Podcast: The Ride - Chapek’s Rise, Scott at Fry’s

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

A new Disney CEO! Sinking Jungle Cruise Boats! And a Good Boy's dream comes true. Plus Us Up: Fuzzbucket episode now up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus 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 store astronaut. Strap in, it's JPEG's Rise, Scott at Fries, on Podcast The Ride, where we're excited that Bob Chapek is the new CEO of Disney, and I am the new CEO of Space. I'm Scott Gairdner, as I said, the CEO of Space, joined by Mike Carlson. Yes, and I am the CFO of Fun? I don't know. Ooh, I like that. That's fun. Chief Fun Officer.

Chief Fun Officer? Jason Sheridan. Chief Operating Officer of NAPS. Approved. Title approved. The full board approves. Okay. Hey, this is kind of a fun little grab bag episode.

We realized there is so much news going on. It's been a truly insane week in the world of theme parks. An insane week for us personally. And it seemed like it would be fun to talk about all of this stuff. A bunch of news to talk about. And at the end of the episode we'll talk about this Fry's Electronics adventure that played out in a very fun way this week. But for now, first things first, let's pay deference to our new leader,

our new unquestioned lord and master. JPEC. JPEC. JPEC. A little more monotone, actually. JPEC. JPEC. JPEC.

JPEC. Congrats to that man we always shit on on his new promotion. Chey-peck. Chey-peck. Chey-peck. Chey-peck. Congrats to that man we always shit on, on his new promotion. Mike, I believe you described, I say using the phrase that you were, you haven't been contacted this much about a news story since Prince died. That is correct. When Prince died, I was texted a lot i mean it did it was and people were right to text me it was a very uh depressing day i was very bummed out about it yeah um but i have not had so many texts since that day yeah in the like span of an hour or two where i think my

i had i had gotten like three texts immediately i put my phone down for like 30 minutes, came back to the phone, and it was seven or eight or nine texts from different people. You know what's funny? Not the case with me. Interesting. Yeah. Jason, were you texted individually about Bob Chapek? Texted, added on Twitter, DMed.

Yeah. Well, I didn't even count that. Yes. There were plenty of people adding us. But did people, I think, text? Did your parents call? You guys were texting. My dad texted me, yes, about it.

Yes. Whoa, whoa. My mom, I believe, did too. Wow. Separately. I was in Vegas and was napping. Fittingly, was asleep. And just woke up, pulled up my phone to see what time it was, and then just saw all these texts.

Which was like the middle of the afternoon. This is like a new one. You weren't even in Vegas for 24 hours and you were napping? We're going to get to this on a different episode of your Vegas trip. Check out Podcast the Second Gate coming soon. Okay, you're right we can't get that's a tease i don't know you're napping with literally 24 hours in vague okay like four hours after landing in like three hours like after you got there and napped immediately yeah well the

room was ready and we took the early flight this is out of control you immediately got it up what happens you get to do whatever you want in vegas did you go to like the pool and like like close your eyes out by the pool 60 degrees 60 degrees and windy outside like that's fair i guess you did the next check out a travelogue episode coming up so with a couple friends a couple famous friends real sweeties if you will named named after colors perhaps yeah um yeah so all right typical all right you're in vegas it is noon and you're napping i've got it makes total sense got it so uh are you woken up by text messages uh no no i added on do not disturb okay okay um yeah we were all well we

were all split up um because i i was uh i mean well i rushed to ontario mills as soon as i heard i i hit the road as soon as i heard to to make my point on twitter we all made videos that you may have seen but it was a little war room we had to figure out how to do it despite all being in separate locations because people were calling for an emergency episode about this. This is big news. And obviously, we were not all in the same place, so we could not do it. Yeah. So we needed to put a response out.

Yeah. And I felt best if we all, yeah, put out video messages. This is it. It's a late emergency. Yeah. Yeah. Who could have seen it coming? Because the weird way this played out, we've known for a long time current CEO Bob Iger.

I guess not current. Is he already not? No, he's already not. He's officially executive. Wow. Former. Is the title executive chairman? He's still with the company.

Executive chairman through December 31st, 2021. Now, he has pushed his retirement four times already. And the last we heard, he was going to be CEO until 2021. Yes retirement four times already and the last we hear he was going to be ceo until 2021 yes that was the last so that this suddenly happened he's yes he's still there he's still like like roaming around the company he's saying it's he's going to do more creative work that's what write a movie or two? I guess. Yes, focusing on his creative endeavors. He and Lucas are going to write a movie together. Well, he and Lucas are doing those experimental films in Lucas's garage together, but no one

will ever see them. They're all cutting up pig organs and stuff. Yeah. And yeah, Lucas will never show them to anybody except for like Charlie Rose. Like all those J.D. Salinger stories they found at a safe after he died. We will see the films after George Lucas has passed. Well, The Vault, when it's opened, much like Prince. That's a good

point. Move it all close to Nas Perkis B-sides. Yeah, that would be good actually. It's confusing. I mean, I think it sounds like what he is sticking around to do is focus on Disney Plus and the switch over to streaming and the new way they're presenting media. Yes.

That doesn't sound creative to me, but not so much. Maybe it is is he we also haven't like jumped in with an episode since some other creative news that broke which is the that rick moranis will come out of retirement for the honey i shrunk the audience the new honey i shrunk the audience film starring honey let me do a msnb Bernie reporting style. Cy starring Josh Gad. So do we think that maybe Iger will be like doing rewrites on this? Oh, well, you said, honey, I showing the audience to actually. Well, I'm so theme park.

So I was wondering if that actually was an announcement I missed. You know, I mean, I'm hey, I'm way more likely to say Star Tours than Star Wars. So that's where my head's at. But I think, yes, he's going to roll up his sleeves and he's going to punch up the jokes. Focus on those creative endeavors is the phrase they officially use. You know that phrase. We're all, you know, the creative endeavors. The creative endeavors.

Creative guy. Bye-bye. he's a creative guy we're always saying we've all been saying well he thought of that great thing about distinctly Disney but authentically Chinese of course so that is one thing we know that he wrote

in the image said in so that if you didn't hear our second gate episode he several times in the in the Imagineering story documentary says that we have to take time to pay tribute to when he said distinctly Disney, but authentically Chinese. Yes.

Well, maybe that might be the flip. I don't know. Maybe I'm not getting it right. I don't remember. I'll be honest with you. I don't. Yeah, distinctly Disney, authentically Chinese, I believe. But this great piece of writing we have to tribute.

Let's take time out of a documentary series where we could see footage of robots we love. Yeah. To say, well, I don't know, it just came to me. I just thought of the phrase. For sale, baby shoes never worn has been replaced by distinctly Disney, authentically Chinese. So he's got to catch her. He wrote one thing. We do like that.

Yeah. And I remember in his book, I think it was his book or somewhere else where he was really tickled by the idea in Solo that he would say, Han Solo would say that he was alone. And that's when he got his trademark name, Han Solo, because he was alone. And that's something that Iger really liked. He didn't write it. He didn't think of it. But we know that that's where his taste lies.

Yes. He likes, yeah, Solo. And we as well, as did we all. We all enjoyed that scene. Yes. Very much. Yes, we did. Long sighs all around.

We all liked the scene. Iger just this week learns about, is that even a thing? There's this new thing that they're doing in movies where it is questioned whether or not something is a thing and this is the kind of sensibility we want to bring to the shrunk franchise he's trying to yeah

what do you think after he heard they fly now what do you think he was like around the office have you guys seen it get in here everybody He heard they fly now. What do you think he was like around the office? Yes. Have you guys seen it? Here, get in here, everybody. The Rise of Skywalker trailer, and it's in the film. They say they fly now four times. I have one note.

Can we say it one more time? And they did. Let's get a few more in there. I like that. Oh, I heard today. I don't want to sidetrack too much that now it's officially canon and spoiler alert that the emperor in rise of skywalker is a clone they finally said officially that is that because it's in the novelization i don't know but it said i saw a thing on twitter from a reputable source that says it's now canon that that was a clone

the palpatine was a clone so there there, that's settled. No film in history has had more off-screen information than Star Wars 9 Rise of Skywalker. That's right. It is a full film's worth of knowledge. But isn't that... Of just brain-melting giant knowledge that is not in the movie anywhere.

Isn't that fun? Don't we want more movies where you find out on Twitter a couple months later important plot points? You have to go to a book or a twitch stream yeah i gotta say i if if you're like thinking too hard about the just now out novelization of the rise of skywalker folks it's time to move on i think that okay well disney's like changing the way the media is

released and that's maybe what shapex's going to be doing a little bit. And I like that they've created a new act structure. Movies used to be like, it was three acts that take place over 90 minutes to three hours. And now we've added a fourth act, which plays out extremely slowly over many months, both online and in books that you have to pick up. It may still still but this act may never end yeah you know what and i think what's fun about this is that you know i read that and i think it was a reputable twitter source but who knows what i feel like we can all contribute

sort of to the canon in a different way now by just announcing something about episode nine and people going oh okay and then it's so we could uh we could make up a piece of canon right now tweet it from like a fake star wars news twitter and then i think it'll just happen to be canon yeah i think we could make that happen okay so if we if we have if you have an idea um kylo ren is scared of toilets's... He died because he thought of a store that would have many toilets. Because he realized, oh, you have to buy them somewhere. Oh, no.

And he got so upset, he disappeared. He died. That's good, but I feel like maybe people might catch on that that's not a true Rise of Skywalker spoiler. Well, I guess they're not real fans, then. If you call the toilet something else uh space evacuators pretty good yes well there was the toilet droid we created in the rise of the resistance oh yes oh yeah p zero zero p um i think well you know what i heard from a reputable source is that there's all those like

hooded characters on exegol yeah an exegol yeah um you can't you never see their faces but they shot scenes where among the hooded uh the what are they they're like the dark lords of the sith they're the ghosts all right among the among the hooded sith spirits was all star trek crew members past and present for every every enterprise crew from every era those were all among who knows who else was with that that lineup that's like a fucking sergeant pepper crew back there like All sorts of people are back there. Walter Koenig. Mm-hmm. Takei.

They all shot scenes, and then they were left on the cutting room floor. Well, that's all real now. Mm-hmm. While we're talking about Star Wars, the best article I saw about this switchover was at The Verge, and they kept quoting an anonymous former disney executive um who who seemed to put forward the idea that like chapek is sticking around for a couple more years for oversight uh eiger uh uh yes eiger sorry uh chapek presumably sticking around for a while but eiger sort of the still the big idea guy and cha pack like a caretaker ceo executing yeah those ideas but this

quote uh very much stuck out to me if he's sticking around it could just be that he's the trainer the former disney executive said the sith apprentice and sith lord he'll be holding shape x hand he's going to take a position to still be deeply entwined with the company. It's still Bob's show. Well, they're confusing. Iger. Yes. They're both Bob's. Confusing because they're both Bob's.

