got to sample everything before I see. A quick note. There was one time when you were working this old job

and I went over and I was like, hey, do you want to have lunch and you were like yeah yeah and i was like hey why don't we it'd be funny if you go to that hometown buffet and you were like i don't want to spend eight dollars uh i think i more just didn't want to take the time that's why we do that a little bit on the show but he's like the heartthrob of the show i agree the internet response has certainly been that jason is the scenethrob of the show. I agree. I am the heartthrob. The internet response has certainly been that Jason is the scene stealer in the show. Hey, Jason, remember that time you couldn't afford stuff? Yeah. He had a job.

It was $8. You should see what he would spend on a dessert alone. Speaking of bullying, what was that? I'm a heel on this show, often. I feel like the jerk. I'm the one who was yelling at you guys about the amount of days to spend in Tokyo.

I've been trying to cool it ever since. That was a real wake-up call for me. We all disagreed about how many days are the optimal amount to spend at the Tokyo Disney Resort.

You see, Nick? What's the optimal amount? Well, the fans have spoken, I think, and they resoundingly, I think, agree with Jason that four days is the amount of days scott believes it's two which everyone except for maybe one person

says is insanity online i said three that's what we are we're planning to do more than three people weigh in on this i believe like six people i would say around six it wasn't three. It was six. The overwhelming majority. Overwhelming majority. It is deafening. Yes, we can. Four days. It's a sample size in my mind. So this is my last Jedi.

But I want to go. I'm excited to go. How many days do you want to go? I think two is plenty. One day for one park. And you've done the parks. There's two parks. You don don't know we're not knowing much no i know what's the conversion rate from like like disneyland to tokyo if you're talking money i mean it's just a whole extra hotel room because

it's only i think you know 30 extra bucks or something for like if disney is like 100 bucks how much is like toky America? It's less money. I think it's less. It's 60 to 70 because it's subsidized by the Japanese government. Well, I mean, I would only do two days,

but I can see why Carlson would do four if it's that amount of money. Now is this insanity that he says two days? Yes, it's upsetting because here, it's Tokyo Disney.

No, for me, you're dying to get like. Fair enough, fair enough. For you, yes. For me, two days, yes. Butney sea fair enough fair enough for you for me two days yes for some nerds for you yeah i can see why you would want to go four or five days tokyo disney sea is supposed to be the best theme park in the world that's all i'm saying look let's just compromise and admit that this makes for awful broadcasting to relitigate the same issue over and over again it's like a catchphrase. It's a recurring plot.

Okay, well, when you frame it like that. Yeah, you're opening 90-minute, you know, play around. Yeah, or play around. You know, comedy is play, I say as I load the barrel of the gun into my mouth. You know, these kinds of recurring arguments about days

to spend at resorts, this is the kind of fun that you, Nick Mundy, made possible. Yes. And allow me to explain the backstory. This is a crucial piece of the backstory of this podcast that I don't think people know. And feel free to give me your version of these events, Mike. But in my mind. We have four people. We have enough to do a full rashomon

of how this you mean a full arrested development season four yes um so that just supplanted rashomon uh okay so it in my mind the the backstory of this podcast is that uh nick you were doing a podcast for a different network and a different network than no network, which is what we're on. And you just, you went to Mike and said, hey, do it. Do it. Team our podcast. Team our podcast. It's a home run.

Do it. Get it off the ground. And so, and then we, and then it ended up. That sounds accurate. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I assume with a, hey, dooder. Yeah.

I don't know if you call me dooder. I don't think you call me that. But other than that, it's very accurate. By the end of this show, I hope you'll feel familiar enough to start doing it. Because, yes, my memory is pretty similar. It was Jason and I. Well, no. The reason I probably don't call you dooder is because you're probably going to, like,

after I do it, you go up to Sheridan and be like, yeah, Monday called me dooder. I don't get it. I'm going to bully you behind your back. I don't know why I did it. It's weird. It's uncomfortable. Does he know dude isn't spelled with an R? I think I would be fine with that nickname.

I think it would be fine if you called me that. All right, duder, tell me your side of the story. It's pretty similar. I believe Jason and I were over watching wrestling, and I think you were like, yeah, you guys should do the theme park podcast. And you were like, oh, yeah. And you're like, yeah, yeah, do it. And you could ask God, you should.

You should do it. And I'm like, does anybody really want to hear this does anyone care about this like there's a lot of theme park podcasts where you're like no no no you should just do it do it it's easy it's easy it's easy come on it's a home run it's a home run that's like oh yeah i guess and like i was thinking about it and like you were so insistent i was like yeah i believe you into doing something good yes that is what that is what happens that's what happened and this is that's what i'm not complaining to to say something you did it seems like a bullish statement that's how we became friends i believe sure yeah dude we're friends now we're hanging out yeah come over uh and then four years of just apologizing to your wife for drunken antics that were we're just silly we're silly antics like That's the thing. Nothing bad ever happened.

You just spoke at three times. What's the opposite of three times speed? You spoke at a third speed probably the first five times you met. Hey, Aaron. Dude, dude. But nothing bad was said at this slow pace. So I met you after you were. It's just bad impressions pace so i met you after just bad impressions so i met you after you were like a reformed you're like a reformed party boy would you say that

as i'm wearing a hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts and tom's more mature yes you've not showed into your party boy i've uh you pick your spots to be a party boy. Yeah, yeah. You just... But I think party boy might have been a description that I've been referred to as at different points in my life.

Sure, sure. Right. But, you know, you pointing at things and making them happen has only led to good. Oh, that's another one. I think on your bachelor party,

I think you... I work a lot with you, Nick, and you have this guy, Clint, part of Team Tiger Awesome, directs I work a lot with you, Nick, and you have this guy, Clint, part of Team Tiger Awesome, directs a lot of things too. And I think you pointed at both of us and then squished us together

and said, you two, be one person. You are one now. That's a moment that occurred. Yeah, this is all true. These are all true accounts of things that have happened.

I'm sorry that one we couldn't make happen. We talked about it and we couldn't figure out how to actually fuse. But we discussed logistics and tried to make it occur. This all sounds very, very accurate. No, I just thought, like, look, you guys have this interesting love affair of theme parks. And it's helped me because, you know, I had my nieces in town a couple months ago and and carlson made we got everything done in 12 14 hours no 14 hours yeah because of the well the past that max pass and then as soon as i was like the max pass is great carlson was like scott doesn't like it started causing controversy scott doesn't like

the max pass let's let here let's keep relitigating everything but it was great i'm pro max pass i'm not anti max pass i don't i get i glaze over when logistics and lines and gaming the system is is it makes a world of sense to do there would'd be no reason to not do Max Pass unless, of course, you're just going to the park to drink white wine and go on one ride and then leave. No, yeah. No, I wasn't doing that. No, but like Carlson almost like hacked the planet. And I looked like a hero in front of my nieces. We're going on this again.

Yeah. You're not the only one also who has. There are people on Twitter for sure have. I think you have exposed people to this MaxPass situation who are listening to the show. Well, that's good. So you've done a world of good. No, it's one of those things where I thought it was like really interesting. You guys, you know, go to, it's like you guys go to Disneyland like I would go to Islands.

Sure. Even more than you guys would go to Islands. We also go to Islands though too. And I was like, well, you guys should do it. And then maybe I'll distract you from, you know, you complaining about Last Jedi and Scott complaining about people on Deadline getting jobs.

Oh, no. Sorry, that was meaner than that. I'm happy for every single person on Deadline.com. This was before. I would watch that. That's also a podcast. There's some negative stories on there too, Scott.

If you're hired or fired, I'm pro everyone. I'm just glad to see you up there. Pro the firing? I really love when that Chase dude from Lethal Weapon, the TV show, got fired. That's right. Good luck. You're free now, Chase. Oh yeah, but he got replaced by sean william scott i'm

happy to see that guy which i'm very okay if you don't know me uh i'll just let you like a good way to know who i am i'm very excited for sean william scott to join the lethal weapon tv show that's a step up that's a very good step up well that's nice that's nice for him no i thought you guys just podcast and it's successful and it's all to you well it's all to sheridan and uh sure i didn't i didn't know sheridan the funny one i didn't know and then you guys are doing it yeah we are yeah hey we're very we're very thankful for this yes this this pointing at and demanding and uh um you know and we didn't end up on on the podcast network that that you were talking about because it was important to us uh to be on a podcast network that

collapsed in three months we were really really specifically in the market for one that would uh be uh decimated and absolved and that then that worked out well and uh and here we are now and the cycle of life continues you're here you're Mike's apartment, even though there is no wrestling event, unless there is later today. No, not this weekend. Not on the weekend. We'll talk about it. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There will be a post-podcast. Do you want to use our equipment and record for your podcast? We all need to help each other out. So we just want, listeners, if you like our podcast, thank Nick Mundy for that. Oh, shucks. Give him a little thanks, you know?

Thank Dick Fundy. Wait, your Twitter name is Dick Fundy, and it's at Dick Fundy. One is the name and one's the at. If you search your name, it'll come up, right? That's how Twitter works? I think so. Okay. I agree.

Everyone thank Nick. Yeah, give him a nice thank you. I'll look forward to that day. That sounded threatening. That sounded like, yeah, everyone thank nick yeah give him a nice thank you i'll look forward to that day threatening that sounded like yeah everyone thank nick and like i don't know if this is like a podcast the right inside joke where thanking is like fuck you man yeah yeah thinking's inverse here no i was i i'm that's you're right it did was an odd delivery but i do want that to happen it sounded like a nice day on twitter everybody cheshire cat like yes thank yes i was sincere though i thank you guys for putting out such great content

yay thanks for calling it content everyone's favorite uh word um yeah well the i guess the content we're talking about today if theme parks also count as content, is Astroworld. Yes. I'm not even going to call it one thing. A member of the Six Flags family. Yeah, I guess so. When it was retired, when it was shut down, it was a member of the Six Flags family. The Wonderful World of Fun, the tagline for Astroworld.

Oh, okay. I also saw ads that said it puts you in the middle of fun which is kind of a lot there was like fun town and funville yeah i saw an ad that just said the middle of fun and i'm like what does that mean in the middle of fun makes a lot more sense to me but i was just like the middle the middle of fun in houston texas has always been 610 and Kirby. Like, that is the cross-section for... For fun? Yeah. That's a lot of Houston references.

Yeah. Okay, yeah. We're getting a lot of Houston inside. But Houston is not in the middle of the state, geography-wise. No, but no one... Everyone in Houston doesn't care about the rest of Texas. Okay. Okay.

So, it's a whole, like, it's a... It should be like an island. Yeah, like, Houston... It's a port city, correct? A lot of oil coming in and out. Yeah. Okay. So it's a whole, like, it should be like an island. Yeah, like Houston. It's a port city, correct? A lot of oil coming in and out. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little about Houston.

