Podcast: The Ride - Disneyland 35th Anniversary Special with Joe Kwaczala

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

Stand-up Joe Kwaczala joins us to discuss the star-studded Disneyland 35th anniversary tv special. Tony Danza! The Muppets! Michael Eisner! The gang's all here! Watch Joe's new comedy special Ooh La La on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-rOLGbrD0uI Chris Gaines episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Watch This Episode: https://youtu.be/66b0FvG-f0s 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! anniversary special with Joe Quazala. Hey, it's Podcast The Ride, a podcast about theme parks where one of the hosts got their pants souped by theme park water within three hours of this very record. Which one was it? Was it Mike Carlson? No, no way. Dry as a bone. Jason Sheridan. No, mine got sued for other reasons. Don't worry about it. You having a problem?

We've been talking about having issues down there lately. I know you guys are having a little bit of early onset something, but is everything all right? No, that just trickles a little bit. Yeah, that's all you're talking about. That dries pretty quick. It's normal. Men are 30s. It's nothing wrong with it. It's when that happens. So it's not souping. It's normal. Men are 30s. It's nothing wrong with it.

It's when that happens. So it's not souping. Across the board. No, yeah. So no, soup wouldn't happen from that. Okay. That leaves me, Scott Gairdner, high. Yeah, I did.

Do you want to guess the circumstances? What could have happened where three hours ago? Jurassic World? Not Jurassic World. One other probably location in the vicinity where you could soup your pants. Despicable Me, Super Silly,

Fun Land. Oh yeah, were you frolicking in the water play area? That would be another one. No, no, no. I didn't frolic nor did I take a shot at the Irish Bar

where you can get hammered and end up face down in the kiddie pool. Like Sons of Boulder. Yeah, no, it's I didn't have my own I didn't have to be resuscitated before this Because I'm happy Lying there. Sometimes

you get a little too happy around there and that's what I was doing. No, this was City Walk Fountain. I danced with the devil at the City Walk Fountain. My boy was feeling with the devil at the City Walk Fountain. Wow. My boy was feeling a little oddly brave. It was kind of nice to see because he's a little bit hesitant, and he was getting pretty close to the water.

So I decided, well, maybe we should brave it a little more. But I picked him up. I was like, I don't want him to just get, because one of those jets is like twice his size potentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, actually, genuinely, that's a lot of fun. And he's sitting in the car right now. of those jets is like twice his size over actually yeah yeah yes actually genuinely and he's sitting at the car right now yeah yeah I'm just blasting the heat yeah hopefully hopefully it's not too much for him but you know toddler in a hot car is a problem like if you forget that

it's happening but if you did it on purpose I think it's fine right uh yeah i mean you're controlling the heat i mean yeah as long as as long as he heats on and he's got uh the steely dan discography which is what i'm assuming oh yeah no i mean i gotta go order of bubblegum shrimp uh butterfly shrimp in the car too to keep him sustained yeah you know his taste yeah i got i got him into shrimp early um yeah when you say it's heading from a royal scam to gout show i think right about now so he'll be um no but yeah it it got me more than him um which led to the funny circumstance of like i am pretty soaked and I got it luckily was on the way out not the way in so car

ride home I'm sort of like the shirt got really soaked souped too and like do I really want to wear this for the whole and I elected not to so I was just driving without my shirt for a little bit wow Brad Bidden once upon a Time in Hollywood?

Exactly the same. Yeah, yeah. And that's for anyone watching this one on YouTube, that's what you're seeing under here. I would, but I don't want this to be a bawdy show. Of course. Exactly. Just imagine Brad Pitt, and it's just what I got. No, it felt weird, but I'm going to do it because I don't want this wet fabric on me until I realized that my drive home had not one but two writer's strike locations along

the way. And I'm like, what if I am at a stoplight and right then a bunch of people go by? And what if it's people I know? What if it's like a lot of people I know at Warner Brothers or something? Or not people I know, if it's like a lot of people I know Warner Brothers or something or not some not people I know but like someone I really respect like what if that's the day Vince Gilligan is out and then he sees a weird guy with his shirt off with a toddler in the back Bill Prady James Burroughs like they're all out they're all there ah that's a good little prelude yeah that's excellent um chuck chuck lori's out it's a reunion what if the reunion of the disneyland 35th anniversary special was

happening today i'd be i'd be mortified uh um i know i uh so it worked i threw a jacket on it was fine now i'm regularly closed and i'm ready to talk about disneyland's 35th anniversary special uh excited for this one this is like um this is a very good theme park special i think one i've always liked very much maybe the best one it could be the best i mean it's possible that you could enjoy one more but sure maybe in a way maybe because it's uh bad or has problem but in terms of like genuine quality and like good material and shooting style this one's

pretty up there this special is free on YouTube in various ways if you want to watch along with us or watch it first before we do it and speaking of specials that are free on YouTube that is something that our guest has. That's a pretty good tie together, right?

Hell yeah. So put those back to back. Disneyland's 35th anniversary special. And then right after that, ooh la la, the new comedy special from our guest Joe Quazala. It's Joe Quazala. Hey. Hey, guys.

Hey. All right. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Very impressed by the segue it's pretty it's it's pretty nice right that you could load those up back to back yeah make a playlist yeah yeah uh we should do that actually well this episode we're we're putting something in the playlist right now that's a that's almost a full day's worth of entertainment at 24 hours

perfect uh so excited to have you uh excited Excited that you brought this to the table also. And now I realize that I know this comes from an area of interest of yours. I know from going to your place that time that you have a fondness for not just old specials, but old specials on Vhs with the commercials baked in from my personal collection yes so i have this special on a vhs tape wow from the night it aired and i have at one point i converted it to dvd and then recently i converted it to digital so now i have it on a hard drive and that's how i watched it uh for this episode was i watched my taping of this special from february 4th 1990 with the commercials intact which you can there's a version of this that's on youtube that has

the original commercials from the original broadcast wow it matches outside of one that was different uh yeah it matched and matched up with what i had one local did i see one that i ended up after you said that i was like i gotta watch the commercial i want to see the commercials there seemed like a very like uh sad one about like homeless lewis yes so that must have been local to whoever uploaded that mine was a commercial for liquid plumber for some reason we didn't have like an analogous local commercial it was just like two uh actors with mustaches playing plumbers being like i mean i don't want you to use liquid plumber but it works so that's uplifted that's that's a good trade-out absolutely that's what that's what pittsburgh local pittsburgh nbc affiliate uh wanted instead of a harrowing documentary about uh

the homeless problem yeah oh then let me ask you uh pittsburgh then so what is uh you grew up there live there then at least yes my my whole childhood okay okay what was your theme park uh well the thing is the the local pittsburgh theme park is kennywood uh-huh and i growing up i didn't realize that it was like a kind of unusual thing to have like a a cool theme park in in your town but my parents are from ohio so we would go to cedar point yeah okay every summer and i have very very fond memories of going to cedar point every year back then uh there was the kids area was branded with the berenstain bears which is how when the mandela effect came up years later yes i was like no no no i spent a lot of time with the family oh you knew you like and i've seen this in print in

yes it was all over the place yeah it was yeah not uh something that i i would have uh gotten you know that just peripherally came by which i think was the problem with the mendel effect is we're not paying attention but when you're but when you're in the shit in the berenstain bears park within cedar point you you don't forget a thing like that were they they were they the walk around characters they have their house or anything like what was the yeah there was like um

there was definitely a house and there were like I recall there being a slide inside of a fake tree yeah um when it was like a dark slide I suppose the kind of slide you go through and it's pitch black for like okay three seconds and then you come out which is scary but fun as a kid yeah uh and then one of the things i used to do as a kid at the baron saint paris park

which is like my parents thought it was funny because i wasn't special to this place, but they just would have pieces of paper and crayons. I just sit and like draw for hours just like at the parents' park because it was fun. And also, I don't know, maybe it was like novel that like I could like draw with people, new people, I guess. But yeah, now it's Snoopy. Yeah. As is almost every. There's so much. I guess but yeah now it's Snoopy yeah as is almost every

I was just at a Snoopy in the great America up north is it Knott's also Snoopy and then a bunch of other ones are I think Canada's Wonderland that we just covered as some Snoopy Dorney Park pivoted from

Bernstein Bears to Snoopy at some point. Uh, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Yeah. I mean, I get it. It's a stronger brand.

Like they were running out of stuff to do with the Bernstein bears. Want to wear a muumuu? Like, like Ma, like Ma Bernstein bear. Uh, Joe, did you know this came up on the show recently that in one of the books,

it says Ma is 27 years old. No. Man, because Ma does. I guess the phrase is old maid. She seems like an old maid. Yes. It's all about the hat. I think if you change that hat out, it ages you down, I don't know, 30 years, 50 years, way, way down.

It seems like she should be in a rocking chair knitting. That's the vibe of Ma Bear and Saint Bear. Yeah. No one, if you're just a mom, if grand or great aren't in your title, why are you wearing that hat? Yeah. It's like, well, Pa was also, you felt,

he didn't feel like a youthful bear no i mean he was he was farmer core uh you know he's had the overalls and the hat uh so that's got a wider range than whatever that i mean should we try to describe the ma berenstain bear hat i don't know how to quite i almost want to say it's like a shower cap it's a lot like a shower cap yeah such a strange choice it's like a sleeping bonnet but she's wearing it at all times right and it matches her it matches her dress as i recall yeah which makes it makes it seem like this is uh this is a pajama uh ensemble yes exactly yeah so so for whatever reason i guess look as i think i said before like bears i guess they used to age differently back then i guess so when we were kids that they just seemed people thought that we thought they were older but ultimately we don't know what the bear's

lifespan is either so and when you start feeling old yeah Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it's possible that, you know, she was 60s bear years in her 60s. And that might have been normal. We don't know how many sets of children that couple had that then grew up and left the den. Never saw him again. And then, you know, how many were to come? Yeah, there could be fully grown Berenstain bears. Is there a Berenstain bears book like the end of the David the Gnome show where they die and become part of the grass? And everyone watches in horrified terror like Swift the Fox did on that episode, if you know what I'm talking about.

I do. I do. Absolutely. Did you have that on VHS from your childhood? No, but I remember when that was on Nickelodeon for a little bit. Yeah. Right in the age where I would have been watching. And I checked out the pilot of David the Gnome recently.

And if you guys have watched it recently, you'll notice. Oh, I will. The producers. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, I don't. Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Oh, no. No. That's supposed to be so shocking to see if you don't know it's coming.

You're really not expecting it. You're like, what? David the Gnome. It's a beautiful theme song. And then as soon as that's happening and the lush, you're going over like that. Dozen wizards, a fair piece. Rise. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na.

Then Bob and Harvey. I think it's also a repurposed cartoon from Spain. Yes. It was definitely an import. And there was nudity in the original. Because Andrew Grissom gave me a David the Gnome toy that was vintage. And if you look on the back, there's naked gnomes. And I went, what the heck?

Well, that was custom. The back of well that was custom Custom by him or for Mike for Mike Andrew had that Wife Martha I think was her name opening shot of David the gnome is David taking a bath Yeah, and like the big the big scrub brush brush. Yeah, and then he but so in an uncut version he stands up and you just stare at his penis. Yeah, a slow tracking shot into his pubes.

Also uncut. Yeah, yeah. Where is he getting that thing circumcised? Come on. By a magical bird. Or by a wizard. An ogre comes and chops it. Has a sickle and just kind of...

Any number of sources. Yeah, you're right. I'm wrong. Wonderful sources. I'm wrong about that. To go back to your specials with commercials collection, does anything else strike you as like a crown jewel of uh of something that you've kept up or that you know you have or just that you're fond of oh my my favorite discovery because like

it was only maybe like 10 years ago that i found the tapes and was like oh i should like i didn't realize i don't know what's here right yeah yeah um one of my favorites is the pilot of a tv show called scorch yeah i think we've talked about Scorch a little bit. Scorch is hysterical. I feel like we must have. 100% greenlit in the success of Dinosaurs, the TV show. And probably ALF. And ALF as well.