Oh, my God. Is anyone watching McMillions? No. HBO? There's this very confusing thing where there's several Jerrys who are part of this scheme. This is similar. Too many Jerrys, too many Bob's. That makes it confusing.

I don't know. This is Bob's issue. Oh, wow. What? Which Bob? What do you mean? There's a big Jerry in succession, too. jerry's too many bobs that makes it confusing i don't know this is bob wow what which bob there's a big jerry in succession to all these like white collar shows they captured that accurately there's always a jerry with schemes or a foot and they say like oh yeah go talk to bob about it or something you don't know who boy you don't and like oh it's bob that's bob's fault

and you don't know which bob creates kind of a smoke screen let's some get away with some stuff that's true it's interesting i've seen plenty of great real sounding rumors and crazy sounding rumors about this situation with eiger stale still being there yeah but chapek technically being the ceo it's like what that's sort of saying which i think i've seen it's like well, well, Iger's going to be around. If they feel like Chapek isn't doing it. Well, you know how this feels to me is, this is Leno-Conan.

Yeah, that's a very- He's not really, and we're handing the reins slowly in a while. Yeah. And actually turns out he's going to stick around, but don't, it's, you know, it'll day, he's going to do it. As David Letterman said,

yeah, I'll be out in the lobby. I'll be waiting for you. I'll be over here. Get back to where you once were. I think I've watched the Letterman making fun of the situation on YouTube, videos on YouTube. Yeah.

40 times maybe? It was an incredible time. It really was. He really, yeah. It was just some of the greatest one-man shows that ever existed. Letterman just doing 20-minute monologues on relishing Jay's antics. And not being sure what Jimmy fallon's name was and calling him lani donagan yes i will never forget lani donagan who's the kid uh lani donagan lani donagan

um but what have you heard uh but what is what is nefarious potentially actually happening here well that in general i mean i think whatever level like i think that might be the correct thing it's like well let's see how this guy does the board will assess and then come 2021 does eiger just re-up again and they boot him well because there's been like... There's no bench. There's no bench. It's like the Democratic Party. There's a very minimal bench. I was thinking there really should be a primary for this.

There should have been like a 10-person primary for Disney CEO that the shareholders would get to vote on. Because the content we would get out of those debates. We'd get to host debate shows. Oh my gosh. That's such a great idea. All sorts of gobbledygook. Making promises. All sorts of corporate hogwash.

There would have been a real, I don't know what you call it, progressive candidate who wanted to put, or I guess who would be the one who wants to put figment back in its proper, I guess that might be a conservative candidate, honestly. Like somebody who just wants it to be like it was? Yeah, put dream finder back in journey to imagination you'd try to figure yeah there would be a whole spectrum people some people would be like we were leveling epcot center and we're making it totally different

the play pavilion sucks there would be a a super progressive candidate who would say let's raise the the salaries of everybody who works at the parks and he wouldn't even get to the debate yeah that's true unlike bernie he's not even in the room no he would have been like driven out into the middle of the woods somewhere shot and shot um yeah that's no we're talking about like what kind of robots people would put in the park that's what people would be voting on me i'm a wrestle-o bro i always thought tom staggs had a chance he got now that that came up in a lot of the articles was that staggs was being groomed and then at some point in 2016 eiger told him the board and i have lost our faith in you yes he did it was like gus on breaking bad

with victor when he slices Victor's throat. Victor doesn't even know it's coming. Yeah. Staggs thought he was going to be the CEO. And then they... Damn. Because Iger's done this so many times where it's like, oh, I'm going to leave. And then he doesn't. And then, yes, it seems like they keep getting rid of candidates for CEO.

I read a spooky thing. One, for Disney board members, there's a mandatory retire age of 74. There is no mandatory retirement age for executive chairman. And Iger is in his what? Late 60s? Late 60s, yeah.

So he's got a few years left. But then a lot of people just saying Chepek has the right combination of worked for consumer products like the studio and the theme parks and no one else covered a lot of ground. That's true, because the listener may not know where this guy came from. I believe he started in home video and then became consumer products or i i saw something attributing the uh uh i don't think he was at the head of home video at this point but that he may have been involved in the process of putting things in the disney vault i'm keeping them he's been a vault keeper he He's the vault keeper. That's what I found out that shocked me. It's spearheaded. Supposedly

spearheaded this. Really? In the mid-90s when he joined the company. Wow. Huh. The vault. I honestly... Wow. Do I like him a little more now? Because he created the vault? Do we like the vault? Do we think the vault is cool?

Because the vault's open now with Disney+. It's weird that he's overseeing the company. I don't think the vault... I think the vault do we like the vault do we think the vault is cool because the vault's open now with disney plus it's weird that he's overseeing the company i don't think the vault i think the vault will close though i don't think the vault is completely completely first of all there's a lot of stuff still in the vault true so i think the vault is going to be sort of a fluid thing i think things will leave go back into the vault from disney plus i don't know what i don't i mean that's some of the excitement of netflix and the other platforms is what's new and what's leaving and yeah if disney plus just consistently has a bunch of movies up that's not fun right it needs to be a constant ebb and flow right so yeah you need a good vault keeper i don't know who's doing it now but obviously jpeg is overseeing it.

Though some of the more conspiratorial ideas I've seen are that Disney is preparing for maybe some bad news, some rough stuff because of the coronavirus. We'll talk about this a little bit more later, probably. Parks are closed in China and Japan nowapan now uh and they are not like they're losing tons of money for millions millions millions of dollars which are going to it's going to affect the park the conspiracy theories are maybe there's other stuff too disney's like worried about like disney plus is doing like well but they haven't had a new show since mandalorian right so it's like uh excuse me are you not watching shop class i am the show where children build shop class projects hosted by

justin long am i making this up i don't know you said it so fast i think it's real it's real yeah yeah yeah you know that would have been if you'd thrown in a fake stumble then i might have been wondered but yeah you you were pretty confident. I'll keep that in mind for the future. I've never heard of what you just said. It's real. Are you watching The Balloon Artist? The show where they have hot air balloons and they design and show,

they print out sort of what the different characters and designs artists make for the front of hot air balloons on Disney Plus? Oh, right. You've seen that, right? With Tom Cavanaugh? Tom Cavanaugh. Oh, Ed. Yeah, TV's Ed. make for the front of hot air balloons on disney plus all right you've seen that right with tom cavanaugh tom cavanaugh oh ed yeah tv's ed yeah yeah and he's on the flash and it's about yeah how you design the fronts of giant hot air balloons it's a really great disney plus show is there any other disney plus shows you guys have been watching that you like

no just those two? The balloon artist? I'm trying to remember if there's another one. I'm too sleepy this morning to remember if there's another one. I like the nerd nest. Zachary Levi's the nerd nest. It's sort of your new home for all your nerd incubation. I'm watching Hula Hoop Wars. Are you seeing that? How about the National Hula Hoop Championship?

I didn't even know that existed. uh thanks to half-life was a poor choice oh yeah but he's been replaced by caroline ray oh that's good i like that so she's hosting the hula hoop that's a little more audience anyway that's just a few the mickey mouse hula hoops are fun but they don't like they don't spin super well no well they've got that counterbalanced half a loop and then a half a loop it doesn't you're not getting more than three shapes out of that thing but otherwise it's a pretty fun show uh yeah great show i think so yeah so chapek is so according some people are thinking maybe this is sort of a safety measure to protect tiger because people in corporate structures take falls all the time.

People are set up for things. If something like numbers go bad, people like to point from my understanding. People like to point fingers at somebody and say, well, they're the problem. That is because this is the problem with the company right now. And then they get fired and they take the hit well similar to if we're going back to the leno conan thing conan had to take over the tonight show when nbc had the coronavirus of primetime lineups yes leno oversaw a virus free era of it was a totally sanitized clean run through the 90s uh and then yeah i mean the jay leno show ultimately became the most severe case of coronavirus tv coronavirus uh so yeah people are thinking oh this might be a

safety measure also in the sense that if like the company really like takes a huge hit financially this year that they can just like say well it's chapek's fault and blame it on him and eiger goes right back in someone else i believe already took the fall for the weak galaxy's edge kind of like opening it without rise yes yes now it seems like it's balanced out what's that woman's name i forget the woman there was a woman who got fired who people were saying was taking the hit for like galaxy's edge not being like the the blowout money making new chapek was taking the hit for like Galaxy's Edge not being like the blowout money making. Because they knew JPEG was going to be the guy maybe. It certainly couldn't be him to take the fall.

Right. And I guess what we've learned is that the plan of trying to oust JPEG by writing a new article posing as a sick former Disney blogger who hasn't posted anything in a decade that was not a good plan for ousting an eventual ceo no uh in case you don't know what we're talking about i'm not sure i know what i'm talking about well if you would just let us do a three-hour conspiracy-ridden episode yeah look look up uh yeah you know what uh we've talked about this we've talked about it before tweeted us and we'll refresh her just google uh we'll talk to you at a bar for two hours al lutz bob chapek article and you'll find our thing where yeah a guy we all read in middle school al lutz or maybe you did i did not in middle school i was you were not a little i was a little i was not mature enough for al lutz's writing they got racy the comp yeah but this blogger who like they like

apparently hasn't been writing for a long time and is like bedridden and people like are using his name to try to spread rumors and yes and spread the word that you're abby situation yes yeah yeah totally um and that that was like because they wrote a scandalous art they wrote an article like ripping the lid off of that it's chapek who'd made all of those cuts on galaxy's edge and that's why it's not but that all that feels like another era now that rise the resistance is kind of making it all work and yeah and the other thing is despite attendance being down slightly even as those numbers were coming out revenue was up which i think is what happens when you just raise ticket prices annually and you just

kind of gradually raise the price on food and merchandise a little at a time when people aren't paying attention and you suddenly start selling selling $200 lightsabers. $200 lightsabers, a new, like, here's the color of the season. Like, color? We're doing colors now? I was trying to, you know, we've kind of painted Shay Peck as a villain on the show before right when we should say this his position that he was in which is head of parks and resorts then head

of consumer products when they merged is always a villain slot that's always where you know any complaints you have you you've like turn your ire to is sort of pressler press i ran in the 90s it was very like merch heavy and opened the you know some of these bad uh yes like magic california adventure original he's obviously the yes the best version of the villain in this slot but yes you're yes these guys i think be car or has there been a female? I don't know. Who is Cynthia Harris? What did she? I get confused as to what Parks position any of these people are. Right.

