Podcast: The Ride - DCA 1.0

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

As we approach the 20th Anniversary of Disney's California Adventure, we take a look back at the early pun-filled days of Disneyland's Second Gate. The Universal Studios Florida Music Video Melee up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY BROOKLINEN Go to Brooklinen.com and use promo code RIDE to get $25 off when you spend $100 or more, plus free shipping. Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever Dog. Warning, the following podcast contains an ice cream train, seed talk, a horrific batch of fonts, and Spin City era Richard Kind, all part of the troubled stew that was Disney's California Adventure 1.0. Come reminisce with us today on Podcast The Ride. Greetings from California. Welcome to Podcast The Ride, the show where we love to San Diego to theme parks and spill the Yosemite about our favorite rides. I'm Scott Golden Gaitner, and here's a guy who frez knows his stuff about theme parks,

and you could take that to the Burr Bank. It's Mike Carlsbadson. Hi there. My name is Mike Carlsbadson. And I am thrilled today to be joined by my two best Sacramento buddies. Sacramento buddies. Right? bud sacrament buddies sacramento buddies right um uh yeah that works but it that makes me have to change my my next one oh sorry sorry sorry because i holly would like to introduce the

other host of the show his favorite movie is mr mulholland's opus. Jason San Luis Abispadin. That's right. Also would have taken Mulholland Drive. Cleaner, smoother, yes. That's better. You punched it up. How about Sacrament Bros? My sac...

Yeah. We're the three Sacrament Bros. Yeah, that's good. That makes sense. three this we're the three sacrament bros yeah that's good that makes sense could also be san luis abyss bros you could really change that's true you interchange all of the sands um if you don't know why uh i did all that uh and it still might not add up but if you if you don't know why all this is happening, then you didn't get to experience the original Disney's California Adventure, which I feel was like walking around what I just did. Yes. Is that accurate?

You mean the most jam-packed theme park ever, right? As the LA Times was hyping it up. They said that then? That is the headline to the soft opening Roundup article. January 14th, 2001. The most jam-packed theme park on Earth?

What? What do you mean? Oh wait, maybe DisneySea wasn't open yet. When did DisneySea open? Because if it was open... DisneySea opened later in 2001, didn't it? I believe. Well, then that's the problem.

But the reason they described it that way is because the contents of this article is all about how we are expecting folks come early in the morning or late at night because we're going to be turning people away from this place. We're expecting 7 million people opening year. And that did not happen. Do you have any idea where it ended up? I'm going to put you on the fact spot.

But I saw some numbers that were not good. I just don't remember them. They were expecting... So for... They were expecting for the original... For Classic Disneyland Park, they were expecting $13.3 million, and at DCA, they were expecting $7 million. What they got was $12.3 million and $5 million.

Oh, man. Wow. Wow. Yeah, and 5 million. Oh, man. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And in general, just like the day-to-day crowds were not what they thought they... It was like they thought they were going to... They kind of scared everybody away, which is similar to what happened a little bit with various points of the Star Wars.

I mean, Star Wars is always pretty jammed. But like, I mean, remember the rest of that day of Galaxy's Edge opening where just like everywhere else at Disneyland is a ghost town? It was so nuts. Yes. And we thought we were like going to get tasered if we didn't immediately like run out. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes.

I was very worried. I was like, oh, oh well they told us we have to leave by two o'clock and if we don't or noon and if we don't get out by noon you know what happens jail and it's 1203 and we're standing on an largely empty wooded pathway at the yes other entry can't be in this park anymore yeah If we hadn't gotten out in time, we all would have been put into slave Leia costumes. We're all chained up. And been on

Chapek's barge. Put on Chapek's barge. We would have gone out into the desert. You mean Chapek's actually two tons? They Photoshop him to look like that. He's actually a hulking worm monster.

JPEG is the hut. JPEG is a hut. Huts are real. JPEG the hut. That's why they cut the banter ride is they had to pay for his barge. That is some lame joke that's been made by some theme park account right or some theme park uh like not journalists but commentator that's one oh this one sorry it's the current one talking yeah i really we really need to check check ourselves when we act like we're so much cooler

than the other theme park media um to to give you an idea of that so these numbers and again you can find this la times article they are it's the most big dick energy you've ever they're like walking around on top of the world the park is not opened yet but they're like get ready get ready for this so in 2019 the uh rough attendance numbers and this is all coming from like la times and orange county register disneyland 18.7 million dca 9.9 million uh and that year they were like the numbers are kind of plateauing even with galaxy's edge but in theory that's a decent year like that's that's a much higher increase like than 18 years ago and it's just over half at the

second park on a good year it's just over half as many people right wow um which especially they were like framing the park initially also like still they wanted those numbers to be as high, but they were also saying, it's not as much as Disneyland. They still would kind of hedge their bets. It's a 75% Disneyland, but that's good, right? You're okay with that, right? And no one was okay with that.

We're talking here about, the episode's called DCA 1.0, and we're doing this because this very week, California Adventure will be celebrating its 20th anniversary. February 8th, to be exact, is when the park opened. So 20 years of California Adventure. And could we celebrate the wonderful part, the many great things that there are to do there now,

or not now, but were to do when it was open, the incredible park it's become. We could do that, or we could flash back to the bizarre, spare, annoying version that we got some 20 years ago. What does it sound like, listeners, we would do if you know us? What do you think it sounds like? You had to guess. Well, yeah, I think it's clear what we're going to do.

And I think it's a good area for us and a good, like, what I'm excited about here is that so many of our episodes are about a specific ride or place or area of a park. And this, I feel like, and I, you know, this is one of those titles that's open to interpretation, DCA 1.0, but to me, it's about a vibe. It's like a general aesthetic, an aesthetic that manifests in signs and fonts and odd architecture and a very limited music collection that was played in this place. I'm just, I'm excited to swim in the vibe of DCA 1.0. And to that end, I think maybe a good thing to talk about is that in one of our very first episodes, we were talking about like maybe controversial theme park opinions that we have, and Jason's was that he kind of liked the vibe, that you do in some ways miss what California Adventure was like in the very beginning.

Well, I was talking to my dad about this the other day, because I told him we were doing this episode, and he's like you know uh and and let me be clear uh the the first time i went there was like 2006 so some adjustments had already been made but a lot of it had not been changed yet the first time he would have seen i think would have been like 2007 2008 um so again even more adjustments i think he first came out and saw that park uh maybe 2008 right before like toy story midway mania so but there was still a lot of it hanging on and i think the thing one of the things we liked was you know disneyland's really jam-packed

with stuff to do but uh dA, even in its transitional years in between the very original and then the gradual changes in the late 2000s, early 2010s, it was kind of nice that you didn't have, there were less attractions. You could go a little slower. You could have a beer.

It was a little leisurely pace. We liked the Grizzly Peak Recreation Area. We liked the Fisherman's Wharf, the Bread Tour, the Tortilla Factories, and some kind of different stuff. But you could still have a slow day, even if there was more to do. You know, you can have a slow day now and a beer now. It wouldn't prevent you from... I mean, that's true.

Now I think it does occasionally suffer from the problem they were concerned about early on of like with less attractions, if one or two goes down or one or two are just really backed up you you can get in that like oh what do we do like where do we go here's my like blockbuster driven yeah yes yeah i was just gonna here's my theory for what you're actually is going on in your brain and i i have some of it i believe that just because it was 10 years ago, we're all nostalgic for being younger and being in the past when we had less troubles and less cares. And now you have that annoying calliope music with the sparse California Adventure theming and the genericness of it. So now it's associated. 10 years ago, you were a carefree man in his 20s. You were a childless man in his 20s.

That's not wrong. I do very much remember the first day I went in college with my roommate, Jack, and we got there bright and early at 8 a.m. because we were going to try to do both parks in one day. And we did pretty much all of California Adventure by noon. Yeah. And we're like, well, guess we're going back to Disneyland. Yeah.

Because it could have been Disney. Disney in 2001 opened up Disney's Toilet Park. And it's a toilet themed theme park. And there are no rides. It's just a series of bathrooms. And even though you knew at the time it was bad, I think 10 years later, you'd be like, you know what? Toilet Park wasn't all bad.

There was some interesting stuff at Toilet Park. Well, but then there's also some fun to be had for making fun of Toilet Park. For going and going and going a little on parts of it. And you know I do think a lot of stuff I like in California design there's a lot of good California kitsch

so and I can see them like with a limited budget or a budget that was like you know kept getting scaled back. it seems like there were some stuff they tried to do kitsch and um some were successful

than others and some just outright horror shows yeah um that line of kitsch and cheap is just you gotta be you gotta be careful you have to be like so careful or else you end up with the SS Rustworthy oh boy

we're gonna have some fun here yeah California Adventure the original yeah there's obviously you know there's Soarin which is a great ride and it's lasted and there's other stuff we like obviously but California Adventure 1.0

feels like it's the aesthetic of that city walk gift shop that sells the fake celebrity ids it's like just it's like as gaudy in places as the sock market or another like any of those other like in your face retail store like retail shops and with that air of like because we're a little funky here welcome visitor from california we do it a little different you might have just a plain box and one font but we have nine fonts and they are all spinning and yelling at each other yeah and what you said about the vibe like the vibe of it is actually i think the issue because I was thinking earlier I was like alright if you really look at the opening day

rides for all the parks like you know Animal Kingdom MGM Studios, Epcot it's not that there's a lack of like 5 e-ticket rides because that isn't often what happens when a theme park opens they have like maybe

MGM Studios opens and it's got great movie ride that's like the big showstopper and that's a catastrophe canyon and the tour that they have a train right ready to go but that's obviously there's precedent for a tram tour and i'm not saying they didn't do a good job they did but it's like it just why wasn't mgm studios considered a flop if they only had a couple big new things it's like soren's a great ride and the other rides are fun it's what you're saying is what i'm saying you're hit you got to the point i think it's it's the vibe and it's the aesthetic that made people go this isn't this isn't worthy well i yeah but also like yeah you're right i was younger and like i had less you know worries and stuff and i was there with my friends or college classmates

and family and then we were having a nice time it's why you look back on like movies and you're like yeah i don't know if that i need to re-watch that movie ever but like i had a nice time when like xyz blockbuster came out and went with my family and we all went out to dinner of course you know yeah of course there's no shame in that by the way i'm not trying to shame you for that but i think you might be doing some historical revisionism because mgm 1.0 i think a lot of people forget that it was the great movie ride at a two-hour tramp tour and that was it yeah right but it was but it was i think well received i think that's the difference to do but i think that people did like

it and we're just like thirsting for more california venture felt to me like we do not want more you do a lot more or i'm never coming back yeah that i that's what I think was the feel. That is true. I mean, I think it had a lot riding against it, which is, too, I mean, in the previous years, you had seen Animal Kingdom open and Islands of Adventure open, and both pretty well received. Animal Kingdom kind of doing a different vibe, a different stuff,

a little light on attractions in the early days. I think very light. I think very light. I think very light. Yeah. Very light, but very beautiful. Of course. To counteract that. And it's all about the vibe.

