Podcast: The Ride - Carnivals with Leann Bowen

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

Leann Bowen (Ted Lasso, Dear White People) joins us to talk about her brief stint working at a carnival. Plus, we look at the history of carnivals, favorite rides, and spend probably a solid hour on carnie lingo? PTR Gazette: Rhode Retires, Super Nintendo World Opening Details episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Orlando Hotel and Hospitality Workers Local 737 Fundraiser: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/unite-here-local-737 Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County: https://www.feedoc.org Los Angeles Regional Food Bank: https://www.lafoodbank.org Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever! Dog! carnivals on today's thrilling Podcast the Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, the show hosted by Three Cake-Eating Marks. I'm Jason Sheridan, joined as always by Mike Carlson. Yes, I'm here. My name is Mike Carlson, and I am a cake-eating mark. Figurative. I am both figurative and literal cake-eating mark. Scott Gerriter here, of course, as well. Yeah. Am I correct, Jason,

that you, did you also visit a website devoted to carny lingo? Scott, I visited any number of websites about carny lingo and reached the point where I'm like, I have to set up to record. I have to tap out at the letter K. I had to tap out because so much of the lingo was making me uncomfortable. A lot of it was very upsetting to me.

And I was, I don't know if you were looking at the same one as me, but even more upsetting than the lingo itself was the graphic design of the white comic sans over just bright blue. It was upsetting to look at. Not a visual carnival in the least. That is exactly where I ended up. I started on a website with like 12 terms. And I was like, this isn't enough.

There has to be more. And be careful what you wish for because you're really getting to the weeds there. I'm excited about that LaCarne language because it has so much crossover with pro wrestling slang. Yes. I encounter a lot of that too. Yeah.

So I am a mark. I'm a mark for cake. I ate a cake last week. And when I say I ate a cake i ate the whole cake i did the whole thing myself so yes solo yeah yes why did that come about uh it was a smaller cake okay uh and uh yeah lindsey was gone for a couple days uh so when no one's around you're gonna have to eat that whole cake Jason you know what I'm saying

hey brother I know what you're talking about especially when no one's around or if people are around you know yeah let's bring our guest in to see what she thinks about eating a cake alone

she is not a mark in carnival parlance actually Let's bring our guest in to see what she thinks about eating a cake alone. She is not a, Mark, in Carnival parlance, actually once was an agent, a worker of the Carnival. She is a writer and producer, I believe, on the Apple TV show Ted Lasso. Right? Yes? She's nodding her head. Okay. It's Leanne Barlandland thank you this is so

I always like I'm trying to learn podcast etiquette and something in my brain is like you can't talk until your name is said so I was just like say my name bye I want to say for future any other future appearances

here otherwise and any guests on our show feel free to interrupt us anytime it doesn't matter nothing we're saying is important so yeah no protocols yes it's true I was an agent yes I am a writer on Ted Lasso

what is a mark? I don't know what a mark is oh it's like a rube it's a sucker it's somebody that can be taken advantage of essentially so like if it's a crooked carnival game i that make i get it yes that like that guy with the like short arms he's the mark for a baseball tossing like because you can't throw it that i get it with short arms yes so yeah you're limited you're not going to smash those bottles down oh i hope and i don't mean to be ableist i don't know i guess short arms could also throw very far

i apologize you're just saying oh you're just saying it's a descriptor to point out exactly it's like a red hat yeah that guy can sing and play the piano he can't throw a baseball that's exactly yeah a jason sheridan type uh you know where it's like that doesn't that doesn't make any sense uh what is he um yes uh mark comes from the uh the carnies when they would uh you know after someone lost a game they would pat them on the back with chalk on their hands so you would literally look like other workers would look for the marks in the crowd and start and try to lure them over like come here come here try this game now you know that's amazing that's amazing that sounds that seems really smart i will say

that's kind of the energy that i could see happening. I didn't see that happening at the carnival, but they seemed like a very tight-knit community, We haven't done a lot of carnival talk on Podcast to Ride. So yeah, we're going to finally address some of these topics I know everybody wants to know about. And with the broader umbrella of carnivals, it seems like, Leanne, your inn was a carnival that you worked at in the recent past, but the broader umbrella also seems to include circa 1890s, you know, like weird train side hobo era. You did not work at a carnival in the 1890s, just to get that out of the way. It was, I think, 2015. Oh, fairly recently then. work at a carnival in the 1890s just to get that out of the way it was i think 2015 i can see a lot

of like fairly recent i don't know if there's been a lot of like advances in carny like culture so there might be some like like hanging out some hanging honors of the 1800s um but yeah it was interesting i i didn't i wasn't seeking i guess i wasn't looking to work at a carnival i actually it was interesting because i ran a red light and i had like a 400 ticket and i usually would pay it but for some reason i decided to go down to the courtroom and i didn't know that you can do community service instead of paying tickets i was like oh i'm never paying a ticket again i'll just do community service so i thought it was something like cleaning up the side of the road or you know, I don't know,

doing something I saw down the street from my house. There's like, like work or carnival. And I was like, Are you serious? I get to work or carnival? Like, I would have done that on a Saturday just to like, hang out and see what it was like. So was cool it was really i yeah i went down there and i was maybe the oldest person that was working it it must have been city run or something because it was a city of los angeles and there was this older lady sitting in it it was at a high school um and this older lady sitting in in the physical education office and then literally it was me and like six teenagers that were that were the like authority on this carnival and they gave us she just gave us walkie-talkies and keys to the go-karts and she's like yeah just make sure like all the trash is uh taken out and like make

sure all the trash bins are taken over here make sure all they have all what they need because basically they would hire this company and i'm using finger quotes because um they seem more like a roving community of of drifters okay that um and they basically ran each stand. They set it up. They planned it all out. Like it was their deal. And we just were sort of, I guess. And I don't remember seeing security there. And then, so yeah, so that's all I did all day.

And at the end of the day, I was like, okay, guys, pick up your, and then when I was done, she was like, here, pick up your envelope of tickets, go have fun. I was like, oh shit, I get to go like, go on rides and stuff. But I, oh, I can go on it's crazy i carnival rides after seeing them set it up it terrifies me like i had to sit i'll stop talking a little while you guys can get into this no please but um i think i got there at like 6 a.m and i got the rent of the land and then they showed up at like 8 a.m. and um as they were coming in I was directing them and then one guy like rolled down his window he's like hey where's the nearest liquor store and I was like cool okay you're gonna set up a ride and then go get liquor and so um yeah I carnival rides if you have a feeling like they're scary or you shouldn't go on it, your feeling is probably right because it's crazy.

A relatively unvetted community of folks, at least in the one that you experienced setting it up. Did it feel just like random people who are strong or not strong? I think not strong. think they um they're just regular people um they they feel like like if i feel i don't want to be like mean but i've been like i don't know like has anyone been to fresno i feel like they were like they all were like I feel like oh this is a family from Bakersfield that are like we can get into the carny business and uh they they would they have these huge like wrenches that were like the size of my body and they would set up these big you know rides and

then they would just sit at them all day and take tickets. And nothing broke, thank God. When you were illustrating that, you had kind of a miserable pose, as if the people who set these things up with the giant wrenches then just stare bitterly at their creation all day. Absolutely. There was no joy. There was no joy.

I think the people that had more like pizzazz were the people running the um games because you know you have to engage people but even then it was just like like i've been to like a county fair and it feels a little more fun but this was just a little sadder because it was at a high school in the valley and um yeah it just wasn't it didn't have what like the orange county for the county fair the la county fair had but the craziest thing that happened was there was a little girl who i swear to god had to be 14 it was a family affair too so you know clear his family fair and she looked like she had giant angel wings tattooed on her back and i was like first of all she's a baby why is she

working at this carnival and why does she have giant angel wings tattooed on her back it was it was such an experience i wish i had talked to talk to them more but i think i was just i yeah i just keeping your head down to some extent yeah keep my head down try not to let stuff fall on me. Yeah. It's interesting because there would be a yearly carnival that would be at the church by our house and we would always go. I think I've told this story before. I got thrown up

on the Tilt-A-Whirl. There were five of us in a Tilt-A-Whirl car. My friend next to me, me, it might be six. It was six and then uh my sister yeah that's far too many far too many i could see the car and just be like get in that's fine get in everyone get in well yeah when my when my friend turned to me and said i'm going to be sick and i

was trying to yell at the operator my friend is going to be sick it didn't matter it didn't that isn't a concern uh and then i was the buffer i got all the throw up and my sister and other two friends did not get any throw up on them um but there was you definitely like kind of felt like oh everybody that works here like is a fan like they all know each other like it's they've been obviously on the road forever because this is sort of just they're like traveling musicians or something like they've just been they're road warriors absolutely yeah yeah absolutely roadie stuff too where it's this like just massive but you sort of don't think about the scale of this stuff and the setup and tear down and how briefly some of it can be up and in just my vague research, hearing about shifts that are 24 hours long of setting up