It's kind of the ALF format. It's early 90s. And the backstory is that there was a guy, like a nightclub act, like ventriloquist with a dragon puppet and they chose to take the puppet and make him the star of a sitcom and the premise is uh that the dragon overslept by 100 years which doesn't seem like long enough wait he wakes up in like 92 or something

like 1892 when like there was photography maybe on a like some fundamentalist bible timeline yeah we had no we had dragons in the 1890 look at it they fought they wrote on them in the civil war but uh yeah aorch oversleeps and then he

crashes literally into the home of a single father and his cute, precocious little girl and then is part of the family for some reason. Was the dad then the guy who puppeteered him or did the puppeteer

stay below? The puppeteer stayed below, was not- Full elf. Yeah, full elf. Okay. That guy's not a presence. But the idea of ventriloquism is baked into the premise of the show because Scorch the dragon gets stuck or sneaks into the duffel bag of the lead who is trying out to be the weatherman for the local news. And they don't like him until this wisecracking dragon pops up.

And they're like, we like him for the news. Oh, wow. We like your puppet that you're doing. And he's like, yeah, puppet. And that's part of the premise of Scorch. But what if... And that would have been the whole series, is that it's a newscaster team of a human and a little dragon.

Or one part of the... And now we throw it out at the desk. It's Dan and Scorch. Right. And then the other aspect would be the home life of Scorch. A little girl and her new brother, Scorch. That's really insane. I think my... Here's why I know about Scorch from prior.

I believe my wife, Erin, went to elementary school with the kid of Scorch's, not owner, but- Creator? No, the, what do you call him? The weatherman. Oh, okay. The father- What is he?

His landlord, really. Okay. Yes, yeah, yeah. Although there is a landlord character, as you can imagine. Oh, okay. The father. What is he? His landlord, really. Okay. Yes, yeah, yeah. Although there is a landlord character, as you can imagine. Oh, and it's not the landlord. I don't know. Because there is a woman who's like,

what's going on in here? It's like, what, is that a puppet? You know, that kind of stuff. Oh. You need your ropers in a situation. But the puppet is famous. The puppet will be famous. Oh, right.

Soon the puppet will be, once you check out the evening news. So that's going to have to go out the window. Oh, wait, yeah. And in their, the lie is that famous soon the puppet will be once the once you check out the evening so that's gonna have to go out the window yeah and in the in their in their the lie is that it's a puppet right this is very confusing yeah or is he more concerned about anyone finding out that it's a real dragon because they might need to like i guess that's it that's fire that's yeah kind of it's a workplace hazard at the news station and not good for the landlord and her property yeah definitely oh yeah that's

accidents waiting to happen left and right this made me think of I must have talked about it before but I had to look up what it was called and in doing so I discovered something about it I did not know but the show Unhappily Ever After that was on WB.

The Married with Children ripoff with Bobcat. That was on for a few seasons. Bobcat called to aid us a voice of a puppet. I did not know. I mean, I knew Nikki Cox. I didn't know Kevin Connolly was on it. I didn't realize there was 100 episodes of Unhappily Ever After.

And it provided an actual Unhappily Ever After. Yeah. And it provided an actual Unhappily Ever After, the marriage of Nikki Cox and Bobcat Goldthwait, which didn't last. Really? Yeah. Whoa. I didn't know that one. I don't know if she necessarily left Bobcat for him,

but she went on to another comedian after Bobcat. I know all about the Nikki Cox marriage history. She then went to Jay Moore. Oh, they own a show together. Did that cause that? Or was that just seems likely? But I do not know.

Jay Moore is now married to the owner of the bus. Yes. What an insane was Jay Moore on Las Vegas. That sounds right. Because she was on Las Vegas. I can't say that with any certainty. Did they meet at the upfronts? Like he was there for action she was possible that might yeah there's no better time to be jay more than actually you know he's he's the hot then so she had a sitcom about uh

married uh dating a pro wrestler i just i just want to confirm nicky cox and jay more met while filming uh las vegas okay wow you do now i don't know why you know he might have been uh he might Mickey Cox and Jay Moore met while filming Las Vegas. Okay. Wow. You do know. I don't know why you know. He might have been a guest star or something. You know, one of those. I think that's what it was. Yeah, because Duhamel was the star. Yes.

I mean, who could forget Jimmy Conn and Duhamel. Jimmy Conn, Las Vegas. Yeah. We have not talked about the show Las Vegas in six years on this show. That's actually crazy because I remember when I was doing my tour guide training at Universal Studios, one of the things like they gave the whole class an assignment and everyone had to go learn about an NBC or Universal property and do a little like book report about it, essentially.

And I was assigned Las Vegas. I had to go learn who the stars were and you know it's an action-packed series involving the ins and outs now i don't remember the name of the casino shows you how much it stuck with me i why they should have stripped me of that valedictorian they should now strip me retroactively my valedictorian status that's right i was the valedictorian i should drop that more often yeah you really should impressive i was i was never you can imagine i was never the valedictorian of anything else any accredited institutions yeah but that's a school there was

a classroom uh where you earn that status by naming all of the Desperate Housewives. Their names and actresses? Yeah, I've talked before, but I had to know that because Wisteria Lane was a big part of the tour at that time. So I had to know the actresses, the character names, and what house it was.

Is that Brenda Strong's voice I hear? Well, it sounds like we're coming up on wisteria lane i just remember it was always the most pained like never did i take pauses more because i was pretty slick otherwise like that's the bungalow where alfred hitchcock made many of his classic films you know that's the clip you got to do it at uh but i would just like go dark for like, and over there, the Periwinkle house is where the home of Nicolette Sheridan, who played. Jesus. That's not a name. Jesus.

Jesus. I think her name is Jesus on the show. Don't look it up. You don't have smartphones right now. Anyway, it's 2006. You can't look it up. You don't have smartphones right now. Anyway, it's 2006. You can't look it up. As far as you know, I'm the guy who knows everything. Truly like such torture.

But I had that information in my head for a week and a half. And then. Yeah, gone. Pulling teeth to remember it. But Scorch, I'll never forget. And Scorch debuted with another show that was probably for a similar audience, a little more infamous, Fish Police. Of course. We just talked about Fish Police.

Yeah, Fish Police is awesome. These things are really haunting the show. Berenstain Bears, Fish Police. Well, we just learned that that guy, Ken, drew the Fish Police comic. Oh, yes. The guy who works at NECA Toys. No, no. He just worked with them.

Oh, okay. He's like an animator and stuff, and he worked on Tiny Toons. Oh, worked with them. Okay, cool. Different different animated things but we learned he drew the comics of fish police spin off wow the most in demand item craving more fish police gotta have more fish police check out your comics local comic stand um prime time show the thing it's in prime time but you watch it and you're like this is a Saturday morning cartoon did they just call it up and

move it wrongly because the Simpsons did is that what happened yeah I never thought about that networks were hungry for primetime animated shows but they knew it had to be animated but they didn't think about why the Simpsons was funny or why it was successful.

Yeah. It was just like, oh, it's animated. Well, you need more animated shows. And so they would get animated shows that felt like they should not be in primetime. Yeah. And looked like they, Fish Police looks like it should be. We need our bleeping Simpsons. We need our bleeping Capitol Critters.

Okay. Yeah. That was the other. i've never dove into capital critters i'm curious is that like an alternate dimension where uh the president and all of all of washington are critters or are they critters who live they live underneath oh it's it's like that it's like that ben franklin disney thing where concurrently there's an animal equivalent of our human thing. It's like the Tom and Jerry Wizard of Oz where they're just like hanging out in the background while the Wizard of Oz happens. Oh, yeah.

Not affecting the course of events. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is good. I've learned so much. Now I know why Scorch was around. I'm sorry to stay on Scorch. I had one more question. My question.

Wait, I had it was a question. Oh, what they didn't take into account is the possible. What happens on the day that a hurricane or a tornado and like some acts like like 500 are dead today in our town. Now for a report from the weather, the carnage on the ground is scorch. You get solemn scorch wiping his brow, giving a Cronkite level. Saturday today. Scorch taking off his glasses just so he can take them off shake his head

but you know he's a pro he gets his composure back ASAP the vice president well Jack Ruby being escorted through a parking garage if only Scorch had landed 30 years prior the fun that could have been had

well he hadn't overslept think about all the things that Scorch was asleep for Kennedy assassination that all had to be explained to him I'll imagine that's the episode we never got catching Scorch up the last time we oh we never got. Catching Scorch up.

Oh, you got a lot to learn, Scorch. That's actually better that he overslept for that because he was supposed to be on the grassy knoll. Yeah, you're right. Remember, wake up at this spot from this grass. You're either going to get a call from the Cubans or from this guy, George H.W. Bush, okay? And you got to be in this one knoll.

Do you know what a knoll is? Was he supposed to help? Was he like, okay, we got two people shooting, but just in case as a backup, we're going to have a little dragon. Use the distraction. There's going to be our first dragon sighting in America. We've been waiting to deploy this for a long time. So we need to kill the president, but we will have a dragon appear.

Everyone will be concentrating on the dragon. And then, boom, we take out. Tragedy of Dallas Day, but also something else. Also a dragon? Confusingly. Something else happened? Dragons are real. That's a tough day to be the newspaper editor.

Okay, well, we know what the big headline headline is but some of the front page has to be dedicate something to this dragon dragons are real we have we have this zapruder film but it it left the car that goes what's going on with the dragon we got great footage of the dragon we almost saw the car but then we got to see a dragon do a couple like barrel rolls getting an ap wire that just says eating ash um oh my god what could have been um but okay we we shift now to other 1990s uh primetime oddities and i'm so i'm so glad you brought up this one uh uh you know because it's a fun what people have asked us to do this one certainly uh i love this one.

But specifically, I remember this airing. I vividly remember it airing. I remember it scaring me because I'd been to Disneyland by that point, was already obsessed with Disneyland by that point. And there's a bunch of things that happen in it that made me have to ask my parents, can that happen? Does that happen? Things go further in a lot of it's it's really that's what

a lot of what this is is kind of ride throughs where things get a little crazier than your typical ride yeah yeah um i had those questions too watching it as an adult like was that did that happen back then how much of this is uh canon Yeah, yeah. Now, some bigger context for this also, the 35th anniversary, because this is also what you walked right into. I'm very fond of the 35th anniversary regardless. It's really, you know, when you're pondering your favorite anniversaries. It's such a bizarre one to pick. Like, usually, usually like wait for 40 right yeah 25 is is a classic one to celebrate 35 yeah it's like they had the they had the

space in the schedule i mean i think it just shows you that they had a lot of money i was gonna say you're at the whim of the economic situation. Yeah. I think so. There's been bigger anniversaries they've ignored, but 35, the 1990, they're doing great. Little Mermaid has just happened. The Renaissance has begun. Yeah, this is a very

confident Walt Disney company. Who Framed Roger Rapp was a huge hit. Little Mermaid was a huge hit. They got three parks open in Florida. Yeah. Like this is not the era of like we're taking down the mysterious Benedict Society from streaming. This Marvel movie made tons of money, but not enough tons of money. Like this is a very different time.

You're not called. So this era, you don't call the uh the golden era the moment we're in now yeah this year 2023 has not been it's not yeah no maybe elemental will take them out of this mess yeah bob eiger's at the the launch of the new apple vr goggles for 3500 do you think michael eisner was over at the virtual boy launch a couple years later no way he was swinging his big dick around and all the new park stuff that's right getting rides open getting big stars to show up for these specials um the thing i was gonna say about 35th um uh party graw parade uh oh yeah very They milked the footage of this

parade a lot. It's in this special very memorable parade with big tall balloons of the primary characters all in Mardi Gras mode. This is the Calypso montage that we see later. They packed those all up

and then eventually shipped them to Florida where they did a different parade. Oh, right. Rearranged it a little bit. So those were around. Those were in the company vernacular for a long time. There's some other special where they got the Buster Poindexter in the fold to do Hot, Hot, Hot. 1990.

This will be the year of Hot, Hot, Hot. Hot, Hot, Hot Renaissance. We're going to make it happen. Also, and this shows up in this thing a little bit, or at the very end, they had something called the Dream Machine. Anybody, do you kind of remember the existence of the Dream Machine? Every guest in the park for the 35th anniversary got a prize of some kind. Everyone, it's our birthday, but you're getting the gifts.