Yeah. It's all about the vibe. Islands of Adventure packed with big roller coasters and some very popular e-tickets right out the gate. And then the other thing that was riding against it was the unbuilt parks, westcott and then the disney sea that would have gone in long beach yes yeah much better sounding definitely yeah yeah and after all that like if you got any taste of westcott and there was enough like i certainly was not like you know i'm i'm in middle school as all this is playing out uh But I still like I remember looking in the newspaper and seeing a seeing concept art of Westcott.

And it just looks grand. It looked pretty epic and you knew they were going to pull it off in a very stately way. Yeah. I did, though, like concept art of this, too. I think there was an early California venture that would have been better than what they did and clearly they just like win it down and win it down yeah and i was you know as a younger i i was not aware of the history of west cod and and this disney sea in long beach and i i would assume what 98 of guests were not aware of any of that. That's got it right. Maybe less, 99?

I think so. Yeah, it depends on how local they were. And I think if they read the newspapers a lot, because my parents were very aware of Disney's America and the Disney Quest in Philadelphia projects, just because they both got a lot of play in the local paper. But I think you're right though mike that it's like the average person is just like oh disneyland i like disneyland oh there's a new disneyland i don't like this disneyland yeah what is that's the degree of

knowledge there yeah it's it's more of just like initial this doesn't feel good i don't like this feeling like that's what it is it's like this feels this feels different this feels like this feels yeah tacky disney's also like if you think about uh like hey second gate which would that we which we call our patreon um you know there weren't that many of them by this point like if you think about i mean there there were now like several at Disney World, but there's a lot of pressure on number two. In a way, almost there isn't as much on number three or four. And it's okay that Animal Kingdom didn't have as much to do. And we know how this goes.

They're going to get it there. But sort of having to be Disneyland 2, whether or not that's fair. Like when you think about what's the first second gate? It's Epcot Center. And that's what they're whether or not that's fair like when you think about what's the first second gate it's epcot center and that's massive that opens massive and with extremely ambitious things uh and then islands of adventure and yeah that's like completely different vibe than universal florida and so much to do and really grand stuff also both Both Epcot and Islands of Adventure, you have technology you can't figure out. They stepped up a game, essentially, somewhere in the course of the park.

And then you get, what's Disneyland 2? It's a bunch of sunglasses puns. It's puns. It's a lot of puns. It's a lot of puns. It's a lot of puns. It's a lot of postcard humor. You know what, though? This wasn't a thing

that really dawned on me until very recently, but I think in current DCA, it would be awesome to just walk over and get a Big Mac. You cannot undersell how good a Big Mac hamburger is. And the building looks like shit.

It looks awful. Oh, my God. Oh, the building. I'm curious what everybody's least favorite, which that's a candidate for me. But yeah, let me start getting into specifics here because there's so much to trivia. There's so many odds and ends to call out.

It's something that I want to say at the top just to acquaint the listener who doesn't totally know but you probably know to some extent that California Adventure opened a little disappointing and there wasn't a lot to do and that major things have been added the big things being

turning the entrance area into Buena Vista Street with the very classy Carthay Circle restaurant, not only as a cool restaurant at the end of the street, but as kind of the castle that they didn't have before. So that was one of the big renovations, was making that street really nice. And like the, you know, the, not the,

I guess the, is it the 20s or 30s? Like the Hollywood that Walt landed in. And Cars Land, obviously, is the huge one that got added. But besides that, just to acquaint you that in 2001, what did they not have at California Adventure? They did not have the Tower of Terror, probably the biggest, quickest save that they were able to do. They did not have a bugs land uh which is now they don't have any more and it's becoming marvel but just all that was you know less and we'll talk about that no cars land no no little mermaid there was the pier area and california

scream and the roller coaster but there was not toy story midway mania so you're now you're talking like so many of the what are now um kind of the tent poles of the park are not there and obviously uh we've talked about this plenty and we just talked about it but what is now the monster's inc ride was superstar limo considered the worst attraction and and really we gotta we've we've covered that plenty but superstar limo i feel like jumped out. I think you didn't have to be a theme park nerd to know about Superstar Limo and be like, God, that sounds awful, because newspaper articles would call that

out and say, are you wondering what that second Disneyland is? It's got this. Maybe reconsider. You even compare that to just Great Movie Ride, which I've heard critic good like legit criticisms of great movie great movie right has tons of show scenes tons of robots you're on a car they're impressive robots they're human size and then you just like years later

it's just like tiny little creep robot like not even robots and it's like yeah if you heard about it you go, that sucks. But if it was like, I'm, I guess there's a version of superstar limo where it's like on the scale of great movie ride where you, you maybe go, Oh,

well that was like, it's a big show scene where you saw drew carry holding tickets or whatever. It was a better robot of drew carry. Like even the concepts in that ride could be done better right you know i almost said and then and then did not when we were talking to oscar about monsters inc that i something occurred to me about that i think the i think the vibe the aesthetic of superstar limo is like the animated intro to the anna nicole smith reality show oh man if you were in a ride that looked like that we yeah yeah i know exactly what you're talking

about yes yeah that is like almost like the nanny i don't want to i don't i don't dislike the nanny opening as much but right i don't know that i want to go into a ride that looks like the nanny intro i think it's using the nanny's intro style as an excuse for a lack of budget. I think you're using that to try to hide and go, well, that's just the aesthetic of it, as opposed to we don't have that much money. This is what we got approved. We're sorry.

We did our best. But if they had, like you're saying, Scott, if they had made Drew Carey's superstar limo, superstar limo starring Drew Carey's superstar limo, like superstar limo starring Drew Carey and it's Drew Carey picking you up at the airport and showing you Hollywood,

yeah, that could be something. Sure. He had a popular show on the air. They could have done something with that. Likeable, yeah. Yeah. If it's like the scale, like closer to the scale and scope of great movie ride,

yeah, like why, like you'd go, that's kind of odd, but all right. like that i like this scene like as we've said before like ip and stuff and even sometimes concept doesn't really matter it really just it's like execution and and i would of course say intimacy but that's not what everyone would say if you if you wish um i mean like well now now imagine the exact same series of events of rise of the resistance but do them as squiggle drawings like superstar limo um and like animatronics that are like is that Kylo Ren? Yeah. I don't know. Is that John Boyega? They all look like slightly larger ventriloquist dummies or like puppets, like lonely goat herd sound of music puppets with Kylo Ren.

And he's like two feet tall and his arms are just moving up and down. Sloppy mouth. Yeah. and like his arms are just moving up and down uh sloppy mouth yeah and then the atats are like flat cardboard cutouts and they're five feet tall and then and it's not john boyega taking you through it or lieutenant beck it's like there they are everyone the famous take a extra smile yeah i can't imagine that it's interesting if stuff had worked out there might be a version if lucas had sold say lucas decided not to make the prequels he sold to disney back then maybe because of the budget and the situation at the time that would have been

the big new star wars ride you know i know like, of course, we're landing in this kind of general opinion of that the prequels were underrated. But, like, I was always, and I like Star Wars 2. I like Star Wars Adventures Continue. But I remember how, like, when you were hearing they were going to try to do that in, like, 2000, like, thank God it took a little longer. Like, think about how bad those graphics would be and they would not have changed it i mean it'd be fascinating if there was like

a sub prequel because it wouldn't have looked as good as the movies even it would have been like a lesser version of the pod race that's still there like they certainly would not have changed it in 20 years yeah because some of the i, the prequels still look pretty good, and he's touched... George has touched up a lot, had touched up a lot, and maybe that will continue. But yeah, I can imagine that the theme park tech version

of that in 2000 would have been bad, coupled with the fact that they weren't spending. They weren't in a good spending mode. You could imagine what that would look like. The first thing I thought of was because for whatever reason, Instagram suggested I watch a clip of the Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication video, which is like sub crazy. The video game? Yes.

Sub crazy taxi graphics. That's kind of the idea, right? I don't think they meant for that to be photorealistic. No, but it looks awful. It looks really bad, like much worse than I remember it looking. And maybe Crazy Taxi looks that bad, too, and I'm forgetting. But that's my first thought, is how Star Tours would have looked, is that level. But that was, yeah, that was yeah that was a that was 99 i believe 99 or 2000 is when that video came out something like that yeah i mean oh you're

you're again these are all things like i said earlier that i have such fond memories of warm feelings at the time it is hard to divorce myself from, like, I mean, I think I told this story about Mike and me, like, hanging out with people and putting Phantom Menace on on a giant TV. Maybe it had motion smoothing on, and that was part of it.

But it looked like a Windows 2000 screensaver kind of playing in the background. But I like a lot of those actors, you know, from the prequels, and I like a windows 2000 screensaver kind of playing in the background but i like a lot of those actors you know from the prequels and i like a lot of the actors and the new ones you know so you you it's it you you have more and again you go see it with people you like and so it can be harder to divorce from the quality of something i would have replaced rex in uh start in star tours 2000 that's a good question i mean yeah exo uh so phantom menace is just coming out i mean is it does jar jar go in

there it's gotta be jar jar because george definitely was like jar jar is gonna be the biggest character of all time like he was he told ah Best that he was not anticipating any sort of backlash so I could see George being like well you know we're going to want to have Jar Jar because everyone's going to want to come see him we my brother and I had t-shirts had toys before the movie came out and

Jar Jar was front and center of those shirts yeah yeah so excited we were I had all the I had all the toys from Phantom Menace they are this is how sick I am those shirts yeah yeah like so excited we were i had all the i had all the toys um from phantom menace they are this is how sick i am and how sick the collector community is uh they are just releasing bigger versions on the car on the same phantom menace card and their best which means that backing of a figure so it basically looks exactly like the toys you're talking about phantom menace that red card and only it's like you know six inch six inch figures now not like the toys you're talking about, Phantom Menace, that red card, and only it's like six-inch figures now, not like the shorter ones we bought.

And I want them. I want the Mace Windu. I want the Jar Jar. I've bought many of these different retro toys this year that have the same backing card as I had when I was a child. So, yeah, we were all hyped for all of those. And Jar Jar was definitely part of it. And.

Maybe it's Jar Jar. Or is it a. Is it little Anakin. But rendered at the time. In Superstar Limo. Quality. I'm gonna fly it. I'm the pilot.

So like a little ventriloquist dummy Of Anakin Skywalker essentially Like that quality Big wide mouth and very dead eyes Yes It would have made complete sense to just replace Pinocchio with him on the Pinocchio ride And no one would have even noticed

Just put a laptop on Pinocchio got a new haircut And he's wearing wearing a robe now. Okay. Yeah, that's an interesting... I think we would have had a lot more boss Nass on it. I wish there was

more boss Nass now. I love almost all the prequel characters. It's not even ironic anymore. I will say. I would have loved it if that had happened and then we've got an updated version but as you're saying you're correct it would not have happened if it was yes although some people would be ardently arguing that it's the best ride in history there would certainly be that yes that is true that is true yes darth plague is the ride uh i'll bring it back to

california adventure um so the one phrase i kept seeing come up and i i didn't quite do the math on i think it's about right but it depends on what you consider an attraction. When California Adventure opened, it had the same number of attractions as Disneyland did in 1955. Yes. Did anyone else come across that? Yes, because I watched the opening day special hosted by Richard Kind, Barry Bostwick, Colin Macari, like a lot of different people.