a Ferris wheel and then having to drive it all night and all day to the next place, that sounds like incredibly tiring, which might be where, that might be where I ran into the carny term beanies. Jason, did you read about beanies? I think I read about beanies, but I think I've forgotten more than I've ever known about carny lingo at this point. This one jumped out because beanies are amphetamines, because if you have to do that level of stuff for 24 hours, like

to set up, tear down an entire Ferris wheel and then drive for the entire rest of the day, you might need a little help. You might need a little bit of beanies. But again, is this what I'm describing from the 1910s? I don't want to go saying that the people that you worked for, Leanne, are, you know, cranked up on beanies. I really hate to like stereotype and like but it was that like it was exactly that and that's it these are fit this is a thing these are things that happen

i don't blame them i guess i would also take beanies if i had absolutely i'm sure the profit turnover isn't very good and they're just trying their best but yeah half of them were i know for sure one guy went to get alcohol before the day started so there's that and who knows what else was going on yeah there would be certain rides like for whatever reason i think like setting up a tilt-a-world tilt-a-world was my favorite carnival ride as a kid i just i like that the best um that one for whatever reason seems to like i'm not as scared by that, but there would also be a ride where they were just hanging swings and you would swing around.

And as more that I think about going on that now as an adult, where it's like really just a chain, they just took a chain to something like that to me seems like that's, that can just fly off. How does that not happen more where there's crazy stuff? Because, yeah, they're just transporting the stuff. It's like Disneyland stuff. There's always been accidents or whatever, but those sit in the same spot forever. Yes.

And they're not constantly taken apart and put back together every few days. I have pieces of furniture that I've taken apart during like three moves and they're never the same. The entertainment center is not the same as it was when I first put it together. It's just like, that's physics. I think. Yeah. I don't know.

Go ahead. Oh yeah. I've never, nothing broke. I've loved, I've always loved the carnival rides that would pop up in parking lots. Like I grew up in the Valley and there was like, yes, here comes one. And I would ride the rides, but nothing has ever broken.

But yeah, I've seen, I don't know if you guys have ever gone through like videos and seen videos of like rides that I'm sure you guys have. Like this podcast is probably dug deep into broken rides. I saw it well you know what you end up with a lot of on youtube is like sensationalist uh thumbnails that portray some like impossible breakage like a kid starting to fly towards the sun that's how high he's going and you click on it the sun has a mouth that's about to eat him as well and you're're like, I don't think you'd click on it because you're like, I just want to make sure this didn't happen. I think I would have read about this in every newspaper.

But yeah, then you click on things and they're a little more mild. And like, wait, what's the accident? Like, it's too blurry to even tell. I guess with this on the way to talk about carnivals, I did see a pretty horrible one where some big things swung up and then just like slammed back to the ground. But I think there, here's where I have some hope, is that

you know, alright, we're talking about carnivals. Let me find out about some grisly carnival accidents. And they weren't that easy to find. It's not as if there are hundreds every year. I don't think that's the case at find. It's not as if there are hundreds every year. I don't think that's the case at all. Well, that's very promising.

It's promising. It's promising. That's great. And it seems like most websites about Carnival and stuff are like, well, in the modern day, most are run pretty honestly. They've figured out, well, there's ways to run these games where it's like, well, it's not crooked,

but it's still a pain in the ass for people where they just end up dishing out money because kids want a good prize. They don't want a tiny comb. I just remember like any Chuck E. Cheese or like carnival games, like the entry level prize is just like, would you like a tiny comb

what about a kazoo it's like you see all those big prizes and then like you won and then they pull out something underneath and it's just like a pencil sharpener or something yes a non-display prize sure that would always get me uh and it's it's funny because the history like of american popular culture all goes back to like the same wells, of American popular culture all goes back to, like, the same wells. It's all garbage. It all goes back to, like, carn of agreed on like pointing at like well the 1893 chicago world's fair is like the origin of like the modern car because like that introduced the concept of the midway and and like every carnival is a midway uh uh the world's fair

had a lot of exhibits had a lot of modern technology, but the thing that people gravitated towards, of course, was the Ferris wheel and the games and the prizes. And in a less enlightened time, the freak shows, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's,

that, the exhibits always, they're still weird. Like, they have them at, um, the Orange County fair and the LA County fair in Pomona where like table set it like, like you can like set a table and then that you compete for ribbons for like how you set a table. We're setting a table. Really? Yeah.

It's like, it's a huge thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's like my theme is apples. So you have a little plate in the shape of an apple and the placemats and apple, and Really? Yeah. It's like. It's a huge thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's like my theme is apples. So you have a little plate in the shape of an apple and the placemat's an apple. And then you have glasses and apple juice. I don't know.

It's. And there's wild. It's like decorating a cake except it's table setting. I do not get it. It's fascinating. Also kind of like not great. So I'm like, okay, this is really shitty um i was like this is the orange county fair you better bring it yeah that feels a high profile like you have to bring an a game to

the orange county fair which is the thing i feel like i heard even living in illinois i heard that phrase i know what it was necessarily but the orange county fair the orange county it sounds i think i knew it before i knew like i lived here that's what i'm saying have you been now i have never been yeah fairs are like state fairs county fairs are such they're weird own beasts because they like share a lot of very similar things to carnivals but then they'll set up for like a month or a few months and like carnivals are usually in and out in like a week or less that's a quicker thing probably because in the past they had to get the hell out of dodge uh who knows what transpired before all the people in the town talked to each other and

realized they had been swindled yeah and then they ran them out like ran them out of town yes there's a thousand of thousand of us with the chalk marks on our back right every like wait a minute did you see you have it too uh my son and my daughter and my priest all of us we talked about games games loomed so large in my child brain because like i don't we knew i think those were like crappy like full of like cheap styrofoam plush oftentimes it was not yes your high quality plush that we might have had at home but But the idea of winning. Which I think is also why I like casinos. There was something about winning. Like how good you were. Could win something.

That would just make me gravitate. Toward the games. And my strongest game memory. Is at this carnival. That we had by the church. There was a man who was operating it. And it was as close I think, as I would have ever gotten to old-timey Carnival Barker, but he had his own style,

and I will never, ever forget what he was saying because we would repeat it for years, and he would be like, we're playing for another biggin'. We're playing for a biggin'. Two biggins for a jumbo. Two, like, over, like, playing, hey, step right up there, you, sir, you are playing for a biggin two biggins for a jumbo two like an over like playing hey step right up there you sir you are playing for a biggin and he would talk about the different sizes depending on how many people i think were playing this game i don't remember what game it was but for years we would

say you're we're playing for another biggin we're playing for a biggin And we got so excited to play for a biggin' with this gentleman. What did a biggin' end up being? Did you win a biggin'? I never won a biggin'. I don't even think I won anything at that game. But we would play that game because we also were entertained by this man and his sales pitch. But a biggin', you know, you've seen, they always have those giant things.

And I think a jumbo was the biggest one you could get a big in was the next size down and then there was probably as leanne was talking about the under the counter uh you know decoder ring that you probably got if you didn't actually do anything um so i will that's i can i can like see this man's face in my mind. I know this was over 20 years ago. That one website that Scott and I were talking about with the Comic Sans like glossaries made a very, it was like finding a diamond in a rough, a diamond in the rough where it was like,

oh, Barker is not a term Carnies's use that came along in the 20th century it came from someone else and it it quoted a like a couple of like a lifer carnival professionals and they claim to be showmen uh that the term they used was showman and i found an institution in florida called the international independent showman's museum so i think there may be some truth in there also it is hard to tell where there is any truth just in the nature of this carnival business. Right. I saw some of this too. The stuff I said is that what they call barkers don't like the term

and they prefer to be referred to as talkers. They're carnival talkers. And I'm like, who cares? Get out of here. You guys get to choose a term for this specific... i don't like

people have to fight to get the pronouns they want used and then there's other people who are like um talkers please this is not a plight that i care about too yeah really well we talk so i mean you can get a little more creative with it and barkerser is fun. It reminds me of dogs, and dogs are like, whoa. Yeah, what's wrong with barking? I guess does that imply that there's, they seem to think that that implies no skill, that we are just barking. But barks are cool, and they make you happy like dogs, right?

There's no problem with barking. I know. Well, Scott, the outside talker lures you into the tent, and then the inside talker takes over. Obviously. Oh, they just, I guess they feel like they have a little more finesse than barking. Talking requires a little more finesse, I guess. But they don't want to be too, like, hoity-toity about it.