Because Parks was its own thing until about two years ago when they combined into consumer products and experiences and parks and resorts. That all became under one umbrella seemingly because for jpeg like those were the things jpeg had experience with he had done consumer products he had done uh parks jpeg also uh while during under like the home video sort of oversaw the buddy series these the air buds spinoffs and i think everyone was impressed that he made something out of nothing like those movies cost nothing to make there's no star recognizable actor in anybody maybe they had like a novelty santa claus and one of them

you know they they pulled the ed esner strings or something. But besides that... Cute animals. Disney has a history with cute animals. And then that kind of heightened to affect the company as a whole. It seems like JPEG helping drive it, but Iger kind of seeing the big picture of making the company more franchise and brand focused. And JPEG being one of the lieutenutenants one of the captains by the way just uh i looked it up uh in santa buddies oh is that do you know i have cynthia harris i'd rather hear about santa buddies sure who was to the ears she had a couple different she was a

senior vice president of park operations at dis. She was President of the Disney Store chain. She was a President of Disneyland. So that's a merch person and a theme parks person. Yeah, I don't think... She was never head of parks and resorts. Oh, I see, I see. Okay. They did pull out all the stops for Santa Buddies, and they...

Because you... Hallmark, Lifetime, straight to video, you got to get a good Santa, and in this one, it was George Wendt. Excellent Santa If you're a heavier actor You have to do your Santa duty at some point In time and George did it In this and probably several other things

I'm not sure and Santa Paws Santa's dog In that movie voiced by Tom Bosley his final Role before his demise He went out as Santa Paws Tom Bosley of Great. His final role before his demise. Wow. He went out as Santa Paws. Tom Bosley, of course, Happy Days

and the voice of David the Gnome. Yes. And on Broadway, I believe, was Maurice. Oh, yeah. In Beauty and the Beast. Looks like Maurice. A many times kindly old man. Also Father Dowling, of course, the murder-solving priest.

Cool. But all of this under the, you know, Chapek may be responsible for the casting of Bosley and Wendt at the end of the day. He at least gave it the general thumbs up. Can't be mad at him for that. Yeah. And I was trying to think about all

right if we've villainized this man i probably due to the you know this this dry consumer product side that he has and the if if we sense that some of that early galaxy's edge uh problematic nature was due to him and his budget cuts i guess that's why we villainized him but i'm like let me look at this guy's whole history to see if he's going be a good ceo or not and then we gotta go back to before disney do you know what he did before disney i don't i read it i forget now it was it was a brand yes yeah uh he so he's been with disney in some regard since 1993 and before that he was he worked in brand management for the H.J. Hines company he worked for

Hines ketchup and other Hines products so beans were under his purview I guess various mustards and relishes Jason you got a little more respect for this guy now I mean they do have 57 varieties that they have to manage and deal with and this is

during your child you know like when you were five six seven your earliest hot dogs were top condiments that chapek was part of at least making your family aware of i currently talked with those condiments probably as well wow so wow he's grown a couple sizes i would be. I was a big ketchup kid, but I did sideways. Jason and the ketchup kids. Jason is... Jason Jordan is the ketchup kid. I still like, but I look sideways at

non-Heinz ketchup. Or house-made ketchup. I'm like, fuck, that's better. Really? Hunts doesn't sit right at all. Yeah, that doesn't hit right. Some places, really nice places that make their own ketchup, it's good. Chipotle ketchup or something? Really, really hot and cold on flavored ketchups.

Really? Yeah. You're just a straight ahead Heinz guy. Again, if it's house made, maybe better. But if it's in a jar and it's like flavored ketchup, it's going to be disgusting. That's interesting because as a fellow member of the sauce squad, the chicken guy sauce squad, I am surprised that you wouldn't be more open to different ketchups.

Well, I mean, you get a certain level of quality. There's a quality assurance along with the sauce squad, I feel like. Well, I agree with that. But I'm saying just I would think you would be more open to trying. You would be a little bit more open-minded, a little more progressive when it comes to your ketchup choices ketchup i am if it's made by the people if it's mass produced it's probably good it might be gross but you love the most mass-produced one uh well i do need some stability you've been caught no but that's just regular. That's regular. I don't want some weird. You're saying, but if there's an experimental kind,

do you want it to be a ma and pa churning ketchup in a big barrel? You want a ketchup churn. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I really like ketchup churners on Disney+.

Oh, I have seen ketchup churners. Ketchup churners is good. Yeah. It's hosted by... I'm trying to think of the cast of... Listen to Joe Hart. Oh, that's good. Yeah. I was trying to think of the cast of... Melissa Jo Hart. That's good, yeah. I was trying to think of who was the star of Empty Nest.

What's the guy? Richard Mulligan? Richard Mulligan. He, I believe, has passed away, so he was unavailable. It's an old show. It's an old show they brought back. Okay. Oh, that's right.

They shot it a while ago, so I'm saying... Oh, yeah. Oh, we're confused because Melissa Jo Hart hosts the new one, but they also show the old, the 90s episodes of Ketchup Churners hosted by Richard Mulligan. Yeah. Great show. But Jason can't watch it because it's Disney Plus. Disney Plus is really good.

They got so much good stuff. I'm interested with your ketchup philosophy, though. It's interesting. Heinz. Yeah, Heinz. Suffer through hunts. So you were enthusiastic to vote for John Kerry in that election because of his wife. his wife is one of the things like theresa heinz carey yeah yeah when chapek worked at heinz i was looking up a timeline of what was going on with heinz when he worked

there and there was a tragic plane crash that killed whoever was going to be the heir to like one of the heinz family was going to be the heir to the fortune and thus in their death it was passed to uh John Kerry's wife really yeah so is Chapek part of that plane crash I think it's fair to say definitely definitely yes caused it yes um I I was it's hard to tell what he I don't know when he started at Heinz so you know forgive me for not being too like official here with any of this but I was just like't know when he started at Heinz so you know forgive me for not being too like official here with any of this but I was just like let me find some commercials that Heinz put out in this

era so and again I don't know his position exactly but he was there when Heinz introduced real Ghostbusters pasta can't be mad at that which had you know pieces that looked like Slimer and other ghosts and stuff.

And that seemed like it was probably well received as a very cool commercial. And in 1989, there was a Heinz commercial where a guy puts a ketchup bottle way up on top of a building at a slight incline. And then goes down and buys a hot dog and kind of like impresses a girl. Hey, what's up? And then gets the hot dog just in time for the ketchup to finally drop all the way off the building because it moves so slowly

they were pushing out so rich that it moves so slowly and the guy in that commercial was a young Matt LeBlanc wow really? he was in 89 so can we say that Bob Chapek discovered Matt LeBlanc yes I think we can. Again, definitively, there's ups and downs.

There's the crash, but there's also LeBlanc. I think we can firmly say this is all his. So I don't know. There's pros and cons. Judge how you will. And that was a positive that the ketchup took so long, because generally that's a complaint with a glass bottle of ketchup, is that it's hard to get the ketchup out. They were presenting it where slowly pouring ketchup is good they but they also present

that it just will naturally come out and that you don't need to bang on the back which doesn't feel correct to me there's another one from 91 where a bunch of cgi ants all have time slow moving ants have time to tip a bottle and then steal a hot dog jason's worst nightmare that a bunch of ants would all carry a hot dog away together well are they bringing the hot dog to are they they could also be my allies pay them off or something friends you gotta form a deal what's in it for them a big chunk of cracker you sure yeah they probably knew that when people ask like what superpower would you want jason you always say ant-man because you imagine that you could control an army of ants to steal hot dogs from a picnic to bring the bottle for you saving arm strength it's so hard to get that backyard barbecue flavor, you know? So much work.

Jason Sheridan's Ant-Man. It's just you sitting waiting for ants to bring you food. Reading the paper, reading the late times. Come my pretties. But I also, in looking up his history, I discovered that he is an alumni of Indiana University. And it's been a big week in general for Indiana University alumni because fellow IU alum Mike Pence was put in charge of the coronavirus. So Disney and the coronavirus both in the hands of esteemed alums of that.

Yeah. Yeah. I believe I can trust in the Indianans to take care of this. I believe I partied. I trust in the Indianans to take care of this. I believe I partied at that college one night. Really? Yeah, my friend was there. We took a trip. Whoa. I didn't party with Pence. I'm not that old. Yeah, I don't think

Pence would have been there. Or JPEG. It's a good lineup of, by the way, Howard Ashman, writer of Part of Your World and such. Yeah, isn't that weird? Yeah, it is. A lot of Disney history. I toured Indiana University of Pennsylvania,

which is a second confusingly named college. Wow, extremely. It is in this small town where Jimmy Stewart was born. Oh. They have a little storefront Jimmy Stewart museum. That wasn't enough to sell you there? No. What were you looking for?

I was looking for a town with a little more... It was a very small town. You were looking for a bigger town? Ithaca had more... It had little theaters and indie movie theaters and bookstores. Yeah, a little more culture. You don't want to be trapped in too little of that.

Pennsylvania has a lot of cute little small towns with colleges in them, but every now and then I would tour them and ask, what do you guys do on the weekends? They're like, we go to Walmart. And I'm like, that sounds sad. Why did you say that? That sounds sad.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a boring college existence probably and you were you had you were inspired because of mr eiger who had gone there before you oh of course i love the the head of abc who i learned while at abc canceled both twin peaks and 30 something but put cop rock on the air 30 30 something coming back and twin peaks, of course, already back already back. Is there something definitely coming back?

30 something is coming back. There's a revival of 30 something. Can I put this into the universe right now? There is not a single piece of announced media that is more exciting to my mother that I be a part of than the 30 something reboot. You and I have to get on that 30 something why would you be on it because i'm 30 something because yeah and my mom loves the original 30 something so much busfield that's a timothy busfield show is that he was on the

original i don't know did he direct we gotta get on the party five is back on free form i'm just saying if you're involved in the 30 something just to make my mother happy please this is like the chris gethard article about him hosting kelly ripa's uh a show look that up if you've seen it i want to be on tv for my mother not for me it's not for you it's not for me it'd be a fun thing my mom likes the show so do that for me so she was when you're a child and she's like someday he'll be 30 something and then my dream yeah if they do a new one i don't think she was thinking that long term but i think she she was like oh that show i loved is coming back oh my son is uh a podcaster and he's 30 something he could be on this show yeah so if they have a character who's like dealing with the relatable 30 something problem of which toys are you going to eBay?