And they say- Brad Sherwood. Brad Sherwood, thank you. Warburton in there and of course Eisner at the end. But they say that early on and they're very proud of that. Yes. As if

that means anything. That's not acceptable. That's bad. That's not good. Yeah, our standards have... It's kind of similar to how sometimes somebody will... You'll see a comforting stat. What's supposed to be a comforting stat about how actually the pandemic is playing out just like the Spanish flu. And these things happen and these things happen. So this is kind of how this thing is supposed to go.

And you're like, no, it's not. That was 100 years ago. Yeah, yes. It should be way better than something 100 years ago. It really feels like that disneyland stat is an excuse it feels like they're already hedging a little bit and go well it's the same as the original so i don't know what you're complaining about and you're like i didn't complain yet i don't know why are you so defensive why are you arguing with me in this special it's like when

they did the hong kong castle exactly like the disneyland castle that's like a trap like yes instead of doing a giant ornate castle which now they're having to go back and do they did exactly a disneyland castle and they're like what that's not good enough for you you seem to like it at disneyland why don't you like it here because we our expectations are higher now yeah you clearly you just did it because it's cheaper to build this, and you have the design. So that's what you're doing. You're pretending it's like some sort of homage when, yeah, it's not. Because I looked, yeah, the Disneyland stat, and then I looked at, I go, okay, what was open Disneyland opening day?

It's like, first of all, you have to put yourself in a different context. This type of crazy theme park did not exist yet. Yeah, it is inventing a thing. It's inventing a thing. A number of mule-based attractions. There's a lot of mules. There were no mules in DCA. There's mules, multiple trains, you know. Trains, mules, and then a couple

dark rides, which were very ambitious for the time. And then the theming, of course, which almost all of it yeah if you were to if i'm trying to think what would you describe it is it like uh inflation like themed inflation where like you know that in you know when disneyland opened that was worth three uh animal kingdoms at the time.

Oh, sure. I see what you're saying. That's what I'm trying to figure out how to explain that. Or just that they had a flag. Here's a medieval flag. Wow, that's just like it would look in the movie. And now you kind of expect, because they stepped up their game. You have to judge people by post-1955 standards. Yeah, I mean, people probably saw the car the snow white and the seven

dwarf cars that had the name of the dwarves on it they were like holy shit those are the characters from the movie we like oh my god they were like getting so excited about it like that that made so much like that was so much of a bigger impact probably on those guests then yeah then then honey give me a benzo and a cigarette i need to calm down hold on i'm getting harassed by bob cummings i have to hold on help i need i need to get away from this crazed man there are so many mules and you could make out with a big star from tv who's hopped up on sheep sperm there's so much to do here um yeah i oh jason go ahead oh i was gonna say uh meanwhile here's another thing from that la times uh article they quote barry braverman disney's sheep chief creative supervisor of the project

and the setup is that, you know, well, there's less rides, so if a couple go down, you know, that could be dicey. And his response is, quote, we'll just have to count on the live entertainment being good. Oh.

And I think we, it wasn't, right? I don't have a lot about all of this stuff, but I have these phrases in my head like Eureka um or there'd be I don't know like people banging on trash cans what was the live entertainment there was a bad show called steps in

time I don't remember much about steps in time that was kind of like a um not a jukebox musical like a review I think was big songs from the movies and stuff okay and that was eventually replaced by the trash can thing um eureka was the california parade right yeah that's right right uh yeah do we know what eureka was like i did not put down the eureka rabbit hole some of this you know we we got it we we've got a three-hour bountiful valley farm episode we got a eureka episode you know

the bigger bigger fish to fry the opening special alone yeah we're gonna plant seeds for future things definitely oh like the seeds you would find at Santa Rosa Seed and Supply. Santa Rosa. That was something in the park? Santa Rosa Seed and Supply? Yeah, it was by San Andreas Shakes and Bountiful Valley Farmers Market. Oh, and the Bountiful Valley Farm. Yeah. Oh, boy. We got so much. This is going to be a two-parter.

Here, I just want to show you what I found just Googling the parade. No! This is terrible. So, Disney's California Adventure Parade had a guy dressed as a fortune cookie and somebody dressed as a box of

noodles. And his legs are bamboo. His stilt legs are big bamboo shoots. That's the big float. Oh god, the stilt walker says the Golden Gate Bridge is horrifying. So The Stilt Walkers as the Golden Gate Bridge is horrifying. So there's two guys dressed as the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah, here's just an ugly version of the entrance and the sun.

No, that's Pixar Play Parade. That is not. There's that woman, like the Spirit of California. I don't know. There's lot of like generic mystical element like spirit of california and and some questionable indigenous representation like it's just i don't quite know what it i don't even know how to describe it well we'll be doing that eventually yeah there's yeah yeah. The, I'll pull up a video that is the, did you guys watch the opening ceremony? The, like, the little, like, play that happened out in front where Roy Disney talked and Eisner talked. I mean, we, I think we have to do an episode all about opening uh opening ceremonies at some point because we've talked

about yeah the weird like that they make benicio del toro do a weird little skit uh um i mean these things are great this is definitely its own thing but um let me try to find this part because this is kind of the vibe that uh you were showing with like vaguely mystical elements uh as jason was saying and uh this is what so they put up a bunch of like blue tarps uh in front of the park um there's an audience of seated guests um there's this i don't know what character this is if this is like a something related to kalifa or kalifia the whoop the whoopie goldberg character and we'll deal with that later but the um you know there's some kind of california queen comes out and it seems like it's all these dreamers essentially

like here's gold people and blue people and they're all chasing something with streamers they're dreamers with streamers but what is it what do they want? Oh, a big golden California. There she blows. And then the guy waves it in front of them like here. Isn't this what you were dreaming of? And then a banner goes by that says imagine. And one says culture. And most you can't read because they aren't angled to face the audience.

Like this is chaos. And also what is this like all right the things you can do in california that there's beauty and there's hollywood i get all that but like who cares about the shape like as if the shape came to you in a flux capacitor dream there's a place and it looks like this it's straight at the top and then it squiggles down to the right it haunts me each night well you make fun of it but you had the video muted you couldn't hear the assembled crowd going shape shape shape best state shape that looks like other than the size uh that looks like a thing i made in elementary school for like a project like a home project that i put off until like 9 p.m 9 p.m the night before the night before which is how i usually did my projects and it

would just be like well i don't my mom i don't know we have cardboard you could there's a gold we have a gold pen and i'd be like oh yeah okay so we'll like just cut out california and pan like draw gold on it it looks i mean i'm sure it's not paper but it looks like shit it looks awful yeah yeah i mean it's big that's the only thing is that the only thing i could give this yes to them over you and your mom is that maybe you couldn't have fit this in your house no besides that the quality is exactly exactly the school project give it some shading or something so the audience can see it a little more something suggesting dimension perhaps it just yeah it looks it looks bad the whole thing

is is rough and you know yeah we'll deal with this in an opening ceremony thing but you know mickey comes out and eisner sort of justifies the the premise this is a whole i don't know that we super need to go into this, and it's covered into various documentaries and such, but there was a retreat in Aspen where they got everybody together to, let's crack that idea, that second park. What's something we can do? And they put a lot of ideas up on the board, and it sort of was like cherry picking a few. And it was like, if you were being not cynical, you would say, well, these are themes we've always wanted to tackle, like the charming seaside amusement park or the nature of Yosemite and that kind of thing.

And of course, doing a new MGM Studios would make sense. But if you're being cynical about it, it's like, well, what are our main travel tourism competitors? Like, all right, what do people do instead of disneyland they go to nature and they go to hollywood and they uh go to i don't know santa cruz uh the boardwalk there uh how do we let's do a fake one of all those and then we'll cut in all of their money that is i mean i i guess yeah now that you say that it's like that was sort of a very strong Eisner philosophy MGM Studios is that Animal Kingdom is like well

let's make a better zoo than the zoo let's put Busch Gardens out of business yeah Busch Gardens right so it's like we can do everything better so like it does seem like that is a big part of him even in the parks that we like and were more successful from the get-go, was, yeah.

Well, I think it's that he could, like, that sort of cynicism mixed with a ton of money could sometimes produce some great results. But then here, you didn't have the ton of money. Well, but what you said, something that runs me the wrong way was, like, wait a minute. Why did they transport all these people to aspen colorado to figure this out i mean if you wanted to get everyone out of town like santa barbara's two hours up the road like well they maybe didn't have their california idea yet yeah right maybe the thoughts yeah they maybe it could have been a totally other uh idea oh no no i don't even mean like the transporting the park i mean like for corporate responsibility it's like

oh it seems like you put more thought into the uh this retreats uh vacation aspect than you did the actual work you know potentially it's that may be where they their head was at yes what's a nice trip we can do do you think if Eisner

was still in charge we would have like some sort of a Lego type land in one of the parks to make sure kids didn't go to Legoland? I don't know if he would have partnered with Blockplace or something.

California Adventure would have a Blockplace where you would play with blocks. Connects. Is that Lego- owned? I forget. Oh, it might be Playmobil. He's just like looking for adjacent properties.

Or they just make their own. Mickey Mortars. Build a building with Mickey Mortar. Mortars? Yeah, like what you put in between bricks. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah of course not the uh yeah that's the bomb the projectile yeah you're right that's what my brain went to was like we're making bomb we're making bombs now

that's that's for dismal land that's for banksy's dismal land yeah not for disneyland yeah um i maybe to start stepping into some specific things why and some of the big stuff that i'm sure we want to talk about is right at the front so why don't we do kind of a let's let's head into the park let's imagine that those blue walls at the opening ceremony went down because that's what happens after they find california thanks to the sun goddess or whatever um then one layer comes down and you see those big California letters. I think people probably remember this. This was still there up until fairly recently.

Big letters spelling out California. I think this is among the less egregious things that they did initially. Yes. I think it's a clever idea. I don't know. A lot of this park, it's like, oh, I can kind of see the kernel's a clever idea i don't know that a lot of this park it's like oh i can kind of see the kernel of a clever idea the execution or the like the reach was not necessarily there but yeah this is this is less egregious yeah and i think pete this is a phone i will

give this credit this is a these are letters that were taken like uh photos in front of a lot i believe everyone everybody has photos of these so like pre-instagram they had made like insta a very instagrammable thing and like i i believe i don't know i'm using a a newer way a newer philosophy to think about the success here but i think that you could say well that was fun i liked taking a i like going up in front of that sea now the problem may have been a lot of people did the photo and then walked away from this into disneyland yes to disneyland or to the pizza restaurant yeah yeah uh that'd be fair uh um yeah you know i i liked i think the letters ended up looking nice when they did like a they made it look like the world of color and there's a slow

gradient to the letters they look nice in the holidays like they were able to like on dca 1.0 these that like they they didn't look like trash and then the font is good i'll give it up for the font because i have a lot of font problems in this park um they eventually got rid of these um though they lasted a while longer they now it all got moved up to sacramento to a place called cal expo which is where they do the california state fair so it's cool they found another home um gavin newsom has given some very stressful press conferences in front of these letters um and which i remember like infuriating i think he like announced restrictions on theme parks or failed to address theme parks or something in front of the letters and people were like but he's right in front of the letters and he's making theme parks suffer uh so a dark use of the letters um and

and by the way now that thing cal expo um because these state fair sites just kind of sit dormant most of the year and all year in this case uh because there's no state fair uh it has become a mega vaccine site and it is apparently uh doing among the worst of any of the mega vaccine sites disneyland is which has a vaccine site now he's up and running and doing way better than the place it gave the letters to toy story lot is where that vaccine center is um yeah which you know there i was i was gonna tweet about this but maybe this is it. Do we, do the three of us, and therefore parking garage expert Nick Weiger, do we have to wait to get the vaccine and apply to do it in a different county so that we can do it in the Toy Story lot so far unaddressed on Podcast Drive? Well, that's a very good question. I have thought about that question yeah but then also apparently six flags is a vaccination site as well yes closer that is la

county yeah and we apply for we are we qualify for that one but yeah yeah so here's the thing this is a great idea for a bit but the reality is we should probably all get a vaccine as soon as we can and maybe not hold out for a bit but the reality is if someone broke into my home and was screaming that a needle that they have out is the vaccine i might let them stick it in me just in case. I'll take anything resembling a vaccine. It's worth the risk. So if it happens, if there's some sort of serendipity where we can do it in one of these places, I would love it. But yes, I agree with you.