So I grew up there. I moved there when I was like three from Virginia where my dad was a cop. But, you know, I just had a great, like, normal suburban childhood. Lived just outside the city. Grew up going to Astros games at the Astro World. No, grew up going to, I mean, Astro Dome. And then, you know, got older. I went to Astro games at Minute Maid Park, which was formerly Enron Field, which is a

Houston home of Enron. And the Astros themselves were once called... Colt 45s. The Colt 45s. I do not know that fact until this week amazing only two years in the 60s yes that's on game with some of the stuff in this part in the 60s that's when houston had its first like big expansion and it was nasa it was a space city and they built the eighth wonder of the world astrodome which is still standing which has just been sitting there for almost 20 years doing nothing

so weird literally anything happened there it hasn't been used regularly since 1999. wait really so it's just a giant empty stadium yeah for a few years there was like high school football games like my brother played a championship game there and wrestlemania 17 the greatest wrestlemania probably there which i was there in what year 2001 and that might have been the last major event in the astrodome and then it's just then for like 18 years they've been just like what are we gonna do with it and there's been like do we tear it down no one wants to tear it down but no one has anything to do with it so they built a uh they're turning into like you know shopping center parking lot apartment complex maybe who knows it's a boring shit i'll just see like dome on a random like twitter post like hey the new plan for the astrodome which is replacing the old plan which is you know it's just every couple days and so across the street from the astro astrodome was astroworld which uh

i think rave hoffines opened it up in like 68 yeah i look i found out about him mostly the father of houston yeah he was he was a judge in houston and the mayor at one point in time before all this, before the 60s revival. But yeah, he brought- He became like a millionaire. Yeah. And he was responsible for, he helped, he was instrumental in starting the Astros themselves, the Astrodome.

AstroTurf first used it, Astro, the Astrodome. Oh, is that where that term comes from? Yeah. I didn't realize that. Yeah. So the Astrodome, when it was, you guys would have loved the astrodome yeah but like rainbow seats yeah air conditioning that's it you had me at the rainbow yeah you had me at air conditioning cigarette uh what neon ads you know man what's the what's the uh scoreboard that people were fond of? Oh, the big scoreboard. Yeah, the scoreboard was this LED, big-ass light,

just black and white scoreboard that just had Texas, like Cowboys shooting every time the Oilers or the Astros would score. That's funny. Maybe an early electronic scoreboard. Yeah, no, it was one of the highest tech in 1964 or 5. But no, the Astrodome was huge. I mean, that was one of the most tech in like 1964 or five yeah but no the astrodome was huge i mean that was one of the most iconic you know symbols of houston now it's dwarfed by the giant football stadium next to it and then minimade park is downtown houston they just stack all this stuff kind of

next to each other and the football stadium is the football stadium and which i think is nrg stadium now is right next to the astrodome okay and then which i was when i was in college in downtown houston i watched get built oh really and then minute maid park is in like what's called downtown houston okay sure uh this is similar in philadelphia the where the 76ers play is next to the football stadium where the eagles play is next to citizens bank park where the phillies play and it's all just kind of in one uh traffic jammed area in south philadelphia though it's nice when all this can be the case when they can actually design kind of a you know consolidated area as opposed to like giant parking lots next to each other and like well don't spoil the end

of astroworld oh yeah well sure i mean that comes into play it's crazy because i didn't realize that the the astrodome set vacant for so long yeah that that just adds on to the quagmire uh that is at the end of this story it's very confusing and i in my research, I did not really do a lot of digging about why the Astro World went away. And it seems like very just mundane. It didn't flame out in a super fun way. Do we want to save it for later? I guess we'll just leave that as a tease and talk about the glory days first. Is it true also that this

whole zone was referred to as the Astro Domain? Yeah, I believe so. I like that. That's the name of a book about everything I came across. There was also the Astro Arena where smaller bands would play. It would also be like Rodeo Overflow.

Oh, sure. The Rodeo is a huge part of it. Did Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show play a lot into the story? Oh, yeah. No, it's like that in February, Houston is all about the rodeo. Did you go? I went once to see Earth, Wind & Fire. Okay.

Nice. I did not. I love Houston. It's great. It's my home. I did not get the rodeo but the rodeo was a big big deal the coolest thing i ever saw at the rodeo was this was i think it was in like fifth or sixth grade i was with my parents and my brother and we were like saw suburban and my dad was like thinking about getting a suburban so we were looking in it and had a super nintendo built into it which i thought was the coolest thing in the world in 1992 sure and then i was i just that's

all i talked about when my dad like yeah i'm gonna get a new car my dad's from long island so it's are you getting the super nintendo car he didn't get those he did not get the super nintendo i don't those exist today so childhood was terrible yeah yeah. Yeah, that sucks. But everyone was. That's when we went to Astroworld. Yeah. So how often would you go? I didn't go a ton when I was a kid. Because we lived in North Houston, and that area of town was not great. Downtown Houston in the 90s, early 90s.

The crime wasn't good. It wasn't good crime. No. Well, like, it was. There used to be this show that I watched as a kid when I wasn't good uh it wasn't good crime no well like it was uh there used to be the show that i watched as a kid when i wasn't watching disney movies it was on the fox affiliate and at 9 30 the show would be called city under siege and it was just all about the fox affiliate that doesn't sound like them at all but it was like every single like murder, rape, arson. Jesus.

For a half an hour show, five nights a week. And it was like, I was like, this is a war zone. So like we didn't go a lot. And my parents weren't big like amusement park people. But from like junior high to a couple years in high school, I ended up going to a whole bunch. But yeah. But they also had Waterworld, which is the sister park to astral world so i went back a few times until splashtown open which is now which then became a part of six

flags so it's all very confusing where's then where wait where geographically are water world and splashtown water world was right next to astral world and then eventually like right the last few years of astral world's run one ticket got you into both before it was like a separate ticket thing back in my hurricane harbor okay so but this this falls into the line of like six flags six flags buys up parks sometimes or has a history of buying up pre-built parks i think this was the first one that they bought that they didn't yes because i actually didn't realize that astroworld was a six flags park until like 19 the mid 90s when warner brothers bought six flags and they started integrating all the looney tunes bullshit oh because there was there weren't a lot of signifiers of six flags yeah no like i thought

like i remember getting into a fight with the kid who was like, yeah, I went to Six Flags in Dallas. It was like, yeah, Astroworld's better than that one. Idiot. And not realizing that they were both Six Flags. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that one Six Flags over Texas? Yes.

Which is the original one. And I learned, I feel like I learned this in the past, but I had forgotten about the name. Six Flags refers to the flags of the six nations that once governed Texas. Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States of America, and the Confederate States of America. Is that one of them? That's one of the six flags? One of the great six flags. One of the great six flags.

Leave the flag up. It's part of history. So it should be five flags, really. Eventually, they just probably just put up the D.C. logo on a flag, and that became the Six Flags. Okay. So they just said the other flag was a different thing. I don't know.

Well, Six Flags over Texas, which I'm sure we had talked about during the episode about that one, too, that did have an area, like a land called the Old South. See, this is why Dallas is trash, and Houston was great. Was there a rivalry? There's always a rivalry. Would you meet Dallas kids and be like, hey, get out of our town?

No, it wasn't that, but it was like, you would talk shit about the Rangers or the Mavericks or the Cowboys. Do you feel this tension? We have a lot of mutual friends from Dallas. Do you sort of hold them at bay because they're Dallas people, ultimately? Not as human beings, but for sports teams they like, yeah. Okay.

It's more their parents you put the blame on. They manage to raise decent human beings. We have better Tex-Mex, you know, worse weather. Better theme park? Do you have any idea you've been to six flags over texas i did once yeah uh-huh have you been to fiesta texas i've never went to fiesta texas and again my parents weren't big like amusement park people granted we did go to disney world i went to disney world in florida twice before i ever went to six flags in houston

oh interesting oh sure i mean it is much more of like, it's a whole thing. It's a family vacation. Yeah, exactly. As opposed to like one exhausting day on the other side of town. Carlson, you'll be appreciated. It was three days we went to Disney. How many parks were there? They had all three the second time.

Okay, because now three parks, I would have said actually the optimum time is probably five days to go because there's so many hotels and different things in water parks call my dad right now i'll talk to him put him on the phone you gave you gave nick a bad childhood you gave your son a bad childhood denying him the correct amount of days to vacation and then he just punches you through the phone that's fine and his actual fist come through did you as a kid did you like disney like the same like how were your when you would compare the theme parks so obviously disney has much more money and theming but did you give a shit about that were you into like the thrill rides did you like the dark rides like what was your whole overall feeling about that disney was like an experience like so and i went when i was a little younger i was like

in kindergarten and not even maybe when i was like five and like 10 right so disney was like an experience and it was cool and i could take like magazine pictures of like in a i had a pro wrestling illustrated uh oh do you have that my somewhere in my parents house oh they gotta find that that's great um so i was able to take that and that was like my big that was my big thing um so yeah no i loved mgm at disney and then yeah when i went to when i started going to astro more regularly like in junior high uh outside of getting like a florida mar, Tasmania Devil, Bugs Bunny shirt. Because those were all over the place. That was a big deal.

I just cared about the roller coasters. Right. Sure. I didn't understand the point of Riot like anything else. But no, just roller coasters. You wanted a visceral thrill, baby. Yeah, because I mean, Six Flags also, like Astro World had this like, there was a lot of reports of people dying or getting hurt.

Really? I didn't come across that. I remember seeing in the news, not Cindy Under Siege, but you know. Theme Park Under Siege. It's fun crime. I wonder if they covered it all up or those were just rumors you were hearing like, oh my god, did you hear about what happened? No, well, I just remember and like I'm sure we'll get into the rides, but like

the Texas Cyclone just seemed the most like dangerous ride i've ever like been on the texas cyclone kind of a copy of the original coney island cyclone they considered moving the coney island cyclone to texas uh they not because that was would be incredibly expensive it's apparently very expensive and very cumbersome to relocate wooden roller coasters well here's the thing about wooden roller coasters built in the 60s houston is a very humid place yeah and there's a lot of rain and i don't know if you heard but maybe some hurricanes and wood when it's wet tends to you know rot yeah and break uh and shake and contract and expand and this park has flooded before it flooded before it opened like they were halfway through building it and there was a flood and they had to like push the opening back a little. So, yes. The dumbest idea possible for a roller coaster.

It was fun. Yeah. But the fun was, it wasn't even that much of an exciting roller coaster. It was exciting because you just might die. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, you could just get in line and the whole thing's good. Like, the line was exciting because you felt like you're creaking and cracking.

Oh, that itself is like old creakyaky wood too were you ever scared like if in case you didn't know the three of us were except for jason like a little scared of these high impact rides maybe still uh uh were you a kid that was like scared or were you just like hell yeah going on the roller coasters like what was your because i would be freaking out if i was a kid and like I was 13. The first time I went, I was scared. I never really went on like a roller coaster outside of like Disney, which are like. A little milder. Yeah. That's a way to put it. The thing about Astroworld and Six Flags, these things are dangerous.