Right. And also being one of those characters could be a podcaster. I mean, all shows are contractually obligated to have a podcaster character now. So I assume the two creators of 30-something will listen to this. Sure. Where is that going? I don't know. ABC or Hulu?

I couldn't tell you. Maybe it's on free. Have you guys ever looked at free? Freeform is like everything conservatives think the culture wars are is on free form it's like party of five but the parents are illegal immigrants and get deported and the five the kids all have to take care of each other like it and or it's young people it shows about like young people and they are all very horny like that is where disney simultaneously very clean but then it has like horny stuff on free form and also the bachelor the horniest show on television

the weirdest horny because it's horny but there's a lot of hoops you gotta jump through it is an extremely popular primetime show that is about like hookups and fucking it is weirdly yes uh hookups and then inevitably one or two characters who are like i'm christian i don't do that like it's very it's a very bizarre it's very very bizarre because like you know the a quick gay kiss has to be a microsecond long and then edited out in most countries and then there's just a prime time show where like the whole premise is like a guy has sex with like like and then the other half of the year a woman has sex with 20 men yeah yeah yeah and it's like i'm not even i'm not even saying uh i don't have to be against any of it.

It just feels like maybe this isn't the same. Maybe now we're holding everything to the same standard here. Yeah. Of whatever their decency, whatever they think is decency. This brings up another story. So, like, I have another handful of stories that we're not even going to get to, and I'm just going to kind of divvy them out,

or I'll just get to whatever we don't get to at the end sure um quick bites quick bites these are quick stories a quick unnerving bite but as you say like editing stuff out for some countries this like in the last couple weeks disney got flack because um so in ind India there's a very popular streaming service called Hotstar which Disney has operational control of and they did not air a John Oliver episode because it was critical of Modi

the Prime Minister I believe President he's a piece of shit he's a fucking linked to at this point maybe multiple genocides um uh not a good guy uh uh implementing a very odd religious citizenship law nasty stuff going on but sort of the same thing that happened with that hassan minaj show

happened at indy it happened with the streaming service in india where they're just disney is where it owns or has a big part in this hot star streaming service that was showing it oh god so that is a another thing that he is inheriting that's that creepy. But are they still showing the Hula Hoop Wars show? They are. That is a very pro-Modi show. Okay. Got it. Yeah, this is an aerial shot where lots of Hula Hoopers spell out the word Modi.

Okay, well, that's fun. Yeah, there's a whole Hindu nationalist episode. Oh, I like that. That's good. Hey, Modi. Also, we're recording this in the wake of the Lizzie McGuire. Oh, yeah. They were bringing it back, and then just suddenly it went away.

The creator was fired, and nobody really knew why. And now Hilary Duff implying that it was kind of due to Disney moralism. Right. And that they were not okay with portraying a 30 year old woman i mean probably having sex and i think i think it was that they they were realizing it should have been on the the hulu side of the line which if it were all paying attention to this math disney plus is where family friendly things go hulu is the touchstone hulu is where more adult things go and they were that's i don't remember

her quote but it sort of implied that they wanted lizzie mcguire to still be like a child despite being right grown up and it would be so bizarre to do anything yeah i think that uh i think that they uh they're disney might be a bit confused they need need it. It's a big property that would give a boost to Disney+. Yeah. But if it's Lizzie McGuire at 30, it doesn't make sense. If you want it to be a 30-year-old woman

who lives in the city, she's, you know, what are you going to do? She's having sex and her cartoon conscience is having sex as well cartoon her cartoon tune uh uh the conscience is having sex as well with other cartoon consciousness is that the compromise is the cartoon get to be horny and naked i think that makes it more adult i think it's a lot more adult with that she's not calling for nudity on the show right we don't know we haven't heard

hillary duff's full thoughts on this okay who knows well because maybe yeah maybe that doesn't if it was like a full like naked show maybe that doesn't belong does she want girls does she want to yes yeah lizzie mcguire's girls yeah maybe that is more of a hulu show then i don't know lizzie mcguire lizzie mcguire accidentally takes molly in this episode you know goes on an adventure, stays out all night, loves New York City, you know? All right. And if New York City is going to be a character, you know,

it's always a character in movies. I do know that. I do know that New York City is always a character. So here's what I have as far as, as far as Chay Pack. I love unsourced, crazy rumors. I love unsourced crazy rumors. We love to see it. Yeah.

And I've seen some. We've seen there was some rumor like, oh, Iger's going to get into politics. I don't think that's happening. He's still around. Also, it would be the worst timing in the world. We're recording this like days before Super Tuesday. He's not going to be on the ballot. It's hard to start.

Yes. Yeah. Hard to start. An editor. he's not gonna be on the ballot hard to start yes yeah right before an editor if you want if you want to talk top bloomberg you come in so late it's post right you're not even in any of the voting well an editor at pace magazine spoke that curse into existence of like oh no is this gonna be a bloomberg eiger ticket which is like that's just that let's not even imagine that's just sucking the air out of the room whatever the inverse of charisma is like all right let's i don't even know does anyone like who is that for yeah i don't think that's happening but uh you never know we never know

what's gonna happen if there's a contested uh convention but anyway uh i don't think the politics is happening there were some other things, paranoid things. But this is my favorite that I've read online. Again, this is from, it doesn't even matter. It really doesn't matter because there's no way to prove that this is true. Okay. It's from a message board. It's a Twitter user, ad figment, underscore Jedi, and says, take a grain of salt.

But this is the rumor they saw on the message board they're i don't they didn't write this okay um the rumor from what i've heard is that cameron and landau james cameron and john landau yeah are demanding an extra one billion dollars for the avatar sequels bob went to the board on this and they basically said you've gone soft chapek is taking over cameron and Landau are apparently using some consulting firm outside of Disney that is totally off the record, making the mouse even more angry. Could be something to do with Murdoch Fox.

Making the mouse. I fucking hate that shit. I know. That's always message board. The mouse that roared. Yeah. So Iger and Cameron were friends. Cameron and JPEG are not.

The board did not like that's that's the last bit of this whoa avatar the endless wait for avatar sequels may have brought down eiger right that you were working for a company that was fixing avatar prices um so there's a little before that there's a little uh here somebody wrote a different like an addendum they work in finance uh close friends with a lot of the eas which is what executive assistants i assume for the board apparently been a lot of meetings lately between bob eiger and james cameron about avatar sequel funding something to do with how much the marketing budget is promised to be in control of the IP.

Cameron met with Bob on the 21st of February. Bob met with the board on the 24th. Chapek given Bob's job literally the day after. Just give him the money. You have the money. It's the second biggest movie of all time. I will say. Only by the first biggest movie of all time,

which you also made. Yeah, I do do it is interesting i mean it's a good it's a good rumor because of the fact that we've been promised these avatar much like bob eiger leaving the company it's been the goal post has been moved so many times for the sequels how much money the sequels cost they were supposed to come out what seven years six years ago but now isn't it supposed to come out right before is it now we're talking about the month that eiger leaves right 2021 like christmas 2021 so also he can absolve himself of any right and i think i'm assuming because they've put they're shooting what two back to back yeah the next two back to back

i assume they're eight and nine by this point uh-huh i'm sure there's some anxiety in the disney company about like is this gonna work i would imagine now never bet against cameron of course never bet against cameron but he is this is like now and it's saying something this feels like now we're like six times it's a six times bigger bet than it's yes and again i i didn't think avatar before avatar came out i was like maybe this is the one that finally he doesn't care and then look what happens but boy it's been a long time so a billion dollars spread over five movies isn't well but i think it's true but i think it's more and it's not five i think this is probably i i would imagine they because they're only shooting two.

So again, this is why it's a good rumor, because you can imagine that there would be economic anxiety about these giant movies that I'm sure they've invested a billion dollars in already. Yeah. I'm sure it's a billion dollars. And obviously, they bought, they took on debt as well. Because now they fully bought Avatar once the Fox sale happened. And then they already had, the Avatar land was delayed for years as well, too. Also cost probably a billion dollars. It cost a ton of money. So it's a good rumor in the sense that you can believe something like it is possible.

But I like the idea, yeah, that Iiger was canned because the board said he went soft i don't think the board is that cutthroat because eiger has been such a loyal like soldier for so long i feel like that that is such a turn on on him and right after his book where he's going around talking about everything he's done at disney and praising disney i mean i look i don't know i'm not sure i think that's a fun rumor that is very i mean it's very exciting corporate intrigue i think that heiger has as much whatever criticism you have of him has like dumped a ton of money at a ton of things yeah it doesn't seem like he gets hit with the like cheap like label as much as like a chapek does i don't know if that's just like pr spin but like the california

adventure redo like he put a ton of money into that the budget's for initially for like i mean galaxy's edge of blown way up but like obviously that was a huge budget thing that was probably i guess chapek announced it but that was right at the start of his like tenure this guy loves slinging billions yeah that's what i'm saying i feel like it does feel like bob eiger loves slinging billions he's gonna walk in next to ackerman and giamatti right um so i i like it yeah but also it's a bizarre like we will now punish you by making you not ceo but rather this slightly yes diminished role uh that you will get to stay in through the end of next year right well it's a it's a it is a it's a half measure it's a hedging too if that again if it's

indeed a real head by the mouse the mouse everybody uses that on these new message boards the utility bill is due at the house of mouse and someone's a little short it's the first of the month and rent is calling the mouse is like wacko jacko it's the same tabloid

yeah yeah the mouse is new skine you know that phrase about sitcoms yes you know it's sitcom god i'm so tired by the end of that word it takes forever to say that word isn't there a quicker way to say it skine great done clear everyone gets it as soon as they hear it who was uh who was the star of Empty Nest? Mulligan? Yes. Tom, what's his name? Mulligan's new Skine.

Bob doing boffo biz for the mouse. The house sets Thomas Mulligan to top line their newest Skine on Disney+. It's all, yeah. It's all very annoying. Wow. Very, very crazy. Oh, yeah good oh i was gonna say uh the other thing that i thought was interesting i came across in that verge article was that a lot of the the thinking kind of changed within the company kind of eiger seeming to drive this of like look you all we all work for the company. Everyone's a company man.

If something has to happen where consumer products takes a hit, but then the movies do well, take the hit, okay? Because the company is still winning. Rising tide lifts all ships. So even if something is is negative for like home entertainment, but it like a move they have to make to make the like streaming stuff do really well, the company is still winning because it's doing really well. Does that make sense? Well, now I'm distracted by the metaphor, though, because, of course, a sink, a ship has sunk this week as soon as the news was announced.