And I think some of those gifts were sort of cruddy. This was a year-long thing? Yeah, yeah. This whole time, this particular anniversary. But the gifts could be pretty solid. It could be money to use

on a Delta Airlines flight. It could be U.S. savings bonds. Wow. Like your grandpa might give you when Disney gave it to you. And if you were very, very lucky, you would go and pull a lever on the Disney dream machine. And if that really worked out for you, you could win a 1990 Gio. They gave away a car every single day. Whoa. Every day, a big red geo was coming away that would rise out

of a platform. You know how we've talked about how the partner statue, the statue of Walt, they put in there so that they'd stop putting gaudy crap in the middle of the park and blocking the castle. To do this thing, they had to dig into

the ground there to make the space for a big platform that would raise a geo up every single day. Wow. I missed this. I vividly recall. And I, cause I assumed it would have in my head at five years old. I'm like,

well, we're going to, all right. So how many people are in Disneyland every day? A hundred, as much as i can count two odds are pretty good i think we're riding a car and and i also thought we will ride that car off the platform straight down main street and oh yeah yeah and leave our old car to rot

or maybe take a quick stop at the autopia ride that that track. Sure, yeah. Show off your stuff. Oh yeah, demolish other cars. Those are wimpy other cars. Yeah, yeah. They're replacing that underground Geo every day. Yeah, that's another thing. Certainly they did not just use the same car and then give you

a thing that says you get a car somewhere else. In my head, guests are riding new Geos straight through the turnstiles every single day yeah the brand guy the head that like geo guy was like got to relocate to anheim for a year i'm on a special project it's pretty cool a lot of sales this year of sales did you pull the lever ever no no okay because i think only a rare few guys got to pull the lever ever? No, no. Okay. Because I think only a rare few got to pull the lever. Were some of the prizes like a 16-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola?

I think that's probably correct. Okay. Okay. Seems right. Yeah. Maybe just a thimble, just a taste, a free taste of Coke. Yeah. Surplus new Coke being passed out.

They had to do something with it. Yeah. It was all sitting around. But there's one more thing to say about this special. And, Brett, I sent you a still. I just sent one still, and it's this wonderful logo. Do we have the logo with the – The moving –

Well, I don't have that, but here just is the basic, the 35 years of Magic logo. I love this logo. It's great. So much super 80s, wonderful dusk gradient. My wife has a sweater that I think she inherited from her grandma that she wears almost every day. I look at this logo almost every day and it makes me happy. I'm prepared to say that this would work today. This doesn't seem that dated.

There's a classic quality to it. It gets reissued a lot like this doesn't seem like that dated yeah it seems there's a classic quality to it it gets reissued a lot like this and like the 25th or 25th anniversary of disney world which is mostly just the characters uh-huh standing around around a big 25 um yeah tasteful logo like cool kind forward thinking kind of 80s 90s rather than like stuck at like kind of uh gaudy stuck in an era um that one that we just pulled up also i believe that wasn't like a like a digital asset that was a picture of like a signpost that they because they go up on that auction thing oh right van eat and i i like they have them a lot i keep thinking i'm gonna do it one of these years do you know how much it's going for?

It's too much money for one thing that was on one sign and it's kind of scuffed up. What we just pulled up was kind of scuffed up. But I take the scuffs. I love that logo. Probably get someone to just make it for you. Yeah, maybe. But you have to know that it was there. Well, it was like it was getting the molecules from performances of Hot, Hot, Hot.

It was like soaking them up. It's in there. The molecules are trapped in there still somewhere. There's a cost. You do both costs and then see how much it's worth to you that the molecules are in it. That's what I think with some of this stuff.

Well, yeah. Freeze kind of. Yeah. Well well I'll think about it I do like those molecules I want those molecules but so anyway it's a big year big logos

hot hot hot a lot of geos and they gotta celebrate in a big way so you got this February 4th 1990 on NBC strangely you forget about that era celebrate in a big way so you got this february 4th 1990 um on nbc strangely yes it was you for like you forget about that era but like i think it would be like five years later when they merged with abc yeah but like just seeing a disney thing on nbc with nbc properties just like kind of gives you whiplash it still feels weird even though that's how they were doing it

for a while um and really where i like kind of fell in love with these kind of specials and with the Michael Eisner intros and the hellos. I don't know if you know this, Joe. We're so fond of Michael Eisner acting. This is a big deal. Oh, man. What a treat. What an absolute treat.

It's also just crazy that I knew Michael Eisner by name when I was five. Yes. What a weird, weird thing. Why weird? Some CEO, especially. And in this era where like,

I'm going to venture to say a lot of these CEOs right now are not particularly well liked. No, it's sort of strange that we all grew up with affinity for Michael Eisner as if it was winning the pool or, uh, he was trying to be Walt, right?

That's why he did it. I think was because the, you know, precedent set by Walt and he's like, right? That's why he did it, I think, was because the precedent set by Walt. And he's like, well, I'm Walt now. Well, I don't know if that's exactly right, but okay. Some guy who got booked for this job. You didn't make this place for us. But the other, like... So this is like right in the era that I love very much.

And I recall, like, I watched one YouTube that was missing some important elements. I'm glad I watched the full one with the commercials. Because it reminded me of something that I can't believe has not come up in all the time we've been doing this, which is the magical world of Disney theme. Yes. That's obviously my tape had that full thing in there. Sure. the 90s like a remix of When You Wish Upon a Star. Right. So good. I got a clip of this.

Brett, could you pull up Magical World of Disney theme? I think this had a list just like the logo created an aesthetic like that or at least like influenced me in an aesthetic. What the kind of aesthetics I like and chase this theme, I feel like influenced my music taste in an aesthetic way. The kind of aesthetics I like in Chase. This theme, I feel like, influenced my music taste in a major way. that's bang and you're shooting past like going around the space like spaceship earth in this cool way yeah hand claps that elevated everything to me it's like oh it's a wonderful world at disney here's the parks here's like flying shots through the parks yeah it's like well the parks are important it's on television yeah my third parent you know is there anything comparable at the moment like that i know they do the music in there yeah for the movies they have like a longer intro. They've been doing it for a few years

where they really soar over the hills and you get a little bit of a longer emotional beat, I guess, but there's nothing as fucking cool as that shit. No. I mean, I did like when that current intro, the lush CGI

worlds with the very much the Disney world castle, but then all these, like, it's all like rivers and trains going by, which is always cool. But I, I especially loved it when then you hear a little voice humming the melody and

then in comes the most well rendered cricket, the least creepy cricket you've ever seen who lowers down. I'm of course describing the beginning of Zemeckis' Pinocchio that we all continue to think about and revere. It was just so great to see him land in our world like that with his face that doesn't look like he was cut by a knife 20 times, scored on every inch. I was thinking yesterday, I was like,

was there a live action Lady and the Tramp in the middle of the lockdown years? Yes, going straight to Disney+. Disney+, yeah, some of those live action straight to Disney+, ones, really giving out psychic damage. Story, a very hard time. Was Justin Theroux Tramp or something that's really that's

true am i wrong oh i first i was like was it dev patel but that was a a joke i made about the fox and the hound uh oh that was a hypothetical one yeah right it's hard to remember it's like because it's just it's all uh folded into these uh yeah fake ones that I have joked about in the past. Yeah, where you're like, yeah, the new Little Mermaid where Awkwafina is Scuttle. Wait, what do you mean? That happened? A funny joke a few years ago? There's talk that they said that the Lion King is going to be their Star Wars universe.

Oh, my God. What are you talking about? Yeah. What is that? Wait, is that it all? The rumor is that, yeah, they're going to do Simba's Pride. They're going to do it all. Yeah.

Everything you'd ever want to see from that one movie. Remember when you saw Lion King and you said, not enough. Yeah. They're going to do all of it. So it's just going to become a series of like made for TV limited series? Every place you want to watch it, it'll be available. Okay. Thoreau and T it'll be available. Okay. Thoreau and Tessa Thompson.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I thought, I've never seen it. I just knew that. As arbitrary as any names we could have come up with. Yeah.

Yeah. Just like, look, you know, like go on the star meter, look at the top 500. Pick a random one. 22 and 492. Some of the live action casting it's like okay you can predict it by like who got a profile in vanity fair esquire lord it's just one of the things you

get now when you get famous yeah yeah snl you a disney live action yeah if you can get a liquor a magazine a multi-page magazine profile that an executive or their assistant will see who's this new up-and-comer well they could be bianca and bernard surely oh let's mock like a mock-up at gq with you on the cover and just send it to disney yeah oh that sounds great yeah we'll get you in that the clothes that jerry seinfeld wore in that one photo shoot a couple months ago. Oh, yes. You know what I'm talking about?

The cool jacket. The cool jacket and everything. And we'll do the same poses and then we'll just send it. A couple of copies to Disney. Yeah. It was a great spread about this up-and-comer Jason Sheridan. And I really liked his perfume ad, too. Yeah.

The sample smelled wonderful. Let's get him for sword in the stone yeah look me and beanie beanie felt scene uh we had a great time making live action rescuers you know i just call her beanie you know beans yeah i mean beans oh she hates that she hates it but she kind of likes it but i do it yeah um so if i if i may just occasionally uh give a little bit of texture to the tape that i was watching oh please yeah we we got a snippet of a news promo right before this began and just so you guys know what's happening uh geraldo was spending 24 hours as a condemned man on death row so that's what was happening on nbc either that week or later that night now you go see what life is like if you were in prison and then you and you eat the food and

you experience the small spaces okay sure and then you really are doing it but if you're on death row we're lacking one big actual component climax of that experience was he did they at least like fool him into thinking he was really going to be executed i think these are all questions that were answered in the special you want to know if he got the last cigarette and the firing line walks in the room well i just want to know how committed to the bit geraldo was. Does he order a final meal? It just eats and it leaves. That's the end. He just gets the nicest, like, grossest.

Do they do, like, the strap him in? That seems like a very volatile thing to do. Absolutely it is. Like a big showy, like, Frankenstein's monster version of the electric chair. Just descending upon his his fucking skull yeah yeah and then you gotta be that oh we gotta find that yeah but then all the walls come down

right then they flip a switch but it's just that all the walls come down and then all his friends and family surprise blitzer scene from Mission Impossible or something yeah pulls off his fucking face mask i've never seen is there it's trump i've never seen someone eat a whole vienna ice cream cake that quickly i have experience oh it's so terrifying i'm thinking about to die

is there one more is there a backup around anywhere? Geraldo was like an original try guy in a lot of ways. In many ways. Geraldo tries out the Al Capone vault. He tries out death row. Tries out getting, did he get like head butted or stabbed or something? What was the physical thing that happened to him? I recall Rick Sanchezchez i feel like kind of uh inherited that uh role he was a guy who got waterboarded because he was like waterboarding

like it's not really torture and they they like do it for like one second he's like no no uh geraldo tried out uh being in a foreign uh battlefield being in a foreign theater of war while having a gun on him. Do you remember that? Really? No, I don't think I do. During the Iraq war,

they were interviewing him and he made some weird offhand comment. And they're like, Geraldo, are you armed? And he's like, well, I can't. This is a very complicated place. And it's just like, Geraldo just wanted to brag about having a handgun on his person.

I don't remember that. Me neither. But it's all great. But we've talked about him enough now that there'll be a paywalled episode coming soon. Yeah. It's probably enough Geraldo. About Geraldo, yeah. Bullshit.

Yeah. Well, he's on Baywatch, so that's... Playing a wacky nerd. That's what got me into Baywatch initially. Somebody let me know about that. I didn't know that. Was G. Gordon Liddy ever on Baywatch? Wasn't he on Miami Vice?

Yeah, he's on a lot of shows. Oh, I love that game from nowhere. Yeah. And then also the Pennsylvania lottery number is daily 874, and the big four is 4341 thank you thank you that brings up like like now when my girlfriend and I when

we're like half asleep we're winding down asleep I will often put on YouTube compilations of like it's one of my favorite genres now of like 80s 90s commercials like it's just like 30 minutes or an hour of commercials but then i always reach over and like skip skip embedded ads like skip the youtube

yes the current commercials i need to watch the old ones i want to watch the old ones that's lulling me to sleep but i guess i'm watching lots of ads but not like that yeah I don't need to see those ad for things I can't buy so special proper let's here's some other like full wrap around context and this is going to give away some of who's in it which

certainly we could do the list ourselves but you gotta we love our jam pack special openings where they say a lot of names really quick. Brett, can you pull up the clip? 35th special opening. Because it is just an assault of celebrities. A good list.

Sure. Tonight's Disneyland's Throw in a Party and you're all invited. Host Tony Danza is all choked up with special guests from the cast of Cheers. Everybody loves Disney.