If the mailman goes, hey, I have an extra vaccine. You want to take it? I would say, oh, yeah, sure. OK. I would probably do it. so it's a great idea though i mean we would get a great three hour episode out of waiting in the vaccine line and say like how did they you know how's the theming for the vaccine line and like we've gotten we've talked about so much less with the parking garages and now we could go get cured of the disease of the century in the parking lot. That's so much more dramatic than anything we ever thought would happen in the Disneyland parking lots, especially the one that is nothing, that is just a pavement.

Could we get the first dose in Toy Story and the second dose at Six Flags if we're doing Moderna or Pfizer? Just so we can get this whole spread. I don't think CityWalk is... Yeah, I don't think CityWalk is doing it. Because it's too confusing. Yeah, yeah. They'd waste vial after

vial because of the confusing Universal parking garages. Where's King Kong? Oh no, I got the disease now i'm gonna die and mike would end up with a comically large thing of vaccine juice that he's like i don't want to drink that i gotta go i don't want to throw it out just dump it in a bush you don't want to dump it in a bush yeah yeah i guess that makes sense they wouldn't want to do that at city walk um well uh so that's i don't know let us know what you think that if you really want us to do it and if you work in the medical community and can help us do it then oh yeah we'll definitely

do it we're willing to cut out we're willing to cut a line in front of people that need it more i will start doing spin kicks on strangers yeah and weiger's for sure in i mean oh yeah yeah yeah we'll just assume for him right definitely he'll hear um yeah yeah uh okay so we keep moving past the letters and and the letters are part of a greater tableau and that is the postcard uh introduction to the park the uh uh is it was it just called is it called anything is it called sort of greetings from california or something you mean is it like it's called the world's to the park. Is it called anything? Is it called Greetings from California or something? It's called the world's largest ceramic

mural is what it is. At the time, it was the largest ceramic mural in the world. That's cool. That is cool. The postcard didn't go anywhere, right? I didn't see anything about that. Did it move move the mural

yeah uh i'm not i feel like it might have maybe they did try to take it somewhere but i don't really know um but this whole idea i don't think that i knew exactly that this that was the idea it just kind of looked um chintzy despite being like it's certainly amazing ceramic work, if you're just judging it on the ceramic quality, but the, I don't know, that you're in a postcard, I don't think I got it. Yeah, I guess I didn't get that either, really. I guess that doesn't really play so strongly. This is also another thing about, and I should, as we criticize some things about California

Adventure 1.0 if you look at something you might actually go well that looks like it took a lot of time and artistry to make it i just don't find it pleasant yeah yeah totally it's like that's sort of i you have you can actually appreciate sometimes where you go man a lot of work went into that thing that I go, ugh. Well, how about just, how do you guys feel about the Golden Gateway, which is what I believe what they called the Golden Gate Bridge. You know, the miniature Golden Gate,

that the monorail goes over. Because that's still a bridge. They made it that bridge into Atwater Village that you take if you're going to Dunkin' Donuts. Like a bridge we use. village that you take if you're going to Dunkin Donuts. I think you're fine with it now. It's like a bridge we use. Yeah. I think that's, honestly, I think that's okay. I don't find that so egregious.

Yeah, it makes sense. It's a pretty, one of the more recognizable things I think they reproduced. I liked the idea, but yeah, I think it's chintzy. They hit it in that, they were dissing it in the Imagineering Story documentary and I was like, good, yeah. And I can't tell you why exactly. The idea, I remember thinking, oh, and the monorail goes over the Golden Gate Bridge, that's pretty neat. And then it just, what is wrong with the bridge? Is it the wrong shade? Is it too small? It looks Legoland-y to me.

Yeah, it looks a little cartoony and then and then shortly thereafter that you hit this ornate grand hotel which is very detailed of course you do not stop at it no no you can't get off or on there no no so yeah uh i think it's i think that if the if it wasn't just like flats with mountains around it when you're looking at those golden gate bridge things i think it would have looked better i think just the nature of it it does it like when those things juxtaposed it just gives you a sense of cheap like cheap it just doesn't feel grand and i think you could probably keep the bridge things the same and if just the stuff around it was better you might actually go oh yeah well that looks cool that's pretty cool yeah yeah um there's so many rivets it was just like so studded i felt like like it seemed like too many. Maybe they, maybe they bought, maybe that's what made it look like Legos to me.

Uh, um, I, uh, this, this might be a good, because this is, this is how I found this,

this odd little rabbit hole. I, uh, you know, if you want to see pictures of early California adventure, it is so well archived on the site. Yesterland that does a really great job of, um,

yeah, just keeping track of things that used to be there and their california uh the side of the site is just packed there's so much um and they were talking about things about this golden gate bridge and well you know one thing about it is it was a great place to hang banners and to advertise events that were coming up at the park because they were they one thing about early california adventure they tried to do a lot of odds and ends events they had the x games come in which led to some very ugly artwork um they had a concert series and the first band ever to play it uh of course america's band the the Beach Boys, with Mike Love and Bruce Johnston and no one else who matters.

So there was lots of garbage like that. And they did a thing called, and there's a big banner hanging off the Golden Gate Bridge, advertising ABC Primetime Preview Weekend in 2004. So I wondered what that was. And it seems like it was basically an up front and if you don't know the up fronts it's where a network trots out all their new shows to show to advertisers and wouldn't you a regular person who paid to go on some rides love to be advertised to about you know hope and faith or and or uh eight rules for dating my teenage daughter or whatever shows were on abc at the time um is this thing oh yes i was just gonna say is that the same event where jim belushi

played blues on stage you are correct sir uh sorry i probably i i jumped the gun i jumped the gun i'm sorry i'm sorry no no no no. No, this is great. Yes. Among the like you're looking at a list. I mean, there's great stuff all over the list. You know, there's going to be a reunion of growing pains with Kirk Cameron with Newsome defying Christmas spirit carrier and COVID carrier Kirk Cameron. So lots of dumb stuff. and then it all culminates that seems like the peak of this event was a live saturday evening performance by jim belushi and the sacred hearts yeah introduced by jimmy kimmel jimmy kimmel eventual host of the

oscars kind of america's host at this point was uh uh just the uh opening act for jim belushi i feel like it's restaurateur this guy who's got a barbecue place down the block oh does oh uh what's that wait wait wait hang on who's who's a restaurateur yeah belushi he has a barbecue part of house House of Blues was... He's not part of House of Blues. He would certainly play at it, but he was not... I don't believe was a... At least not a major partner. Maybe he got in there as an investor or something, but I don't think he was one of the mains.

I see. Okay. Hey, you guys are the Belushi experts. I got to leave it. Proudly so. Yeah. Mike, did you discover anything I don't know about This sacred performance

No and I'm trying to remember which episode We talked about this before It's been like two years We did talk about it There were two years in a row that Jim Belushi and the Sacred Hearts Played and I was looking desperately For footage but I could not find any I just found some pictures of him

With like the dca backdrop and i want to say he was playing like a harmonica but sounds right yeah um so yeah there's no i mean if somebody in the audience has video of jim belushi please send it to to us or point us in the right direction if it's your private video even please uh up res or uh capture it and send it our way because i would like to see this um but yeah i i don't know look i'd love to see jim belushi perform at disney's california adventure now i think that that should still happen uh i think it could happen it would have been great if he like did a guest spot at the mad tea party where like he just kind of spinning yeah he could have dressed up like one of the ellis characters or not it doesn't matter so i'm like and now the cheshire cat mr jim belushi

to play there cheshire blues cat yeah he's a cool cat. We know that. I like Jim Belushi, by the way, on Twitter lately. He has been killing it. I will give him that. You know, he's gotten a lot of shit. Oh, yeah, he's been kind of funny in his, like, weed guy era. Yeah, he's gotten a lot of shit over the years, but it feels like he's in a nice, comfortable place where he's just growing weed and, like,

being nice to people on Twitter. I tried to get us some, but it's only being sold, I think, at the Pacific Northwest right now due to licensing and interstate trade and all that garbage is Jim Belushi's weed farm themed enough for us to do an episode on Podcast Arrive

I think the strains are Blues Brothers oriented so there is theming in the weed itself we really should do that yeah yeah oh boy um yeah what is the is it just belushi farms what is he because i it's like i think it is just like it's not even clever it is like blues brothers weed

oh yeah it's just the blues Brothers and then Belushi's Secret Stash. Wow, so do you think Danny Aykroyd gets a cut? Or he just kind of gave him his blessing to make it? Because obviously weed is a big business, and I think like Danny is a big business man, as

we know. I wonder. I'm interested. Was he cut out as revenge for not being part of the House of Blues? That's a good question. Or not being featured prominently in Blues Brothers 2000. Or is he in it at all?

Doesn't he make an appearance or am I crazy? I'm just thinking of one of the... I don't know if he's in it at all. He just shows... He sometimes plays as the Blues Brothers on tour with Dan Aykroyd. I just found an old performance. I was thinking about, especially the era where there were three of them, where it was Aykroyd and John Goodman and Jim Belushi. Right.

And I saw a performance from the House of Blues where they have the actual, of Sam and Dave, Sam is performing Soul Man with them, uncoordinated dancing in the background, like not synced up and he does the first verse of soul man he being a african-american performer and then for the second verse jim belushi a white man grabs the mic forcefully oh no and takes it over to sing soul man and just like the hearing all right here's the original and now jim belushi who seems to do uh his choice is to scream it that's his take on the blues screaming i'm not sure any of those three men dan dan jim or john are the greatest singers in the world

that's not what i would say no no. Sam and Dave, great singers, like fantastic singers from the hits that I've heard. If Sam's there, maybe you'll let Sam do it. Is Belushi the one, did we talk about the story about the DVDs, the Christmas gifts and the car? I'm not sure. I'm not sure where I heard this.

I think it's Belushi, but it was Christmas time and the show was taken whatever it would have been according to jim was his show right um and usually on when you're working on a long run tv show like that and it gets you know everyone gets very close and either the production company or the studio gives out christmas gifts and sometimes like i've had friends get like bikes like for the christmas gift uh the christmas gift on that show was uh the season the previous season on dvd and um i believe the story goes that belushi had you know he had the Primo parking spot right by the soundstage, but his window was like left cracked just a little. And he came out at the end of the night and the car had just been filled of the DVDs.