So the first time I went on Accelerate. Accelerate. XLR8 is how the title is written. Which goes straight, circle. I don't know the technical terms. It does a loop. It's one of those. It's like it's one straight away, does a loop, goes up and returns.

No, that's Grease Lightning. Oh, I'm sorry. Confusing. We'll get to that in a minute. Okay, great. XLR8 is just a four-person pod. It goes straight, but the whole time it's twisting and turning. Oh, Accelerate is the, that's a hanging coaster.

It's not even that, too. That's the Batman ride. No, the Batman ride is the stand-up coaster. You're getting these mixed up. The Batman ride is the stand-up one. The Twister is the one that twists. Oh, man. Jason owns your ass.

No, that's what I was trying to say. I't know the technical words but the accelerate titles you were being nice to him and not goofing on him and it came back to bite you he turned on you i'm not talking about how much money he had i'm just trying to cut down on the uh tweets we're gonna get uh yeah hey fans of the podcast the ride i don't know any of the technical terms. I said do the show so I can learn. But thank Nick anyway for causing the show. He doesn't owe you anything more than that. The worst guest on your show, Creed.

Accelerate was a suspended coaster. Yes. Which I believe is similar to, I think, the Big Bad Wolf in Busch Gardens Williamsburg. And this, I think, was one of the first successful suspended roller coasters. It succeeded in the wake of the Bat, which did not work out. The Bat, which we talked about before. Kings Island, Ohio. It seemed also, again, very dangerous.

And that was part of the appeal with Astroworld. Because it was like a four-person seat cart that would it would go straight but it would be like turning 360s like in it and then doing loops and it would be it would insane and i was scared with that and then when i got off i was like i almost threw up but then i was like fuck it let's go again i'm in sixth grade yeah interestingly uh if you look up the term suspended uh roller coaster on wikipedia there's a list of a partial list of suspended roller coasters and most of them the status is listed as closed yeah it didn't feel like okay so you do texas cyclone this thing feels like it's going to fall apart. And then you do Accelerate.

And it feels like this was designed by the roller coaster game that came with my CD-ROM drive. You mean Roller Coaster Tycoon? Yes. Like where you could just build a roller coaster and you could shoot the car right off the track. Yeah, that's what it felt like. And then land and blow up. There was no good reason for this. And then, as Scott mentioned, there was Grease Lightning. This was the trilogy of Ass World rides.

And Grease Lightning was just a roller coaster that went straight as fast as it possibly could. The fastest roller coaster I've ever been on. It did a loop. It went up to the top and then reversed it, causing everyone to get severe whiplash. Bang it back into the seats. You could not not be sore doing grease lighting. It would hurt. It would just hurt because it didn't even have like,

I don't even remember having the shoulder harness. It just had the seatbelt. Right. And maybe, but, and then it just went as fast as it could, stopped on a dime and then pushed you back, stopped on a dime. The ride. That's it. Much kissier title. it all it was was to make it hurt i went on there was i forget what it's called there there's a version an old tiny version of this at knots that i went on when we were there a couple years ago

is that called it was once called montezuma's revenge perhaps i think that was right um and it's not as big as this thing this thing is insane it's tall, and this is barely the size of it. And it just wrecked my neck because you got whiplash when the thing zooms up and then zooms down again. It's crazy. Astroworld is the only theme park I've ever gone to where you would get sore every time you went. And, like, a sixth grader was sore.

Yeah, no, like. Like, you're not an older man. When I was playing football and rugby, yeah. You know, this is when I was, was like in shape and had pliability you have to ice down after a trip to astroworld yeah no but i was a kid where i was just like i have all these fluid like motions and then like nope just just wrecked wrecked i need to go chiropractor going to that brock lesnar ice bath yeah no it was uh and so like was, again, because I was a stupid kid, was like, yeah, this is awesome.

Faster. Was that your favorite? Yes. Okay. That one is the one you described as being the most painful, I feel like. And that was your favorite. That's Young Monday. That's Party Boy Monday.

Yeah. There's a lot of very funny coasters here. Like the one called Serial Thriller. Yes. Play on the word serial killer, but it has a film canister, a giant film canister at the entrance, so I don't know

what the theme on that one is. I think that one was just one side to side a lot, and then just try to hurt you. And then of course, there was dexter freebush's electric roller ride which was eventually to just uh change to excalibur um uh that is just a very funny thing of its times like that seems like a very funny 70s like and and the font is very americana bicentennial old time-timey, which I love.

I feel like Six Flags had a lot of that vibe in the 70s before the vibe of Six Flags became... Yeah, rock and roll Batman. Oh, and the dancing old man. And then the Batman ride was called Batman the Escape, and it was a stand-up coaster. But the naming six legs has very weird naming like stuff will be called one thing at one park what would be called

another thing like at great adventure in jersey there was batman the ride but then at another park there was superman the escape this was batman the escape and the name viper was used for any and all sorts of coasters if you watch all of them it tells one shared universe that was the first shared universe well i yeah if only uh uh and the share that shared universe was called tim burton batman so the batman the ride was like the first like in the 90s and this is in the full-on wb integration was like guys guess what's coming to six flags batman the fucking ride and then motorhead was playing and it was like this isn't just any other roller coaster this roller coaster you're gonna fucking stand like it was like and we were all like standing in a fucking roller coaster

what marvels have you dreamt up? Six flags, Astroworld. This is great. It was like, just bring two cans of Coke and you're going to get in free on Wednesdays. The scientists were as mad as Dr. Edward Nygma himself. But no,

they made, they pumped that. I remember it was a constant ad campaign. Right. About the standup roller coaster. Yeah. That, that it became kind of the reputation of this part, is that this is where a lot of prototypes, like this is one of the first stand-up coasters,

or one of the first suspended coasters, or one of the first tubular whatever. The first Rapids ride, I believe. The first Rapids ride, yeah, that's right. Thunder River. If it wasn't for Astroworld,ney wouldn't have bad versions of them yeah disney is not great at rapids rides bush gardens six flags pretty good at rapids rides or universal studios which has no rides at all oh the popeye is really good in Orlando. Actually, that is a superior,

that's like one of the only truly themed Rapids experiences with animatronics and stuff. There's supposedly a good Rapids ride in Shanghai. Oh, really? There's a big giant robot on that. Oh, yeah. That's fun. There's a Rapids version I think in Singapore of the Jurassic

Park. It's a Rapids there, not, in Singapore of the Jurassic Park. Right. It's a rapid there, not a flim. Shoot. Now, the Batman ride, where would you all expect? What area of the park would you all expect a Batman ride to be in? A Gotham City part, perhaps? Sure, maybe. Scott? Or not Metropolis, but just some, like, you know uh the big city or something wasn't it

wasn't like ye olde england town it's in the european village including the bat cave the bat cave located in a mountain in the european village because they were repurposing the alpine sleigh ride mountain for like you walk through the Batcave to get on this ride. But it was very funny to me finding an old map saying, like, hidden inside of a mountain is the famous Batcave in the

European Village section of the park. Well, you gotta realize about Houston, there's a lot of new money there because of oil. So, uh, they just consider, like, you know, Bruce Wayne old money they just consider like you know bruce wayne old money as like you know from the call from like the old country i'll allow that right yeah and there's and as you told us there is you told me there's no zoning laws in houston houston has no zoning laws which we'll get into because there are just insane pictures of like like like porn

shops next to churches and roller coasters behind houses. Wow, really? You could open up a Chili's in the middle of a neighborhood. In a street? Yeah. Blocking a road? Have you tried that? No.

To franchise a Chili's in a neighborhood? No, I haven't yet, but... Maybe we all quit show business and just go down and start opening up chain restaurants in the middle of a subdivision. We could do that. Then they would go. So just take a house. It doesn't even have to look like a Chili's.

You could just put Chili's on the mailbox and then have people come in. No. Oh, shit. Were we open today? There are streets where it's like the equivalent of having a house in the middle of sunset. Wow. Yeah, it seemed like it was a literal up situation where an old shambly, charming little house is next to a towering hospital or whatever.

Yep. It's very strange. So this is like on point then, that it's like the Batcave is dropped smack in the middle. Yeah, it makes sense. I don't think there was... A uniquely American superhero is dropped smack in the middle of it makes sense i don't think there was you know the american superhero is dropped smack in the middle of an old i don't recall there being a lot of themes like you know there wasn't like european town or like you know cowboyville even the though they technically named areas these words they were not heavily committed to yeah there was like three

posters it was like it was like it was like decorating for a one-year-old's birthday. It's like, yeah, we'll try, but it's not that... They're not going to notice. You're telling me in the middle of Texas, an area called the Oriental Village is not the most immersive theming experience you've ever seen? He's not. He has no comment on that. He's just staring at you.

Look. Product of the time. You can't. We cannot force our guest, the godfather of the podcast, to explain the errors of Oriental Village. He does not speak for all of us. This is also, you know, this is a park that has. Don't PC this abandoned amusement park. Americana Square, USA and Western Junction, which is not the best planning. that has don't pc this abandoned amusement park americana square usa and western junction uh which

is not the best uh planning for the map i think i'm furious about orional village and i say this park should be torn down well houston has a huge asian population asian american population so i'm sure it was changed in 2003 right before it closed right yes they did it with like a month to go you know i remember no one being impressed with the batman ride even though you could fucking stand so yeah what is your memory of going on that for the first time it was too safe really because it was made with like new technology like metal it was made in the 90s and not the weird creaky 60s you had like a thing going over your chest you You know, it was just, what is this? So you were like, kind of like, ah, that was a letdown.

Yeah. Big time. And it was shorter too. Like, I feel like more modern roller coasters, I guess, to pump people out. I don't know the economics of roller coasters. Pumping people out. It also might be like, they figured out that you shouldn't have like head trauma for more than a minute and a half at a time.

Yeah. Like Texas Cyclone was like five minutes long. Yeah. you your brain shouldn't be jostled around that long sure like that's not good for that's what you're used to yes and yeah you were getting i was used to going to get cte from a roller coaster and and like they also had the first like i don't know what they're called but like it was called skyscreamer where all of these names just sound like like rated r like decepticons is that the one you ended on your back like it was a drop and it was like an l shape so you at the end you're like on your one of those rides called like the guardians drop uh just usually like drop to drop rides yeah so this drop ride instead of having like breaks at the end we were like no we can't

we can't stop that speed it goes straight and then slides down so you get off from your back oh like a water slide yeah kind of yeah wow weird and it also had dungeon drop do you remember dungeon drop that was a different way that would they would pull you to the top and you would just kind of bounce down but seemed like a cool cool castle line that you would go through. That one was, again, drop as fast, break instantly. Like neck trauma. Drop down, neck trauma. Drop down, neck trauma.