Miss Piggy. Oh, I wish I could be Cinderella. And the Muppets. Know what I mean? Ernest. He's cool. Charlie Fleischer. No one has ever gotten wet in my boat.

President Reagan. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. And a whole cast of your favorite Disney characters. It's Disneyland's 35th anniversary celebration. It's a good lineup. President Reagan, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and a whole cast of your favorite Disney characters. It's Disneyland's 35th anniversary celebration. It's a good lineup.

It's a very good lineup. Yeah, yes, indeed. All over the map, pop culturally. Cheers. As we've said, weird seeing NBC properties and like the biggest NBC property. And getting to hear their thoughts about Disney, something that probably didn't typically happen on the show. The supporting cast. Yeah, we're missing a couple.

Let's be clear. Yeah, that's true. You're right. You're right. They are there for Mickey's 60th, which was two years before. And I. Yes. But Danson and Kirstie Alley are not involved here.

Yeah. You mentioned that when you brought up doing one of these specials, you also brought up Mickey's 60th birthday. Which I also have. birthday, which you also have with the commercials and all. Two years prior, similar specials, but same format, like super jam-packed, hop around format-wise. We go fully into the world of this sitcom, and then here's a news report, and then here's a bunch of stuff on film. Both of these are, I think it's the same DP also. These specials are very elevated i think in terms of their their shooting style uh um and oh and charlie fleischer of course

the other yes the other uh well roger is a big a big part of uh oh right yeah so you gotta have charlie in there too uh um but yeah cheers in both of those specials. And you get to hear their thoughts about Tony Danza too. Which is like when Rhea Perlman as Carla references Tony Banta on Taxi, a show that her husband is on and that she was also on a few episodes as his love interest. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. love interest anyway yeah yeah well and and kind of weird like like i mean maybe they were knowingly dancing around that it's a tony danza guy who plays a lot of characters named tony must have been a fun joke at the time yeah yeah definitely and but then also that they're talking

about this with the confusion is coming from woody who is played by by Woody Harrell so that's another character with the same name yeah sure yeah uh and he watches who's the boss which is an ABC show which I which was interesting oh I looked at it I was like that must be another NBC that must be why they have Tony Danza but no I didn't know that either I assumed it was NBC strange. They lured him away. It was a friendly agreement. I didn't realize that so Taxi ends in 83. Who's the Boss starts in 84 and goes, I think, until

92 and was very, very successful. So like this is a big get. You get most of the Cheers cast and you get the star of who's the boss on this anniversary special. Yes. Who's consistently been on TV

for 12 years at this point. Yes. But it still feels to me, I'm like, yeah, Tony Danza almost feels like a punchline a little bit now. Absolutely. Or like that getting him

doesn't seem like it should be so crazy. But I found an interview with the director of the special I'll put a pin in that that is a Shyamalan like twist for me at the end of the special I jumped out of my chair when I saw who directed this I screamed

out loud rightfully so the director said he was a little bit like when they called him in to do it like and we got tony danza and he's like so and they're like tony yeah that's a big deal he's on the biggest show he has the highest q rating that old that outmoded thing of like who's the most likable most known likable person on television uh uh so the director is baffled who knew tony danza was such a big name

also says he only had him for 8 hours on one day they shot all of that in that amount of time which when you think like they hop around with them there's a whole Jungle Cruise bit which isn't very involved said he was nice and extremely professional so that kind of makes sense given that he's credited as the host and he's really not that present

throughout a lot of this he shows up a lot later than you to see too he doesn't really do any hosting duties for what feels like 30 minutes. Yeah, right. You lose him for a while. The whole beginning has nothing to do with him. They're looking for him, and then they find him.

They rotted in until him being gone. Right. They knew the time was late. Yeah, yeah. We get a bunch of stuff on the Cheers set. It's the framing device. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true.

It ends up being the raparads. It comes around. All of this. They are going to interrupt mud wrestling, which seems like a racy thing for a family special, really, so that they can watch the Disney special. Yeah. Wow. So everything you're watching is in the cheers universe. Specifically like our first cutaway,

which is, I guess, arguable if it's cheers cannon, but it's about Woody as a boy. Yeah, I think it has to be. I think it has to be, even though it's filmed totally different with it.

I don't, I can't imagine you ever saw young Woody again. Yeah, this, this, and I'm sure we've talked about it before. Maybe it's come up on every year of our haunted mansion. I don't imagine you ever saw young Woody again. Yeah, this, and I'm sure we've talked about it before. Maybe it's come up on every year of our Haunted Mansion. I don't know.

I love to talk about this thing. It's so great that Woody has a lot of confused Disneyland memories that everybody's correcting him on. But there's one that is crystal clear in his head, and it's this special time that he went on the Haunted Mansion, and he was very scared to go on the Haunted Mansion. First of all, just the shocker of flashback in Cheers studio camera world. You're in the Cheers mode. Yeah. Because it's directed, as Jason was saying,

Jim Burrows directed this. It's on the set. This is identical to what you would see watching Cheers. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as we were saying before, in terms of the stacked lineup of this, Jim Burroughs part of it. But before we started recording, Jason said this news does and said, I was watching the credits and I was like, oh, my God.

Well, the biggest both directors, but I was like, oh my God! You are the biggest! I had both directors, but I included James Burroughs. No, the oh my God was specifically for James Burroughs. I remember specifically. Well, just because it was kind of strange, where it's like 80% of the cast, and Bill Prady, one of the main writers, wrote that sketch, the wraparound sketch.

You mean for the, that's the Muppets. For cheer. No, Bill Prady wrote the Muppets section. Yeah. Because he was a Muppets writer at the time. Yeah. He didn't. Okay.

That makes more sense. They don't have any credited cheer. Like for some of this, for the Ernest segment and for the muppet segment they they in the credits say earnest earnest writers wrote the earnest muppets a muppets writer bill prady wrote the muppets thing but they don't say that for cheers which makes me wonder if it was just whoever wrote the special wrote this it might have been same writers is that 60th birthday also two sets of writers and i did i did look them up to see what they were about none from cheers one no one is is they're both husband and wife teams interestingly enough yeah uh one is is the people who did the the mickey special two years before yeah and they fittingly enough made

a name for themselves by packaging commercials and airing them as specials in primetime. Oh, okay. We're talking a lot about commercials, but that's one of their big things. Oh, sure. It's like Joy Albrecht and Scott Guerin. Very close to your name. Yeah, almost. I actually think Scott Guerin maybe directed the Mickey special two years before.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. And did not direct this, and I i know why but i'll also put a pin in that put a pin in that and then the other group of writers uh came out of do you guys know about almost live the seattle-based uh sketch show that aired locally before snl it's most notable because its alumni list includes bill nye and joel mckale oh okay and it sounds familiar but i don't know anything yeah it's and i it's like it's a thing where you're like oh okay like i've never seen it and i think in in seattle it's like oh yeah almost live like people who grew

up with people who grew up with it like it's on before snl so of course i watched it and it was joe and nancy guppy and they're both uh still in seattle they wrote for not necessarily the news oh yeah yeah oh all right a lot of people came out of that so there was a period of time when when they were in la trying to make it happen and i think it was when this happened as well some of some of that disney dough uh but okay so yeah we we flash back to young woody his friends are making fun of him for not wanting to go on the ride, but then he gets some comfort and like a ride buddy in the form of this girl who is, spoiler, pretty ghostly from the beginning.

Yeah, appears out of nowhere. In like perfect pink dress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comes from nowhere. Why him specifically? I don't know. But, you know, but he's happy because he's got a female companion. And you then just get to go on this very charming Haunted Mansion ride that typifies what I like about the special so much if we're gonna pay tribute to disney in a real way or to disneyland in a real way to like film and preserve the classic rides really well shot in an elevated way then then specials would

usually do it and i like that it's kind of no frills a little bit they like there's there's jokes and gags with everybody but you also just get to see like singing busts and you know uh somebody lifting the lid of the coffin with a uh just filmed very uh nicely you get to see them in more clear ways than when you're on the ride even yes true yeah yeah long you know sometimes you want to see certain things and the car turns linger it's nice lighting it's nice close up yeah yeah and there's a little extra fog machine yeah in a lot of it and uh it was also there's a shot where wo Woody and the ghost girl are dancing in the grand hall,

like next to the ghost. Before, before the big reveal, they poof out of their seats and are, are on the floor with, yeah, with the ghost dancing. Yeah.

You don't know, you don't, you don't know anything's up, I guess at that point. You're not supposed to. Yes, she has the ability to puff somewhere else and bring another person with her. But who knows? I don't know what's up with this girl.

There's still a lot of questions. She's also rude. She's a smart aleck. She calls Charlie ugly, I think. Oh, that's right. She says, like, Paul Dark and ugly. Paul Dark and ugly, yeah. She's got some sass to her.

We forgot that. This is kind of the runner of the special is that Charlie Fleischer plays... The only employee at Disney. Yeah. Very surly employee at that. Always with different accents. Voice affectations.

This one is Vincent Price. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, good performance as creepy haunted mansion person. You see somebody trying to get out of the coffin and they say Woody. And then you remember,

oh, yeah, this is supposed to be Woody Boyd from Cheers. Because I fully forgot. Yes. This is the character Woody that you know from working at a bar in Boston. This is him years prior. So I guess it's the 70s seemingly. There's nothing that really

negates it being the 70s. But it doesn't feel super 70s either. But yes, the whole time and it's a ghost girl and also it's Woody from Cheers. it's so strange yeah uh the character full name by the way woodrow huckleberry tiberius boyd thank you that's a solid sitcom joke where it's just like oh that character named like jack or something has an insane name tiberius probably references star trek right isn't that uh tiberius james tiberius kirk right

yeah oh oh that's cool um and then also there's long stretches of the ride without anybody talking they just like let the ride just kind of do its thing which makes me wonder what is what he's describing he's just describing the the ride because all of this is a story that he's telling oh that's right then you come back and like they say like well what a beautiful story so like and then you'll never get then we went by this uh these four we're in an omnimover bob gerbilt and then the omnimover rotated to this point in the ride where there was an effect that happened like he's really specific about it's kind of like you're the camera. You're the view. They point you where they want you to

see. It's right-faced every which way. Walt's philosophy was not actually one vocal, one point of watching. You saw things all around you and you'd have a different experience each time you went on. Add it to re-rideability. Norm Cliff, you're falling

asleep. What are you doing? doing come on also i we haven't mentioned yet uh in the cheer scene maris is there uh no lily that's played by bb newworth maris you never see that's that's niles okay yeah yeah um i so then you know so they're showing really all the classic the big parts of the ride that we know. And then, of course, you got to go out on the grand finale. The fat lady. What is this? Why does this happen? I've never noticed that statue. Oh, right. But it's but she's it's almost it's presented like the climax that the girl says it's not over until the fat lady sings

and woody says who and then it shows this statue or this animatronic that i've never thought about before yeah but it is there she's in the back somewhere yeah yeah that's the um is that the official name well we'll get to that we i will we get to this person uh year or not? This year? I don't know. 2023, we'll have to wait and see. Jason turned into a little ghost boy there. A little ghost boy energy. Mischievous ghost boy energy. But just a strange, you don't get hitchhiking ghosts. You don't get, suddenly the climax is this character who, yes, isn't it kind of background?

Yes. No, I know. When she said that, I go, oh, yeah, I guess. Because I've talked about this, and I don't want kind of background yes no i know when when she said that i go oh yeah i guess because because there's i've talked i've talked about this and i don't want to talk turn into haunted mansion but i feel like you know somewhat they can brighten some of these ghosts up because a lot's going on in that haunted mansion graveyard but you can't see it and sometimes you go oh wow there's a a game going on or something between two ghosts back there but i can barely make it out so yeah it's this is another one where it's like, that's a weird pull.

I guess just because of the phrase. An insulting close-up. The public domain joke that they wanted to use. Right. Yeah, yeah. Didn't have to pay any husband-wife writer teams for that. Yeah, a lot of opera-based jokes back in the golden age of sitcoms.