They just want to be like, it's approachable. Talking is approachable. I think they're just trying to be difficult. They're just like, so you're a barker, huh? I don't like the sound of that. I want to wriggle out of this label. I don't know why, though. The other thing I noticed about just in Googling carnival barker is that like eight of the top ten results are people calling Donald Trump a carnival barker.

He is less politician and more carnival barker. Or even Michael Bloomberg tweeted, Donald Trump trump we know many of the same people in new york behind your back they laugh at you and call you a carnival barking clown that's not the clown isn't the barker yeah no the clowns are silent typically or often at least and they would not be the they're the person on the inside talking probably not the uh i you know it's this kind of sloppiness in metaphors that i think caused bloomberg the presidency it's just and only the new york elite the new york elite they're just not in touch with what the real people know well yeah he immediately insulted the uh uh clowns he lost those votes and

then he insulted carnival professionals so you know everyone he said this he's he said this at the debate too i think and then all the all the clowns in the audience all hushed you know like just cut to a section of them they They went back to their jobs at Congress. They went back to their jobs at Congress. Yes. Got it. Stick it to them, Jason. Boy.

Hell yeah. We all enjoyed that. Yeah. Leanne, when you were a kid, were you way into rides and this type of stuff in general, or was it sort of just like a once a year, twice a year thing? Like, did you go to Knott's Bear? Where did you grow up? Oh, yeah.

I grew up in the Valley. So we would do Six Flags a lot. Our school would do Six Flags. I loved Six Flags when I was little, like Magic Mountain. We did Disney. I did Disneyland maybe like two or three times, but it was so expensive. And then Knott's Berry Farm. I did Knott's Scary farm for the first time when i was like in my 20s i was like how come i didn't never gotten to this but yeah i loved rides i loved um i was terrified but loved the like free fall rides and for some reason i can't do them anymore. I don't know what it was. I don't know where in my 20s or early 30s.

I think I went to Disneyland and I went on the haunted, the one at California Adventure. Tower of Terror. And I went on it and I was like, and it scared the shit out of me. I was just like, my head was like curled down into my body. And I was like, I'm never doing this again. And I don't know why. I don't know how that happened. But yeah, when I was little, I loved Magic Mountain.

I loved rides. I would drag my dad to take me to Magic Mountain. He would literally sit at the bottom of each ride when me and my brother and sister would go on. I do. I remember the point i think it was like i was in my mid-20s um goliath at six flags i don't know if you guys know the big orange one um i we it was when it first opened up and um i waited the line was so long and we got to the top and uh finally got to the front of the line and i remember i stepped into the car and i was like i can't i stepped right out and all my friends were like

what are you doing i was like i can't do this and they went on the ride and then i went on an hour later because i was like no i'm gonna do it i got on and I regretted it. I was like, I was right. I shouldn't have got on this ride. And I also, I hate flying now. Like I used to love, I've been to different countries. I never gave a second thought to getting on a plane. But now I'm like, I have to take, I have to either drink or I have to take a sleeping pill. I can't. Something about, I think it's something about the loss of control. Something about that.

I just can't. And I probably won't get on another roller coaster for the rest of my life. Really? Yeah, I can say that with a lot of confidence. Not even with it. Just take a sleeping pill. That'll help you get through it. Passed out on us.

Six Flags. Don't forget your sleeping pills. They should sell them. It's just like the funnel cake stand at Six Flags. Yeah. Or just make it in the batter. Just put it in the batter, for God's sake. Yeah.

And those lines are long enough. You can just take it right before you get in the line. I realize I just had a kid. I have a five-month-old. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to be my dad. He's going to want to go to every freaking amusement park, and I'm going to sit at the bottom. I'm in the similar.

I have a pretty recent baby. I'm just praying that he is more brave than me. Like, like, cause I, I was, I'm very fraidy cat. I'm this like tower of terror also really scarred me until I built up some

stamina very recently. But yeah, I'm like, please just don't be a wimp like your dad. Like go have some fun. I don't know. So I'll be, I go have some fun i don't and i'll be i'll be like forcing him onto stuff that i'll create him being a wimp by wanting it to go the other way this were you always like that when you're a kid too yeah yeah big time no no like super avoided uh

thrill rides and built them up into like bigger monsters than they were they're terrifying your body is not supposed to be doing those things yeah it's true it's not wrong about the feeling it knows it knows what's going on you just have to override it and it depends we've gotten i think probably not jason but scott and i have both gotten braver about what we're willing to do since going on this, or sorry, since doing this podcast. It's forced us to be braver. I will say with the flying though, I was bad about flying. There were a couple of years where I was really good about it and now I am back to bad. I am back to bad.

I don't know what happened. Someone recommended to me there's a training school where you can, you go through it, you take a class, and then you and the whole class go on a practice flight with these teachers. And they train you to not be afraid of flying. It's crazy. Whoa, that's interesting. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah.

So you take a real commercial flight? You take a real commercial flight, and a real commercial flight and it's just you it's like a smaller plane like you go from like southern california to northern california and you you fly there and you fly back it's like an hour and an hour um and you pay for you pay for the plane ticket but um yeah they teach you the different things about a plane statistics turbulence like never ever results in a crash. And there's just all these little things, sort of coping skills, I guess. I always wanted to do that.

I just never got around to doing it. It sounds like a future Podcast the Right episode, quite honestly. I was wondering, have you guys gone together to a park? Oh, yeah, yeah. Set up a little mic just like narrate a ride or anything like that i think that would be not that no well well i guess a tiny bit but a little bit we've done some recording in the park i think there was a controversy early on we we threw out the idea of recording at city walk and i think jason thought we were going to get arrested if we did that yes well so jason is scared of the city walk police more than scott and i are afraid of the

ride the bigger rides yeah no i mean i've always liked flying and roller coasters and all of that sort of thing i'm just more scared of like uh errands uh and sending an email laundry laundry laundry uh emotional vulnerability asking for what i want and asking for help um so that's my that i think everyone has it about some stuff i just have it about these stupidest things imaginable um so uh yeah these are your mental goliaths these are my mental goliaths yeah emotional roller coasters yeah emotional roller coaster yeah so if you just combine um uh in if you just combine anxiety depression uh and happy-go-lucky it just comes out as flippant and everyone loves it and you become a comedian uh i get that because like i

you know i i have low grade anxiety and depression and it was worse when i was 20s and i've always loved horror movies like i've always loved horror movies like i've loved just something terrifying me or scaring the shit i mean i think it's because it's like gets me out of my head so maybe that's what roller coasters are i'm trying to do horror movies now because i was always scared of that we've talked about this on the show before you know i would go in blockbuster and i would see you know chucky or hellraiser and i would think oh these are like literal snuff films where i will watch humans being murdered over and over for 90 minutes or two hours i will never i'll never do it and i've literally only in my 30s started getting through some of these classics so i'm trying i'm trying I like look for new movies like I've searched for movies that I haven't I

feel like I've seen every um paranormal type of horror movie ever made and I'm constantly searching Netflix or looking up lists and I it's like an addiction sure but and yeah you said you had done not scary farm in general do you now like haunted houses and stuff more and or like horror nights that type of thing i do i like horror nights i like when it's a really scary one like um yeah i like when it it's like i remember them saying like i mean the universal studio one they will they might touch you i was like oh my god i have to go i have to do it like i have to do it and might touch you. And I was like, oh, my God, I have to go. I have to do it.

Like, I have to do it. And I remember doing one. And it was pretty scary, but no one, like, touched me. So I was like, oh, shit. But, yeah. So, yeah, that stuff. I do think there's a lot to that as far as, like, that's such a – it's like a safe place to like excise your fear excise that anxiety

that we all feel just living yes i think that's what it is but i feel like roller coasters you can still die you can't yeah sure sure sure yeah uh that's true. I mean, I think so much of liking theme parks as much as we do, it's still pretty controlled. Everything is about control, and we're not like Mission Impossible 2, Tom. We're not rock climbing. None of us do that. We don't do real things. We like a simulated experience of really really dangerous things i don't want to

really go in a haunted house i don't really even believe in ghosts that much but i don't really want to do that but i will go in a house where ghosts are having a party that's what i'd like fake ghosts are having a party i i've been on that a hundred plus times no that's true yeah i i i'm i do believe in ghosts. Is that fair? And I'm terrified of them. And I would never want to be in a haunted house, a real haunted house. Do you have a ghost story?