And you love this. It was great. Yeah. Do you have neck issues today from this or from your athletic career or from anything? How's the neck, Nick? I was fine before. One time I had a stinger in rugby. A stinger is where you jam your neck.

Like, you compress your bones in your neck and shoulder. And you couldn't, like, not feel your arms or legs? Yeah, and you couldn't like you not feel your arms yeah and i lost like i was paralyzed for a second in the middle of a scrum i was fine but the next day at breakfast with my girlfriend of the time i couldn't keep my head up geez you just and then since then it cracks so there's still there is a little something yeah but it doesn't hurt but it like it just cracks but isn't it possible that six flags uh somehow wore you down made you more susceptible maybe or just toughened me up for this for this modern day world after the stinger how soon did you go to Astroworld? The next day. Maybe like a couple weeks, actually,

because the season that was ending. Yeah. Yeah, well, you got to go. The doctors say no Astroworld for you for a month. Oh, you're going to Astroworld? No way, man. Yeah, I went to Dr. James Andrews. That's a wrestling joke.

That's a wrestling joke? I don't know how they cross over. That is how I learned what a stinger was. Edge got a stinger, I think, in like 1999. Yeah, I'm going to have to have a neck fusion one day and yeah you're gonna have to have the the vertebrae i do remember uh in high school after a wrestling knee injury i broke my knee and uh i went on six flags and i had a leg brace and crutches and they were like you probably can't go on the ride i was like yeah interesting theory see at the back end did you do all of them mostly i could do accelerate because my brace wouldn't fit in so did you try to get on the

ride and they just like when you're trying to jam your knee with a brace onto it that's funny could i get a handicapped shoulder restraint please wearing snap-on adidas pants and a ken shamrock shirt do you have a photo of this ken shamrock shirt maybe in my parents house at least you had astral world with the ken shamrock shirt on yeah but how did you sustain how did your body hold up at the at the water parks any difficulties there well i was a chubby kid so just you know that um just having to be shirtless was a societal shame yeah but also then it was like fuck it i'm sure yeah you're at a water park i put a hawaiian shirt on and i'll be fine but did you get uh the shit kicked out of you were there like you did at astroworld

uh yeah there was a couple yeah no there was there was one called like shotgun falls where it was just a short roller coaster and it was just the most amount of water pressure in a water slide ever in a concentrated area that would just shoot you down into the water where all the texas water slides named after guns the six shooter fly but that was splash town i went to splash town a lot more i used to have the season pass at splash town okay okay but Waterworld was a treat. I remember they had a hand, like the hand glider thing. I thought you were going to say hand grenade.

They just gave you hand grenades. I remember doing the hand glider thing and I went down it and I kind of like tried to jump off it more and my ankle hit cement. I was like, that's not great. Jesus. And then they had a lot of tube rides. Yeah. So what me and my friends would like to do is those tube rides, a lot of the parts of the slide would be covered to prevent death. Right.

So what we did was we got out of the tubes, stopped the slide, got out of the tubes, and then climbed and hung out for like an hour or two on the slide when people would go under us. Wow. And we'd just like scream stuff. Wait, nobody stopped you from being there? Well, they couldn't get up to the slide. So were like employees yelling at you to get down? Sometimes. They didn't care.

Younger than you. Barely getting paid more than you. Why is this place still not around no so we'd just be hanging out doing like wow uh you know yelling stuff just like banging on it like it's a cage well yeah because we'd be above them ah be like give me a dollar let me ask you this um when you're like around 15 and 16 would you guys ever were you into drinking yet? No, no. So I, this was all junior high. Oh, this. Okay. Gotcha.

So this was like 12 to 14. I don't, at high school, I didn't go to water parks because you even knew like if you're older than like 12, it's weird for anyone to be at a water park. I don't know that that's an aphorism we say. No, no. We went to Noah's Ark when we were 18 After we graduated high school Oh a big water park up in the Wisconsin Dells of course

Oh themed after Themed after the great man Noah Who put two of each animal on an ark The Lord told him to So we don't have to talk about that now Well it's always a good time to talk about the good book The truth of the bible yes I can't wait

to have kids and then go to a water park looking like me and just apologizing to everyone now like i'm so sorry for what i did in junior high i'm fine don't worry about me i came with kids hey knock off that horse play they had this one ride i remember doing it when i was like 10 where you had to carry like a 50 pound raft oh right because yeah there's there's still those rides and then you would walk up like six flights of stairs right with the raft and i could handle it but then like i remember like well why don't i surf down this and then i slipped off that oh no and did you just you just landed on the slide and like slowly fell down. I was like, sorry, sorry.

This is like a highlight, like a jackass highlight reel you're describing now. A little bit, no, that's what it was. You can't hurt so much. What is this, the plot of the new movie Action Point? Shut up, Sheridan. I knew you'd come around. Two hours with us, you'd be bullying everybody yeah you have to i remember one time we went to astroworld and we won like 60 basketballs like college basketballs

well like until they gave them to you no like it was like if you like made the hoop uh-huh like you know if you shot the basket if you physically constructed the hoop no yeah like there was like 50 cents or a dollar you get three shots if you hit two of them you get a basketball so we hit a shit ton of them like who's we how big of a gang you got it was god it wasn't like five dudes four dudes just buddies and we got a shit ton of them, like 30. Wow. And we had two giant bags carrying around. We were like, well, this sucks. You're saying like that was at the start of the day.

Yeah. And it was like. Would you throw them at things to like be mischief makers? Not like throw them at people or things, but like roll them. You know, like, hey, you know, just like shoot them, throw them around, play dodgeball. You, I'm, I'm picturing this and I picturing uh me in the park at the same time and i would have been like so nervous that these bad kids that are throwing basketball it was never like cruel stuff it was just like saying even chicanery i'm more saying that this is the type of behavior that i think

would make a few of us very uncomfortable on our spectrum. Right. Rolling basketballs down. We've ever seen. Oh my gosh. Like, like I would like not like trying to make eye contact. It kind of like hug, like the side of the bathroom for 45 minutes. I likely would have been a busier,

you know, enjoying the modern marvels of engineering, the coasters that people worked really hard on. And I wanted to get my money's worth and ride all of them you wouldn't let some rapscallions get you down you might get pegged with the michigan wolverines basketball he would be rolling the basketball and jason be like excuse me sir i'm trying to get past you to go enjoy this modern marvel of machinery hey eat ball bitch right in the head broke the glasses you would do it you would do it you're downplaying and it would by the way be justified if jason had said that

specifically but if i just saw you cowering behind like you know tasmania you would peg me with a basketball no i never threw it at anyone it anyone. It was just like nonsense for nonsense reasons. I don't believe. I believe you at least one time in your life have thrown a basketball at a child's head. I think I have. Like I'm a friend of mine. No, I've thrown it at other people.

Like a dad. An odd dad? Yeah, I remember like this neighbor. Like this kid was. I think this kid was making fun of me. I was, again, a husky fella. And he made fun of me, and I might have pushed him down. And his dad was like, why'd you push my kid?

It was like, because he's being a dick. I was like nine. Nine, really? And he was like, well, you shouldn't say that language. He was like, well, you shouldn't have a fucking stupid son you said that to him yeah wow it was at a baseball park this is at texas like yeehaw like texas ranger like and you threw a basketball at him then the dad you said yeah after so you said no no i i went up to him and i was like, are we going to fight? I think you're the hero of this story, but the way you're telling it makes you sound like a villain.

That happens. I remember this is just apropos of nothing, but in third grade, I played catcher all the time. I was always the catcher and I was good. And my parents for my birthday, and it was the best birthday present I ever got, was brand new catching equipment. Not like the team. Right. Like staff infection. Recycled.

Yeah. Reused. It was brand new maroon catching equipment. And it was awesome. And so I was catching. And the coach was like, hey, you got the whole thing. Are you like, so did you get everything? It was like, I just turned up to him.

I was like, I got the whole goddamn thing. Because I'd watched Major League nonstop as a kid. Like, every day I would watch Major League. And then that same game, the pitcher was struggling. And it was for, like, a championship. And we had to get an out. We had to get an out. And the guy was really good.

So I went up to the pitcher. And I walked up to him. And I was like, strike this motherfucker out. Which is from Major League. He did. And then he started crying. And he told on me. Whoa.

Wow. Well, you're the hero of that story. Yeah, you are. Never be him. Man. So this is great like the you know i you were watching these adult movies they were informing your worldview at such a young age and then like i'm we're all watching like beauty and the beast and you're saying van dyke show and wondering how we would fall over ottomans

like you're you're saying motherfucker and i'm playing baseball and i'm like humming be our guest in like in like right field and like yeah but i was also a weird whimsy kid too like you know i'd watch like you know i would like write my own thundercats spec scripts really yeah i mean but they were bad they weren't. But no, like, I was a nerdy kid, too, though. So I was underrated nerdy, too, but I love sports as well. Like, I watched the X-Men cartoon. I watched Batman. Like, I watched all the stuff, but I also liked sports and action movies.

Well, let me ask to bring back to Astroworld. Were you there the summer? I don't know how long it lasted. I would assume at least the summer the police academy stunt show was there yes so you saw this in 1994 ish hollywood comes to houston according to this brochure for the police that's how they've done show clear as clear as day that's how they advertised it yeah whoa a few years after when did the last police academy movie come out there was four there was a police academy seven was around the last Police Academy movie come out? There was four?

Police Academy 7 was around 93, 94. But Police Academy 6, I think, was the big one in 1991. God, they got to 7? They got sort of quieter in their release and prominence as they went, as did the Ernest films. But as a big Police Academy fan, I was very excited. Were you under any illusion that it would be your favorite stars from the film performing every day in the park for you? Okay, so 1994, I was 13.

So I was at least worldly enough to be like, look, these guys aren't doing much. They could show up. True. No gigantic careers were launched out of Police Academy. I was like, well, know certainly tackleberry could show up and if there was a character favorite or who was your favorite bobcat goldthwait was my favorite okay but he's not coming yeah he's not coming to houston even if hollywood is uh i really liked from the first one the guy george who pretended he was a sp Spanish guy but to trick women

and then there's a couple problems in there looking back now if I had to pick one it's Sweet Chuck but you're gonna have to I don't know nerdish guy who's unassuming oh great well I like this character too I really

sounds like fun I watch these movies but I do remember there was a short-lived animated show right and like with action figures that is my bearing for police academy what occurred in the stunt show do we know any specific um it seems like there was some sort of go-kart going off the art uh uh i found a website called theme park brochuresnet, which that was a big rabbit hole to go down. Here is, yeah, someone's on an ATV thing. There's a big strong guy. It looks like there's a pool of water.

I bet your Thundercats drawings were better than this. No, I wrote them. This is from the era of when, like, theme park maps had, like, a very, like, Where's Waldo, Sergio Aragones-style mad magazine. This was a real trend. Oh, sorry. Go back to the stories where you yell at children.