Like people just shoved the boxes through the window and filled the car up. Wow. I've never heard this. Is this a secret story? I don't know. Wow. I don't know. I have no idea where exactly I heard it. Is this a secret story? I don't know. Wow. I don't know. I have no idea where exactly I heard it.

What bridge is being burned? Is it our bridge to go to Belushi Farms? Yeah, yeah. We'll have to figure it out if we have to leave this in, you know? Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, how much do we, because it is a themed environment. Or are you thinking, like, did this happen to Kevin James?

Like, you know, is there another? Oh, yes. It also could yeah it could have now that you say that it could have been kevin james it didn't help i like the story it's a great story yeah the source of it i also just want to say really fast that i'm on belushi's farm.com and there's like a big i i almost feel like akroyd's involved because the the the text and specifics could not be thicker than the copy that I am reading about these marijuana strands. And listen to this.

As with music, we are naturally wired and set up with tetrahedronal-shaped endocannabinoid receptors that are organic to all of us. Jeff Sessions included. Got him. Wow. Yep. That's it. Case closed. That sounds like... Several acd yeah yeah maybe he maybe he helped he punched it up um and then a little topical bunch up several trump several

generations of trump villain ago uh um and uh which sort of brings me to the second thing i was gonna say about this event about primetime preview weekend 2004 um there was also among the many things come see the stars of the show and you can also see a little preview and meet the star of the show the benefactor do you guys have any idea what the benefactor was show in 2004 was it their uh version of The Apprentice? It was their version of The Apprentice, and it was starring this beefcake. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you even recognize him as young, hunky Mark Cuban? This is like, who is he trying to look like?

He's like trying to, he thinks he's Freddie Prinze Jr. or something. Chris Klein. He thinks he's an early dude. Yeah, yes, totally. The CW's Frankenstein. He's in a bright blue shirt. They didn't shop out his nipple.

It's poking through and also in front of a blue background. They got Cuban's look. They engineered it a little better on eventual Shark Tank. And Shark Tank, obviously, much more successful than the benefactor. The benefactor did not do so well. And in the wake of the show going away, Mr. Cuban received a letter.

And I'd like you to guess during this letter who wrote the letter. Oh, Mark, if you have any suspicions, I might know, bet a lot of money on your opinion on this um dear mark i am truly sorry to hear that your show has been canceled for lack of ratings when i initially called you to congratulate you on the benefactor little did you or i realize how disastrous and

embarrassing it would turn out to be for you if you ever decide to do another show please call me and i'll be happy to lend a helping hand with best wishes and then I'll narrow it down. The writer of this letter is a future president of the United States. So that gets you down to three and you can guess which one. Ron Paul.

Yeah. We don't need to say it. Yeah, that's right. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. It's yeah that's right that makes sense that makes a lot of sense it's on gold letterhead that might have helped you figure it out too we this this is what this guy's doing in 2004 and we we must elect him to the highest of this guy has to take control of the world yeah no that make it makes after having seen it for four years it makes total sense that this it all makes sense it had to happen it was great that it happened we all the uh america was made great again um so that's that's all my thoughts about um this is how this this

is quickly becoming we're just gonna have to do a part two of this because boy oh boy yeah we're just gonna have to do like land by land this is only the street right then we'll do paradise pier 1.0 and this is maybe genuinely a solution because man we're we got a lot here well and we haven't even talked about my favorite part of uh sunshine plaza yeah yes i'm talking about Burbank ice cream, baby. Oh, you threw me. I thought you were going to go for the- The sun sphere? The wick sphere? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, talk about Burbank ice cream, please. So Burbank ice cream was the sunshine plaza. This is the equivalent of Main Street. So it's got to have an ice cream parlor to get people coming in or going out of the park at the end of the night. And you entered through a California Zephyr train car. And it's a real two-size-a-train. I just think it looks great.

It's a shiny, restored train car. Yeah. And you went in, and you got any any number of disney's uh six ice cream flavors they have not updated in i don't know decades like whatever the dryers relationship i think when when disney when when disneyland opens back up we need more ice cream flavors it's it's the same flavor the same seven or eight flavors i you know flavors. I wouldn't mind more flavors, but I do find the Dreyer's flavors comforting that they don't change ever. There's something I like about the stability, and maybe I'm being a hypocrite when other things that I say, but-

I'm not saying take any away. I'm saying let's get- Expand. It's Disneyland. It's supposed to be your- Yeah, it's expand. What? Especially back then, they had four Sundays.

Like, I don't know. It just seems like kind of all of the ice cream, except the ice cream at Paradise Pier where you would pick a flavor ripple. Yeah. Like everything is just chocolate vanilla in this pot. Like everything's. What are you looking for?

Yeah. Like blue sky real quick here. Five, give me five to 10 more flavors that they need to have. Okay. Well, I think Mocha Almond Fudge is an interesting flavor, but I found the almond overwhelming. I think they need a simple coffee flavor. Okay.

I think they need a Rocky Road. Okay. Okay. They have chocolate chip, which I think people think is crazy. I love chocolate chip because you get the creaminess of vanilla, but then actual crispy chocolate. Let me see. Some sort of caramel. Okay.

Some sort of caramel. What else we get? On the fruitier side or heading towards the gelato territory? Yeah, maybe a raspberry sorbet. You get a sherbet, Mike? You get a rainbow sherbet? I get a sherbet, a raspberry sorbet. You get a sherbet, Mike? You get a rainbow sherbet? I get a sherbet, a rainbow sherbet, and I often get a double scoop with a cookie dough as well.

That's good. They do a good cookie dough. And is Cookies and Cream on this list? They have Cookies and Cream, right? I guess they have Cookies and Cream. There's a big one that I feel like oh some sort of peanut butter thing okay yeah that's good

I hear you I just think more variety I mean I looked up the menu of San Andreas shakes too which is a different part of the park that was pretty much just like two kinds of blizzards and two kinds of milkshakes chocolate or vanilla that's kind of boring that was pretty much just like two kinds of blizzards and two kinds of milkshakes chocolate

or vanilla yeah i'm like that's that's kind of boring that's a little you can get date shakes there i thought like like all law the on the way to palm springs uh um i forget the name of that date shake place but i definitely at some point in time had a date shake in california adventure see now that i like i must have been looking at a newer menu where they scaled back but i think like yeah date shakes that's fun yeah for sure it exists i don't know if it was there but i definitely had one in in the park does ghirardelli do anything for you or do you you want this disneyland okay okay because i we they we always go to ghirardelli in california adventure now do they have enough does ghirardelli have enough? Yeah, they have a lot of varieties of like parfaits and sundaes and maybe just one or two more ice cream flip.

But they just have a lot. And they have a lot of mix-ins and they have a lot of toppings. So you want just a little more convenience, essentially. Because if they have it in California Adventure, you just want something else on main street switched up uh yeah i guess i guess on yeah i don't i don't need it in california venture because there is gear delis but yes at main street and um at california adventure now they have the hand-dipped ice cream bars which that's fun that's very nice i like that that's that's a they're huge too. I agree with you. Burbank. The Burbank, what is it called?

Burbank ice cream? What was it called? I think so. Burbank ice cream. Burbank ice cream. Burbank ice cream. Was good. The train cars were cool.

I do miss getting ice cream in the train cars. That area is, I think, the thing I miss the most of all of Old Kelton. I think they pulled that off. If you were going to keep anything from this opening zone, yeah. I remember being a little disappointed when I went the most of all of those. I think they pulled that off. If you were going to keep anything from this opening zone, I wouldn't mind the train. I was a little disappointed when I went the first. I was like, oh, they got rid of the train cars. Yeah, and that seems like something

they easily could have moved to the Hollywood backlot area. Yeah, but I assume they were still... I think that the Hollywood backlot, we've talked about it before, it's obviously going to be changed eventually, and I assume they were still... I think that the Hollywood backlog... Yeah, we've talked about it before. It's obviously going to be changed eventually, and I think they were probably assuming

they would do something sooner rather than later, and they probably didn't foresee a pandemic slowing everything down either. Yeah, yeah. I'm guessing. We're stuck. We're stuck with it. Well, okay.

You want to talk about... By the way, I think Disney's got to hire you to be an ice cream consultant. Of course, yes. That was so concise. Ice cream is bad. Great ideas. You didn't even prep that.

That's just off the dome. Yeah. Sure. Just walk around. Yeah. You would walk around with a team of people at Disney, and you would just sort of be giving your thoughts. They'd all have a notepadad and they'd be hanging on every word

and you would just be shouting flavors flavor every every different food stand in a restaurant i think you would just shout things out and they would write it down and that you could fix a lot of problems that way i feel like i was shouting a lot like looking at the map like looking at the original dca maps and i was just then i would go look up what they had and and i was just like okay the the will was not the thought was there the will was not there it's like like we want this to be a park for adults we want then don't serve like dog food like college like food you would have thrown together in college you know wasn't good there, was it? That's one of the main things and probably why I'm so...

Why I consider it the park of my 20s and my early 30s. You go there for good food and good beverage. It was kind of junky to begin with. I think Pacific Wharf was always interesting. It always had a variety of stuff. It had some freshly made stuff. And then I honestly have never eaten at that winery restaurant. The sit-down restaurant, I don't recall loving.

I love the terrace, and I love the walk-away wine bar. But yeah, it's kind of like generic Italian, I feel like. She can get in a lot of places. I could be wrong. If I'm way off on that place, I was just disappointed the one time I did it. I'm sure it's changed the menu like a million times at this point. So who knows? Yeah.

Rough food, seemingly. The shout out to the restaurant, was it called Chips? Strips, Dips, and Chips. Yeah, Strips, Dips, or Chips. No one rides for free. That kind of thing. Fried mozzarella and chicken strips and fish fillet. So, you know what's, I think, think yeah the train is good but you know what's

egregious and i'll share the screen so we can be reminded um engine ears toys um city walk real gaudy logo yeah yes yeah extremely city walkie extremely sock market sock markety um you know i think extremely build a bear and and the build a bear went in not too long before this and you can have that outside a theme park but you know you need something you know what else is this a lot like with that like brightly painted corrugated metal this and forgive me for the local reference but this is the burbank empire center big time oh yeah good functional place because they have a target and things you need an rei and the sharkies which i'm fine with but uh ugly to look at and kind of gaudy off the the five freeway um it's like the most like like that's just a junkie that's the most like kind of

outlet mall all right let's put up five tiny planes and that's enough right and then there's like real bright like metal painted um yeah i just don't like it the only thing uh cut me off after this empire center talk the only thing i kind of like about the empire center is the light is some decent lighting at night does it really i'm rarely there at night so i might not know this jason you know what I'm talking about? I do know what you're talking about. And I think there are touches they've painted over the... Because that's where the Howard... Was it Lockheed Martin or Howard Hughes' aircraft factory was?

So there's little touches of airplane specifics. You know, the history of burbank but it's all it all is sun faded over the years it's so hard to tell um and then they just painted everything gray so you can't really see anything now that's their dca two point it's empire center two point now yeah if you want us to cover this entire mall, let us know. We're fairly willing. Who are these? Go back up. Who are those characters? They're generic

toy. If you look up toy in a visual dictionary, you see this. There's a blue deer and a not raggedy Andy, a different red-haired boy. Oh, it's a boy.