Do you have an interaction? I have a spiritual story that is like, it's not scary. Like my dad died and I was there for him in hospice. And I took care of him. And then he asked me and it's been some time I'm not this is not heavy for me. But like two years later, he wanted his ashes spread in Mexico. So I went down to Mexico with my brother, my sister, and we spread his ashes. And I swear to God, as if he was standing behind me I heard his voice say thank you and like I'm a very like I

it was crazy I can't explain it it sounded like his voice existed in the physical world I don't know I can't explain it so that kind of just like reaffirmed my sort of like thought that there's,

we exist beyond our physical selves. And it was really cool. It was a really cool experience. It didn't terrify me. It was like, oh, shit. And it was like, I'm kind of like, oh, cool. So when I die, something cool is going to happen. And I was in an improv class once once i was telling the story and the girl

across from me was like the same thing happened to me and she was like my dad died and i was like after he died i was watching home videos sitting on my bed alone no one else was there and i popped in a tape and she was about to press eject and then she heard her dad's voice say no you're gonna you want to watch this one and and it was yeah and i was like we're just like oh my god so crazy and then she said she watched the video and it was just her dad on like on a log like in a lake like cool it was said it was very uneventful and she didn't understand why that one but um it was just so it feels very dad that you would be check this one out yeah yeah so um so yeah i totally believe in like spirits and like

yeah another plane but yeah i'm still terrified of ghosts when i was when my my kid would wake up many times in the middle of the night and i would have to feed her we live in this house right now that was built in 1942 and me and my fiance are always saying it's haunted it's haunted so i'd be there in like the middle of the night feeding her and i'd be like eyeing the closet or like waiting for something to pop out and it was like i'm so glad she sleeps better now but it was it was that was so that was really terrifying for me sure every los angeles has the most haunted energy and i grew up in pennsylvania where everything used to be a battlefield where like people died uh so you're saying it's more

haunted here i feel like it's more haunted here i was in london and i was like the city is so fucking old there has to be ghosts where i there has to be ghosts in this building um yeah so that's so funny um what about la like i don't just the energy uh i mean you hear about like like early 20th century la uh you know there there was all those like i mean late 20th century la had tons of cults and new age stuff but then the the the tent revivalists and like the the like just kind of maniac protestants like which they touched on a little in that hbo Mason show of, like, radio televangelists, you know, pre-televangelists, radio preachers and stuff.

And I don't know. I've read stuff about, like, people thinking, like, oh, it's just the light out here. Like, the light drew early filmmakers because they needed so much light to develop old film but it's just like it's just sunny all the time just can drive people nuts you know that's so interesting i find for me the way time moves in los angeles very strange because you know back east i feel like you would i would track time with like blizzards or winter, summer rainstorms and stuff. And it's just the lack of change in weather out here sometimes. Or the significant change, like we're in the time of year in LA where it's 80 in the day and then like 45 at night. Like it's just like the 30 to 40 degree drop.

Took a lot of time to get used to. Ghosts make the temperature go down. Well, they do if they're in the room. Like, you know, there's truth there. You know, I always think of this just, I think I said this before on an episode. I think it was Paul Thomas Anderson talking to Mark Maron about how the Comedy Store was haunted, and never did anything ring more true to me than that statement.

Because I was like, the comedy store is haunted. If you've ever been in there, it's scarier than any haunted house probably. There's just that bad, bad energy there. Yeah. And that's why everybody mythologizes it. So like, oh, we get the store and we came up through the store. And it's because you were probably like literally fighting ghosts and spirits there.

And that makes a neon Carlin sign is going to come to life and chomp. Yeah, it's like the opening of the cartoon Ghostbusters where like signs are coming to life. And it's all just, yeah, Jay Leno's name strangles you. It flies off the wall and all the signatures that all their spirits are all haunted they're all anthropomorphic signatures that come to life and they well yeah that's i mean that's paulie shore of course he's he grew up there so he's been haunted his whole life uh mitzi everybody all the whole family yeah um so are there any podcasts where you can hear about mitzi and polly in the store i wonder if that's ever been discussed on a podcast before probably

not probably not yeah we might be the first we should get them all on i've never i've never heard it before uh let's talk uh what is everyone's favorite carnival ride? I love the Tilt-A-Whirl. I mean, Tilt-A-Whirls you can find at fairs and at more smaller amusement parks and stuff. Guys, which one's the Tilt-A-Whirl? I actually don't know. What? Why is that so?

Who cares? That's not so insane. Leanne cannot know, but Scott. I just don't. I don't think I've been on one, and I don't know offhand. Here, I'll show you. I'm going to bring it up. Is this how when we dangle the carrot of an episode about Tilt-A-Whirls,

you never buy it? I have brought up doing Tilt-A-Whirl before, and you've never revealed. I don't know what that is. Yeah, that's a good reason to do an episode, I suppose, to learn. Wow. I feel like someone listening. Well, if Leanne doesn't know. I picture all the carnival rides, and I'm like,

yeah, that one is the tall one and the kind of round one. That's the spinny one. I don't necessarily know the names. So here's the tilt-a-whirl okay so it's big it's the one with the like clamshells oh oh oh and the they're on a track that spins and then the whole thing is spinning and there's kind of like an up and down to it and the only reason i'm so shocked is because we had like we had a tilt-a-roll at the local santa's village which is another theme park that we would go to once or twice a year in addition to whenever a carnival was around and to me the tilt-a-roll was my local space mountain it was

the thing i got the most excited for i i was so like that's that was like number one when we would go to any of these places was like i gotta get to get back on the Tilt-A-World. So I sort of thought of it in the same way you would think of a classic Disney attraction, which is the reason I'm, and I guess because I got thrown up on too. It's looms so large. I got puke all over me on one of these things. And yet still you're so fond. I still am so fond. I haven't been on one in a long time.

But yeah, my memory is just, I really was so, I was just as excited to go on that as I was Big Thunder or whatever. Yeah, we would any, I mean, we went to the Jersey Shore a ton and the Playland in Ocean City. Like as a kid, that was my like, all right, first thing, got to go on the Tilda Whirl. Mom and or dad or mom or my, like, all right, first thing, got to go in the Tilda Whirl. Mom and or dad or mom, mom, or papa, someone would be dragged on with me. And I think I liked it because it's thrilling,

but it's low to the ground. And I always felt very safe because you had a big bar and this big, like, yeah, the canopy. And so, like, it was thrilling. But it took me a little while when I was young to build up to roller coasters. But I always liked the sensation of the Tilda Whirl. And I always liked Tilda Whirl. So, did Mama and Papa like it?

Oh, they loved it. I mean, there's a million pictures of us. When I go back to the shore, when we go down the shore now, when I go go back to visit one of them is going on the tilta world who liked it more mama or papa huh mama or papa well they're dead i've just never heard you say those words and those are your grandparents yeah yeah oh grandparents are mama and papa Mama and Papa. Oh, yes. Wait, say it. Spell it out for me. M-O-M. Oh. M-O-M. Mum-Mum.

Oh, I thought it was ending with an A. Okay, Mum-Mum. Oh, no. No, this isn't. Yeah, no, this is the grandparents. Well, it was to distinguish they were Mama and Papa, and then my dad's grandparents were gram, gram, and grandpop. I don't know how grandpop ended up the easiest, like the most normal one.

But to distinguish between the one set of grandparents and the other. Pop pup? Is there a switch there? No, no. It's P-O-P, P-O-P. Okay. All right. Pop pup.

Yeah. Just getting clarity. Okay. All right. Pop, pop. Yeah. Just getting clarity. Okay. And I guess now I have Tilt-A-Whirl clarity as well. I don't think I've ever been on a Tilt-A-Whirl, y'all. Wow. Really? Am I missing out big time? The end you have?

First thing was the vaccine. It's pretty fun. Yeah. It's fun. I like that. I like the tilting part of it actually. Because you kind of like go back and forth like that. Yeah. I think it feels safe i would say yeah if you're afraid of heights it's fine

i don't think it's too crazy i think it's fun yeah oh i'm not it's not a scared issue i just think i just have not if been in have i not been in front of what have i just passed by them and not chosen it i don't know so you yeah you don't even remember coming across a Tilt-A-Whirl. I'm sure I've been in the vicinity of one and just not made a point of it. Okay, let me ask you this then, Scott. Have you been in the vicinity of this ride, which I'm assuming aesthetically you're going to love? Oh, Gravitron. That was one of my favorite ones.

There's that version, and then there's the version that's open and it's just like a cage and you would just spin around. Yeah, that's one of my two favorites. I have never been on a Gravitron. Yeah, me neither. So Gravitron is when I got a little older,

when I graduated to a more intense experience because I was very freaked out by the idea of the Gravitron is when I got a little older, when I graduated to a more intense experience, because I was very freaked out by the idea of the Gravitron. And in case you don't know what it is, it's basically like a big flying saucer, at least this version is, where you go inside and it's completely enclosed. And it spins around really fast and pins you to the wall. So it's going for a couple minutes. I mean, maybe it was 90 seconds it felt like forever and you could basically turn like as if you could turn upside down on the wall basically because the force was pushing you so so uh aggressively uh and yeah you would just

have fun on the wall and those little pads would like slide up. Like in this picture you pulled up, this woman is like near the roof and like her body is spread across two pads. That was so fun. And we would try to like lift our arms up against, off the wall to see if you can like, you can counter that centrifugal force.