I didn't yell at children. I yelled at contemporaries. Look at children. I yelled at contemporaries. Look at this. You said horrible swear words to promising pitchers, setting them off. Did we win? Yes. You scared him into submission. This is true. Now, do you want to hear my best Astroworld story?

Of course. Where I have a world record holder? Most basketballs thrown at the cast of the Police Academy. Or the Batman Forever stunt show. Oh, yeah. I believe that was there. Did you see that? I did not see that one.

I'll loop around to that, but let's hear Nick's thing. So I wasn't a churchy kid when I was growing up, but sometimes the local church would rent out Astroworld, as one does for like a youth group thing where there'd be like a bunch of churches and like, it would, they rent out the park on a Sunday and it would be like youth group day.

So the park would be like, like two fifths full and it would be easy to go on lines and all this stuff. But the, the, the trick was the catch was at five o'clock you had to go where they did the police Academy stunt show and have like a church service. But the trick was the catch was at five o'clock you had to go where they did the police academy stunt show and have like a church service. Jesus.

In like a fake New York, like plywood walls. Wow. So I was like. Did you get communion there? Well, no, because I was like, nuts to that. I'm 11. I have free will. Yeah. This was my 95 thesis for like, this is when I became, this nuts to that. I'm 11. I have free will. Yeah.

This was my 95 thesis. This was my protest against the church. Astroworld had a ride named Tidal Wave. Okay. Which you've seen them all before, but I think this is one of the first ones again. I think it's one of the biggest ones. It's like the Jurassic. It's the big cart thing.

Big drop. Yeah. And it creates a big tidal wave of water. Bigger than a log flume. Yeah. It's like the bigger boat. Shoot the shoot. They call it that.

Imagine the Jurassic Park ride at Universal Studios Los Angeles. Yeah. Times 10. Okay. It's a big drop. It's like a couple stories. Very popular, especially in areas that get very hot because you usually get drenched on these yeah i was i love that ride even though i

was a stupid kid it was like well it's going to ruin your trip because you're gonna be just covered in chlorine water and you're getting hollow lung but i was like i don't care so i was like and this was january and i was wearing a hoodie and it was probably like, yeah, it was like five o'clock and it was cold and no one was on tidal wave, especially because they were all at church. So I was like, yep, I'm doing this. And they were operating this ride in January. Yeah. And some kid, like some 15 year old was like, yeah, you want to get on?

And I was like, yep. So I did it strapped in front in the row it's only me and i proceeded to do it 14 times one after the other after the other after the other and i was soaking wet and he was like and you were alone all by myself did never got up wow just did the whole thing and your pupils were just game boy green by the end light olive that's funny you say because i have a memory of like doing a six flags uh being at great adventure in like an off weekend in the fall and like we rode a roller coaster and really liked and we pulled back into the station and they came over the allowed speaker and just went you guys want to go again because it was just so

empty there was no line and we read wrote it like three or four times but not 14 14 times not 14 no but you had no church to avoid no i had no church to avoid but it is fun when it is like fun to do a ride and like knock it out of your oh yeah it's great once more once more old boy yeah no like the whole time and i was just like this the whole time i was like you wanna do it again it was like yeah and the whole and like every time it happened i would scream like yeah um is there any argument is the most religious listener listening to this podcast is there any argument that nick was wrong to do like people sat through church at a police academy theater instead of going on i'm sure it was right 14 times yeah technically you could have been baptized you

might have been bathed in the water by doing that ride so many times i like to think that there would be like a you know when you're in church there's a couple moments where you you're silent you're silent and you pray i like to think they were a little silent and all of a sudden they heard funny you mentioned that i want like every two minutes sorry okay funny you mentioned that so i did it and after the 14th time, he was like, uh, we gotta go. We have to shut down the ride. Cause no one's using it. I was like, well,

I'm using it. It was like, it was like, yeah, but still you're 11. Get out. And I was like, but Hey man,

just know this. You beat the record. Wow. Wow. That's great. Well, what do you know what it was before? He said it was like 11,

but you beat the record. A little bit of buffer room too., if someone tried to challenge yours. Looking back, he probably was lying. It's possible. There's no way to know, though. He didn't have an official Guinness book with him. No, he didn't have a notary. There was a faded post-it note on the wall of his little operating cube that just said 11.

And then they had to cross that out and change it to 14 you know what let you it's your record you got it that is a fun that's a great so well it's not over so i was soaking wet like you just see a water trail right following me and the uh the youth group lady the head of it who was like friends with my mom was like nick, Nick, where have you been? I was like, I was in church. And she was like, I was next to the Mahoney poster.

And she was like, no, you're not. You're soaking wet. I was like, how do you know? It's from earlier. You were writing the title wave right. I was like, how do you know? We heard you. It happened.

Also, there's a trail of water and i was like nah i was there we talked about jesus down to the river to pray and she was like so i got home and everyone they were all mad at me and i had to sit by myself on the bus. Mostly maybe because I was covered in chlorine water. Yeah, that probably. So my parents were like, hey, how'd the thing go? And I was like, it was good.

A lot of fun. And then like a half an hour later, my mom got a call. And they were like, Nick, get down here. It was like, did you skip church? It was like, yeah, but I beat the record for Tidal Wave. And they were like, okay. Yeah. This is a great story.

This was a happy ending. Happy ending. We've joked. No, they were like, okay, just don't be a dick about it. Don't lie to them. Just own it. If you had been to church, you would have learned about humility. Don't go bragging about that record.

I mean, that is most of Jesus' teachings. Don't be a dick about it. If they framed it that way, I'd go. That's incredible. We've joked about your dad not raising you right for dumb reasons. It was evident he did from this tale. He weighed one thing against the other they were uh great parents they just uh you know yeah well it was weird grew up in texas i had two

parents from long island in this long island liberal bubble in the middle of houston texas so i grew up like listening to skinnered and you know kiss listen well listen. Well, yeah. And kiss, but like also, Oh, you enjoy progressive politics. Yeah. And that's you. That's you today. And your parents are, yeah. Cause you don't,

you don't get into it politically with them. My dad is, they live across from a giant junior high and he puts a big Obama sign for every day election. That's fun. So I think we're just, yeah, that's kind of useless. Now he we're just shit starters. Well, that's the current one. Yeah, that's kind of useless now.

Maybe still. He really liked them. Yeah, well, hey, remember when we had a decent president? Hey, let's not get political, okay? Let's not ruin this. No, no, that's not what this podcast is about. You know, you were talking about renting out Astroworld for a private event, and we should mention how the first googling i did of astroworld

when we started talking about this topic that very recently uh six flags magic mountain was rented out by uh travis scott who is a rap guy and kylie jenner who is a name that i see in headlines from something called just jared when i scan past them on Twitter as fast as possible. These people ran it out, Six Flags Magic Mountain here in Los Angeles, to turn it into Astroworld just for a night for Travis Scott's birthday. He's from Houston. He has an album forthcoming, maybe out by the time this comes out, called Astroworld.

So for one special night, Astroworld was back here in Los Angeles. And I missed it. Yeah, I was going to say, Kanye West was invited. Nick Mundy was not invited. And with good reason. I guess they heard about it. I disagree. I mean, I think you have the record.

They were throwing basketballs at everyone. With that, oh, the dream of Nick Mundy throwing basketballs at all these people just climbing into the water slides and just hanging out hey give me a dollar kanye so stop tweeting kanye you should have been invited as a prominent houston uh public figure that's crazy you should have been able to be there or at least mattress mac what's that i don't mattress mac is the hero of houston who opened up he has this this furniture store called Gallery Furniture who said, like, if you buy this furniture and the Astros win, you don't have to pay for it. And he's also the guy during hurricanes. He'll open his store, let people just sleep in all the beds.

He's the greatest Houstonian ever. He kind of looks like Ernest meets Mr. Rogers, but he's just screaming in all the commercials. Look up any Mattress Mac commercial. He's the greatest Houstonian ever. Oh, neat. Houstonian. Wow. So it'll never be you, and it'll never be Travis Scott.

It will always be Mattress Mac. Yes. I want to make a Mattress Mac movie. Oh, yeah. That's a good idea, actually. There hasn't been a good movie about any of these crazy commercial dudes. Yep. I've seen movies about all of them.

Your mattress is free. Every single one of these guys. The question mark suit guy, Matthew, what's his face? Oh, yeah. I'd love to hear the whole story of the question mark suit guy. The Empire carpet man. Yeah, that too. Empire.

Did you guys have Menards out here or in Texas? Or was it only from Midwest? There was a Menards man. It was a like a uh hardware store and they you know they sold mulch but he was like uh he'd like say save big money at menards and he was a very like kindly old man he's like local i mean work warehouse would be a great movie oh yeah yeah la folks but i don't want you know i've talked about the film the founder i don't want, you know, I've talked about the film The Founder. I don't want any, like, plot where, you know, the guy's doing business chicanery and getting corrupt. I want a story that starts with a nice guy with a dream and ends with a guy whose dream came true and who helps hurricane victims.

Yeah, that's a master smack. No conflict. Yeah. Why do movies have to have drama? Why can't they be just a bunch of nice stuff? He used to promote a lot of the wrestling house shows. Really? Yeah, buy a couch, get a house ticket show for free.

Did you ever do that? I believe we did, actually, yeah. You bought a couch so you could get wrestling tickets? Yeah. Do you guys remember with Six Flags, at least with Astroworld, if you brought in Coke cans? Oh, yeah. That is still a big promotional thing for them.

I found out there's a video on YouTube of like a bunch of old Astro world commercials, like strung together and you could just see the evolution of Coke cats. Like from when they used to be kind of squat where they're like, bring a, bring a recyclable 16 ounce glass Coke bottle, bring the bottle cap to like the introduction of diet coke to like the introduction and now it's like bring a thin millennial targeting uh diet coke with uh blood orange can

i remember that pepsi okay so as you guys probably know astroworld and six flags was a coca-cola distributed yep okay but pepsi set up a bunch of stands where you could do the Pepsi challenge and win license to chill cards. Wow. That's really smart. And did you do the Pepsi challenge? And I was like, this is going to change everything. I got my first credit card and it didn't do dick.

A license to chill card was a Pepsi oriented credit card? It was like a coupon card where if you scanned it at certain places like blockbuster music, plus you would get a dollar off like a tape. Wow. So it looked like Van Halen's right now would play when you scan it. So it looked like a credit card, but it was just a discount.

It was a coupon. Yeah. Oh. And the cool thing about Astro world too, was it pumped music out? That's what right now van halen's right now i was like yeah i remember being like they played this nine times i remember hearing live a bunch did you see concerts because the astral also a big concert venue no astro arena was so i'm reading here the southern star amphitheater do you know what that is vaguelyaguely, yes.