Maybe. Very generic. Just overalls. That could be either way. A little red dot-cheeked top hat. No, it's a conductor bear. I don't like any of these guys. It is original theme park IP, I suppose, but I'm not fond of them.

I don't want to dig deeper. Well, if anybody knows if the Engineer toys have names, please let us know. IP, I suppose, but I'm not fond of them. I don't want to dig deeper. Well, if anybody knows if the Engineer toys have names, please let us know. I am interested to know. I could say further in this article, I don't know. And then inside is just... This is what they had to do. They had to do the

classy 30s vibe on the way in. Because it just like... I don't know. Now it's like a beautiful overture uh before the film starts and this is like a like the fourth generation amc candy band where the graphics are getting actually worse with time and they're they're more annoying the little pre-movie uh little little featurettes um yeah gross right oh and there's oh there's puns in here el there's a clock and when it's noon it's not just noon it's el nuño referencing

the killer storm that says palm swings for some reason why swings what's that pun? Rancho Chuchumanga. This is where now we're getting into pun worlds. Really big bear lake. And the lake looks like a bear. I mean, that's kind of cute. The lake looks like a bear. Some of these things, though, there's a lot of cute puns everywhere in every theme park. But it also often comes down to just what does the presentation look like like if this map was subtle and you really had to like

look at it for like 15 seconds and go oh there's some funny things written on here I don't think it's nearly as offensive as looking at this like barely graphic designed train map and seeing these like aggressive puns seeing these aggressive like lame

jokes bad font that's a stock font that's maybe a And seeing these aggressive puns, seeing these aggressive lame jokes. Bad font. That's a stock font. That's maybe a Copperfield Black. No good. I want luxury fonts when I go to my Disney park. Yes, I agree. Blue ceiling. Look at this.

I mean, the ceiling here, they just painted all of the pipes and vents and everything bright blue. This absolutely is the Walmart in the Empire Center. Yeah. And you demand better out of your Disney parks. Mm-hmm. Now, I pulled up that website, too, and it does not have one thing that I do like from DCA 1.0,

which is they made replica little miniature toys of some of the simple attractions. And these toys in box still go for like $200 or $100 on eBay because I don't think a lot of people bought them.

I would get one of these. I can see having a little orange stinger. The hollowed out orange ride. Maybe I'd buy this. I could see having a little orange stinger. The hollowed out orange ride. Maybe I'd buy this. I don't know. They're like 100 bucks. That's not crazy.

I found one that, well, I was going to get it. And then it said, like, broken. Does not work. Parts may fall off. And I was like, okay, well. If you glue it. If it's cheap and you can glue it. I guess so so i'll see if it's still up for sale yeah um you want to talk about the sun not the sun wheel the ferris wheel used to have a big scary sun on it not mickey right uh and that was the sun wheel

but in it when you come into the park and sunshine plaza is the sun icon creatively you've got the sleeping beauties castle you get spaceship earth and you've got the sun icon and this was intended to be their bit here is the big landmark when you go into that opening street and what is it at the end of the road for you it's a big tin sun this is where they really really messed up bad yeah it's it's just not i would even say it's not memorable i like i'm sure the first five ten times i went i might not have even like you go well what was the icon you saw and i go oh, I'm not sure. Didn't do one.

I think they didn't do one. Yeah. They didn't do that. That must be it. They didn't do one. isn't, but it, they had the sun thing.

And then the wolf, like the big stone wolf, like they kind of had two icons. They got to split the difference. It's not a, we've been through this. It's not a wolf. Oh,

it's a bear. It's a grizzly. I had a thought. I might, bear. It's the grizzly. I had a thought. I had it reversed. I was like, and remember, Jason, it's not the thing you think it is. It's not a bear. It's a wolf.

I was like, was there a stone wolf howling at the sun under it? And I was like, maybe there was. And I like scrambling to look. I go, oh shit, I forgot there was a stone wolf that was like howling. I always thought it was a wolf. I still have to squint to see the bear. Well, yeah. We on the Grizzly River Rapids episode, we all, there was some confusion

about what it looks like. Yeah. Which is a pride. If that was also supposed to be kind of their icon and you're not sure what it is. Yeah, exactly. And that was kind of painted worse when it opened too, I feel like. Yeah. This is a mess. But the sun icon clearly could not have been the main thing that you draw from the park.

Here's the big thing you see when you come in the park. It doesn't work. Also, the whole idea is that it was going to reflect the light of the sun and make it nice and warm and glowy in this area through all through Sunshine Plaza. I don't remember any of this. But it was painted, it was pointed the wrong way, like to where it wouldn't get the sun how it was supposed to, to make it glow. So they had to use big reflector machines that were up on poles to hopefully bounce the sunlight off of, it bounces off of that

and bounces onto the sun, which it did not do. This never worked. So it just kind of looked flat and bad here all the time. Yeah. I did not know that's what they were trying to do. I see now

the things, I think, the things that were trying to reflect. I see now the things I think the things that we're trying to reflect. Yeah, no, that never read to me at all. This thing isn't also, for all the other icons of Disney parks, this isn't even that big. It's really small. Yeah, at least do something big.

You know what the story there is? This is a Westcott holdover. They were not going to do Spaceship Earth again. They were going to do a big golden spire. And that was going to be extremely tall. Probably as tall as Tower of Terror or Guardians is now. But because it was going to be really bright,

and I think maybe the relationship with Anaheim was just not good at the time, the neighbors were like, no, no, no. We're not going to have a big point i think maybe the relationship with anaheim was just not good at the time and the neighbors were like no no we're not gonna have a big pointy light that sounds terrible so they're like all right well we gotta do something small then because that was even that was going to be in westcott and it was going to be in california adventure like the big point the golden point was still part of the plan right and instead it became what a lot of people called the hubcap it was a cool little hubcap. Yeah. It's just, I'm trying to think. Say it was the exact same design, but it was five times the size.

I think at the very least, I think we would all be saying, if it would have gone away by now, well, you know, it was kind of cool because how big it was. I think we would have given it that praise. Like, oh, well, you know, it was impressive that this because how big it was i think we would have given it that praise like oh well you know it was impressive that this giant sort of sun thing it's not aesthetically pleasing to me but at the very least like wow it really impressed me when i'd walk in and go wow that is that's huge wow yeah yeah just make it big what are you doing um yeah this This is all what really, it's just like a really tepid, flaccid way to start your day in the park. And I will also add, because I'm seeing this in the photos of Sunshine Plaza, that you also then, all right, so you can turn to the left and go over to the Hollywood area. And at that time, it said Hollywood really big at the top.

And then there were these big elephants. And the elephants are there because you're like, why giant elephants on top of pedestals? Well, that, of course, is a reference to D.W. Griffith's film Intolerance. Yes. What? Why? And of course, those elephants also appear at, let's all say it together,

the Hollywood and Highland Shopping Complex. Complex. Yes. Which opened, I think, well, was it before this or after? I don't know. It was right around the same time.

So you're like, why are there two things felt the need to tribute D.W. Griffith's intolerance? I want it said Hollywood Pictures. So it's not Disney Studio. This is a fake backlot called Hollywood Pictures. Hollywood Pictures backlot. Yes.

Which seems like something you would get on a t-shirt at Hollywood and Highland for like three t-shirts for $20. That's truly the tribute. The tribute is gift shop at Hollywood in Highland at City Walk on Hollywood Boulevard. That's really the true inspiration for California Adventure is that tacky tourist trap garbage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that whole, I mean, you know, Hollywood is sort of its own thing.

You could almost devote a whole episode to, but then you just keep staring down that way. And I, boy, I have always hated that fake sky backdrop with the forced perspective where the city gets smaller and smaller, which is weird because I really liked it in MGM Studios. I remember thinking that was so neat as a kid. Oh, you mean so they'll like to make a street look really long? They'll make the buildings get smaller and smaller? And I wanted pictures in front of it. I thought it was so cool.

This one's worse. Why is it worse? It's still to this day, I think, is just too executed and too tanky of a way. Yeah, it just stands out. It's like almost it just stands out more, I think. I really like it. I'm trying to

think the mgm one isn't so i don't know this one's just in your fate the one in california just in your face and your brain doesn't get tricked at all ever no no no yeah there's never a second where you go oh that's sky that's real like it never happens yeah yeah so it's just odd it just looks odd you also in in this neck of the woods this is pun central and it still kind of is this way there still is a lot of this isn't like is schmoozies is still there yes oh yes it is exists yeah okay yeah award wieners certainly a word we know there yes yeah. But there's other stuff they got rid of. Because I think there were like 10 times the puns in this neck of the woods. If anybody has any of them.

The thing that they got in a lot of trouble with was there was a sign of like, about like a casting couch joke. Oh, yeah. Right, right, right. In 2001, they're like, what are you doing i missed this a hundred percent when it happened i found out about this today philip a couch casting agency it is a casting couch reference and it is on a sign that looks like a penis it is like yeah do you guys do you remember that i don't know know. I didn't remember that. I remembered.

Oh, my God. You're right. Yep. There's a little tip at the bottom and there's two little swirlies up at the top. God damn. Yeah. Yes. That is not a stretch at all, by the way.

Sometimes you see the Disney's phallic imagery and you go, well, kind of. That one, there's no mistaking it. That is a dick sign. Yeah. About a casting cat and then this was they put this in in the era where they owned miramax and worked closely with harvey weinstein nuts there's so much stuff as you go through like old clips of late night talk shows and stand-up monologues and stuff where people are making jokes stuff like that and then if you really like analyze it you go

hey that's fucked up. I don't know why we were all just like, ah, ha, ha, ha, the casting couch. Ah, ha, ha, we all know it exists. I might have been kind of conditioned by seeing Oscar monologue jokes like that. And I think as an ignorant 15-year-old, I'm like, oh, that's where the producer

wants to give you a smooch. And then you get, I really don't think i was aware of like what that actually means and i don't know you know i don't think anyone knew the truly the extent of it until i mean obviously it's it's so crazy and horrible but yeah what how insane that that was like cutified for so many years and it's not even like hidden i don't i would actually give it like i would give like the imagineers like credit for like really sneaking one in if i go oh i see if you combine the like last letters of each word then it forms casting i go well they really snuck it in there so there's no way you like you would know if you just walked by it not this sign this sign is just casting advertising

a penis it's wild so crazy also yeah this is kind of underratedly one of the craziest things that's ever been in a park even if it was different words the very blatant penis shape yeah yeah really it should be award wieners let's be honest it should you're right if that was a penis shape

I don't think that would oh my god I would love it the sign is shaped like a giant dick and I'd be like that's oh my god I would love it I go you know the ward wieners we can get a hot dog the sign is shaped like a giant dick and I'd be like that's funny that's good I like that good work engineers is there anything else worth calling out in this neck of the

woods in terms of the puns yeah for muscle Ben hair I do I've said this maybe three times now on the show, but I do maintain if the place looked less tacky, those puns would be less egregious. This is one of the tackiest looking places it still is.

A lot of the fonts are bad. It's very dated. I mean, you go around Tokyo DisneySea, and Tokyo DisneySea has so much subtlety in their theming and jokes and puns like there are just dense paragraphs full of jokes on the side of like the where you pick up the train to go around the park and even in the different eateries like we were finding just so much information that was just all jokes about where we were. But it's so subtle and it was not. And it was, as you're saying, a classy font.