A sign. The opposite of a rising tide. Yes. A sinking ship i yeah in a in a bizarre like you know like a you know like a bird falling to his death upon a piece of news being released like frogs falling from the sky a jungle cruise boat sank immediately after jpeg was announced It is just a strange, obviously unrelated, but pretty funny that this really strange day where not just that,

but then a SWAT team showed up at the Yacht and Beach Club, which seemed like that was fine. That didn't end up being a bigger situation. Maybe it was a misjudged situation. Someone thought they saw someone with a gun under a coat. Police cars and SWAT and helicopters arrived.

So yeah, this is the literal environment that Chapek is in here. I mean, he's already ahead of Parks. And here's the guy. Great. And how are Parks doing? Well, lots of them are closed for two months because of coronavirus. The SWAT team is at the Yacht and Beach Club and a Jungle Cruise boat sank yeah I mean czar I look now I'm just spinning my own rumors this is all

orchestrated by Iger to get rid of yet another person that is in line for the throne he just like Iger with some bills to no Iger was it with a scuba mask in the magic kingdom under the boat like just drilling like with one of those like old-timey what do you call those drills you know i know what you're talking about yeah like wily coyote or something looney tunes character has and he drilled a hole in the bottom of the boat he snuck in in one of those like camouflage suits yes to look like a jungle cruise plant uh-huh and then stripped it off had scuba gear underneath jumped into the water made a boat sink and by making a boat sink he reminded everybody of titanic now everybody's tweeting about comparing this to titanic thus reminding

everyone of the prowess of james cameron oh yeah he should just be given all of the money in the world to finish his films wow yep that makes too much sense clear eiger's snit eiger's he's uh mission impossible pulling this wow he's ethan hunting it he maybe maybe you know even he got he got a loan um of the the cameron submarine too oh probably it's true i don't think it's deep that deep on but maybe there's a skinnier shorter submarine that could go under the water of the jungle cruise i buy it well now we know all right now we know let's solve that um very crafty some people mover cars collided oh that too is that right it's not the first time i've heard of that happening recently like a listener that happened to a couple months ago.

Again, everyone fine. I think they just bumped, but actively not supposed to function that way. No. Yeah. Very strange. I was trying to find other info about this sinking scenario. The boat was the Boma Conde Bertha.

It is one of the two wheelchair-equipped boats. So if this doesn't come back, they're going to need a new handicap boat. But this happened before. In 2004, a boat sank. And it is back in operation and has been ever since. I forget if it was with guests on board. But that was called the Sankuru Seiti. So if you get on the Sankuru Seiti at Disney World, know that that's one of the ones that sank.

And so there is hope for the bertha. So this is not without precedent. Is 2004 the Pressler era? I think he was done by then. Okay, I forget when he left. Was Iger up and running by then? I believe he took over in 2005, in transition. 2005, huh?

Did Iger drill a hole in the bottom of that boat too? Or was that before and that like created the need like, well, we got to do something. We got to get Eisner out of here. We got boats sinking. Yeah, let me see here. Oh, October 2005 was when Iger assumed the role of CEO. This is his little cat burglar.

That's right. Like iconic move. His little calling card. Wow. Stop sinking boats, Iger clear we're on to you yep we know um uh disney announces they're bringing impossible burgers to the park i missed that happened this week it was already at um the the uh festival that just wrapped up in epcot and there's impossible foods uh i think at there we're at the one we were at

too we were at food and wine i think the arts one it was at it's at the california adventure food and wine that just started this past week they're permanently in but they're gonna start adding it to like taste pilots like places where you can get a burger you know i went this week to the mall that had not the schomburg mall but the other mall that had uh mickey's kitchen uh which is in montclair i was at the shops at montclair and uh thinking about how wow in this space is where mickey was selling veggie burgers and how disgusting that sounded to me when I was a kid. And now, look, a permanent collaboration between Disney and Impossible, and it sounds great.

It sounds delicious. Yeah. As long as you're not ruining those things with hunts. Disgusting. Garbage hunts. Awful. Or like slightly mass-produced ketchups. Unless you got your hands in that ketchup, it's shit. Either all the way mass-produced ketchups. Unless you got your hands in that ketchup, it's shit.

It's either all the way mass-produced or it's artisan. It's either Heinz, where you suffer through hunts. Suffer. If it's like our homemade house ketchup, it's like, alright, let's see what you got. You're still judgy.

But it's of another level. But if it's homemade flavored ketchup, you're like,gy you're just of another level but if it's homemade other uh homemade flavored ketchup you're like huh all ears uh i i let's see again let's see what this is i had one in vegas where i was like oh this doesn't taste good okay what was it regular no it was like a chipotle ketchup hmm you're just not into chipotle i think you're a traditionalist when it comes to ketchup but again as a member of the hashtag sauce squad well there's not a lot of ketchups on that no i know but i'm just saying there's a variety of sauces so it's surprising right that's all i'm saying huh i'm going to test this out when we're out in the wild okay we're gonna have different i'm gonna find a place that has the most different kind of ketchup so we'll go okay a blind taste test oh maybe that's a good idea oh sure uh did you like remember umami

burger used to be good uh they would have like they're kind of like very tomatoey ketchup do you remember that uh yeah i like that one okay it was it was a lot of umami it was salty or whatever they put in there i don't know know. It was good, though. It was pretty good. Yeah. Maybe it's still good. I don't know. Have you seen this other new food?

I was looking up different, this big news. They have a new Coco Remember Me Guava Hand Pie at the Jolly Holiday Bakery. Confusing phrase. Yeah. Remember Me Guava Hand Pie. Hand pie? Yeah. What does hand pie mean?

They've really gone all in on hand pies. What's a hand pie? Well, like, we imagine, like, a hostava hand pie. Hand pie? Yeah. What does hand pie mean? They've really gone all in on hand pies. What's a hand pie? Well, like, we imagine, like, a hostess fruit pie. Oh, like some McDonald's would be a hand pie. Yeah, like a McDonald's. But why didn't they call those hand pies? Where's this phrase from? I don't know.

I think it was invented. I think it's, like, their marketing thing. Like a walking taco. That's a thing that a lot of places have been doing now. What? I don't know that one either. I've never heard that. They're all kind of walking. It's like a Fr taco that's a thing that a lot of places have been doing now what i don't know that one either that all kind of walking it's like a frito pie okay essentially frito pie are you are you a hand pie are you pro hand pie i uh i think it had to be case by case i'd probably try it okay but not a not a you don't have like did you have fruit pies as a child oh yeah okay

i didn't i was not a fruit pie kid. Even then, I knew like, these are bad for me. Like, you would read the calories and the fat content. You're like, oh, this is very bad. I'm back around to Ghostbusters snacks. Do you guys recall a Ghostbusters pie that was like green ooze inside? Yes. I never had it. It was like kind of horrible.

Yeah. I liked the idea of it so much that i may have even asked my mom to get it again just due to the concept but i i specifically remember opening that up in a lunchbox and going like jesus like even as a kid yeah too fakey to me i do think i had it once and i think it grossed me out it was too it looked like um like nickelodeon slime yes which is like was not appetizing to eat i liked slime fine but i always like was kind of grossed out by the idea of slime even getting on me was it not ghostbusters was it a ninja turtles a news if you had said there were both of them i

would say yes but i do remember the turtles too, so perhaps it is just the turtles. There was a real war for the lunch boxes. I'm looking at hostess turtles pies. I'm looking at one that is filled with vanilla pudding power. Pudding with an apostrophe. I would assume it's just vanilla pudding dyed green. Yeah. I just remember biting into something and a bunch of green pouring out and not being super psyched.

I am sure. Oh, yeah. Okay, I am sure. Oh, yeah. Okay, I see this. Oh, that doesn't look. I don't know. I had some version of this that I remember being gross. I was looking at an ad where Raphael has a quote bubble. Hey, free pie, dudes.

What a dream. If he walked into this room, right, and if he walked up to your screen door oh my gosh it's a full rafael who says hey free pie dudes oh man that would that is my dream i guess it's my dream and jason's dream combined yeah sure it's both vanilla pudding power anyway um so talking about i mean we've mentioned it a little, but talking about what affects one area of the company affects all the company. Yeah, the coronavirus is really going to affect Disney. So Shanghai and Hong Kong Disney have been closed since late January. They will probably end up closed for a full two months at least, at minimum.

Yeah. Tokyo is closing until mid-March as of now. For a couple of weeks right now. For a couple of weeks. Universal. Universal. Japan also closing. Legoland Japan is closing until mid-March, as of now. For a couple weeks right now, yeah. For a couple weeks. Universal Japan also closing. Legoland Japan is closing. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And now comes the laugh riot about this news. It is. It's really insane. I mean, like, I was trying to recall, like, are there other long-term closures? And I guess Tokyo must have been closed for a long time post-earthquake. But I don't think, this is totally unprecedented that multiple parks are closed for a long stretch of time. Well, and the Louvre I read this morning is closed. Oh.

Yeah. So people just taking precautions. Disneyland Paris is waiting and seeing. They're staying open for now, but they might. I was in line at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Wednesday and I looked at my phone and it said Orange County declares emergency. And some places that tweeted that, at least on theme park Twitter, that was often tweeted with like a picture of the main street station as if to say disneyland is infected get out now

yes well there's no proof of this this has not happened right i will say i'm already very sensitive to like if someone coughs around me i go oh come on don't get me sick please and it felt like one out of every two people was coughing just crazy i mean the person in front of me in line when i saw it was coughing like crazy and i was like oh my god i have it i have it for sure the news story gave it to you the news story is you ready yeah um yeah it's crazy i don't know what they're gonna do a lot of money's gonna be lost and yeah i mean when places now if you are going to disneyland just know that when places declare states of emergency one of the reasons is to open up access to funds just in case. So that may be a preventative measure.

But yes, there are scientists saying wash your hands a lot. Use hand sanitizer. Carry pocket hand sanitizer if you can. And even if you are healthy, you know, healthy, because like people get this if they're very if they're healthy, average adults, probably it's more like a bad cold or a flu to them. But if people have health conditions already, they're higher at risk. People don't like. Yeah, I think because it was like 80 percent of people who have it will just like think they have like a cold or something. Like you won't know it necessarily. But do be cognizant for immunocompromised people in the world.

Be healthy. Sure. Don't cough on people. Wash your hands a lot. I think if you have an old hostess Ninja Turtles pie, the chemicals in that are probably such that they would sanitize your hands. So chop open a pie. Oh, you're saying it's good. Crack that baby open.