So it was in the southeast corner of Astroworld. I'm just looking from the Wikipedia here in 1980. In the venue, I think there were a lot of different performers that came there. This venue was frequented by performers including Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band. Oh, man. Early days. The early days. Jimmy frequently playing astroworld he

apparently is associated with every different theme park we ever go to who's regular church street station he has a he has his footprint over all these places so i think this was before you were obviously going there yeah look man if uh if uh back in the days when I went to Astroworld a lot, if the music wasn't either Kiss, The Offspring, or Live, I wasn't interested. Yeah, that makes sense. It was in the mix. Oh, yeah, man.

Throwing Copper? That was all. 1994 was the best year of music ever. Throwing Copper? Did you go to like a Lollapalooza or something? No, I went to buzzfest what was buzzfest buzzfest was like the bullshit alternative music of like 1998 okay you mean like matchbox 20 and stuff mercy playground it was like i don't even remember a band it was like

like pre-hoobastank bands no but then the best show ever went to was skinnered steve miller survivor bad company and sticks and this was by astroworld no this was just oh you're just telling us about a concert you went to well he asked me like what no this is you're making jason furious here yeah well no i wasn't sure well it was the first time i ever did acid so what what what happened yeah i was 15 i was at the show drugs before i was 15 at the show and i was never done drugs before. I was 15 at the show, and I was like, hey, you want some? And I was like, yep. And then I woke up in Freebird with a cape. Whoa, really?

And that's all I remember. You were on the stage. You were singing it. I have found the lineups for BuzzFest, if you're interested. Let's hear it. Look up BuzzFest 98. Okay, 98. Here we go.

No, wait. 96. 96. 96. Okay. Here are the bands. Gravity Kills, which I believe they were on the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Soundtrack, if I'm correct.

22 Brides. There's a band called Atticus Finch. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, that's the one I remember. Yeah, Atticus. Atticus Finch. Weird choice. Weird choice for a band name.

There's a band called God Lives Underwater. There's a band called The Hunger. Lush. There's a band called god lives underwater uh there's a band called the hunger lush there's a band called lush modern english the nixon what that was a big draw poe too much joy and the toadies i think i like this i know the toadies all right finally uh Dexter Freebish. Right. Not the band Dexter. Not the band named after. Name sake for the roller coaster.

I remember having to pay older dudes $10 because I was like 15, but I looked like 12 to buy me beer. Really? For $5 beer. And how old were you again? 15 or 14. Wow. So you were making those transactions back then.

Yeah. Man, you were doing cool grown-up stuff in 14 and 15. Can I be another decade before I had a beer? It's against the rules. I'd like to use this to transition. And you were talking about the cool soundtrack, Mortal Kombat, correct? Yeah. Another film of the mid-90s with a cool

soundtrack batman forever of course and there was a batman forever stunt show as we mentioned and the stunt show among many other i watched a video of the stunt show it seemed like a great one i don't know if you went i did it uh it's fantastic it's got a, uh, uh, really good, uh, you know, Houston actor pretending to be the Jim Carrey Riddler. Uh, it, but like, and like amazing, like inflatable sets that,

that Enigma, uh, brain stealing machine is like not on this doc set. And then it like explodes out of a box, uh, in an inflatable fashion. It's really cool. But one cool facet of the show is that they use the batman

forever soundtrack which of course has uh you too uh hold me kiss me thrill me kiss me kill me yeah yeah uh and and you know the the obviously the the famous song kiss from a rose and i just want to play i feel like i'm gonna debate that i. I feel like Kiss Me, Kill Me, Hold Me, Thrill Me was the bigger song at the time. Maybe. They were both like the two biggest songs of the year. I think I can look this up and see what they charted. My music teacher, we had a,

this was a thing they would make us do. We get like these music, school music magazines and he's like we're gonna deconstruct a popular song and this month it's kiss from a rose deconstruct like like talk about like here's the medley and here's the bridge and here's the and then he also did that with um i believe i could fly oh so and 90s soundtrack greats yeah there's all of these weird this is bringing up weird memories of like we taught we said the pepsi challenge we did a few days of science class in fourth grade doing the pepsi challenge and talking about how soda is made

and the construct we also that same teacher had us vote for the new color m&m like we would do all these weird corporate tie-ins like lessons this makes a lot of sense he's the first influencer yeah i picked right i picked blue and we still love the blue m&m to this day you caused it yourself yeah did you uh debate uh to let the tricks rabbit have finally have the cereal in the class i believe that was always my stance, that if we just let these creatures have a bowl of cereal or two, they would calm the fuck down. I thought the free market should have decided

if Trix rabbit got its cereal. Pay for it, rabbit. Very interesting. So I just want to play really fast. This is from the beginning of the Batman Forever. I don't want to get the name wrong because it's one of those good... The Batman Forever Water Stunt Spectacular. Water Stunts.

So at the beginning of the show, the audience is settling in and they're giving a couple safety warnings. And you can tell they want to kick off the show with a clip from the Batman Forever soundtrack. But then they have more announcements they have to play. So it leads to this. Take a listen. Please assist those now entering the facility by sliding into the middle of your section, filling in every available seat.

Thank you. Additionally, the cast and crew of Batman would like to thank you. Did you catch that wait uh hold on one minute seal stay at bay seal i've looked up the chart positions and kiss from a rose is the bigger song don't be wrong it was a better song too i just remember at the time mtv was playing the youtube video more than but maybe you just like to rock out a little harder with you too no i liked seal because i knew this song could come in handy one day what do you mean kiss from rose was played what sex was in eighth grade

oh well i didn't i wasn't sure wait did you use it for seduction purposes no but just i knew down the road i will say when i was in college this this is a thing that I was kind of unearthed a few years ago because my girlfriend, Lindsay, will often talk about how I won't admit to having crushes or anything, that I have no... I try to, I don't know, wipe that part out of my memory or my history. But I will say I remember that the first time I ever really had a crush on an actress, it was for sure Nicole Kidman from Batman Forever. That's burned into my brain.

Sure. Well, you'll be happy to hear Dr. Chase Meridian is in the stunt show. It's not Nicole, but she works as an avatar. I guess I am really more attracted to Chase than Nicole because Chase is a totally different character. She's very smart character she's very smart she's very smart learned but she does love bad boys yeah she loves bad boys she loves the car because chicks dig the car and she's also loves like grabbing those rubber muscles which is a thing she does in the movie oh she reaches up and yeah because this was the Batman this is Schumacher Batman with this big old

chests and big old cod pieces not the nipples yet not nips till Batman and Robin can we all admit Val Kilmer is an underrated Batman I think so I'd say so Val Kilmer rules like I like Val Kilmer I think he's the best Bruce Wayne there's ever been

yeah because clearly he's distracting well no why would you even we all know barely in it as bruce wayne no that's bruce wayne okay wait no it's keaton but never mind but he's not he's not bad is what you're saying and should be kept it's also a movie that i like but is maybe not the best movie in the world so maybe the material if he was in a movie with maybe some better dialogue, he would have popped a little bit more. Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, Salton Sea.

There's some 2000 stuff that he's great in. Oh, MacGruber, yeah. You talk about the goofy movie. Batman Forever is one of those. It might be horrible. I don't know, but it's impossible for me to unravel it from how much I loved it when it

oh i will never be able to totally remove my experience mcdonald's cups that i still have the glass mcdonald's cups of the characters and like every every time there would be a batman movie it would be batman summer batman fever at all like you're mcdonald's and you feel like you were eating batman so uh that is your sacrament that is your church oh yes you're taking the heart for my quarter pounder that had a little bat symbol on it because if you remove the sacrament from the mcdonald's it's not batman anymore it's just like the body of christ take this gray meat it is the body of batman this actually just reminded me of a weird story i remember growing up uh my parents my mom was sick for a couple years in junior high like there was something they

couldn't tell what's wrong she ended up going to mayo clinic she was fine she ended up being fine but they were doing a lot of testing and they're like they were still kind of keeping me and my brother out of the dark and they're like hey we're gonna go to a normal doctor's visit and which was weird that they said it that way. Why don't you guys go to the movies? Why don't you go? And then we were like, okay, cool. So we saw Batman Forever for like the fourth time.

And then my dad stopped by and he was like, look, we're still at the doctor's. Go to another movie. So we saw Apollo 13. And then we saw the Power Rangers movie. And then he was like, look, just go one more movie. So we saw apollo 13 and then we saw the trans uh power rangers movie and he was like look just go one more movie so we saw batman forever again and we were like yeah this was the best day ever while my parents were like chasing mortality jesus yeah everything ended up being fine but like the worst day for my parents life was probably like my favorite day ever wow can you imagine if today you were stuck

in a movie theater and had to see four in a row i couldn't choose one i would just play with the claw machine for eight hours sure there's no bigger nightmare as long as i guess we'll go see you were never really here again i got this is so totally weird how my brain just did this but you said batman forever again and i imagined the movie batman forever again that doesn't exist This is so totally weird how my brain just did this, but you said Batman Forever Again, and I imagined the movie Batman Forever Again that doesn't exist. That's just the same characters, and I was like, whoa, I want to see Batman Forever Again. I like the idea of splitting off specific sequels into separate cinematic universes. Something that is almost only tested by national lampoon's christmas vacation to

uncle eddie's island adventure don't forget the rise of taj van wilder but that's still that's a spinoff of a character but it could still there wasn't a different van wilder was there was there a van wilder i think van wilder had graduated oh Oh, I see. Is the vacation movies just in a multiverse? And, like, Clark and Ellen are the same constant, but, like, that's how you explain it's in the same multiverse, but it's in different dimensions.

It's sort of like how Judi Dench is M in some of the James Bonds, no matter how many James Bonds there are. And Michael Goh is Alfred and it's the same for different Batman movies. See, I'm a nerd.

Yeah, you can do this stuff. You can hang with us. Anyway, yeah, all the vacation movies are their own separate universe and which one would you most if you were stuck in one if you were stuck in a vacation verse which one is like the most pleasant to you?

Which, which, if you were like related to which set of Griswolds, which one would you stick with? Probably Christmas because the European one is just spooky as shit. It's very unpleasant. That's a weird movie. I don't want to hear that Dr. John song about new looks ever again. Oh God, damn it. That plays every day in a constant

loop in that multiverse. Here's a weird fact about me. The first vacation movie I ever saw was Vegas Vacation. I have a lot of affection for Vegas Vacation. Yeah I like that too. How come? We just saw it. I think we saw it like

a couple times. It was one of those movies I think it was on HBO every day. It a vhs release when it was just like everyone just always had new release vhs's or rentals or whatever it's definitely not as bad as it would be today like yes the version of it that would come out today would be unbelievably bad it would be in you could tell that sid caesar section in it that they just like let him he's a comedy legend so let's just let him do too many takes and be too broad and go too nuts which is how every movie is now with people who are not comedy legends just there i let this play out for 25 minutes that is what happens but since you that said caesar death is

very funny that is funny uh wall Wallace Shawn, great little running thing. Oh, I just enjoyed him in what I'm calling Book Trip, because I can't remember the name of the movie. I'm going to still call it Book Trip. Real quick, how do you guys get to two hours every episode? With tight, concise analysis of great attractions. I was about to just launch into a big Wallace Shawn chunk, but I don't believe we won't do that. sean that is conversely i have never seen princess bride

uh yeah i just that is like my goof like you were saying you didn't see the goofy movie until recently i just don't princess bride the fucking goofy movie have well at a certain point it just hit so mass saturation people would say the lines where like to the point of like holy monty python the holy grail where it's like god stop saying the fucking lines um yeah that didn't happen with the goofy movie the goofy movie came out and then twitter happened last year and people just started talking about it i completely forgot it existed it's a lot of our culture is millennial certain age range of millennials are hitting disposable income level of adulthood.