It was really fun. I'm concerned about some of the ceilings I'm seeing, though. Partially for filth, partially for just big metal bars, the things that look like spikes. I mean, probably you're not ending up at that part of the ceiling. You're staying close to the wall. I have my safety concerns about this one. Yeah, you're not strapped in.

Aesthetically, Scott, all of these... Oh, it's fantastic. It's like ELO album covers. I like them very much. Yes. If I don't go on it, I just get to look. Maybe I'm... That's the way I win, is just looking at a Gravitron. Scott, would you go on a Gravitron right now?

You mean just in like bored, quarantine adult state? Like am I worn down enough to get on a Gravitron? I would say if it's quarantine, I wouldn't go in an enclosed space with a bunch of people well it's funny spinning around but say yeah say we're all say we all have either a vaccine or regeneron coursing through our veins uh would you go on a gravitron if you came across it i guess so is there is there nothing else to do there's a tilt-a-whirl would you i'd go to tilt-A-Whirl first, I'd say. Let me sweeten the pot. Papa Scott, will you take little Jason on the Gravitron for the first time? Well, I guess if I'm helping make somebody a man, then I can't resist that.

I'm going to do my part. And then we'll take you on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Oh, if we can get a picture of the three of us on a Tilda Whirl together, vaccine coursing through our veins. Vaccine coursing. If I don't stir it up, it'll make it more effective. It's like a centrifuge in a science lab, but giant. I'm sorry, but there's a picture to the far left,

and it's titled How to Win at Gravitron, and this guy is standing. How? How is that possible? He's completely 90 degrees from the other folks on it. Wow. I don't know. Fascinating.

He probably works there, and he's been doing this, and his legs are incredibly strong. This is like the super pro indoor skydivers, how when us rubes, us marks, were waiting pro indoor skydivers. How when we, when us rubes, us marks were waiting to indoor skydive and then you're watching the guys who work there super showing off. Right. So there's Gravitron pros out there.

Right. Again, what were you saying? Use rides.com $120,000. You can get a grab, a Gravitron. Wow. We should buy a Gravitron.

I have some, I actually have some uh uh related to this the possibility of buying attractions uh i i came across some fun stuff because um you know one thing i like to do with with various topics is go to eBay, type in the topic of the episode or some other, anything else tangential, and look for price highest first to see how crazily high we can get and what some of the weird stuff up at the top. And I did a little bit of that. I just put in carnival on eBay and that was it. And I found a bunch of stuff. I'll share the screen here.

If we're interested in starting our own carnival, if we feel like we want to prove ourselves more, work with our hand, prove that we're able-bodied and start touring the country, I think it'd be pretty easy for us to just buy a couple of uh carnival rides because you just go on ebay and for only a million dollars there's all these bizarre listings almost all of them are not exactly a million dollars but 999 900 they bring it a little bit down just to not get you to that seventh digit um but you know here we got like a big i don't know what to call out of these there's a

swing one there's a drop ride we could buy a drop ride for a million dollars yeah um and the the strange thing about them when you click on all of these, they all have kind of big, like, unseemly titles that go on and on that all end with WeFinance. And then every one of them, it says item location is in Delano, Minnesota. But then if you dig further into the seller, it is clearly a Chinese company. The Chinese company is called zinga land and their tagline is we dare you not to laugh my theory is that they say that they are in uh delano minnesota because like all right how do

we prove that we are american well let's just put a pin in the exact center of the country, like the middle of America, and then everyone will believe us. But all of these, they're just all really weird if you click on them. They all have the most bizarre descriptions, such as there's like a like a dumbo type ride with um with a honeybee and uh and here's the description of that this hot sail honeybee is widely used in theme park adventure land etc just like you are flying in the flowers feel the miracle and happiness so play with your family and enjoy your life. Oh my gosh. Someone's like, this is the answer. This is what I I've lacked happiness, too much anxiety,

depression, all the things we've been talking about. The answer is we have to buy this hot sale honeybee for $600,000. And the answer to the mystery like so much on the internet nowadays, it's it's like oh it's just a drop shipping scam it's just a drop shipping scam you can find that ride for like a hundred

thousand dollars on alibaba they just rebrand it uh it should not cost that much money that that feels weird to me and i don't think this is the way to start your carnival business i oh the other shady thing about these there's one other other ride that's a crazy octopus ride. All right, what's some more info about that one? And it says, crazy octopus ride. It has its roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics,

very popular during the Renaissance. Wait, what? It's a book? It's a crazy octopus ride. Why does its descriptor say that it's a book from the Renaissance about ethics? Zingaland is not careful about its eBay listings. Someone is searching for a book on the Renaissance on eBay, and they're looking at the description,

and it's a fun-filled adventure for you and your children. Must be 42 inches or higher. If you're looking for Renaissance books about ethics on eBay, and you don't read very carefully, you might end up buying a million-dollar carnival ride. Yeah, really be careful. It's happening a lot, I think, I've heard. So be careful.

It's a very common scam out there. But anyway, we talk about wanting to own Playland stuff from McDonald's, and we could have this hot sale honeybee. We need someone to put it. I like the idea of owning a hot sale honeybee. So let's maybe make a best offer. Maybe offer a price on eBay. Oh, sure.

What's the offer price? $950,000. Okay. Oh, you're still keeping it high. I was going to say I'll put $7 on this offer, guys. Okay. Well, you can go that way if you want. I just want to be respectful. Use your seven to chip into our $9 offer, guys. Okay, well, you can go that way if you want. I just want to be respectful.

Use your $7 to chip into our $950,000. Yeah, cool. Leanne, when you were working, did you say you got keys to a ride? No, a golf cart. Oh, you got keys to a golf cart? Yeah. Oh, I thought you said a snow cart, I think. Oh, no. No with golf carts? Yeah. Oh, I thought you said snow cart, I think.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. I didn't get any access to any rides. I got tickets, and I did ride the Ferris wheel. No, I did ride the Ferris wheel. That's right. I think it was just to relax at the end of the day, and it was just really slow.

It was small, too. It wasn't huge. Right. Yeah. For the best. No, no tickets tickets i have a question from back in the boot when you were describing the scenario this is a community service scenario in which then at the end of the day you get tickets so you this is like a circular thing like you could in order to save money on tickets uh run traffic lights go to court try to hope that you get to work at a carnival. Truly, yeah.

I didn't have to pay anything. And I got to run a red light. That's a thrill attraction in and of itself. That was a thrill ride. Yeah, I think it was so weird. The city was connected to it

somehow. The woman running it like didn't really care what I did and I the whole time I was there I was terrified that everyone thought I was like a convict who was doing community like they didn't know what like why I was doing community service so that was always in the back of my mind um but yeah I I it it didn't feel like work and I felt like I was those kids like they probably made 11 bucks an hour I just felt like I was just like in my teens again like in a minimum wage

job hanging out and what streaming service has optioned this story? Quibi oh I'm so sorry bad news really sorry but i haven't been reading the trades i guess unfortunately the quibi office is packed up in the middle of the night and now it's just an empty field again

with some old like the only proof it was ever there was just some old flyers and crumpled up cotton. Janitor sweeping up. Yeah, cotton candy sticks. There's like a one glass jar of the candy by a janitor sweeping up. Still kind of smells like pizza. Chrissy Teigen? We've never heard of her. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the worst advanced man, to use a carnival term the person who beats the

show into town and oh yeah does all the permits and uh potentially payoffs if need be jason reading all these terms were you like this should have been my life i mean yeah it was kind of like oh man this is so deep there's so much here that so, yeah, I could have lived this at least for a summer or two. You're a big Music Man fan. You like the idea of rolling into town in a cart and fooling a bunch of people and then leaving. That's like a dream of yours. Last train out when they're chasing you to the train and you're hopping on the caboose. It's the Michaelael jackson paul

mccartney say say say video yes you're uh selling people uh an elixir that doesn't work uh yeah i i do wonder though like some of this carny uh lingo uh i had never heard have you guys ever heard of a carny marriage i I don't think so. This was weird. Oh, yeah. What's a carny marriage? Okay, this was a little, it's one of those things where it's like a little too perfect, like where someone's like,

ah, I had the idea for the title of the movie. It came to me in the moment. This website says a carny marriage. Carnies are an unromantic lot as a rule. What? According to others, as a sign that a couple intends to be monogamous, parentheses, or relatively so, for a while, thus keeping the individuals more or less from straying

and from unwanted romantic advances, they may engage in a carny marriage. The sign that they are, quote, married in the eyes of their fellows is a ride once around on the carousel or first wheel. A divorce is less formal, sometimes with a ride turning in the other direction, but more often at the end of the season

or when both parties just say to hell with it wait that's crazy but that also makes me think that they're just all fucking all the time and they're like wait a minute guys we're monogamous oh yeah i mean get on the ride you could probably honestly i had never thought about that but that makes of course too much sense that there's just a whole like we're like 15 people and we're all married to each other. Yeah. And also you, the guests. Once you buy a ticket, you are married to us for the night.