That's true, yeah. So then it's a nice ride and he made it through and then they share like a moment but then she disappears and then the friends are there again and i i feel like i presented this once out of context on twitter which if you take it out of context is really funny that he's what it's well if you don't know the information you're watching a kid talking to his friends and then he turns and looks and sees a girl and waves fondly and then the girl disappears and then he keeps looking and rubs her ribbon on his face and then it fades to

woody from cheers on the set of cheers and everyone from cheers is there like if you turned on the tv if you were late if you put this on six minutes in and then like wait huh this was all within cheers oh yeah i would say there's several moments within this special where if you tuned in not at the beginning you'd be like what is happening in America why is Charles Fleiss firing a

gun a lot indeed but a fun sequence a good sequence I also want to note that it's I didn't catch it till watching it a second time that when Kelsey Grammer says, yes, Disneyland is a magical place. I realized, wait a minute. He was part of a Disneyland anniversary. Just 15 years later, he would be on a stage talking about being a UN interpreter for It's a Small... Oh, dear Lord. Dear God. That was only 15.

Here he is like being just a peripheral part of a Disneyland anniversary. Probably if it occurred to him, you know what? I should try to expand my... I should be the host of the next one is what I'm doing. I'm calling Disney now. I'm going to get ahead of it on the 50th. It'll be wonderful and not perilous. The following... You've seen this clip. Oh, I mean, Disney now. I'm going to get ahead of it on the 50th. It'll be wonderful and not perilous. The falling, you've seen this clip.

Oh, I mean, many times. It's important. Have you seen an American flag? And certainly you've seen. Another hallmark of this great nation. It's one of the finest things we've ever produced. Did we talk on the show? I think Jane explained it to me because I think one of her friends might have been there or

like worked that theater before but that stage is not totally flat there's a lot of divots there's a lot of cutouts for effects and stuff rising in and out of the ground so yeah he should not have moved so much

because it was an insane so you're blaming Kelsey. Jason officially puts the blame on Kelsey Grammer for the... He should have known better. I heard it here first. He was asking for it. Stay still. Who told him to go up there and just wander around?

Any actor worth his salt knows that you go and you see the show of what the theater you're performing in is before to know the layout. To know that when at the end Genie turns into the turns Jafar into the Genie Jafar and shoots out of that area where he was going to walk. And then he would have known that there was a hole in that part or whatever you're saying. There's a curve. Genie pops out, makes a joke about like the Scion hamsters, you know, and goes about his day. The what?

Remember the giant CG creatures in those cars? No. Am I? Joe, do you know what I'm talking about? No. This wasn't, sorry, this isn't the dragon who does the weather on the news? No, I was trying to think of a topical thing

that he might have said that was really big at the time. You could have just said Snooki. You should have just said Snooki. the time you should have just said i guess i should have just said snooki but we said snooki so much i do wait it's not scion it's kia it's kia now you all remember i see i know what i know i vaguely know what they are i'm off today i got my maris wrong i got my kia wrong oh There's just this special is so action-packed. It's a lot to keep. It's going every which way.

Plates spinning, balls in the air, you know? Okay, where we move after this. We see our Eisner for the first time. Yes, yeah, yeah. The Cheers cast then turns on the special. This isn't in every version. This isn't in the expanded cut i didn't realize yeah yeah so they turn back to the tv after this ghost story let's watch the

special and then you know good thing they didn't turn it on two minutes earlier they would have seen themselves and it would have like mirror in a mirror in a mirror explode multiverse collapse yeah but yeah they turn they turn on the TV and then Eisner is like, we'll have more after the break and maybe says some names. Anytime they say the list of names is very funny. Yeah, and he gets like winded. They give him that get like, DJ Jazzy's having the best time and more.

Miss Piggy. President Reagan. And they make a big deal of President Reagan, which is the next big thing, which is really just that they filmed a speech of his and then it was a big deal that he came back since he was the host of the the opening right special um can i do my quick uh commercial break of oh yeah yeah let's check

we had uh i don't know if you guys remember the reach toothbrush commercial with the drawn like ziggy like character who opens his mouth 180 degrees and then brushes his teeth like it's a straight line i that one has stuck with me because it was horrifying. Just a guy opening his mouth like Pac-Man and then it going all the way around. Oh, God. His reach can get back there, you know? Then there's a Diet Coke commercial that's an Indiana Jones homage,

but you don't know why. And it's a to be continued. And so... Yeah, two part commercial. Yeah. And then Alf and the Hogan family have new episodes this week. And in the Hogan family, Jason Bateman's hitting on Lisa Rinna.

Wow. Okay. Interesting pair. Wow. Both still relevant to this day. Very much so. And very short commercial break, though, the first one. That was it.

Yeah. They were getting shorter in general back then. You can really feel that in this. So you come back for with uh reagan quick speech and this this led to this might lead right into finally to talking about the the director for a minute uh they do bring uh reagan out to yankee doodle dandy which i thought was very unprecedented and maybe a little bit mean but couldn't clear the star spangled banner or hail to the chief uh um this is a quote from the director uh in this is all this info is from filmmaker magazine from an interview uh uh oh i

hated him reagan gave a speech at disneyland and we just shot it we used very little of it in the special uh uh didn't didn't like reagan as many people don't the director who is this phantom director we reveal it this early? Or do we reveal it when we all learn who it is? Well, I knew it going in. I will say I knew it going in. I might say doing it sooner than later

because I have stories to pepper in from this interview, which was kind of interesting. This is directed. Anyone want to do the honors? Or anyone feel not cursed to say his name? Yeah, I'm worried like Beetlejuice if I say it too many times. This is directed. Anyone want to do the honors? Or anyone feel not cursed to say his name?

Yeah, I'm worried like Beetlejuice if I say it so many times. Well, look, if he shows up, it's okay. It's the kid I'm worried about. Well, this guy is also, you know. Beetlejuice Jr. has done some bad things beyond canceled. John Landis is the director of this special. Shocked me. Yeah. Really shocked me yeah huge

I feel like it kind of let me know why this thing was elevated why like it does feel very filmic and you know kind of advanced beyond more just like TV ish stuff that they'd done good director great father

but good director to some certain actors didn't make it out. Oh, sure. Yes. Yeah. A lot of those. Yes.

A lot of those movies. Uh, yeah. Um, but that's what he's saying about what he's saying about Reagan is like the interviewer is like, felt weird that you would do something with Reagan because I thought a lot of your movies like animal house were very like anti or wait, this thing said, you know, Spies Like Us was a very anti-Reagan movie. Who could forget? I guess so. Yeah, yeah.

But anyway, yeah, John Landis. Here's why it's John Landis. I did find this pretty fascinating. Okay, so the Muppets are part of this. We know this. Jim Henson had committed the Muppets are part of this. We know this. Jim Henson had committed the Muppets to be on the 35th anniversary show. Disney made a deal with an outside production company

to make the specials. That must be some of these people who made that last one. So Henson goes down to Anaheim 10 days before the show with the Muppet performers to see what's going on. And he is, quote,

appalled at what they had planned. Jim thought it was amateurish but it's all ready to go they're shooting it really soon the talent is already signed we got danza we can't go backwards now um so jim knows landis knows he's a big disney freak as as landis says himself so jim ensign calls and said says do you want to shoot a show in Disneyland? It's the 35th anniversary special. It's shooting in five days. Wow.

Yeah. So he only had five days to do all of this. And it's a very, what we have described as being a pretty high end special. I mean, some of it was in motion without him. But yeah, he only got a five day heads up on this thing at Jim Henson's request. That's pretty wild. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. So to do like, I guess presumably, please save this. I don't know what was going to be going on.

That's what I want to know. What did it look like before? How different could it have been? I don't know. Yeah. I bet that Scott Garrett guy was going to direct it though. I think so. Yeah, because like if all the other credits are the same and he did the previous one was probably going to do this. And then Jim Henson had said no.

Henson gets you booted from a job? Yeah, personally fired. What does that even look like? The night, like Mr. Nice. Yeah. And also apparently this this period of time where like they're Disney is interested in acquiring the Muppets is like a very fraught time for Jim. Oh, right. So maybe stressed out

and maybe like a perfectionist in this. Like we don't want to do some Disney crap. That's like what he's worried about. And not unlike Ted Danson and Kirstie Alley's absence later, we do not, there's no Henson characters from the Muppets. Oh, true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Oz and Goals. All right, all right. I was worried I was going to go for a terrible pronunciation, but it is Goals. Or Gels, I don't know. Yeah, oh yeah, maybe.

It could be. So anyway, really last minute on Landis' part. He seemed pretty delighted by all of this, by getting to do stuff in the parks. Also, not long after, did Beverly Hills Cop 3, which is this big theme park romp, also shows his super fandom. So I think his love of it definitely is clear in this.

And I think it's probably just good that Disneyland doesn't have a helicopter ride. Jesus Christ. No. That swooping when we were at Disney, they were like,

it's already shot. It's already done. Okay? We got it on tape. We got it on a digibeta. Okay? So we'll just cut it in. Okay?

You don't have to do that one. You'll see it. We got somebody. Scott Guerin's doing that one. Okay. You don't have to do that one. You'll see it. We got somebody. Scott Guerin's doing that one. Okay. So now we've established director. Let's see a little bit of Eisner. And he said, Landis said, like, I got to direct a scene with Eisner and Tony Danza and Goofy.

And this is what happens right before that. And I love, you know, we love our straight to camera Eisner addresses. But this I love because it's like a little scene.-to-camera Eisner addresses, but this I love because it's like a little scene. Yeah, this might be my favorite in the whole special. I rewatch this so many times. We have, this is basically,

this is a little scene between three non-actors. And two of them, I don't think, fancy themselves actors, but one of them does. And oh, some flat deliveries here. I am excited.

Here we go. Hi, folks. How are you today? Hi. You didn't happen to see tony danzy did you no have you been to disneyland before oh yes in fact i have a snapshot of our first visit christine graff and michael schwartner you were the first guest 35 years ago on this very spot. Now that is impressive. Christine Graff and Michael Schwartner. Christine Graff and Michael Schwartner. The only way to elevate that scene is if Michael Eisner recreated the pose that Walt was in with the two kids. Arm around the lady and shaking the hand of the guy.

Oh, I know. Yeah, he should have made them get on their knees. Yeah. You look little. Let's recreate the pose. No, we don't have knee pads. All right. Fine.

You don't want to bend. I'll get on this apple box. I looked these people up. Oh, really? I don't know anything about these people. That's interesting. The first people and the first kids in Disneyland? Apparently.

So it's also funny to think like, okay, ago and you look at those two now they are 40 and 42 years old i mean all due respect they look uh i mean everybody in the 90s kind of you know a 40 year old looked like he was 60 you know yeah that's true yeah like the berenstain bears yeah it's like real life berenstains but uh yeah i looked them up and they they're cousins and um and they're married they really when you see them they're like that is a married couple that's what you're like oh they were at disneyland when they were like five and seven like that doesn't make any sense. Oh wait yeah. Yeah wait why did I think they were married when they came out?

Disneyland together as children they would not make any sense they were arranged to be married their 50s parents. Their cousins the story was that you know the Michael little Michael had heard that Disneyland was opening and they were taking a family trip to Mexico

and it was like a stop along the way and they stopped and the little girl like fell and scraped her knee and was like making a lot of noise and then that kind of got the attention of some officials who are around and came up like are you okay it's okay and like these kids are cute and they were like you know what why don't you guys come with me uh and they're just because there's like playing around everybody's waiting to go in and they they brought them in and you know did the photo op and stuff and these are the first two kids the first two people in disneyland and they both got lifetime passes to disneyland which they described as just like uh i'll you get like a new annual pass every year okay there's not some like piece of paper they have i wish there was like a medallion or something, but no, it's just they got a bunch of annual passes

and re-upped them every year. Wow. I wonder if they got blockout dates or anything at this point. Yeah, they might be. They have to negotiate with Schwartner every year. They start throwing their weight around like, do you understand who I am? Excuse me, do you understand who I am?

Yeah, that's right. I'm Michael Schwartner. Oh, yeah, that's right. I was the first pre the first people in Disneyland. Wow, that's all fascinating. And this also comes after the Calypso montage, which

just shows the construction of Disneyland and a bunch of people who've been to Disneyland throughout the years, including Michael Jackson, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, RFK, and JFK. Yeah. I had a moment where I was like, was that Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, RFK and JFK. I had a moment where I was like, was that Harry Truman?