Get that ooze on you. Might be more sanitizing than what they call hand sanitizer. Yeah, if it's been aged 25 years. Yes, past a point it became so toxic. It might also now also, if you opened it around a turtle, the turtle might grow into a living turtle. It's going to turn you into something, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll turn you into a bebop or rocksteady cool which is pretty awesome it's gonna give me punk qualities

that i didn't previously have yeah i'm gonna grow a mohawk and a nose ring at the very least you'd become like super shredder super scott hell you just be bigger oh yeah that's good super scott yeah oh man i gotta get my hands on some of these pies. He loves the Beach Boys twice as much. Wow. Is it even possible? Could it be done? Super Jason, of course, naps for longer in Vegas.

An eight-hour REM cycle. The dream. He didn't do anything in Vegas. Oh, my God. He's yawning so much. Super Jason. Well, so, yes, there have been cases of coronavirus in Orange County. Hopefully that doesn't spread. But it's not all bad news in Orange County, California, because there was some very good news this week, this weekend.

An amazing event okay so if uh listeners are not aware of the some of the things that have transpired on the second gate or on the on the twitter you might be very versed in in all of this stuff but you you may not have heard uh the episode about Electronics, the surprisingly well-themed electronics store chain, which I think we've all been fascinated by over the years. Very good one in Burbank, very good one in Woodland Hills. in Anaheim, where I went with my wife, Erin, and we found this video that played in a space console and then over many different monitors all over the store, where an astronaut tells you to press a red button that makes a space launch happen on top of the store. The video cuts to the outside of the Anaheim Fries. A guy says, Anaheim Fries is uh and and you've succeeded in your mission i loved this

video very much i told you guys about it you had not been to the store and uh seeing this seemed like well this reminds me so much of patrick warburton and soren and this seems like you know for this guy who made this and who appears in this, you know, this is my dream. Being in a video that plays in a loop in a really specific location all day, every day. Thus, I set about recreating the video. I did it exactly with the same framing, the same graphics. I did all the work for them. And then when we put out this episode about a month ago at this point, I said, you know, maybe this is the start of a little campaign to try to get myself to be in that video, in that spot, in Fry's Electronics. It's been a big roller coaster since then, but it's all happened very fast.

I feel like sometimes we hatch schemes on this show a little bit like you know we should do we should try to do this right and this felt like one where it it came together shockingly quickly it was a launch yeah it was not a when you're saying it's a roller coaster it was but it was a launch coaster it happened really quick it ramped up uh from zero to 85 very fast yes and as i'm you know i'll quote a listener uh uh you know to spoiler i'll quote a listener uh who was at the event that we had and fries in saying you know he said it not me this guy said hey scott you now are a launch king wow yeah yeah it felt really good because here's the the end and you and listeners listeners very well might know this at this point.

But all of a sudden, it worked out. As we are recording this, I am in the video. They used my video. I am the new astronaut in Fry's Electronic Santa Heim. Yes. Playing on multiple screens. So many. Four giant screens.

A couple of little ones inside the spaceship uh this was nuts and we had a little event uh uh to celebrate this but i i guess this is probably the place to sort of talk about how it came together um because we posted the video uh mike you correct. We've been kind of banking episodes in advance for a little bit, and you were like, maybe we should put this one out soon, because what if, given the state of some of the stores in this chain, what if there is a problem and the store goes away?

Right. There was a ticking clock in my mind, because if there was something, an objective we objective we had to meet of something we wanted done let's just be on the safe side in case who knows fries whatever something would go away one of the stores would leave especially obviously the anaheim there's a few starting to close i think one in nor in norcal recently closed and we were we were a little bit worried and you i i totally agreed with you when you said that i'm really glad you said it. And so that made us think, let's get that episode up quickly. We put up the video on Twitter very quickly.

And I didn't want to be the person tweeting at Fries. I didn't even at them in the tweet. I didn't want to be bugging these people. I wanted to approach them with a lot of civility. I even said in the episode, let's not be mean about this don't say hey get say fucking fries get gerdner in there asap or i'll torch the store why no they'd only be doing us a favor i wanted to be very nice and people totally took the message everybody a lot of the guys of doing this was that i did a 4K up-res of the video.

And so a lot of people really played the game and commented like, oh, man, the 4K up-res looks amazing. You have to install this ASAP. And the listeners, thank you all so much, by the way. The listeners tweeted this at Fry's Electronics. And it seemed like a lot of people were tweeting at Fry's Electronics. But yet, to no avail for several days until someone, maybe multiple people,

forgive me, I don't know who, someone tweeted at Fry's Help. Yes. An alternate account. This was very smart because after that account was tweeted at, we got a response from a man on the inside, a man named Billy.

We know his name is Billy because he said the name in the tweet. He gave us a specific. This was very, very excellent customer service. He gave us and it is not just, you know, a shadow brand. We know who the individual was. Right now we know who we're aiming at. It is Billy. was right now we know who we're aiming at it is billy quickly we begin dming in a very surreal move that podcast the i am looking at a twitter dm exchange between podcast the ride and official

fries electronics this is so delightful because you feel like you're interacting with charlie chip yes what i see on the other end is charlie chip who is a big computer chip right the mascot in the stores who wears different costumes and he's typing away at a keyboard like what's that old uh the ending of the tv shows where a guy's typing away on the typewriter um i yes he like he himself is uh is sending the messages. So this is delightful. And I will say, as soon as it turned into DMs, it was always coming from the perspective of, let's work this out. Let's see if we can make this happen. It never felt combative.

It never was like, yeah, we'll see. It never felt humoring. I right away, from Billy, felt like, oh, he likes it. This is going to be fun. I think this is a real possibility. So we're going back and forth, but I won't hear for a couple of days. And then suddenly he's like,

so if we can work this out, would you guys want to have like an event in the store? Of course we would like to have an event in the store. Yeah. Incredible. That would be so now my hopes are climbing sky high. I'm so excited. i'm dreaming of what that event could be i'm thinking about a speech that i would give i don't like getting ahead of myself

lest dreams be crushed but i certainly was getting ahead of myself and imagining this great day then another tweet in the same week this is that we hear about shape back and all of this nonsense uh on the day before shape back i believe this is on a monday news story fries anaheim is closing my heart sinks this is awful this is the death of the dream right uh mission not accomplished there will be no event and i'm just sad for them because i'm so fond of this store. I named it my number one fries, which is saying a lot. They're all a lot of fun. It's like at this point, it's like that Les Mis scene. You're like, I dreamed a dream.

Exactly how I felt. I felt like I was. What's the character's name? I can't think of her name. I felt like I was shaved bald. I was wearing a burlap sack. I was sad in the cold. I, yes, very tragic for me.

I felt all the way down. Fontaine. I felt exactly like Fontaine. You sing that song and then you die, I believe. Memory serves, Fontaine. Sing that song and then it falls over. Oh, I don't think I knew that, actually. I believe that's how the timing of the show works out.

Yeah. I thought it'd be a life worth living. How does that song go? That's a lyric, right? Yeah, that's about right. So then I'm like, let me round up the horse. I'll correspond with Billy about this and just say, ah, too bad. Well, thanks for trying, brother.

I send my condolences. I'm not even sure I mentioned the video. I'm like, well, or maybe just like, oh, it could have been fun. Then he writes back and is like, yeah, I know. Bad news. Well, it just really puts the clock on this thing to get your video in the store. Billy, yes. Oh, my god! He's not giving up. With all the things happening, the store is going to be closed in six days.

He is still determined to make this happen. Alright, so now I'm caught in this week where, oh my god, is it going to happen? I hung out with my friend Raja. He asked how things are going. I'm like, it's pretty crazy right now because I am caught in the whirlwind of fries electronics might use my video or they might not the store might close i don't know what is going to happen uh i i felt crazy and uh but nonetheless i'm prepping the video i'm doing the parts that i had not completed before such as that i needed to make my own new special effects shot of the rocket taking off from on top of the store i had comping work to do how many hours total i should have i uh i mean what's that 20 hours on all of this yeah definitely

yeah yeah oh just set up the green to go rent the costume right uh and it's all costing me money. I had to rent the costume costs money. Uh, it's, it's money and it's time. Uh, and not to mention bizarrely, another ticking clock, the store's last day is going to be on Sunday. Uh, I subscribe to a like video stock footage site.

My yearly subscription is done on Sunday. Wow. Same day. So I've got limited time to get all of my space footage. There's so much going on here. It's a race to the finish line. But, you know, we start going back and forth

and then all of a sudden on a Friday afternoon, I get a photo from Billy of my video, a frame from my video in the exact same screen where i saw it a year ago did you guys realize did i tell you this to the day not to the day to the week wow it's still pretty good yes it was exactly if not for the leap year to end up being on a leap year day no like almost

exactly the same from when we saw it for the first time. I've never been so nervous sending a tweet. We all agreed. Okay, so some kind of event. And also, Jason, as you said, you're in Vegas this entire time. You're like, what's going on now? Every now and then I look at my phone and I'm just like, what is happening back in the city? I was thinking like, oh, this happens really fast. I might miss this.

It's just fine. That too. That's another ticking clock. I want this to just happen. Jasonason might not be there i won't have my full crew with me and what would it mean but i mean we worked out like a precise rocket launch yes everything came into place yeah except something was on fire when i was uh uh by griffith park when i was driving down so i hit very bad traffic so i showed up about 10 minutes after. I walked in, everyone facing a different direction. Cheers.

And I'm like, what is happening? Wait, don't skip ahead. Hang on. That's just a tease. That's just a tease. Because that is suddenly not just a cherry on top. That is a gigantic mound of whipped cream and an avalanche

of cherries on top uh so friday afternoon oh my god i think it's happening we all agreed okay let's try to do something it can't be too official but let's just tweet out you know hey we're gonna be there we're gonna go check it out uh you know come down if you can so i rent the astronaut costume again i'm again in in the tank for more money this keeps being at a financial disadvantage to me would it have been better just to buy in hindsight yeah i guess looking back uh uh yeah and i'm look i'm gonna use that for something else i mean to have a astronaut costume on hand yeah that's gonna pay itself off um so it's uh again this timeline the store is we announced the store is closing forever uh that's on a monday will be closed on sunday we discovered for the last weekend that the store is ever open they will be playing my

video in a loop so we're gonna be there saturday at one uh uh we get there right and i i caught you in the parking lot mike uh we walk in we didn't know what we were gonna be walking into in fact then we walked in there's nothing on the screen and i'm like did something happen is it not uh showing but then i hear a clap and then another clap and i walk up and in front of that space console a an audience of dozens of our listeners who have all gathered to watch this historic launch uh and yes as i said i am i'm wearing the space suit again. So yeah, look, it's right stuff. It's Apollo 13.