You are married to us. And it's going to be a great three days. It's going to be a great long weekend. Marriage. No, no, no. Why are we people are mad about the phrase? I don't know, I'm not a barker. That's an offensive term, barker. But like, what do you feel about carny?

Oh, yeah, love it. I'm a carny. I'm one of the carnies. And I'll engage in a carny marriage. Like, you'd think that would be the offensive term, if any, right? Well, but we're in a field where people are still mad about sketch versus skit, you know? So who are we to judge? Skit, yeah, skits.

I sure am. Don't demean what I do with skits. If your parent says skit, they're an idiot. They're out of here. Get out of touch. It's a sketch. You know, Matt Vassar makes sketches. With there being no, you know, there won't be like a big family holiday party for me this year.

I don't have to have the part where one of my parents' friends tells me an idea or points to someone at the party and says now they're a character you know you should do make something about them put in one of jay leno's skits like i feel like that's still what happened like still somebody will tell me to submit something to jay leno now for a cn you go do for a cnbc car show no for the jay leno for, for Jay Leno's skit show. What are you talking about? Off the air for five years? Yeah. Not as far as I know.

I haven't turned on a TV in a number of years, so. He's still doing skits, ain't he? He's got to be. Leigh-Anne, let's talk carnival food. Oh, yeah. Funnel cake. Love funnel cake. Funnel funnel cake i also yeah also at the orange county fair i which is a fair not it's kind of like a it's the same thing it's they're

just like you said before it's planted um i had a hamburger on a krispy kreme donut and that is shit is so good it is like it is it's crack it's just like the fat and it's so good it's so it'll make your stomach hurt it's a beef patty does it have everything on it as far as lettuce and tomato no it's like it's just beef cheese or not option and then the krispy kreme donut it's very any No ketchup or anything either? No, no, no, no. Just the beef. Okay.

That makes sense. I mean, my first instinct is to say that probably is good, but it also sounds disgusting. But if you really think about it, like eating something on a Hawaiian sweet roll, it's not so different than having a donut. It's not and it's just like fatty cheesy meaty sweet i i was eating a sandwich a couple days ago and i had a donut and i i uh as i said i've been i've

been alone for a couple days uh and i ran out of dishes uh they were clean they were all in the dishwasher i just hadn't run it I just hadn't run it. I just hadn't run it. It's not like they were in the sink. I swear to God. So I put it in a bowl. That's like a button, Oye. Yeah, I put it in a bowl.

And then I put a donut on top of the sandwich. And I was like, hmm. And I took like a button. I was like, that's not. That's good. That has to. Like, that is good. It's not gross.

I mean, it's gross, but it's good. It's weird. It's weirdly good. That is good. It's not gross. I mean, it's gross, but it's good. It's weird. It's weirdly good. It just hits everything on your tongue. That's like, this is crack. I love it. I like funnel cake that, and then I recently started trying fried things. I'd never tried it, and it's like fried Oreos or fried um yeah Snickers or I'll

see like deep fried Twinkies that exist I haven't tried those but it's like especially at the county fairs I've seen the pictures of the menu which is like what you're saying it's just like deep fried Oreos and it's like five or five pieces that are all deep fried. And then, yeah, Twinkies that have three layers of fat instead of one. Yeah. Yeah. I have not tried a lot of those. What would you call them? Monstrosities?

Is that too mean to the food? Fair food, I think, is the term. Fair food. Okay, that's nicer than... Culinary horrors? There you term. Fair food. Okay, that's nicer than... Culinary horrors. Culinary horrors. Abominations, yeah. Godless food.

Godless food? They don't exist anywhere else but fairs and carnivals. Right. So it's crazy. The deep fried Oreos, I think are a little genius because it gets soggy.

And so it's just like having a donut with just like chocolate and frosting in the middle. So it doesn't... The deep fried Oreos, I think, are a little genius because it gets soggy. And so it's just like having a donut with just like chocolate and frosting in the middle. So it doesn't. The Oreo is gone and it's just like a chocolatey, frosty donut. Yeah. I mean, the best executions of Oreos are you dip it in milk or like you pulverize it into ice cream. So, you know, changing it in some way. Yeah, I hate Oreos. I know.

Yeah, I actually hate Oreos. Is that right? People don't like Oreos just as they come? They're so gross. Like, the cookie part is so dry. The frosting is good. I don't know. I like the vanilla Oreos, but not chocolate Oreos.

Interesting. I guess I've heard that opinion. I'm fine with cookies for whatever reason. I like't know. I like the vanilla Oreos, but not chocolate Oreos. Interesting. I guess I've heard that opinion. I'm fine with cookies for whatever reason. I like Oreos in general, but I don't have them a lot. I do think I probably like the double-stuffed Oreos better because the frosting is my favorite part. You're going to think I'm insane. I've done the thin ones where you get less cream. I'm not saying I prefer that, but I've chosen insane I've done the like thin ones where you get less

cream I'm not saying I prefer that but I've chosen I feel like having the thin ones yeah I think the thin it's an interesting I could remember they don't taste like chocolate either it's just like what is that flavor it's true it's some other

thing it's some fake dry chalky I guess I don't deny any of this It's some other thing. It's like a bitter, dry... Chalky... I guess I don't deny any of this. I just don't mind it for whatever reason. It's comforting, though, because you had him as kids. That's sort of maybe what a lot of people... Jason is still a milk and ice cream cookie dunker,

which I am not. Milk? Wait. You dunk cookies in milk. Yeah. I'll do it with soy milk or almond milk or regular milk. But you do it like once a week. I eat cookies most days. Yeah.

Right, but I'm saying like that to me feels like, yeah, you still regularly dip cookies in milk. Yes, correct. How many hours ago did you do it, is what I'm asking. I haven't done it in a while. I ate ice cream last night, but not a lot because it was cold. So I was getting cold, even colder eating the ice cream. Well, the spirits were out last night.

They were in the ice cream. But I would dunk. I guess we really actually didn't even dunk cookies in milk a lot when I was a kid. So I guess I didn't even have that as part of a ritual. Yeah. I don't do it that often, but I understand the appeal of it. Oreos are much better dipped in milk because it gets softer. So it gets a little squishy.

I get it. But I don't seek out a glass of milk as soon as I have a cookie in my hand. And it's also, look, I'm giving Jason some grief, but honestly, is it that much different than having Lucky Charms cereal? It's just a bunch of candy. It's just candy soaking in milk. Do you do that, Mike? Have you been having Lucky Charms?

I will say I had a big box of fruity Pebbles a couple weeks ago Yes my breakfast was fruity pebbles With banana Today? Yeah two hours ago You eat dessert all day Every day

How are you both Not just like hulking Creatures that's what I'm impressed that you don't just swell up. I'm 6'3". I walk a lot and I often forget to eat other meals. I just feel like, oh, I feel like garbage. It's like, oh, it's dinner time. I forgot lunch.

I had the Lucky Charms and only water. I wasn't, when I was young young I was never allowed to have those I was so jealous of people who had those cereals like they'd go to friends houses and open their cupboards and so I never I think that the closest I got to sugar cereal was like corn pops

and to this day I don't know if I've ever had Lucky Charms I don't think I've ever had it. I'm not sure I have either. This is another one of those Tilt-A-Whirls. I'm not sure that I have eaten Fruity Pebbles or Lucky Charms. Maybe either. Your co-hosts are just going to give you the best fucking day of your life. As soon as COVID's over.

Here, stuff it in. Handful lucky charms fruity pebbles milk milk milk have you had tricks um i think so i've had tricks yes you think so this is shocking i mean i haven't had anything resembling any of this in 20 years. That I can say with confidence. I'm not offended by that. Cinnamon Toast Crunch? I'm not sure. I don't think I'm going to sue Two Sugars and Real. That was always a staple of the little boxes at hotels.

So I would get it there. Wow. Honestly, this is blowing my mind. That's interesting because you have affection for a lot of these masks. Have you had the Monster Yeah. Wow. This is blowing. Honestly, this is blowing my mind. Yeah. That's interesting because you have affection for a lot of these masks. Have you had the monster cereals? Conchocula, Boo Berry, Frankenberry. I have never had any of this.