It's like, does that make sense? Yeah, you know what? That checks out. It does. Was he still? I don't think he was still the president, but he had been the president. He had been the president fairly recently. This seems like this is an angle they used to work that I feel like they don't as

much anymore, that they would say like, why presidents have been here because now i think disney's fine whether or not you know that presidents have been yeah yeah they might have been here we don't know probably at some point we don't drag it anymore i think there were some foreign heads and heads of state in that montage and i could not place yeah that was my experience as well as i was like, they're showing this white man. I don't know who he is. It's like, oh, and then they end with George H.W. Bush, the current

president. He's in the parade. Yes. Waving, right? Kind of like pointing aggressively. I don't know the thousand points he's getting his points done. I'll do a hundred right here and now. Then we head into some Danza stuff. I don't have the Eisner Danza clip.

But thank God Goofy found him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he comes out and helps. He chews away Schwartner and everybody, finds Eisner, found Tony. He's in the Jungle Cruise line. Danza starts. There's a little exchange. Eisner's annoyed by Danza liking the park and the rides.

And they give Danza the equivalent of exposition. He's like, I've been on Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain Railroad. I've been on, he just like lists a bunch of stuff. I've been on every ride where we didn't film stuff. Yep. Every ride with no sketch. He also says Jungle Cruise.

Oh, yeah, well. Jungle Cruise. Really emphasizes the cruise part. Brett, can we play the clip? Danza. I really like this. All the pronunciation. This place called Disneyland has come to

symbolize more than just a locale of mere amusement wait it's your turn gotta go folks it's jungle cruise time all right all right thanks all right was that a catchphrase is that something he said I really don't think so were there alright shirts in the late 80s to go cruise it could have been taxi it could have been who's the boss like it's just general

Italian guy vibe like fun loving yeah I've rewatched some of the early taxi episodes recently and you watching it and you're like, oh, Rocky had just come out. Stallone was a guy. They're like, let's have a Stallone in here and that's how Tony...

Because he's a real boxer. Yes, yeah. Oh, interesting. So yeah, it is Jungle Cruise time. All right. And this is a pretty successful sequence, I think. Like if the idea of the

special is we lovingly pay tribute to the rides and shoot them nice and do the basics of the ride, but then elevate it to like experiences that couldn't usually happen.

That's really what happens here because when that guide shows up, it's not some regular guide. It's crazy Charlie Fleischer. This time it's Charlie Fleischer doing a little different voice, okay? A very unique voice, singular to... Is this a good time to talk about what's up with Charlie Fleischer?

Absolutely. What's going on? Has everybody gotten a vibe, essentially? At some point in your life, have you thought, why don't we hear from Charles Fleischer more? And do we know the answer? I mean, it's clearly the afterglow of Roger Rabbit still. Like a thing that helped, one of the first things to help revitalize Disney out of their kind of valley, their low point.

And so I don't know if they feel like they owe Charles Fletcher something if you watch a special you're like what fucking stranglehold grip did he have on Disney because he's the true host of this thing like he has the most lines by far he's in every segment yeah um shows his range in jungle in the jungle crew segment i don't think tony danza says like a word yeah or just like reactions excuse me um yeah or just like kind of looking looking around it's a lot of but yeah he's they give him a lot of stuff and i i don't know i think he's i think charles fleischer has a reputation as like a difficult uh weird man i think so i feel like i'm i don't know what i'm basing that i don't yeah i

don't i don't want to say that and not be true yeah just like he got a raw deal it just it feels like i mean they're at the oscars um i don't know if it was this year maybe it was post roger evan it was 89 there was a like tribute to cartoons and it's presented by robin williams and charles fleischer and they're presented as like equals right and they have kind of the same energy it's a thousand voices and they just riff and riff and that bit is like 12 minutes long it's crazy but you could still you kind of feel the audience reeling from fleischer a little more maybe there maybe there just wasn't you know room in this town for the both of them. Maybe Robin just completely took that mantle. There's a vibe. Yeah. And maybe

that's all it is. Maybe that's all I have to say. DM us some information's out there. It's a vibe, I feel like. All of his cast member characters are a little surly. Like a little like, hey, what are you doing?

I also didn't realize that when I was looking him up, how many voices he is in. He's not just Roger Rabbit. He's a weasel or two. Well, is he the baby or the taxi? Oh, he's the baby too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, is he all of them? I think he is.

Yeah, I think he's the cab too. Oh, my God. Right. Oh, I totally is. Yeah, I think he's the cab too. Oh my God, right. Oh, I totally forgot. Yeah, so yeah, it's interesting because you would think, yeah, he exploded after this, but it sort of was Roger and then little things.

And then they stopped using Roger. What did Roger, why did they stop using Roger? Was there a vibe? It was just a vibe. There might be a vibe with Roger. I feel like it was once they really started going with the Disney animated features, it was like, that's the new canon for us.

And Roger was kind of like before that and isn't as squeaky clean as the rest of them. A lot of their people are involved in it. Right. We don't fully own it. Roger was one of the guys, though, back then, during this year. He was one of the big six. Yeah, he was considered in the big ones.

Fleischer was Roger Rabbit, Benny the Cab, Greasy, and Psycho. Not the baby. He wasn't the baby. Who was the baby? But so this sequence is a lot of fun um and you lou hirsch lou he doesn't have a picture on imdb so someone without a picture was this famous character that wow wow weird that's a good name for that voice too yeah yeah yeah it sounds like a lou hirsch you know him as f from Superman 3. Okay. Interesting.

Baby Herman who almost had his own MGM Studios ride and Disneyland ride. Maybe Lou demanded too much. This is where Louie cashes in a billion bucks. All right, do it. This gets nuts pretty fast. people are dropping like flies yeah everyone it's just that like the all of the jungle cruise gags happen but they are more harsh starting with somebody just going into the water and then getting eaten by uh by one of the crocodiles sure yeah somebody's eaten right away and then other people just are weirdly getting into the water we don't know what happens to them yeah that at first is a trick from from charles

fleischer because he goes why don't you go uh pet that crocodile on the schnozola and then then the guy just kind of falls in but it escalates to full-on murder uh by the end yeah uh-huh he's doing nothing to stop just Arrows are being thrown every possible way on the Jungle Cruise. People could die. And you guys would say that some of these jokes have to be jokes from the Jungle Cruise, right? Some are. There are some classic.

I feel like he throws away the more classic ones. You know what I mean? Do you feel that at all? The backside of water stuff. Maybe he was more focused on getting his own shit in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He kind of like, maybe he was more focused on like getting his own shit in there. I think he was trying to get his shit in, yeah.

This in Haunted Mansion, it's like, okay, we're going to play the reality of the ride and really heighten it. So Jungle Cruise, the kind of flippant danger, this segment is going to have a body count. Okay.

Yeah, well, this guy was, just real quick to go back. Maybe the Fleischer thing is like, you know, he needs to generate his own material. And that's difficult when you're on a shoot that's only got a limited amount of time. Yeah. They lose Tony. We lose Tony at five. Right. And he wants to do all his jokes.

And they're like, we got jokes from the ride. They've been doing them for decades. Yeah. They work, baby. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Shoot Tonyony out get him in front of splash mountain and he's got to be back at the castle by by nightfall you know we'll run 50 times the boat around so charles can do all his ad-libs yeah to get charles angle yeah several more days landis was long gone. I like that when there's the hippo intimidation part, that it is just him shooting the hippo. Pulls out a gun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which there's always that. I was confused about this for a long time, but it is supposed to be that you were scaring the hippo with the gun. Yeah, you're not supposed to shoot. Not shooting the hippo in the face. Right. So the not supposed to shoot. Not shooting the hippo in the face. Right. So the gun is a part of the Jungle Cruise ride.

It is always a part. The captain does pull out a gun. Yes. Just this is different because it's fired. Well, back in the day, they used to point it at the end. It is always fired. Okay.

But I think it's, I mean, I did think for a long time, it's really weird that they shoot the hippos. Yeah. But that's not what it's supposed to be. Yeah. But they didn't, you know, again, Charlie went off script in a lot of ways. Yeah.

Went off script in that way. No, I think that was the canon. For a while, they would shoot at the animals to, like, scare them away. And then eventually, they start shooting in the air. Oh, so shooting at, it was supposed to be that they're shooting a bullet near the hippos. I don't know, near or, like, yeah, it's a big hippo, a little 38 and the cheek isn't going to kill it. Like, I don't know the justification. Or like knock a tooth out, like it's a carnival game.

There would be no reason to shoot at it if you're not going to hit it. Yeah. Versus just shooting in the air. If it's just the sound that's supposed to scare them. Right. Wow. I would like to, you know, one of the things we've never covered on this show is the Jungle Cruise. We've covered Chris Gaines in the late shift.

We've never done the Jungle Cruise. That's funny. You know what's funny about it? This is maybe blasphemous. I don't care about the Jungle Cruise that much. I don't really either. Comments, comments. I got to get to the comments ones the other ones we've done

joe's sobbing at that statement well the thing is the classic jungle cruise as we know it is gone right no no oh i thought they updated it for the movie but no no no that never came to pass there were possibilities well that's good there were various updates like some of the more culturally sensitive things that i and i don't yeah i don't think i've been since i don't think i've seen how they changed it um but yeah no the rock is not the emily there's no emily blunt animatronic all that to say is that the ones we haven't done i think we're like oh yeah man we're gonna really psych ourselves up for this i think

joker cruise hasn't come up because we're not, oh yeah, man, we're going to really psych ourselves up for this. I think Jungle Cruise hasn't come up because we're not that interested in it. I like it okay. Well, that's what, what an endorsement for one of the classic Disney rides. It's a ringing. It's like the bell.

It's a ringing endorsement. I'll go on it. We'll go down there tonight. I'll go on it. I'm not saying I hate it or anything. I just think it's funny because that's the big classic one we haven't done in six years

that I think has really just been not done because we're like, I always like. I admit you're, I'm impressed that you're willing to vocalize people gonna be mad at me this is exactly what's been silently in my head this whole time i always like when i get a really like good like really into it host like i had a host in florida a couple years ago who talked so fast i was like great jungle cruise skippers. Yeah, I really like the Jingle Cruise with the really forced Christmas jokes. I like it too. Yeah. But ultimately, overall,

I don't spend much time thinking about it. Wow. Hot take. Maybe that changes today. Hmm. Hmm. Charlie Fleischer will be reinvigorating your love. Now that Charlie Fleischer has a Jungle Cruise. I don't know. Well, I mean, it sets the bar so high because usually there's not a part where a snake strangles one of the guests.

Yeah. Maybe this speaks to, you know, Landis is like, we got to jazz this up. We got to do something. I'll cut that out. I'll cut that out. Okay. Okay. So big jump, pulled for edit.

And then I will say that then the solution to the snake problem is also just shooting at the snake. The snake, which is wrapped around America's sweetheart, Tony Danza. I mean, he must have been confident in his aim or collateral damage. Sure. If I hit Tony Danza, I do. If Tony's gone, who's stepping in as host that's probably charles fleischer yeah oh that's he's next in line oh yeah yeah you're right

i don't want to be crude but he loaded it he brought real bullets for this he was hoping it happened um so that's all fun um then we we get another great throw to commercial oh yeah he gets the list he lists the name i just love tony dan's to be like coming up next miss piggy dj jazzy jeff on the fresh bridge the three little pigs earnest c3po and r2d2 the great gonzo cinderella and much more we grew up in such a fun time what a time there was so much for us and yet there was a lot of like adult stuff because they forgot they still forgot to make enough kids stuff so there's adult stuff mixed up with kids stuff it's all so confusing and funny and silly uh yeah here's my commercial rundown oh yes uh continuation of the indiana jones diet coke commercial this time you learn that you can save up to five dollars on the vhs

of last crusade so that's why they were doing nice also the woman's kitchen splits in half like yeah this is the one of the most high production value commercials i've ever seen it's it's yeah it's indy saves her and then tosses her entire bot he throws a woman and you're like jesus until you realize it was to save her because her own kitchen door is lowering into hell temple doors yeah yeah um there's a static cling commercial for a snuggle dryer sheets with the classic snuggle bear oh yeah yeah the technology is not great at this stage of snuggle bear sometimes it really just feels like they're shaking a stuffed toy into the camera uh dogs

marching army style singing kibbles and bits and bits and bits um there's a mcdonald's coffee commercial about how it always tastes fresh this would be two years before a woman would be hospitalized for mcdonald's coffee being scalding hot and sending her it tastes fresh because the freshest temperature is 1000 degrees uh introducing new coffee mate liquid non-dairy creamer in your grocer's dairy case which is interesting to rephrase that okay could not have lasted longer after 1990 it's a sea monster mystery exclusive pictures on unsolved mystery uh creature found in near loch ness uh yeah as you get the a little unsolved mysteries uh a new loch ness monster scary stuff then it's a special wedding night court. One of the characters gets married at a bar.