And so culture manufacturers are like, yeah, we'll shove out some Disney afternoon merchandise. Hell yeah. Millennials will buy like goofy movie merch, but they won't spend $8 on a buffet. Hey, I didn't think we had enough time to properly enjoy the buffet on my lunch break. You said it was $8. I thought it was more. So I have one more Astroworld story if you want to hear it. Yes, please.

I think we'll turn our backs from you, Monty. We haven't even gotten to Marvel yet. Oh, God. Okay. We're all vibrating to talk about that. Let's get back on track. Here we go. All right.

I have one last Astroworld memory that just, you know, a lot of this stuff is just flooding back. But there was one instance at Astroworld that changed my life uh you know the recording boosts where you and friends can record a song yes together like and they you get a cassette tape sure so me and three of my buddies my some of my best friends we did one we did metallica's one you know yeah and we were like the whole time we're like this is pretty good this is pretty good i'm gonna quit football start playing drums and we're gonna start a band oh and that affected the next two years of my life whoa really because you were in spot you thought like we're fucking kicking ass yeah at this metallica one this is i'm hearing

it back how goddamn stupid that do you have it again there's shit that might be in my parents we want to hear your cover of metallica's one a version that presumably does not include drums because they did not give you a tiny drum set to fit in the recording acapella but they they put the instrumental version so you would hear the acapella track in your headphones and sing with it no there was no guiding track no what it was just the recorded song it was just like no it was just the instrumental and you then you're you're hearing this recording i'm like man i'm pretty good at drums that's insane so then that caused you to now you've now you feel like you don't have drive now are your parents mad at you i feel like not so much that but they were like you're not you

have no musical ability and i was like yeah well i'm still gonna do it yeah and you bought a drum set and my drum kit did two years of drum lessons try to had one show it's just one so you never got good at drums no i was terrible and how hardcore were you practicing like almost every day? But it got you into the arts. Incredible drive. And no ability. I don't have a drum set, but if I did, you couldn't... I could play like some,

but like I never got any better. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. You didn't play the Southern Star Amphitheater. The damn Wiener kids never made it.

You were not there with Scott Baio and the TV Stars Tour brought to you by Pizza Hut. We were not. Huh? Iio and the TV Stars Tour brought to you by Pizza Hut? We were not. Huh? I missed that. That's in the string of Astroworld commercials.

Pizza Hut sponsored a music series. So it's like this Friday, Scott Baio and the TV Stars Tour. Next Friday, Wolfman Jack. Oh, man. And then just a bunch of country, you know, lifers, country music lifers who I'd never heard of. You could just see on Friday nights at Astroworld.ers, country music lifers who I'd never heard of. You could just see on Friday nights at Astroworld. Yeah, so Astroworld was big for me.

And then I was crushed when I found out in 2005, I was living in LA, that they closed it down to create parking for the rodeo. This is the dullest reason that anything ever closed. But that parking is worth a fortune. And like the rodeo, you don a fortune and like the rodeo you don't fuck around with the rodeo but so the rodeo is only sometimes during the year once yeah but it's that crucial yes once a year like five yeah for five weeks like four or five weeks it's like a like a fair but even shorter picks or something we're willing to like demolish things for this one event well that's what reading about the closing

it seemed like they thought like this is an incredibly valuable piece of property we're gonna close it and sell it for a fortune we're gonna sell it for 150 million dollars and then they sold it for half that much and that led to the guy in charge being fired from the from i think the six between the football and you know the rodeo which I mean football again it's only like 12 dates a year. I mean. Yeah. Wow. And I think six flags it was

not making money and no one was going. Yeah it didn't seem like it was doing it wasn't one of the best six flags. I think I read it was like eight or something. Throw a basketball at him. There is an argument to say that it's the best because of a certain character. Yeah, you know, to not end on a bummer note, the sadness of the park disappearing, let's go backwards to the glory days.

To the early 1970s. To the glory days when Astroworld was home to a marvelous man named marvel mcfay do you know about marvel mcfay one of the greatest discoveries i think we've made doing this podcast i had no knowledge of this and now i have all the knowledge of it now it is like one of the best things i think we've come across want to explain marvel mcfay he uh nick here and like do you have a phone okay so he he was an original character uh made for astro world marvel mcfay and his enchanted animals um oh shit that's him yeah uh he is a big bearded man with a gigantic hat. Found out through doing research, a couple of sources say that he was designed, as were the animals, by Disney legend Raleigh Crump,

a long time Disney Imagineer. Yeah, and Marvel McFane is an enchanted animals where walk around characters in big suits. You get your picture taken with, and they put on a show and i eat an incredibly catchy song anybody you saw him around he was like still up on merch or t-shirt was he walking around yeah basketball all right so here's the song oh boy uh it's just wonderful Oh, boy. It's just wonderful. Yep. away came a magical man and he came

to stay a man named Marvel McFay Marvel McFay Marvel McFay you make my world a magical world each day, A magical day.

Marvel McFay. Marvel McFay. You're a super pie. You make the world mine. You're Marvel. Marvel McFay. Do-do-do-do. You would hear that song in like the restaurant and like different times.

Oh, okay. Wow. You would hear that song in the restaurant at different times. Wow. Because it makes a lot of sense why that didn't play well in 90s Houston, Texas. Well, I think it went away in 84, or late 80s as they started folding in more of the Warner Brother of the Looney Tunes stuff.

The Looney Tunes were around. But Pac-Man seems to have lived in harmony with Marvel McF i think they were all running around together pac-man was apparently running around too uh there was a great picture from like a remembrances of astroworld article and it's just the 70s teens early 20s something with big hair and they were the cast and i'm just like well all of these houston theater kids were definitely hooking up with each other. There's no doubt about that.

Marvel McKay's wonderful animals were hooking up with each other. I would assume. Apparently, Marvel McFay's head and hat combination. One of the stories was like, yeah, this teenage girl, she was one of the people who would do Marvel McFay. And the head and hat combination is 30 pounds alone. Yes, I saw that. just sitting on your shoulders. So if you don't do anything in actual world, that's not dangerous.

It's not worth it. That's a good point. It's in keeping with the philosophy, but like the costumes I think look great. These are like great designs, instantly lovable characters. I didn't even like stare at each of them, but I love,

I love them just on quick site so much. There is a mouse, uh, that I found a photo of. I think it's Pierre Lerat, who is French. Yes. And I found a little still where he has a caption underneath and it says, Mondew, time for a cheese break. I found that as well.

Most adorable, delightful thing. Did you find the one about the pig? Oh, wait. What is the pig? So I found a list, one sheet about all the animals. Great. It says, here come the animals. Astroworld has them all.

And it says, like, it's furry ones, fuzzy ones, animals that snip, snarl, and smile. All just for fun. You'll meet Astroworld animals at every turn. So jump in and join the fun with Astroworld animals. They're just for you. Just to make you happy. Do you have their names? Pre-dating for us.

So, and it's very like, this is all very low res. So it's Samantha. She's a skunk. Sneak a flower or two from Samantha. The sweet smelling skunk at the something I can't read in children's world. There's Nero the lion. There's Nero the Lion. There's Goldie the Gorilla. There's Beethoven, who...

I have a list without some of these. There was tons of these. There's tons. I couldn't even fit it all in one list. There's Flopper. Now, there's also Winston, who is not a punk rock dog. Like other Winstons. A wolf.

And then there's Pierrere i have his name is pierre reynard le rat oh see i got a question for you did every ask like six flags do this because i always remember astroworld being a step above other standard like theme parks like they were trying to disneyfy it they were trying this was well this was six flags sure sure like but it seems like even when it first started they were trying to put before the Six Flags. Sure, sure. But it seems like even when it first started, they were trying to put in extra effort. Like the outdoor air conditioning, the air conditioning pipes that ran underneath the park and would blow cold air into the lines and the garden. I haven't been to every Six Flags, but I think Astroworld is better than every Six Flags. I think so.

Because it was like an ill attempt at trying to be Disneyland. Yeah. I mean, the Alpine Sleigh Ride looks very similar to Matterhorn Mountain. There was Rio. They're trying theming with that. Rio Mysterio looks a little like the Jungle Cruise. Even just having characters. Even just having themed characters like this,

that costs money to record the song and have people play these characters in that heat. Creating a mythology. Any theme park that did that. And it also, I think you may have said in a text to me that Raleigh Crump was also involved in these things, the trolls at Magic Mountain. In the 70s, there was a similar set of psychedelic sort of Sid and Marty Kroft adjacent characters named the Trolls. And this is another thing I feel like is lost in the Venga

boyification of Six Flags. These delightful little psychedelic worlds I think are so charming and it's this specific little world you could only go to there. What was that word you said though? Which one? I said a lot of words. Venga boys.

Venga busification. If there's any syndrome i'm most upset about in this world here is another that's the song that the old man dances to the boys the venga bus is coming it is not axel i thought it was like it fully conglomerate that took over six flags oh no no like a westfield type organization no no they are their own already I thought it was a conglomerate that took over Six Flags and is homogenizing them. Like a Westfield-type organization. No, no. They are their own already homogenizing. Does Westfield have an amusement park?

No, I bet someday. They'll start to take over Six Flags, I bet, as time goes on. I found a caption picture, and it's Marvel and one of the characters, and it just says, Okay, Marvel, hand her over. The frog legs are mine. And I don't have any context for that. Let me see it. But it's a lion.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a lion. And then there's another one with the pig. And it says, that damned pig is too much of a ham for me. See, I think you guys would have dug 70s, 80s Houston. It was just bright colors. It was trying to get people there. The Astros had rainbow jerseys.

You've seen them. Oh, yes. You're retro because you have a hat from every era of the Astros. Sure. And the retro hats are wonderful. Those old logos and the old, we haven't said, I don't think the Astroworld logos are fantastic. Top notch. Tweet some of those.

Here's Marvel and friends riding the Texas Cyclone. Oh, it's so McDonaldland-y. It's very McDonaldland-y. All of their necks hurt. Their necks are all drooping. They're all heading for concussions. Here is a creature. It's just captioned, Hey, hey, Marvel McFay. I don't even know.