And really like just fully developed immersive environments. Yeah. You'll go with Jungle Cruise in general. You will go with groan worthy stuff. Right. If you. Everything is context. You know, jokes don't need to be so clever it just needs to be in the right context that's my comedy lesson yeah you're welcome everyone pretend you're in the car next

to jerry yes yes he would and that's the way he's like yes make fun of waitresses more. It's interesting the way this area is presented on the map. One of the attractions and ventures, it just says, Hyperion Theater, magnificent 2,000 seat theater. That's it? What's in it? That's good for you guys for building a place where you can do corporate events that no one will ever see.

Where you can make a confusingly cut out front of a stage that Kelsey Grammer can very easily fall into. That's right. Yeah. It was waiting to happen.

It's not Kelsey's fault at all. No. No. It was a very specific, specifically designed stage. They did have the Muppets back here. And I used to really like that kiosk outside of it that had a ton of Muppet stuff.

And I was just kind of like swing merchant, like whatever merchandise they want to shove in there. Yeah. In this Christmas thing, it's so many spider bots that nobody's fighting on. Oh, no. Just tons of spider bots. I better hope we fall in love with the spider bots that nobody's oh no just tons of spider they better hope we fall in love with the spider bots when that ride opens because they yeah i bet there's like 99 cent stores have spider bots at this point they made so many they're just selling them to any different store

as legacy pass holders are we gifted a complimentary spider bot? 30% off. 30% off. Monday through Thursday. Monday through Thursday. Not every day. Parking is not included on the high-end passes anymore. It's $100 each time you come, but you get a 30% off spider bot. Yes.

Thank you, sir. May I have another? Chape back the hut i have a general pitch for what we do here and now uh and it is this i think i have a plan because this episode could go for the full amount of time that we've already done um what if maybe the way that we section off what if we what if there's a an episode that is about uh you could call it dca 1.0 to Paradise Pier. We leave Paradise Pier. That's our general tribute to what Paradise Pier used to be

because there's so many rides over there. Yes. I think there might be enough. So maybe that's where we, that's the cut off. But we try to you know, let's cover Hollywood and then let's, I mean what a beautiful, what more beautiful ending

than Bountiful Valley Farm. Of course. So, for this episode, we will try to conquer, let me, if I have this correct, not Paradise Pier, Golden State?

I suppose, well, is Golden State where, what's Golden State? okay gold golden state is one of four districts that's how the anaheim tourism board described it in the early days um it's not lands it's districts but it's a district but it's got six different areas? What's the difference between a district and an area? So, Bountiful Valley Farms, Pacific Wharf, Golden Vine Winery, Condor Flats, the Bay Area, and Grizzly Peak Recreation Area. So, that's a lot to explain to someone i feel like i agree yeah very complicated and a lot of those things you just described are like you know 20 feet wide those aren't that's

not big enough to be an area yeah so yes all right so wait what are we doing so yeah i don't know where we're going now we're as confused as if we're looking on an original map i don't know what's going on i think wait is this is this behind the scenes or is this no this is on we're on the air we're live this is live oh no. Yeah. I'm getting in a Bountiful Valley Farm tractor and getting the F out of here. I mean, maybe it's that. Maybe because there's so many of the puns remain, I feel like, in the... I think we have to leave Route 66 out, which is a shame because that's where so much... The SS Rustworthy, Burger Invasion. But that's good. Those are good we the ss rust worthy burger invasion but that's that's good

you know those are good weenies to lead you into the next episode are we done or we do have more i'm good no no i think we do bountiful valley farm okay bountiful right here farm and then we're done got it i think so how long have we been going i think i'm gonna collapse if we don't. Yeah, I'm good with it. I'm good to be there now. I don't care. We'll do DTA 1.0 .2 like a software update. Yes, yes. Like a software

update that a great California visionary like Steve Jobs would give you. Covering much of Golden State and Paradise Pier. That's a good way to do it okay okay good uh and and so but yeah let's talk about bountiful valley farm oh yeah we gotta if you go if you go past uh the sun item this is this is the first thing you see on your left is Bountiful Valley Farm. And now this, yeah, and this really tripped me out when I was watching the, in general,

very difficult to watch opening special with Richard Kind and Barry Bostwick. Right around the same stretch of time, I, for the first time, embarrassingly, had not seen before this, A Serious Man, the very good Coen Brothers film. Oh, yeah. Like one of my favorites. Really, liked it yeah yeah and then and so going the whiplash of wow richard kind is wonderful in this and then he's also in like a bright yellow hawaiian shirt bumbling around barry bostwick uh and convincing us that the amount of rides is fine and the bountiful valley farm is good enough to be uh an area um but i i think that of all the things like some things are burned into my memory of course i know there was a big orange of course i knew there was a big scary

sun face but when they are walking through this farm zone and i'm like oh my god no bugs land i did not like because for then there was kind of an in between there was there was some farm and then bugs land but oh my god when there was no bugs land what was even happening what was this park yeah i that yeah i thought bugs land was opening day i if you would have if you would have asked me like five days ago i would have said oh yeah bugs land open opening day right but no like a long time ago and it felt like still for being an addition chintzy enough that they had to take it out eventually like it felt like temp or expendable or something this is like as good as

like all the stuff in here is like as good as like this place gobert'skin Farm that I used to go to as a child. And that's a good point because I was going to say, as a child, I loved trucks and tractors and trails. I loved all that stuff. So getting to climb on one of those, again, the instinct is correct. Children like climbing on construction equipment.

Right, sure. Yeah. But it's not enough. It's just not enough. What is it doing here? Was it just not enough. What is it? Yeah. What is it doing here? Why was it here before they built around it? Like, that's the way it feels to me when I look at these pictures. Like, there was a farm.

They bought up all the land, but there was just this one miniature farm where they, like, wouldn't really. So, like, you have to still let us raise some crops. That's the only way we're going to kind of give you the rest of this. Yeah. Like living with the land in Epcot, there's crops, but it's,

you know, you're in a facility of some kind and there's windows and there's, you know, experiments going on and you're in a boat. It's themed. This is truly like they built an okay theme park around a little plot of land where they're growing lemons? Yeah, what are the crops?

I see some Valencia oranges. Those look nice. Some nice, beautiful flowers. There are no cattle there, but there's some plastic cows. Maybe it'd be helpful to just... Maybe we'll all screen share this yesterland right right page uh you you just look like shit it's extremely it's a state fair display and you would love to see it there but in a theme park what do you mean it's um so strange yeah and it's like they had you know when they had the

pettings they have a petting zoo at this point in Disneyland. They have a petting zoo. They have real animals in the back of Disneyland. So like you come over here and you go, oh, there's some shitty plastic cows. There's two shitty plastic cows. I just saw a goat. I just saw, I just saw a horse. I just saw, what's the, do they have a cow as well?

Or what was the big? Sometimes there'd be a cow. I'll get a cow lick my hand once. Yeah, cow lick Jason's hand. You can't get that over here with these plastic cows. But what you can get is the Bountiful Valley Farmer's Market, and you know what they have?

Healthy wraps. The healthiest food of the 1990s. Wraps. We get convinced on wraps. Why did everybody pretend The healthiest food of the 1990s. Wraps. Yeah. How do we get convinced on wraps? And why did everybody pretend they were okay to eat, that they had any taste? I might have been at a wrap in so long, and it makes me feel great.

Yeah. I liked, like, buffalo chicken wraps if they were freshly made. Because if you wrap a wrap up and put it in like an airport refrigerated cooler thing nothing congeals faster than a wrap that's it's like a it's a mayonnaise trap it like it's a way to like hide it and condense it so then once you bite into that reserve that spoiled reserve everything everything switches texture like 10 everything's entropy is reversed it's just like oh no it's transforming no i feel like toga this is another one of the things where i've talked about a vitamin water trick to me like a number of things tricked me and like wraps i go to togo's and get like

with jason's some buffalo chicken wrap and i go this is healthier i'm eating pretty healthier if you really looked it was like the wrap was like 70 less calories than the bread yeah exactly less carbs we were all tricked by whole wheat barrettes i mean i never went all in i did i was wheat for years you did i was so proud for buying white bread and sourdough bread for years. I'm so sorry. I was wrong. Wheat is bad. I didn't know. It was like, that was something I would get wheat and I would get a little spring in my step and be like, well, healthy boy, look what you did today.

And they're just shoving molasses or corn syrup in there to make it like more palatable. Monsanto is killing us slowly with their wheat. Got it. Unbelievable. We all know. Look, we all watched Super Size Me with their wheat. Got it. Unbelievable. We all know. Look, we all watched Super Size Me 2, Holy Chicken. Of course we did. We know what the industry's doing.

A DCA exclusive. It could have been. That could have been a theme park film, yes. But don't forsake that you can go, as you said, you go get on a tractor. They did work with, they got caterpillar tractors involved. And you learn about, in signs about tractor makers,

Benjamin Holt and Daniel Best. Mommy, I learned about Daniel Best today. I don't, can you get on the trek now i'm questioning this i i don't see any pictures of kids in a tractor yeah i swear you could at least get in the cab but maybe i'm misremembering or maybe that was all they would let me do because 20 year old college student you're young enough we'll let you do it yeah no no wait wait climb into the cab okay yeah like Trump in the big

in the big back truck you know lots of unhappy memories but you know it's nice to think about the truck part the one nice day Boundable Valley Farm it was the home of San Andreas Shakes. And that is

another thing. I think it is sometimes hard in theme parks. Not at this one, because at Ghirardelli you can get them. But every now and then I'm like, I want a milkshake. And it's not as easy to dig one up as you'd think at a theme park.

Because you can just drink it drink it and walk but i think i was there in like 2015 or 2016 and i was like is san andreas shakes still around and i'm like no what are you talking about like what this is a mountain now i've had the same i too recently have thought those were there and you're right they were good and i looked it up and it is date was like a a topping um you know of course it's the oh you know what it's and it's sam andreas because it's a guy or at least the sign says yeah so we're even deeper into pun the pun extends deeper than we thought and they're called shakers and then there's wait this is temblor talk toppings Well, temblor, that was their blizzard.

That was their version of a blizzard. Not trembler? Temblor? I don't quite understand that pun. I think it's wordplay, and it's just missing the mark. Did they just misspell it? That would be funny if they misspelled it. I got to give it up. Guy Selga, in his recap, I think he was the one who posted like the very old

map on Touring Plans blog referred to this area as the worst land Disney has ever done I mean yeah but now I'm worried somebody out there is going to be like wait I loved Bountiful Valley Farm I liked watching the crops

grow how dare you I'm so like shy to be insulting to crops at this point that i oh yeah i don't want to step in it again well let's see uh if you're a big stan for this part part of the park please let us know and you know what don't tag our show account tag scott's twitter account we don't need to see it just send send it to Scott. Look, I became I'm no longer Scott Gardner anyway. I'm Mr. Viral Questions. My account is devoted to asking the questions that the most burning questions that go the most viral. So I can't even respond.