Wow. Wow. I don't know. I don't regret it, though. I don't think. I think it'd be a bizarre diet to be fighting today. To be constantly having the craving for blueberries. Scott is from here, California.

I'm from here. Is this too personal a question? Can I ask what your parents did when you were younger? What they did? Yeah, their profession. Like profession? Teacher and lawyer? wow mm-hmm neither of them was a like professors or like we don't

professors none of them was it were none of them was an elf or a leprechaun or a vampire or a or a Frankenstein if that if that's part of the question. So if that influenced my cereal taste. My parents were sugar sales people. Ah, that makes sense. They both sold sugar for a living.

Sugar barkers. Sugar barkers, yeah. They didn't like sugar talkers. They like sugar talkers better, yeah. And mine, one was a Kellogg, one was a Mills. So, uh... Their families feuded. They were Starcross cereal lovers. We only eat this in our house.

I'm going to talk about a carnival ride here. A ride called the Zipper. Do you guys know what a zipper is, if I say it offhand? Isn't the one that spins around? It's like a tiny track, isn't it? Yeah, the ride is like a big boom, I saw it described as. There's a big wheel on either end that rotates around. So basically, your vehicle spins along this big thing as the entire thing flips around 360.

And you are in one of, you know, 12 to 14 little L-shaped cages. Does that sound familiar when I say that? It's kind of like a seat shaped, like you could see where the, you you would you would rest there on the bench um this is the thing when i was thinking about carl stuff like you know that's this is the thing i would not do zippers seem terrifying to me and seem shady to me uh and then i was looking into it and i don't think they have been shady for a long time but in the 70, four people died on the zipper. And they had to dramatically change how they did zippers forever. There's one incident where it was an 18-year-old worker who was manning the thing. I don't know what happened.

He said that he locked it up. But then near the site of it, they found a loose pin on the ground. Which you're like, that's all that it was? Was a pin it was all it was keeping the door from opening up like a hundred feet in the air um anyway and and uh so they just had to the zippers are not over they do zippers still today but they had to change how they build them uh jason i don't know if you grew up with a aware of a congressman named Bud Schuster an old battle axe in Pennsylvania

he tried to start a motion to ban zippers and it didn't work zippers were not banned Jason do you know him? I don't know him no he seems kind of fun he was very

anti zipper and yet also a vocal opponent of the airbag like when Ralph Nader is trying to introduce airbags I don't understand that seems like confusing priorities that's bad

did Nader try to ban zippers he did not I don't know I don't think Nader has weighed in on a zipper he didn't care a lot about the carnival industry I guess was Nader anti airbag? no no pro airbag

he was a big yes car safety advocate and seatbelt activit I think I said activit advocate would be the word and I should learn how to speak that doesn't make sense Activate. I think I said activate. Advocate would be the word. And I should learn how to speak. That's okay. That makes sense.

Yeah. Nader is the guy with CP. He was the Fauci of... Cardi Palsy. Yeah, of course. So today, we'd all be furious at him for trying to make us not die. Well, people were furious at him a couple years ago.

Oh yeah, I guess so. People are always mad at him. Wait, why were people mad at him a few years ago? Well, because he ran for president, the goal of Bush. And they believed in him. Yeah, I thought it was... I thought you meant people were mad at Fauci

a few years ago. And I was like, I don't... Were they? I was confused becauseci a few years ago. And I was like, I don't... Were they? I was confused because that was 20 years ago. I was thinking, that's my reference for Nader too, but he said a few. I was like, what has he done? He's back.

What's he up to? Right, right. So no zippers for me with that history, even though they fixed them. I've never been on the zipper. That does make me uncomfortable that's one of those rides where i'd have to go all right i'm doing it for the podcast which is a thing i think about now there's rides that i really really don't want to go on i don't

want to go on tatsu at six flags which is the one where you're kind of like supermanning right that's that's the right it's the yeah they lie you down as you go up. Right, you're on your stomach essentially going through the air. I really, really am terrified of it. But if I can go, well, I got to go on it for the show. It'll be funny for the show. I probably will do it. But I really am scared of it.

Well, the reason I never went on a gravitron is because the way it was explained to me was like okay you go in there's no seat belts and i i believe when it was explained to me it was called someone was like it's called the hell hole and you go in there's no seat belts and it starts spinning you really fast and you press against the wall and then the floor drops out and i think that's a bit of an exaggeration from the floor slowly lowers and you don't really need it because you're pressed against the wall and i think at some point they may have added like light restraints like okay everyone the older ones you're not attached to anything but like yeah

newer ones they strap you in you can't do as much so right i would probably try it now um kamikaze like other rides the kamikaze which is that's the like almost like they've i've seen versions of where it's like a pirate ship and it basically swings back and forth yeah oh i love that yeah um i've never been on one of those. I like the pirate ship. That was my second. Two of my favorite carnival rides. But yeah, I couldn't go on the kamikaze either. It's too terrifying.

Like the two blades, basically, that go back and forth. Yeah, I see now. Yeah, no. You're not going to gonna do that no kamikazes no um uh you know you're you're more committed i suppose uh uh you know doing things for the podcast you're right might it be funny if i went on the kamikaze maybe um do i feel guilty in any way but not no not at all let me ask you this if we were doing like a tv show would you be like oh god all right i'll do it for the show like if like to be because it would be funny to watch us be scared i suppose so there'd be more in it because like what's the point really and going so then i got in the thing and i was so scared you should have seen me

if you had seen the look on my face but if i guess if yeah if there was a visual component um maybe there'd be more in it right we uh leanne we've talked about before scott's a big beach boys fan and i had to entice him to be a get on one of these scary rides uh i said if you were to ride it with beach boy mike love would that be enough incentive to get on and of these scary rides uh i said if you were to ride it with beach boy mike love would that be enough incentive to get on and i'm trying to remember it was what ride was it again was that king decaw the uh the very scary coaster in new jersey isn't mike love like the bad one like he's oh yeah yeah for sure he's a bad man but bad man. I don't want to ask him questions and stuff. Okay, that's fair.

He'd maybe be the most interesting to talk to in a way. Is there anything, man? Leanne, is there any celebrity you would be like, well, I'd have to go on with this person because the photo op would be insane so you would get back on a crazy rollercoaster like Goliath.

I would go on with this celebrity or even just for a large amount of money is there a price oh large amount of money for sure okay okay so goliath yeah i would do goliath oh god um does anyone pop into your mind like well i gotta do it if i don't know i don't i don't think there's anyone in the world that I like. Celebrity doesn't. Sure. I don't know. I just don't. I mean, okay, maybe if I could have lunch with like

Paul McCartney or something. But not Goliath with Paul. No. I feel like I couldn't enjoy it. It might kill him. I wouldn't enjoy it. Couldn't talk to him. It might kill him. I wouldn't want to do that. Now that is a concern.

That is a concern. That's my Mike Love worry too. Yeah. But what if Mike Love died next to you on King to Coscott? Well, there we get. Yes. If I'm present for the moment of Mike Love's demise. What a moment.

I think if I could stand in line with him for an hour, and then the price is going on the ride, yeah. Paul is so cheap, he doesn't pay for the fast pass. Okay. I like that question because I try to gauge exactly how worth the fear is. If it's an easy one or if it's like, nah. Well, I guess money i i wouldn't go below like twenty thousand dollars okay that's yeah that fear is strong yeah yeah um i'm trying to

think what other oh uh bumper cars at the car oh yeah what do we do we like bumper cars because i feel like i always like the idea of it, but it was never a satisfying experience. I liked them, but I feel like there were kids who would get in and immediately were like, I got this. I know how to nail people. And I feel like every now and then, there were some very slow moving. I liked when i was younger the

really little ones because you can't do too much damage but i feel like i got nailed a number of times that like some of the bigger faster ones oh and there's some where you're only supposed to go one direction and i i fucked that up as a kid once like you're supposed to go around an area and i had never encountered that i had always encountered like the big open ones and like started immediately going the wrong way and everyone started yelling at me so that was an unpleasant experience yeah leon were you gonna say something i like yeah i liked it because like all it was uneventful i feel and anticlimactic but it was fun that like you and like six friends could be in

like a same space together rather than yeah i just felt like that was the best part like you could look across and be like oh yeah that's my friend i'm gonna go get you right it felt yeah it felt like a little more yeah you could like it felt like you had a lot of freedom too but you really didn't have too much and then i think i I was in Jason's boat where I would just get nailed constantly. I wasn't doing any of the aggressive stuff. I was just getting hit over and over again. I think as long as we got no sparks. I don't want to see large physical sparks.

Yeah, yeah. That's where it gets shady. Isn't that how they operated? There'd be a pole that would touch the top and it would just drag, it would just like. Yeah. Is that still just what it is? Like in a more elevated park, like a knots?