A felon threatens the club at the show Dear John, which was a Judd Hirsch sitcom in the 90s. And a special quantum leap mystery that's happening. And I loved after all of that, they cut to like kind of a the background uh splash of nbc and it's just a uh it's a video of scott bacula going wednesday which they used to do that it's like a rang a bell but it was like oh yeah that's so weird like after a commercial you go to a completely different shot with like graphics behind uh one of the actors just going thursday you needed that personal touch like i don't i can't tell if

the actors really want us to watch it or not prove it yeah well they were friends you would invite into your home you know almost like family when you come back, some beautiful, pristine, new Star Tours. It's still only a few years old. And you end up with, like, what's better than Michael Eisner saying a bunch of pop culture figures' names? What's better than Tony Danza saying a bunch of names? Why, C-3PO. Brett, can we see a clip of the best voice that could ever say character names that don't exist in the Star Wars universe?

Establish high-frequency bias connection with Satellite-5 in Sector Q368. Excellent. I can't wait to see Miss Piggy. She is on location in Europe shooting her new film. Now don't blow a circuit, R2. Gonzo should be on screen any moment now. But look at the time.

I'm most concerned about the absence of our host, Tony Danza. Tony Danza. And he's delivering it with no wink at all. Anthony Daniels is doing it. He does it. Oh, it's perfect.

He never did it in some muggy way. No. He always committed, no matter what it was for. One thing I looked up, because I was like, had people not seen C-3PO and R2-D2 on a screen since Return of the Jedi? Because now it's like you can trot these guys out all the time it's not like special but I was like I don't know and I looked it up and I guess there was like a one-off Sesame Street episode that c-3po and maybe r2d2 are in I just looked up Anthony Daniels's imdb to see like what's going on in between Return of the Jedi

well surely he did a lot of non C-3PO stuff he did some he did some I mean like after the trilogy it's like he probably that's probably the best shot for him to try and do other characters do other things you know yeah time to play Lear but like he has it in no

real major way this is like the first time those characters are seen again. And there was a cartoon called Droids that I don't think was very popular. And also it's cartoons. You're not actually seeing them. Because it was like a bit of a Star Wars desert there. Yeah. There was a time.

It's hard to imagine that there was a time. Well, there was also another Disney special, which was the opening of Star Tours, in which C-3PO raps. Oh, my God. That is the other one that possibly. So this is the first time he was on television in a while not rapping. Yeah. Droids and the two Endor movies were kind of repeated a lot on TV. And they all made me feel uncomfortable.

Strange films. We were watching the Ewok movies on TV. Why aren't Luke and Leia and Han here helping these people? And the answer is Harrison Ford was making Patriot Games. Harrison Ford was busy with Witness. He forgot what his Star Wars character's name was.

That's how past it he was. Indiana? So he brings out Tony Danza. Tony Danza? Tony Danza. And he calls him Sir Tony, too. Sir Tony. Sir Tony.

He's just brought it. He's dispatched just because they have a big tv in there so they can watch the the muppets and he brings the three little pigs because they want to meet miss piggy that they also several times referenced the three little pigs as special guests in this special yes they don't they don't say anything and they're here at this point and never do anything again i don't like a a Greek chorus who shows up and you see the judgment on their faces, but they never utter any lines.

Not a word. I like that they're presented as equals to Reagan, though. That's pretty good. That's worth the trip. Ronald Reagan, the three little pigs. Earnest. And then, I mean, I just love seeing the Muppets on the Star Tours screen.

That's great. The room looks beautiful. And then, I mean, I just love seeing the Muppets on the Star Tours screen. That's great. The room looks beautiful. And then, look, I think it's a great Muppet piece of material. I think Jim was right. I think Landis brought it. I think Bill Prady brought it. It's a good little sequence where it's kind of a flashback piece again we see

young Woody young Ernest and somewhat younger Miss Piggy I don't know if it's 70s or 80s I can't really tell when they're setting her but I like her hair her hair is cool and she sees Cinderella in a parade and is jealous and wants

to be Cinderella but but instead is... And consults. Who does she consult? The nearest employee, the nearest mean employee. Doing what I would call a what's a matter you accent, which every boomer thinks is like the funniest thing in the world. No, that's a Cinderella, okay? That's a good word for it. Good word for the accent. You can't have a bit of Cinderella. You want to's a good word for it. Good word for the egg.

Yeah. You can't have a bit of Cinderella. You want to buy a balloon? I got a really balloon. Hello, mother. Hello, father. Do you want a balloon? Do you want a balloonie?

A balloonie. Charlie Fletcher doing voices no one else can do. And he gets her a job as a maid. A scullery maid. Yeah. She hits the beats of Cinderella basically yeah I guess also just about Charles Fleischer like we've seen him

once in the present day but twice in flashbacks and so he could be playing the same character who's just bopping around to different positions getting fired because they got a vibe and then uh getting rehired by confusing them with a new accent yes no i'm not the same guy i kind of thought of him as like the uh i'm gonna make a reference we were all thinking about uh the johnny depp willie wonka

uh i think like the oompa loompas and that are all played by Deep Roy and he's sort of every different version and that's kind of how I think of Charles Fleischer is that they're just like an army of Fleishers working in Disneyland that's good I thought you were gonna say he's Richard Alpert from the show Lost it's a Deep Roy thing that's a Deep Roy

but yeah we go through some steps of Cinderella in Miss Piggy's quest to become Cinderella. They give her an insulting job and make her wear tattered clothes and scrub a floor. Cinderella still in that interaction is perfectly nice to her, but Miss Piggy despises her. It's good Piggy business, and then it's good gonzo business because he shows up as a fairy god thing and there's this little moment can we pull up a clip Muppets

this joke really made me laugh top tier Muppet joke she's making wishes I should say and we're at the third. I wish you'd be more serious. That was your third wish.

Here is your receipt. Goodbye. Hold it, Billy. That's a very good joke. Yeah, for the listener, he transformed from fairy godmother kind of clothes to just looking like an accountant. And I really like, you know what? I like the joke, but it's not even a punchline-y joke. I just really like the way he says goodbye.

Yeah. No, it's very- Serious Gonzo is very satisfying. Serious Gonzo. After that, Gonzo is trying to hook up with a woman of age in the theme park. Is that canon? Because I thought Gonzo was into chickens. Chicken.

Was he a flirty? He's kind of a horny character. Yeah, he's kind of horny. In the lack of chickens, he'll demean himself for humans. Yeah, but when he's flirting with those two girls, what I thought was funny was clearly their background and they can't have lines. So you cut to Gonzo and he'll go,

Detroit, you say? Huh? Well, like, they can't. He's like you cut to gonzo and he'll go detroit you say huh well like they can't he's like where are you from detroit you say like they they just stand there smiling and they can't say any words he has to say all their lines for him yeah wow he's trying to hook up with like college juniors he's not on chicken yeah i always saw chickens too i thought it was like a Troy McClure and fish kind of thing. You know, but in this one, he's just like, whoever's around. Anything with a pulse. Basically. I, you know, this is one of these like Landis. You can tell Landis is a Parks guy because he's like, just for a background shot. Let's get some climbers on the Matterhorn.

Yeah. That felt like a detail. Like he knows they do that. He knows he has power over just for a background shot, let's get some climbers on the Matterhorn. That felt like a detail. He knows they do that. He knows he has power over Disneyland for these couple days. Let's get a couple climbers back there. He also casts some characters as background. You see the Queen of Hearts just kind of pretending to talk to somebody. Right, right, right.

And I also like that the plan is to hang Cinderella by her leg, uh, snatcher. And then it ends up happening, happening to piggy. Very good gag. Uh, I'm going to try to,

I'm going to, I'm going to be really curious if that tree is still there outgrown. Next time I'm there, just going to think about like, is that tree there where they just yanked physical miss piggy? The wonder, like, I mean,

we all pine for like practical effects in many, many ways, but the Muppets, and the Muppets obviously have kept it up, but it's so satisfying that they can just take a puppet, pull it, yank it, throw it. Yeah.

I think that would have been funny either way. Like I was like, oh, it's probably going to be one of them get their comeuppance. But also if they like get Cinderella in that snare, that's going to be really funny.

You think that'd be funny? I think that'd be funny to see Cinderella get in a bear trap. Not a bear trap. Lose a foot in a bear trap? You sick monster. Jason's sick sense of humor. Clean off. Can't put that foot in a glass slipper anymore.

No. What if they put Cinderella on a jagged stage and made her walk around and she fell? Well, she should know. It would be her fault. She should know. She does like a pratfall kind of thing. The orchestra pit was like that pit in Mortal Kombat. Yeah.

You're the one who went to Violet. I went to the rope gang. Like the rope and a foot kind of thing. Well, you said bear trap. You said bear trap. You didn't say bear trap. That's violent. Well, what do you call that thing? A rope.

Is that just a snare, I guess? Yeah, I don't know. A rope thing? A lasso? Bear trap, I think. Yes. A claws. A claws.

And it really digs into your flesh. Yeah, absolutely. No, that wasn't violent. You sent me into world combat land. I guess so, yeah. Yeah. That's your subconscious. Do we think they cast? Yeah, absolutely. No, that wasn't my idea. You sent me into World Combat Land. I guess so, yeah. That's your subconscious. Do we think they cast Cinderella or they got an actor from the park?

I don't know. I think that's the A-team Cinderella. I think that's the one. They would use Cinderella. That's Friday, Saturday, Sunday Cinderella. Yeah, yeah. During peak season. I looked her up on IMDb to be like,

I wonder if this was an actor only credit which makes me think it's a part it's a character actor oh there's also is this like a famous Muppet fact weirdly

and I didn't I'd never heard this before in terms of the Landis Muppets connection that that may be that goes back to I mean I don't know where it goes back to

but that one part of that is that Landis is puppeteering in the last shot of the Muppet movie oh it was it's like 200 Muppets so they just they got anybody they could for that big group shot which is so wonderful and also in there not famous yet but they just needed people who could pseudo puppeteer. And they got a young, fresh out of CalArts, Tim Burton.

Tim Burton. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And they met years later. And Landis thought they had never met. And he said, ah, I was at the final shot of the Muppet movie. And he's shooting Beetlejuice Jr. overseas right now. Oh, really?

Is that happening? Beetlejuice 2. Okay. It's not Beetlejuice. It's not shooting beetlejuice jr overseas right now is oh really is that happening it's beetlejuice 2 okay they aren't called it's not beetlejuice it's not beetlejuice jr i don't know at least not yet yeah not yet uh man they got jb kennedy they got the different baby um but we've mentioned bill prady like props to bill prady did a good job writing this segment also if i assume your listeners would know creator of the big bang theory bill prady okay Fun Muppets thing. Oh, yeah. We've mentioned Bill Prady. Like, props to Bill Prady. Did a good job writing this segment. Also, I assume your listeners would know, creator of the Big Bang Theory, Bill Prady. Oh, okay. Co-creator.

And also the ABC Muppets. Yes, yes, right. And he has continued to, I don't know if he still does, I think, but he did create the ABC Muppets. Yeah. From like 2015. Oh, yeah, yeah. And Muppet Vision 3D, am I making that up? No, I think you're right yeah

um so muppet stuff good commercials commercial break okay quaint back in the day commercial about seeing the oscar meyer wienermobile in the 60s uh then we get a very 90s commercial for perma soft conditioner uh how scotty henry's brother eats a reese's and if you remember that one i don't know they say scotty hen. I looked him up. He wasn't like a celebrity at the time. He was just a kid and he has a younger brother. Do you remember how he ate a Reese's? One clean hole in the middle of the cup.

I feel like I might have tried that. Yeah, I think we all did. Eating out a fucking Reese's. Trying to get a perfect circle. You're supposed to make the alphabet, I think. It's Sunday Fun Night, the greatest practical jokes of all time, which I believe was airing right after this special.

Wow. Johnny Carson and Stevie, they say. Stevie Wonder, yeah. With friends like Johnny Carson and Stevie, well, friends of mine, I guess. Friends you invite into your home. Friends in my home. We get a quick update. It's 29 degrees in Pittsburgh and it's 7.38 p.m.

They just come in for two seconds to say that. Do you remember that? That night? Did that take you back? It was 7.38. Yeah. Cold that early in the evening. Yeah, you know.