It looks like a corn man. He looks like an unpainted Mayor McCheese. Yes. It's just raw bread. And also, there's a lion who I think is named Lester Lion. Look at that. It's wearing Astro's hat I also, there's a lion who I think is named Lester Lion. Look at that. It's wearing Astro's hat, just like our buddy Nick Mundy. Yeah.

So there's Nero the Lion and Lester Lion. Maybe that's Nero. I don't know. Does he look like this? They did do a good job of all this branding, but they tried. Oh, that's a different lion. That's Nero. That's Nero the Lion, yeah. This one is orange, so he's used to an Astro's orange, so he's different, I guess.

One of Lester became a baseball player, and Nero quit to play Metallica covers for two years. Did you come across Percy the Penguin? He's on my list. I don't know anything about him. Well, he's the only animal in the park wearing a black tuxedo, is what it says about him. Fun fact. He's the only animal in the park wearing a black tuxedo. That's what it says about him. Hmm. Fun fact.

He's the only one. This just feels like a real half-assed not half-assed, but like just a real bad attempt at making Disneyland. Like, hey, how can we advertise this guy? He's wearing a tuxedo. Ha ha. What a weird thing. It's hard to have dense mythologies when the characters are not

in dozens of animated shorts. I admire anybody's attempts because this assignment is passed down from some corporate mucky-muck to like, we need a Mickey Mouse. No, it's right. This time it was like Roy Hoffines. It was just like some old cowboy just trying to... Give me a pig and a lion and a skunk, damn it. I don't want to go to California.

The way to find Marvel and McFay stuff, there's not a lot of great archives of, but there's a lot of video collages online with all these pictures, one of which ended with a very charming video of what was clearly a gathering of people who used to do that show, and they're just sitting around drinking beer,

and the music comes on and everyone cheers and the one guy can still do the full dance and like people give a round applause at the end and i felt like moved watching this like in the same way of people talking about their memories of when the park closed because it's so rare for like a whole theme park to not just close but be demolished unless there's a natural disaster or a massive financial yeah quagmire like hard rock park this is a rare closure that's not for some that wasn't in the first year to make it like 40 years and then be done strange were you sad when it happened it was weird it felt like oh that sucks but i'm also

in california to make my dreams come true. Yes. Yeah. So you're not, unlike us, you're not primarily concerned about theme park happenings at places that you can't regularly go to. But now, no. Now I'm just thinking about, am I Astroworld? It's my dream now.

I'm just... You're going to shut down? Well, we'll all be in the ground one day. We'll all be parking lots for the rodeo day the houston rodeo livestock show um also yeah it was it was weird but it was also like oh yeah i hadn't been there since like i was 17 yeah yeah yeah so hey so you gotta grow up here's an image of marvel without his head uh or like you can take the head off like the body is still moving and it looks like a trick that's fun um what i think the problem was the biggest problem i think astroworld had like in hindsight was it wasn't owned by the people for a while who on the astros if they could have done like a double header thing like that would have been better like oh buy buy a couch get a ticket yeah

is there any correlation ever between the astro besides this lion wearing this hat i think originally it was it was all off lines created both yeah and everything was astro related okay and then it just kind of split it all split off sure because i think uh just looking at it they they had astro world for like a year and they were like, oh, we don't know what we're doing. And then they sold it off. Right. Interesting.

Real quick back to, because all I want to talk about is Marvel McFay. Well, quick point. Maybe you guys had the same thought. Marvel McFay looks like he is related to Dream Finder. Yeah. He looks very Dream Finder-like. And he predates Dream Finder. He predates Dream Finder and he looks like heer and he's he looks like he's his cousin

he looks like he's his brother that's a wrap on Nick so I'm just I'm wondering if he was any sort of like if they saw the marvel and they do you know who dream finder is Nick from Epcot that's the thing I forget that we're talking to this audience of people

as of course let's go straight into dream finder he's like a guy who flew around in a magic flying machine at Epcot Center. He's a different magical man from theme parks. It was a big like 70s, 80s sort of thing. But he isn't quite as his hair isn't as red but like he's

this guy. You've seen this guy before. Yeah. That looks familiar. Yeah. Figment. He was I remember Fig. I had a Figment doll. Yeah. Oh you did. Okay. Here's what I think about Marvel. Which is why did remember i had a figment doll yeah oh you did okay yeah here's what i think about marvel which is why did they ever make a figment movie or tv show there's a comic though what do you think we're all going for with this uh podcast that's why we're doing this yeah um give us the rights please us some podcast uh um here's what i what i think about marvel mcfay is that i i immediately like

all this and sometimes i'm not charmed by some set of theme park characters i didn't grow up with but i think these guys are a step above great design incredible song wonderful song that's like a that's like a nelson song that is so well done it's got that nice little 70s bounce it reminded me of the song girl that davy Jones sings on the Brady Bunch. Excellent song. Maybe my favorite theme park song that we've found in any of this. That I didn't know already. I've been singing it for two days now.

Like in my head. So while I like this a lot, I'm relieved that I didn't grow up in Houston, because if I grew up in Houston and was aware of these characters, I think I today would be the full time unpaid editor of the Marvel McFay GeoCities fan site. I think all I would do is archive this. I feel like I dodged a bullet by not being born, not being six in like 1974, whenever Marvel was around hero marvel mcfay yeah i would have because like because and they feel so much like the rock and fire explosion or the the uh the chuck e cheese characters it would have been a uh awful alternate uh another much worse multiverse i would have been a much worse rusty or audrey too obsessed with marvel mcfay do you think six flags owns the marvel mcfay rights well that's what i was wondering how much could we get the marvel mcfay rights yeah can we buy or can we buy them good question it might be dirt cheap

probably yeah i'll put a couple hundred bucks to buy that yeah if anybody has any info on the rights please dm us sure I wonder what's our licensing him for things I just grow my hair out I could probably be him we should all play him at a different difference different times like how Dream Fighter was played by different people

oh sure no I'm I'm the Pierre Lorette all the way characters then skunk I'm the Pierre Lorette all the way. I'll pull myself out of the characters then. Samantha Skunk, Lester Lyon. Sheridan's quiz pig. Well, there's pig. There's Chiquito Pig.

There's Harpo Pig. I'm just realizing I had the list of names. I thought I didn't have the list. I have the, because they're all in the image. Nick, we all wrote down the list of the Marvel McFake characters. Aren't you proud of us? Does it make sense that we, instead of devoting time to roller coasters,

we were all like, let's find the names of the pig and let's find the names of the wolf. Yeah, we got through the roller coaster stuff because you guys got scared how dangerous they were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we just wanted to live with it. I might hurt my neck just hearing about it.

But we wanted to be, basically, we didn't want to go on rides. We just wanted to have friends, animal friends. Enchanted animal friends. What, so you guys go to water parks to like hang out on top of them? No, we would never do that. If you have any information about how we three guys can get the rights to either write the figment movie or on a much smaller scale, just own Marvel McFay and lease them to local

pizzerias and massage parlors. The intellectual property of Marvel McFay and lease them to local pizzerias and massage parlors. The intellectual property of Marvel McFay is like buried. The paperwork is buried in a file somewhere. Get a massage. Also, if you ever got a massage. Massage envy is part of that national chain. It's part of a massive scandal right now. So they'll need to clean up their image.

We don't need to. If they don't shut down entirely. What better way than Marvel McFadden? If we're making apologies, if you ever felt a penny drop on you on a water slide, my bad. It was just for fun. But what's the fun in that?

What is the gimmick there? They're going and you're dropping a penny on them while they're going down a water slide. You would do that? Yeah. So you're just annoying people. Yeah. It playing you know you know funds you don't have any recollection of uh dropping a penny it picking up so much speed that it sliced the whole person and we were on top of them like imagine like me straddling your head right now from the couch i have to imagine it's

gonna happen if this podcast goes any longer. I feel like there are worse stories you're not even telling us. No, that was, that's. Those are Patreon exclusives. Yeah, well, when we get to Patreon, there'll be a whole 45 minutes of you telling us just how you like dunked a kid in a toilet at Astro World. I never did that.

You and that racist baseball player from last year's series. Oh, did you? Oh, that's you're asking for a lot of basketballs in the face. Too far, Jason. No, he's not going to talk the rest of the Monday's rehearsal. He's retiring from speaking. He'll be the first guest who didn't say goodbye. Oh, no. Jason fucked

up. What? It was shitty what he did. No shit. The city needed to win. Look, city needed to win after that hurricane. We're all thinking, we've all been thinking about it. It had to be said. Yuli apologized and went through sensitivity draining. Just listen to this song and we'll all calm down.

The ripples go. Secrets that. I saved a kid in a wave pool. They say. You saved a kid in a wave pool? Was that at one of these parks? Yeah, this kid, he just kept getting, like, do you guys have wave pools? Yeah.

Yeah, like the kid just couldn't get up, and I just, like, and his mom was looking for him. What? Like, he just was like, the wave just kept. He pulled him up? Yeah, grabbed him. Whoa. That was nice. Well, that kid should thank you on Twitter, too.

I probably dropped a penny on him later on. Presumably. Hey, well, Nick Mundy, you on Twitter, too. I probably dropped a penny on him later on. Presumably. Hey, well, Nick Mundy, you survived Podcast The Ride. Thank you guys so much. It's not as scary as the rides I like. My neck feels fine. If people want to thank you for saving their life or for creating this big time wasting podcast, where can they find you? Well, they can check out my big waste of time podcast.

Oh yeah. The team tiger. Awesome show. Just check it out where podcasts are. Uh huh. You know, two of the three hosts of this show have been on your podcast. Yes.

And one glaringly has not been now. I don't think he's helped his kids today. That's fine. Isn't it funny that we, Scott and I were the heels at the start of this, the biggest heels in your eyes, and then at the end, this guy did the biggest heel turn since the double turn, the Steve Austin-Brett Hart match at WrestleMania 13.

You didn't see it coming. I'm still the baby face. You know, that's a lesson we learned from comedy, that if you end a show on a strong note, people forget any weak points from earlier in the show. What do you mean by that? Huh? Do an improv.

If the show ends strong, people forget like the time. You were saying with a weak parts in the show? If your show has weak parts. That's a big if with us. Yeah, no, we were.

No, not strong. This is doing the opposite of that. This is a killer two hours. You're just accentuating all the other bad parts right now with all your jibber jabber, nerd. You're giving people a bad taste on the way out, and we maybe just need to demolish this episode right now

and turn it into a parking lot. Into a parking lot for a rodeo? I think we should just keep listening to this wonderful song. Yeah, you got to play us out. Goodbye, everybody. Play us out. Follow us at Podcast The Ride. And it's a 14-inning Astros game that we lost.

Oh. Aren't you glad you spent it with us? Yeah. An old Marvel McFay. Well, now I am. Oh, no. Oh, oh. Bo-do-po-po And white moon, and marble, there's magic dust a magical world each day, a magical day. Marvel McFay, Marvel McFay, you're a super pie, you make the world mine, you're marvelous.

Marvel McFay.