This is a hero moment for me. And then something I could not have anticipated, which is that I go up, I get up on the little stage. It's kind of a little like stage almost uh yes on the space console uh i walk up there and i am joined by a child an eight-year-old boy also wearing an orange space jumpsuit and i'm just did the store coordinate this what's happening come to realize this is a a listener brought his family from flagstaff arizona for this event drove their son wearing a space suit and he joins me it was like the you know uh everybody's marching victoriously at the end of life aquatic and then like a little kid runs up to it's like now there's a kid part of this crew what's going on i ask him his name he says

soren this whole thing my goal to be like the patrick warburton soren video yeah and i meet a little child named soren it's magic the strangest thing uh i ask if he wants to be a fake astronaut someday too he says yes uh so that's the soren is the next generation if i can do it he can do it um i made a little speech right after the speech jason walks in you did you did not that's the only timing that didn't work out that was yeah that's fine um uh we got to you know applaud for billy who i declared uh this is an audience's suggestion. I made Billy an official Podcast the Ride legend. Billy, you were a PTR legend and well-deserved. Thank you.

Nobody's helped the show more recently than you, Billy. And then, Jason, as you say, I love that this was what you saw when you walked in. You found not only the audience. I'll get into it in Vegas. But my brain, I feel like it's still, Vegas is overwhelming. And you're so nap-held. So I walked into, yeah, I'm still in nap-world. I walked into a happening, like a pop-up, flash-on, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah, yeah, just in progress. Scott's happening and it freaks him out, man. It freaks me out. That's exactly and it freaks him out, man. It freaks me out. That's exactly how it felt. And I was like, it's not going to be a real event and it's not like mandated, but certainly we're doing it and nobody minds. We're just giving a speech in this store while my own voice plays over and over again. There was a, so you're giving the speech, this is before Jason gets there.

And there was, because people would gather, people were gathering that I assume were not our listeners. Because there's still shoppers in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The store's about to close. People also separately want to say goodbye to the store. Yes. And an older couple walked over. And I was like, there's no way they listened to the show.

The guy pulls his phone out, starts recording. Because I'm Instagram living immediately. way they listen to the show the guy pulls his phone out starts recording because i'm i'm instagram living immediately i was overwhelmed too because i was i would come from disneyland and i was like wait what's going on i didn't know what was happening oh i guess i should just instagram live this and an old couple came up next to me and i will say unless they were listeners i don't think they were they were recording you the whole, and your jokes were killing with the guy. Yes. He was really liking all the jokes.

Great. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. They thought you were an actual astronaut. Yeah. I just think maybe they thought it was like a funny sketch that was happening. But they were like really, they really enjoyed what was happening. There was another confusing thing where I was up there wearing an astronaut jumpsuit, and then a couple walks up, and they're like wanting to to take a picture and they asked my wife Erin to take a picture

and I was like oh hey all right and I stood next to them and they were like oh uh and then they said all right now one without the astronaut so they were just there to take a picture of the space console right which I shouldn't think is that weird because that's what i was doing right yeah not that long ago i guess people did want to see this thing for the last time yeah and i should say by the way i got to talk to this guy billy a ton um billy was talking about how much people love the store love the theming how much it means to them he said several make a wish kids have made their wish to go be in that console. Really? And there's kind of a gate in there where you can't sit as if you're driving it.

But for Make-A-Wish kids, they opened it up so you could sit in the console for a while and feel like an astronaut. Wow, that's crazy. This place is important to people and clearly very important to him. He's so fond of the store. I felt like the heartfelt nature of this whole thing right but uh jason anyway then so the first thing you see when you walk in i i yeah so the first thing i see is everyone uh uh clapping and i'm like uh but they were looking to the side they weren't looking at me so i'm just like trying to like slip in out of the way because i don't know what they're looking at or what they're

cheering for because i think there was you know there's still shelves and stuff everywhere some people are obscure you were partially obscured by shelving. Mike was like, yeah, creeping behind a shelf and Instagram live. I came around the thing and Mike's like, you're on Instagram live right now. Right. I walked right into it. And then I see in the distance what everyone else has already seen and is cheering for. And a pure surprise. A surprise for me.

A surprise for everyone. Walking so dramatically way in the distance a gas a gasp from the crowd as they see charlie chip our friend the mascot of fries charlie chip wearing an astronaut costume a big cloth helmet and bend jet pack essentially an anthropomorphic computer chip wearing a space suit obviously already one of our top characters in fiction yes yeah oh now rising the ranks at this point i didn't even know his name exactly until we did the episode yeah but now after that and one i think one of the most successful elements that we found of fries was him in all of those costumes and different guises. Charlie looks great.

The place that made the suit, it's great. So to see him in Korean and knowing that they arranged this for him, even though this was never like in a really official event, that I was like having a child's birthday party. It was like they went in the back and got the Chucky costume. They got Charlie Chip to come out for me. And then we just had photos like, okay, do you want a picture with us and Charlie? Do you want a picture with just Charlie?

Critter country, as Scott said, like the poo bear. It's like when there's Tigger here, there's poo, there's rabbit or something. We felt like we had to do an impromptu suited character receiving line. So yeah yeah you got a picture with charlie and the three of us or if you just wanted charlie we were happy yeah yeah yeah hey look you

know there's other opportunities to meet us charlie an astronaut charlie who knows when we'll see him again yeah when he i watched the video back when i'm like i'm not sure whether to go to him because the audience is so far away and then he gives me a little like arms, like a little come hither, essentially. Like, hey, I'm all in. And I ran up and gave him a big hug. I can't stop watching this footage. This delights me so much. And then I said, here, come meet my friends.

The child, Soren, who was there, pointed out that one of his cords was loose. Yes. So he was like worried like like charlie can't breathe he was losing oxygen um so then yeah we're hanging out with charlie i stopped knowing what the hell to do with charlie after a point you were trying what was really funny is to be polite you were trying to like excuse charlie yes so like in case you need a break or something giant costume yeah it's probably pretty it's insane so i think like you know people came up and took photos and then we were like all

right well thanks charlie and then charlie was like like gave the thumbs up but then stayed put which i guess if you're told you're on charlie duty for a little while but it was definitely like oh yeah we got if you want to go get this off, please. And Charlie would just be like, thumbs up and stay. It's like if you met a musician or a movie star, it means a lot to you. And then you say, like, you know, I just think you're the greatest. And you inspire me to do what I do. And just thanks, man. Cool.

And then that wasn't it. And then you didn't know what else to say. Like, now it's just uh you let them off the hook but yeah they they've stuck around i mean god bless charlie for not wanting to leave if you want to say the part but then we got this was a wonderful thing we got to lead everybody over to the presentation room which is what they call the little movie theaters that are in every store this one is inside a giant spaceship and it's closed down they're closing down big parts of the store this is like you know do not pass tape everywhere but they led us specially and opened the door they like unlocked it for us just to go sit in there i always take

this picture where it's just me sitting in the theater and now i have it from the same perspective aaron took it where it was a group full of people in the presentation room. And then we did a little like impromptu live interview with Billy where he told us great. He talked about the theming and where it comes from. I think they used to build rocket parts in this particular vicinity. Yeah. At the very least, I believe. Yeah.

Him having to run this all past one of the fries. Right. That's an element of this we haven't said also. The founders of the company had to sign off on this. And the guy who was in the video before, who I replaced, saw it. He's seen it. Who still works in the company. He still works at the company.

His name's Jim. He used to make all of the in-house videos, like the TV commercials and everything. And apparently, he didn't want to be the guy originally. He did it because nobody else in the office volunteered. You freed Jim. I finally. Freed him from the chains. His burden.

He never wanted to be on camera. He didn't ask for this. No. I really did him a favor. But hey, it wasn't just a banner day for you, Scott. I mean, Mike got to correctly identify that matchbox 20 came on in the store and a listener brought us all some tea cakes yes well that was the flag staff yes the wonderful people from these delicious tea cakes absolutely yeah they're

wonderful yeah they were given to the he brought a cake for the people in the store yeah the cake said uh fries anaheim you give us strength there's a sector keeper quote was on a cake for the people who have to really have to say goodbye to this store whose store is closing this was just all such wonderful heartfelt stuff and and i'll i'll say this that that uh getting to talk to Billy for a while, who was a great guy, it really lit up when we got there. He was excited from second one, as we intuited.

And he said, as we were leaving, this could have been a real bad news weekend. We have to close a beloved store. It never feels good just logistically to have to do this. And just, we love this one in particular. And you guys help make it fun for us what could have been a bummer of a weekend you it's like we got to celebrate this place instead of it just

shutting down forever that's yeah that's i met the store manager people were like that people what's so funny is because like it was really uh uh fun and positive everyone was like cool with us like hanging out but i still felt like the employees were like i think can they really like it's just like taking up real estate in the middle of the aisles it felt weird i know and and the manager's like thank you so much for coming and i was like well you're welcome like well it was i was i'm saying it was positive despite like i was just like not sure yeah i didn't i was so relieved to walk in and realize a group had already gathered and they had not stopped it i was worried i'd be giving a speech and then somebody would walk up and go hey what the hell are you doing here and we all have to run away but no we could

not have been more welcome we did a private show in the screening room which we were led in to do it was uh it was honestly it was an immersive if you're a listener well yes it was an immersive, if you're a listener. Yes. It was an immersive of walking around the store with us. Live flash, fries, which we couldn't do this in a theme park. We couldn't get, we got to like, this got to be like a, for one afternoon, a podcast the ride themed environment. One of the hosts is up on the walls, play like, my voice is echoing. You can meet us. We're doing a live little show for you

we're talking to people about others that just became a fan meet and greet uh i made the offer that uh we if you bought something from the store you know go support the store and then bring it back to us and we would sign it we had to sign incredible we had to sign all this fun shit somebody bought the kind of implement you'd use to pull a pizza out of an oven and he was like well this is the closest thing we could find to a paddle

a paddle for your ass as the guy from the Rainforest Cafe would tell me what did we sign we signed women in, an adult movie. Yeah, Men in Black porno. Yeah, because they still have a porno section. That was the big surprise to me.