That's not what my account does anymore. OK, so you won't get nothing out of me. I'm not afraid of you. I'm Mr. Viral Questions now. OK, so, yeah, just I'll. you won't get nothing out of me i'm not afraid of you i'm mr viral questions now okay uh so yeah uh just uh i'll yeah dm me i'll send you scott's physical address no no fine all right do whatever you gotta do um mike's gonna do it i swear um i uh yeah this is bad you know and then they kind of tied it into bugs land and made it like they put heimlich running around and then there's kind of a slow

gradient into bugs land and that was yeah better but still weird that i and now i want to click i didn't look at the yesterland page for santa rosa seed and supply this is did you look into this before do we have to discover santa rosa i knew you could get like seeds and stuff right you could buy seeds in the theme park i think so i think you can still get seeds at a grizzly peak at that can. Can you still buy seeds? I think that one of their displays a couple years ago or so when they were leaning into the National Park motif. No, I will give

them credit. Buying seeds in the park is cool, I think. That's the only thing that was in the credit. It's one of those 1955 things. Something you shouldn't need to buy at a park. There's no reason for it. I like it when they sell it in a park and in only maybe one or two areas.

Especially if it's specialized to one theme gift shop. I can always use seeds. I've mostly just been planting those seeds that showed up in an Amazon box a couple times. I just plant at those all over California. Wait, what is that? Oh, that was there was an oddly

enough news story a while back i think last year that like people who had placed amazon orders it was like some sort of drop shipping bullshit mix up we're just getting like there would be a bag of seeds in with their like oh yeah what are the seeds stay away from the seeds god what that was feels like forever ago did i yeah the fda was or whoever regulates that was just like do not plant the seeds please did i uh we really were too late but have i told the neil young story about the concert with the seeds before i feel you might have i'm worried it sounds familiar but maybe was it on air other i can't remember real quick quick, I saw Neil Young. He played at the Forum.

The first four songs, he plays like After the Gold Rush, Old Man. He sounds fantastic. These songs are like you're getting chills. They're so good. And then all of a sudden, after four songs, he has people in hazmat suits come out and like spray down the stage. And then it's like he brings out willie nelson's sons who he was playing with and they're like great players and they're playing new stuff and then neil hands

out like seeds to the audience because he's trying to make an environmental message and the rest of the show had like a theme and you were like man i appreciate what you're doing neil but, this is lame. We are the seed men. Yeah. It's like the first horse. I'll bow to the seed men. Like, just kneel on the piano after the gold rush, which is one of my favorite songs ever. And it's like, oh, this is incredible. And then it's like a themed experience about seeds.

It's like women with, like, baskets handing out seeds. Like, you know, there's a law against seeds now, and we're trying to circumvent. And I'm like, this is great, Neil. Give me a pamphlet. I'll look into it, and I support what you're doing. But back to the good stuff. And the women grabbed you by the hand, forced your hand open, shoved the seeds in your hand, made you hold them.

And they checked on the way out to make sure you didn't throw them away and they kept calling and saying did you plant them chicken hey it's neil's the seed girls girl um this is cynthia from the seed girls just uh you had a chance to plant those seeds yet neil was asking about you specifically oh wait oh neil you want to talk to him yeah did you plant the seeds i gotta sing my Starbucks song and I needed I was gonna Skype you in see how the seeds were coming do you want to buy a pono don't make

me write a mean song about you like George W Bush I'll say let's impeach Mike Carlson okay Neil I planted him I swear planted him Neil photographic proof please have you been to DCA? Have you been to Desi's California Adventure?

It's a good theme park. I don't like the sound of it. They're going to add a Cars Land? I like the farm. They're taking out the seeds. They're taking out the seeds. Crash commercialism. I was fine with it before.

It would have been okay if Cars Land was more like electric cars, I think. Oh, sure. Aren't they? Well, I guess you're right. The cars in the Cars Land, they have hearts and lungs, right? Cars in the movie? Oh, yeah, they're just alive. They're just alive.

So, yeah, okay. He's fine with cars. Take the joke back. Anyway. What happened to all this this is this just like the entrance of cars land now what where are we geographically when we're at santa rosa seed and supply i think um we're looking at uh cars land and soon to be uh like marvel i think that's the real sort of in the in between oh and you know what but before we wrap up the thing we haven't

said you know part of apparently the lore and i was trying to find a quote on this and maybe i'll try to have something for part two for 1.2 when we do it um supposedly the biggest fan of bountiful valley farm was not a visitor but michael eisner i was trying to find that loved like the heart and soul i feel like he described that like he was all in on bountiful valley farms wow wow there was some other quote where he said like all right you know everything i said about the aspen retreat like what do we want to represent about california well you know there's Hollywood and there's nature and tourism and there's industry. There's the workplace. I think he said the workplace.

That sucks. What do you mean the workplace? Yeah, God. I don't want any workplace to be represented. What about like- Workplaces are gone. Nobody has workplaces anymore now. I don't want us to go to a theme park and see. Maybe I do.

Maybe I miss them. I'll just go walk around an office. What about like if they represented like a Dunder Mifflin somewhere in California Venture? Okay. Oh, of course. The ultimate workplace. That's gonna have to be Universal though. They have it back on Peacock

and yeah. That seems like a will. If they did a store that was exactly the layout of the office office, I couldn't aid on that. That's something. I think they should do a Superstar Limo-style office ride. That's what we were getting at on the Monsters, Inc. ride.

At this point, it's probably the most popular show on all the streaming services. They gotta do something with it. They gotta expand. That's what she said! Yeah, yeah. For sure. Or it's just like Office Live

and they recast the characters and you get to watch a little play, a little Office play every day. Well, Office the musical. Okay. In the way that, you know, like finding Minimo the musical where there wasn't,

it wasn't a musical before, but why not do it now? And then they can get, like during Halloween time, they can get rowdy. They can get bawdy. Like Slaughter World? Yeah, like Slaughter World, yeah.

And it's called the Offix with three X's at the end. Yeah, like Slaughter World, yeah. And it's called The Offix with three X's at the end. Yeah, that's good. How have we not been... We've done this show now for three years. We haven't been hired yet. It's unbelievable. I know. Great ideas left and right.

This was just a con. This whole thing was just a con to get hired in one of these companies and it hasn't worked. Unbelievable. It's time to admit what we're doing this is all it's been about um so yeah if you work at uh universal studios just let us just let us you've been listening to all of them we know you're looking for pun writers we know puns are coming back around 20 years later what do you want thing i did at the beginning there were we know puns are coming back around 20 years later what do you want thing i did at the beginning there were so many puns yeah what else do we have to do cry on the air if you want we'll beg cry and it's okay to cry as josh gad said nearly a year ago it's okay

to cry yeah oh that actually might make me cry if I examine that statement too deeply. That it was almost, oh, yes, yeah. No kidding. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Anyway. My therapist says it's okay, besides, it's okay to cry. He's like, sometimes if you need to prime yourself, he's like, you need to watch Rocky or something,

because you know it'll make you cry. Well, I guess now I'm thinking maybe I just need to watch Gad. It didn't make you cry and i'm like well i guess now i'm thinking maybe i just need to wash gad you didn't it didn't make you cry when it was only a day old but once it's a year old imagine no possessions that's we're gonna get to so many year anniversaries remember then there was the other different one where Aaron Paul was yelling there boy

what a great week is it a year already happy birthday they've done enough they've done enough celebrity boxings they don't remember that's been a year so who wait who has done celebrity boxing the Paul brothers they just

no no Aaronaron paul from uh from uh oh yeah no aaron paul no no no not logan paul and not what's the brother uh jake i would certainly jake that's okay i would buy that aaron paul has a brother and they're into boxing together that's not such a stretch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be funny if it was suddenly revealed that Aaron Paul is the third after Jake and Logan. I was like, did Aaron Paul have a celebrity

boxing match against the Bagel Boss or something? Did I forget? It was right before the pandemic, so I kind of forget a lot of stuff. So, yeah. We're announcing a new Enterprise.. So, yeah. Okay. We're announcing a new enterprise, Boxing Bitch.

A whole new way to fight. Universal. To get involved in the fighting yourself. Universal, hire us so we can book celebrity boxing matches at the park. Yeah, get us. We just need the three of us and Aaron Paul, we will bring Boxing Bitch to your park We have access You know the celebrities we've had Do you want Evan Susser

To box Nick Weiger At Universal Of course you do We can make that happen for you So hire us Please Or do you want Evan Susser to fight The Bagel Boss we can make that happen

we should do it we can book you know him he did something with the minions once do you want someone who did something with the minions once to box aaron paul that's right is that what we're proposing i don't know i'm so so much we're again're lost. We're lost in the middle of confusing. We're lost in the middle. DCA. And what we've determined is that we have to step down like DCA, stop and talk about it and do a refurbish and we'll come back. We'll have to figure out the plan here. We'll have to figure out the timing on this.

Yeah. But we'll do it. It will be sooner in a year. I don't know. Yes. Good question. Because we've got more. There's more DCA coming to the second gate.

There's more, but do we do this? Well, I guess that's the off-air conversation. Either way, there's more. Off-air, I think, yeah. Yeah. Because this is DCA 20 years. We've got to celebrate it in a big way. And it's the second gate. We have to celebrate the in a big way. It's got to, we got to, and it's the second gate.

We have to celebrate the second gate on the second gate. So there's more coming. So don't worry about that. Right. For now you survived. I can't believe we even thought we would get further than this, but you survived part one. You survived DCA 1.0.1.

Point O. Point O.0 oh actually yeah 1.0.1 would be the first uh update i think it well but then do you want to get two in the title when we do it yes for cleanliness sake we'll call it the next uh installment 1.0.2. It's all extremely cleanly. This was great. So, all right, we're going to figure it out. It's a big week. There will be more DCA content over on the second gate. And there's always great stuff happening over there, which hopefully, as you know, is patreon.com slash podcast the ride and follow us on all the other social media.

We'll be posting great photos. I mean, we got to post all our favorites. We for sure have to show some of that parade. Oh my god, the Chow Mein Man and the Golden Gate Bridge Boys. That's a hell of a parade. I love Eureka.

We'll get deep into Eureka. Also right on our way out, I'll drop the news story that Evermore Park is suing Taylor Swift for naming her album Evermore. Hell yes! Let's go! That's what you teased? Whoa! You told us he had

a good one, a good topical. Oh man. Oh, they gotta pay those contractors somehow. Evermore, yeah. No one's ever used Evermore before Evermore Park. Good, nice try, I think. Yeah. Yeah, what, are you going to try to sue Edgar Allan Poe now?

Yeah. Nevermore is too close. Poe had a time machine, is what they allege. Went into the future, saw the park. If anybody would, come on. He had a steampunk time machine. Of course he did. He stole her name

uh so yeah so anyway uh let's see if taylor can get out of this one i have not listened evermore nearly as much as folklore and folklore is uh fantastic i will say no but evermore is okay okay yeah well so check those out check out those albums yeah let's plug taylor swift help her out during this lawsuit from the Evermore theme park. It's going to be a tough time for her, clearly. And we will come back. You will hear more from us. And we'll get to all your...

We'll get to Burger Invasion. We'll get to Orange Stinger. We'll get to Pizza Um Mau Mau. You're going to hear it all. That's right. Yeah. Mella Burritos. If that doesn't entice you so so uh hold on tight

happy birthday california adventure uh and we'll talk to y'all soon forever this has been a forever dog production executive produced by mike carlson jason sheridan scott gardner brett boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.