Is it just where we just sparking up? Is that how it still works? I don't, I think there's different versions of it. Because I remember there was sort of a, and I don't, I really should look into it, but it was only there in my hometown. There was a big building, and all of a sudden, just this carnival opened up inside of it. I think they were going for a Chuck E. Cheese thing, but it was just a big empty warehouse,

and they set up a bunch of games in there. And there wasn't a ceiling on their bumper cars. And whatever the gentleman, Carney, who was working it, would hop on the back of the cars while you were riding which was scary very scary but there was yeah there was no ceiling there were no sparks in that version so i wonder if there's a couple different i mean i guess we'll probably get into it when we eventually do bumper car episode uh but there's another podcast that we sort of have a feud with that kind of specializes

in bumper cars. So I don't know. The bumper car boys are our enemies. I've never looked into it, but they talk about... They don't care about Disney or Universal or the big good one.

They talk about bumper cars like 85% of the episodes just really like give a big finger to everything that we like and that's why there are enemies yeah so this this episode in general might be we're gonna get their hire yeah that we're even like infringing on their territory at all but yeah we're allowed to talk about whatever we want right we can do it uh so yeah i think there's a variety of ways yeah the bumper car mechanism can work it'd be another good it's always that narrow space it is like a floor of an office building and if they are looking for something to do with the former quibi office

it's converting it into yeah yeah just make that ceiling electric yeah that'd be easy you know um so yeah i i'm not a huge fan of bumper cars but again i like the idea of it um i i go karts i like the idea of more i though i've never actually been go-karting oh i went once in vegas um it was pretty i it it was fine I guess I think it'd be more fun when I was younger and I didn't drive a car sure yeah like cool but when you get in it's just like this little cart and you just drive around a track

and you can't like bump it you can't do what you can do with bumper cars you can't run red lights you're living dangerously on the real road I was i was like i could take my car 80 miles per hour at that little bumper sure um yeah what have we talked about there's the i don't know there's the ring of fire that's the sort of just like gains momentum in a big loop until it spins all the way around but it's really unnerving like because it

does like right before it does the full one it like is almost there and then hangs for a little bit i think you know what bugs me about a lot of them and i put zipper in the sand ring of fire is the resemblance to cages just that you it's not a fun cage like case Jr. I don't find them fun because of the like, it's just such small, inescapable. It's like the lots of little triangles kind of cage. And then the cage is going to do a thing that kind of upsets my body. I'm in a mobile cage. It's going to upset me. And that's what a lot of these things feel like to me.

It feels like maybe like the last ride on the zipper before the carnival leaves town. They just say, keep the doors locked. All the people get stuck in there, and then they take them to the next town and then train them to be carnies. Oh, they brainwash them along the way. Right. Oh, God. All the cars are pumped full of audio teaching them carny language.

They're just reciting that dictionary, that glossary that Jason read. We're playing for another biggin'. We're biggin'. It's just this hypnotic kind of thing that draws you in. Two biggins for a jumbo. That's a good barker.

Yeah. We're on to this carny brainwashing scam. That's why, yeah, no last ride of the night. Don't ever do it. If anyone listening, you're just going to get driven one town over before you know it. And you're like, you get out of there and you're way more grizzled. You look like you age 30 years. You use lots of terminology like Marx.

Nobody knows what you're talking about anymore. Well, it's punishment it's the two things one this is literally i believe the plot of something wicked this way comes the red ray bradbury book uh i think a very old jason robards was in the movie version um and two i bet the people that they do that to uh are two of my favorite phrases i came across in the glossary lot lice and looky loos uh those are uh guests who come early stay late and they walk around and they don't buy anything so that's their that's their punishment they get loaded up and they get loaded into the ride and driven to the next town so don't if you're a lot nicer a looky-loo you know don't be a looky-loo don't be they just developed 30

ways to show their disdain for everybody who comes to their carnivals that's right all of this stuff all of this american entertainment and i think like they had fun fairs in the uk but all this stuff started just to be tricks. Everything was just a trick. Yeah, it's just to swindle people. Yeah, it was just like total. It's so funny. You were talking earlier about how like all of entertainment sort of comes from this.

And it does, you know, like comedy, the variety show, all of that stuff. And it's become this like multi-billion dollar industry. But yeah, it's so funny that it started out just like, how can we swindle all these people out of their money? Really, the Barker was the original promoted tweet. Think about that. Think about that for all the rest of the week

until our next episode comes out. Step right up. I guess a really profound up. Step right up. I guess a really profound statement. Step right up. See the monolith that appeared in Utah and now in Romania. What is this monolith? Huh? Yeah, it's all the same thing.

Any final thoughts, memories, anyone's got? Oh, yes, or details about uh your your your brief uh carny experience uh do you miss any of the 18 year olds do you have you kept in touch no i don't and i weirdly no i don't i really didn't even think about it until jason reached out to me. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. There was not a strong... You weren't in a Carney marriage? No, I did not get in a Carney marriage.

It's fascinating. I would watch a documentary on Carney's in a heartbeat. A documentary. Because I'm fascinated. Because I know there's something rich in there. I haven't... I feel like I just touched the surface of it but um yeah there's a um there's a movie about carney's that i would not watch in a second because i saw the trailer uh it is a movie

starring jodie foster and gary bucey 1980 we're talking about scary movies i don't know why i didn't talk about carney then i watched i couldn't even make it through half of this trailer this is the scariest joker shit i've ever seen oh my god you know we all say joker's like king of comedy but joker's also a lot like carney from that was seeing a young gary bucey put paint on his face and get demented and yell at Jodie Foster. He seems to sort of abduct her and there's a weird line about another carny is like, why are you always hanging out with your girlfriend? And he says,

I think in clown makeup, she's our girlfriend. Looks like the most upsetting movie I've ever seen. The name of it is Carny? Carnie from 1980. Yes, I'm going to check this out. Truly a trailer.

I couldn't even make it all the way through. Watch along with Carnie not coming to Podcast the Ride. Alright, we won't do that as an episode, but I will do that take a plane class. Try it. Let me know.

Maybe we can get a comp because we'll promote it on the show. It counts as themed entertainment. Now, if anything happens to that plane. I know. Now that you've said it, I'm not doing it. It's off. You put it into the world, Scott. There's no way.

It's a quick jaunt. No, I don't want to even entertain that. LAX to Little St. James. Hey, wait, what? Little St. James? Little St. James. The Epstein Island. You're part of this carnival now.

You're this kind of party now. Musha K, maybe. But not Little St. James, Jason. Musha K, maybe, but not little St. James, Jason. Okay. Musha K, David Copperfield's Island. Anyway. Well, you know, the conquering fears, that's where, is there any, like, you know, we've been cooped up for a while. Is there a fear, Leanne, that you'd want to conquer

after all this carnival or otherwise? I think flying and yeah, I think it would be flying because I feel like I went to Japan a couple years ago and it was just like the start and the cap of my wonderful trip was just like terror.

I would love to travel and not finish out a nice trip terrified. Yeah, I think it'd be flying. And unfortunately, there's a new reason to be terrified of flying currently. I know. COVID. That's correct.

Hey, look, it's perfectly safe, according to studies commissioned by the airlineindustry.com. That's right. Yeah. And Gary Busey's Carney character. And Gary Busey's Marty character. Who wrote this study? Cut to him and him. We wrote this study.

Awesome. Hey, well, thanks for talking to us about Carnival stuff. Thanks for having me on. Sharing Carney memories. Leon Bowen, you survived Podcast The Ride. Thank you. Let's exit through the prize booth instead of the gift shop. Is there anything you'd like to plug? No.

I guess Ted Lasso's on Apple TV right now um get someone's password because it's not worth it i'm just i don't know i'm sure they'll add more better stuff to their slate but yeah check it out that's well i think you get a year of apple tv if you buy a phone or a laptop. So that's all you have to do. So really, Apple TV is free if you otherwise give Apple $3,000. Yes, $3,000. That's all you got to do. So yeah, do that, everybody. On the cheaper end of things,

for $5 a month, you can get three bonus episodes of Podcast the Ride at Podcast the Ride, the second gate get three bonus episodes of podcast the right at podcast the right the second gate patreon.com slash podcast the right and we're on all the social medias and all the things um is there a way that a carny would uh say goodbye is there a carny terminology for uh you know getting the hell out of this burg. I think you would just try to do it like fast in the middle of the night.

You know? Is there an Irish goodbye? Is a carny goodbye the same as an Irish goodbye? Just for a massive caravan of equipment, I guess. Hmm. I don't know. I guess. Hmm. Hmm.

I don't know. That's another thing to ponder here. No. Well, then I guess the thing to do is just say, so long, suckers. So long, suckers. I got your money, suckers. We never saw them again.

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