That was shocking. They have pornography? Okay, a little warning. Do the little skip ahead if you don't want to hear dirty words, because I cannot say. Listener Andrew found this, probably the funniest item in the store, Women in Black 2, and it had the tagline,

Protecting the Earth from the Cum of the Universe. Yeah. Now, that's funny. I don't care who you are right there. That's funny. The Cum of the Universe. Yeah. Because the tagline, in case you don't remember,

is the Scum of the Universe. So, it was sitting right there which also like scum is like kind of a derivative like that they're in the same ballpark there i think i suppose so but that was just the i mean people were buying the 85 cents branded fries water bottles which featured gorillas or apes going crazy for like palm pilots and laptops. I regret not buying one. Someone found a dirty cyborg Funko Pop. And then my favorite, a dog-eared 2011 Farmer's Almanac.

Very dog-eared. Very dog-eared. 2011, which they're still selling for $569. I would say that I did not get a good chance to walk around the Fry's because the people would bring this up to us and I would be like, this does not feel like it's sold in an electronics store in 2020. Right. But apparently there's a bunch of like, the porno that we signed,

it felt like it had been sitting there for 15 years yeah it's a parody of a movie from 2002 what right yeah so and it was but like the cover was falling off of it and i was like they've just been there's just been a porno sitting in this store for 20 plus like 20 years this is another your skip ahead too i watched there there's another one called the skip it skip it complete and uncut a foreskin fantasy that was in fries yes yes this is so much weirder than the poop uh toys we talked about there were these series of toys that we talked about on the patreon episode someone pooperooze someone bought a 30 dollar casery phone case oh yeah same company from the profit profit company yeah we should

have written i apologize i can't remember who bought what so that was mia i believe made this part of a vacation from canada from canada going to dis Disneyland, and doing the full Disneyland Hotel, Napa Road, doing the full- The giant full- And this happened to fall on the weekend. Circuit tour. Yeah. I'm so happy. The fact that this was at the Anaheim one of all of them, and I turned it into a-

Then I went and I had a celebration drink at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen. Sure. At a Sarsaparilla Manhattan. I mean, hopefully other people turned it into a little Disneyland. It was so close to our favorite park, my favorite store. This was just such a heartwarming event. A podcast to ride immersive. It plants the seed.

Can we do more podcasts to ride immersive? Well, it's funny you bring that up because we've maybe talked about it we have i'm i'm i'm pimping you out a little yes we have this if you're interested in this idea whatever it is the general notion of this please let us know yeah but it made me excited for little like yeah little happenings there's a yeah there will be more happenings to come i I don't know. We don't have such a solid idea yet, but there are. I mean, look, maybe we'll hit up the last hour of Operation of the Fries Anaheim and buy one of the many copies of Mad Max Fury Road and screen that.

Or one of the many copies of Red Bull's sports movie. Red Bull puts a ton of money into very beautiful 4K snowboarding and skydiving movies. They had a giant box set. Massive. With multiple carabiners and keychains. 50 box sets of Red Bull's Extreme Sports Collection. There were 50 of those, I feel like. There was only one copy of the 70s film FM starring Howard Hessman that they were selling for $30.

Still. They aren't cutting the prices. prices yes nothing was marked out dirty cyborg was still there was a collection of three uh three movies i never heard of uh and it was called the mother trucker collection and it was just i think like uh like women in hot pants like driving cars sure and maybe killing people i don't know and i was like what and there's like 35 dollars they're standing there wait a minute what did this ever sell for 35 dollars one of you said there's a whole aisle of reading glasses and then a few minutes later i saw someone walking to the register with a brand new pair of reading glasses to purchase wow yeah we were in there for like two hours and i do the only regret i have is that i didn't go aisle by aisle

yeah yeah and try to figure out the weirdest i meant to get a watusi smoothie before it closed or whatever i think they were not running the smoothies. They weren't running? Okay. Pretty good store, right? You guys haven't been before. Yeah, no, I hadn't. You got to see it. No, last two days. There's a giant shuttle in the back of this. It's so impressive. That they can't move.

That's built into the store. So they have to blow it up? Yeah, maybe. Or that'll just be whatever it turns into. It's like a Sam's Club now has a... Well, I was saying to some listeners that if any Fry's close, they should reopen a Toys R Us inside of it. Oh, yes.

Good call. Toys R Us is a real... Oh, and that with a space show. Right. That's what I was saying. I was saying if they close any of the ones with theming, how about Toys R Us reopens in there? But that's a whole other episode

about what's going on with the Toys R Us company. Yeah, yeah. Now, another bit of inside information. The Woodland Hills Fries, which is themed after Alice in Wonderland and really detailed Lewis Carroll style drawings. There is a news story officially saying that it is closing. And it may be someday, but we have the inside line that it will be open through all of 2020. So get to that store yeah and i'll give this little tease there's a possibility of a podcast the right presence

in there maybe maybe just an idea we've thrown us in yeah and the real cliffhanger because i don't even want to consider this fries too i think there's maybe still a fries too full episode to do but i think maybe it can't happen until this plays itself out this may not be the end of astronaut scott astronaut scott may still have a future in the fries chain and i'll leave it at that oh interesting someone's going back to the moon is it have anything in orbit does it have anything to do with a movie that they will sell on a fries that is an astronaut porno there's an apollo 13 uh uh it's yeah it's apollo 69 it's uh yeah well i'm gonna i'm doing a couple i'm gonna do apollo 69 and i'm gonna do the white stuff uh which is of course referring to, yeah, please skip ahead.

Or yeah, I, I don't have to say it. I'm not going to say, uh, uh, so, um,

thank you all for making this happen. This was such a delight to be in that story. A year later, I was on the same platform. I was so delighted by it. And now I'm in the video, but it was, by the way,

so aggressive to be in there, my same voice clip. And I also did the video. It was, by the way, so aggressive to be in there. My same voice clip. And I also did the countdown. Seven, six. So there's my voice playing aggressively nonstop in the store for two days. Kind of maddening. But so very surreal and so fun to see. Listeners, you made it happen.

Thank you so much for making it happen. Thank you to our fan Beattie, our fan and listener Beattie, who is documenting a lot of this, taking a lot of great photos. And in fact, on her YouTube, Theme Park ASMR, you can watch our impromptu interview with Billy live from the Anaheim Prize presentation room. So thank you, Beattie, for that. And yeah, look, not only for us did we have fun, but I think we helped this poor store that's going out of business have a good last weekend. We all made some good stuff happen here. Yeah, I was blown away by a lot of things. I think I said this before we started recording.

I was impressed at how many people online said that this whole thing made them cry. Cry? People shed tears over this. Our friend Eva Anderson, apparently. I'm so touched by this. This is incredible. I didn't know the podcast would be, I didn't know we'd get here and how we'd, like, somehow the story with the most heart involved me seeing a funny video in a store, going to

Carthay Circle, drinking Manhattans and saying, what if I was in the video? And suddenly it's become oh and well i was going to say because i ended up feeling not like anne hathaway in but rather anne hathaway accepting her Oscar for Les Miserables and saying it came true that's exactly how I felt oh no yeah you're right what happens next is America going like fuck you oh no shit the backlash for seemingly indescribable reason just confusingly just everyone turned on well I have already experienced people turning on me for confusing reasons that being

not liking a boat ride where you see lots of plants this has been a real whiplash too for you yeah yeah I swung from show villain Hollywood Gairdner heel to mega face like really if we're going wrestling and who knows I may swing back again i'm the wild card

you never know you know i'm gonna fall wrestling always says the the guy who's turned heel and face the most is the big show uh so maybe you'll be the big show of the podcast the ride you'll turn heel and face so many times people won't be able to track it oh maybe that's my thing yeah just wildly constant back and forth up and down do you hate me do you love me all right hey i make you feel something either way that's the point um and i and and one more thing i was going to say this in the speech but then you weren't there at the speech but i i just i thought if you know if we can do this if a small town podcaster can become the astronaut in a store that is about to close who knows what else is possible why couldn't another small town podcaster become the mayor

of disneyland it's true that'd be great we're in an election year i've got the endorsement of the wall street journal so that's true that's also that too jason was was that this week too yeah that was i think i found out about it sunday or monday i didn't find out about i got the wall street journal stipple drawing someone was drawing you someone's i had to send i had to provide a picture so they could do the stipple drawing. It was, yes, like this very traditional style of newspaper drawing. And the drawings were done of an NFL star of, what is it? NBA, the Bucks, the Milwaukee Bucks. Yes, perhaps.

Okay, okay. Yeah. Amanda Lund, a former Disney princess and a great comedian writer who has been on our show. Yourself and Tony Baxter. Tony Baxter. deland a former disney princess and a great comedian writer who's been on our show uh yourself and tony baxter our hero we're imaginary legend tony baxter we're all done in the same style because at the end of the day we're all just we're all just disney fans we're all just do you think unites us all tony s had to have seen that that guy uh about 50 50 whether people could get past the paywall or not oh yeah it's hard no but i think oh yes yeah i did once and then didn't another time for whatever reason it worked on my phone and then nothing else um yeah i so insane there's that guy who asked me about

ice cream talking about ice cream again talking about ice cream again. Talking about ice cream again. Well, guys, you know what? I'm always going to be fond of that final week, that leap week of February 2020. That was really something. And maybe, maybe the rise of JPEG is a good thing. Maybe. Maybe it bodes well.

Very possible. It's a great new era that'll be distinctly Disney, but authentically Podcast the Ride. And folks, you survived Podcast the Ride. Boy, that was something. If you didn't hear the beginning of all this fries

nonsense, and for more great stuff, as always, and for eventually fries too, big teaser, go to patreon.com slash podcast the ride, uh second gate where you get five uh for five dollars you get three bonus episodes every month and uh for all the other stuff and for videos of all of this uh the fries adventure go to our twitter or instagram or our facebook group and go watch our live our impromptu live show on youtube yeah there's so much it has

been documented i just briefly looked at all of this stuff it has been doc so well documented it's like the footage of it more well documented than some real space launches i was gonna say yeah it's better yeah for sure yeah there's no way because this is once in a lifetime some people will say we faked this whole thing there are enough witnesses i think that we can prove it did happen in a warehouse in anaheim this was not a this was not a hoax was officially filmed in a warehouse off the beaten track take take from that what you may they'll be truthers but uh they're wrong we lived it it happened and we'll be back for more fun we have so much fun coming up in march so many great

guests yeah uh stay stay tuned it's gonna be another great month uh jpeg's gonna be good to We'll be back for more fun. We have so much fun coming up in March. So many great guests. Stay tuned. It's going to be another great month. JPEG is going to be good to us all. Bless JPEG and good night. 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.