But it was February. And then this is when we get the liquid plumber commercial with the mustachioed guys your local specific now we know that was a slide out if you're watching it on YouTube that is the St. Louis version just to clarify freak out and then we finally get Tony when we come back he's doing hosting yeah yes

it's been a long time yeah yeah he's in front of Splash Mountain they're pushing Splash Mountain all the time at this but then new and now yeah yes if there's been a long time i think yeah yeah uh he's in front of splash mountain they're pushing splash mountain all the time at this but then new and now closed and uh ring ring ring and then oh the best person who could be calling who's calling disneyland is this disneyland he says which i like um and it's earnest in a crossing over with splash mountain we did a whole another thing we've done an episode about and not the Jungle Cruise. Another special from around this time.

Ernest goes to Splash Mountain. Ernest, a big part of the Disney family around this time. Given the green light by Eisner himself, we really he was like a discovery of Eisner's. A race track? Yeah, it was at the Indy 500 or something. And like everybody, there was a little track? Yeah, it was at the Indy 500 or something. And like everybody, there was a little parade and there was Mickey Mouse in it.

And then some guy, Eisner had never seen and everybody liked him a lot more than Mickey Mouse. And he's like, whoever it is, give him a four movie deal. That's crazy.

That's how that happens. Yeah. Eisner hadn't been there. Tony Danza can't go, Ernest who? After he just said, he teased Ernest's appearance a few minutes ago. Yeah. He knows. Yeah. I guess he forgot Ernest who after he just said he teased Ernest's appearance yeah

he knows yeah I guess he forgot a lot on his mind only our shoot yeah losing light lunch panel days rocking up I gotta say I loved Ernest as kid I love Ernest now this segment goes on a

while good god yeah really long. You could fairly classify it as not an Ernest segment because it's not about, for most of it, Jim Varney is not playing Ernest. Yeah, yeah. He's Ernest's grandpa. Yeah. Yeah.

And a kid is young Ernest. That's the theme of all of these. But I like him as the grandpa. I like when he gets mixed up in the cute, like the turnstile. You were out by then. You don't like any of this. This was just like interminable for me when I was watching this. And I was just like, I don't like this new character Jim Varney's doing.

It's boring. I guess it's a generic old man. Should have let Shirley Fleischer do it he would have brought a whole other no Fleischer at all to kind of ramp up the energy in here it's toward the end of the show like yeah it should have been earlier and shorter yes yeah they should have

given him some notes it's a pretty brisk special like I when I looked at the time I was watching I was like oh this is almost over but then yeah this earnest thing no Danza, no Fleischer. There's just an Ernest short film. No Ernest. No proper adult Ernest.

Adult Ernest puts on a film canister to watch an old home movie of his. Which, again, is within Cheers. Let's track where we are. The Cheers gang is watching a special, and on the special, there's a phone call from Ernest who puts on a movie for who at this point yeah cheers this is for norman cliff to watch but how are we seeing it i don't know this uh um there's a lot of that with ernest like with a pov i don't understand in universe what's happening you know they got a tainted keg of Narek Ansett lager, and it's just they're all freaking out

and hallucinating these Disneyland memories. I like that the Highway Patrol, maybe I only liked this as a kid, but this had a big grip on me when I was five. This is one of those things. Does this happen, Mom and Dad? I've been on the autopia i don't remember a police officer stopping me does that happen sometimes and i found i was like really

like uh uh scarred by it somehow i think every autopia trip from then on i assumed this will be my day well i was also like is this era appropriate because like when is this supposed to be this is his this is an old film from when earnest was a boy yeah and then like is the cop looked modern to me the the highway patrolman yeah as do the mickey and minnie they don't get yeah they don't get it all right they don't get so this has to be 35 years ago so how old is earnest yeah how old is is earnest supposed to be at this point earnest is third at least 35 right and he's also at this point has been doing earnest for 10 years yeah so what happened so he

what the kid is like eight eight years on this in this footage that says about maybe maybe as old as 10 let's say earnest is 35 then it would have to be you knowish. Goodbye, that. Ernest doesn't look young to me. No. He did all those soda commercials, drinking all that free soda probably. Oh, you think that damaged his skin? Yeah, that hurts. Too much free soda.

Glug, glug. So it's fine. I guess we have mixed notes about the Ernest part. I missed Charles Fleischer, and I didn't know that I would be thinking that wow maybe Ernest said not on my one they maybe he considered himself a competitor and this was written by earnest people this is all

yes John Sherry the earnest directed and then like some guys who I was like had they written an earnest movie but no they like wrote on the earnest sketch show which I didn't know existed and then was it a kid show like a Saturday morning was know existed and then was it a kid Saturday morning They wrote like additional material for like other earnest stuff. Everybody brought in their people everybody like all the brand

Represented what's that except Cheers except maybe Cheers not written by Cheers, but I'm wondering if like they did write it or ghostwrite it And like couldn't right there's some like wga thing maybe yeah there's a special thanks to glenn and les charles but i assume that was just for the for using the characters yeah the cheer section is funny yeah everybody feels like yeah yeah no yeah it's good um commercials commercials for the closing yeah uh wholesome ad with uh a state farm life insurance talking about like a young family like they have a new baby and it's it's see i it seems like it's a real insurance agent because he says his name and he's like hi i'm gay lord moose man what it's like i'm gay lord moose man and it was like oh what it was just so distracting it's strange. You're not expecting that one. And you can definitely, that one's definitely on the YouTube upload.

His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Moose Man in the delivery room. And it's like, we know. It's like St. Moose Man. We know what we're calling him. That feels like a character in the Love Guru. Yeah. Yeah, Gaylord Moose Man has not aged well in the 10 plus years. Yeah, no, it's inappropriate.

Yeah. Yeah, that one really knocked me out um oh my god uh then there's a there's a guy talking to his dog and it turns out to be an equal sweetener commercial for some reason and then this was interesting there's a very 90s backdrop with like this young guy and the the um narration is like my son jim skateboard fanatic music lover guitarist computer whiz avid cyclist football basketball hockey player and all-star catcher but there's one thing he'll drop everything for Campbell's junkie soup and at the time like all these things are being like thrown at him

like the skateboard and like a football helmet and whatever but then you know he loves that he loves that Campbell's junkie soup but what I really loved about it was that the young actor is Academy Award winning writer and director Tom McCarthy. Whoa. Really?

Yeah. Wait, from what? Who's Tom McCarthy? He directed Spotlight. Spotlight. And like the station agent. And he was an actor. He's in the fifth season of The Wire.

Oh. And he, yeah, it was him. And very funny because he's not the most recognizable actor, but I had to go back. I'm amazed you. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, that's him. He's like Todd Field, where it's like,

if you look at the whole career, it is like a Forrest Gump. Like, you were at every event of the late 20th century, you know? Todd Field was in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile commercial. He was in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Coming up with the idea for Big League Chew. Big League Chew. Eventually he would make Tar

and Little Children. Yeah. And be in Eyes Wide Shut. Yes. As the keyboard player. Right. Yeah. As the jazz guy.

And then we get a commercial for Doublemint and Big Red Gum. And it's one of these like quintessentially 90s commercials where it's like, seems like the budget was millions of dollars. It's like a lot of shots of people playing muddy football and then surfing and then airplanes landing. And there's a song going like,

Share a little piece of America it's about gum I miss that era that incredibly earnest it was kind of a viral thing I feel like this six minute sizzle reel that's a long song like that and then

a children's choir and all that's all for sizzler it's one of the longest songs I've ever heard. Advertising budget for some of this shit. That keeps going, Octo-Vermon- The guy has nowhere to go by the end. Yeah, I highly recommend

Share a Little Piece of America. Wow, oh great. The gums jingle. It's a little piece of America. And then we get a quick promo for an upcoming Today show. A radical new way to cut medical bills. I'm very curious

what that was. Death! Suicide! And an up and coming anchor starts tomorrow named Matty Lauer. We're excited for him. He's gonna go places. He's joined by a little dragon named Scorch dragon our new weatherman

um and then we uh and then we cut to tony danza eating a burger squirting squirting ketchup on a burger like oh hey uh okay so uh dj jazzy jumping the first prince and uh uh And there you have it Mr. Slap himself We get uh You know a good performance I'd say um I I liked This a lot and I was kind of like yeah I feel like the special maybe should have been a little Bit more of this like peppered Throughout like taking something very

Current uh feels New fun like A kid a very young kid would Enjoy this because it's colorful there's a lot of movement but it's also taking a classic disney thing in it and giving something new that doesn't feel out of the realm of they it's not it's like there's other things like this that are embarrassing i would say 90 of things where disney meets rap are embarrassing. There is a very awful tag team Mickey Mouse Wump remake

that starts with Mickey saying like, yo, yo, Mouse Pussy. That's a whole album. Yeah, we did. Again, an episode we have done and not the Jungle Cruise. Just keeping track. A couple moments, and I mean they do a good job of inserting some

cartoon footage from Mary Poppins. Yes. There's also some very funny cutaway gags to like- To chimney sweeps. Yeah, there's one or two surly chimney sweeps in the crowd. Just pumping, yeah. If your hip hop doesn't have a video with chimney sweeps dancing, what are you doing? It is funny to think about that.

If you could travel back in time and go to this filming, you could pull Will Smith aside and go like, hey man, in 32 years, you're going to win a best acting Oscar and it's going to be the worst night of your life. The Fresh Prince pilot would shoot in three months from what's coming out. It would be an NBC pilot.

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. I think the idea was probably already percolating. Well, here's what's weird, and this is the most fascinating thing about the Landis interview, that there was a musical segment. Again, he's coming in so last minute, and they did have a musical segment planned,

but the musical segment was supposed to be with Donnie and Marie. Wow. Something else we've talked about recently uh we covered this awful this star wars uh routine that they did which itself was uh cruddy and out of date in the late 70s and yet in 1990 the plan is donnie and marie but so claims uh landis i'd seen the world premiere of the he watched the world. Hang on. I want I've seen the world premiere of the DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince video for parents just don't understand on MTV. And I thought those guys are great. Let's put them in the show. He saw the first time they ever showed. He like, did he make a point of it? Max, get in here. A big new video. So anyway, he claims that he brought this to Disney. Like, why don't we do something newer and fresher?

If you can imagine something newer and fresher than Donnie and Marie. He claims first time Will Smith was ever on national television. He gave them a list of eight Disney songs and said, choose one and write it as hip hop. And they chose supercalifragilisticexpialidocious I'm not going to say the old word it's too late in the episode and they wrote it on the plane landed

LAX were taken to a recording studio they recorded the song went straight to Disneyland from there where it was just put onto the PA system they recorded it they did a couple of takes. Then I put them on the Star Wars ride and then they flew home.

Wow. From Philadelphia and back, the entire thing was 48 hours. My God. Congrats, Landis. I was curious if they wrote this. Yeah, I guess so. And I guess they did.

Yeah, yeah. Which maybe it showed that it wasn't some, like, let's get Disney's tax on it. Let's get someone over 60 to write a hip-hop song the sherman brothers themselves um you ain't making this rap without us and how to rap to rhyme you don't think we've been rhyming for 40 years original rapsters we were um so fascinating gotta credit uh landis for that sure and it really worked I thought yeah it's cool

so and that's that's pretty much the special the group is thanked again the entire list is most of the special is saying the list of celebrities including the three little pigs thank you three little pigs for making time for us which we say thank you especially

look a lot of big stars. Reagan and everybody, but three little pigs, we see you. There's also a list of special thanks at the very end, and the very last name on the list is George Lucas. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Without him, we couldn't have had this robot

want to find Tony Danza. Yeah. Master Tony. Master Tony. But we do cut back to Cheers. We get like our final wrap up. Oh, you're right.

It's still within Cheers. Lilith does say, oh, watching Mickey and his gang cavorting across the screen. It's like, Mickey's not in this. You see a tuned version

of him dancing with the Fresh Prince but not saying anything very briefly. Yes. But like, they must have shot this and not have known

what the special, I mean, they must have shot this and not have known what the special. I mean. Yeah, yeah. They must have known the Woody thing, but yeah. It was the old version probably, the non-Landis version. Probably pre-Landis. Oh yeah, they might not have known what was,

that's why the Muppets didn't like their segment. It was mostly Mickey cavorting. Yeah. Woody's joke about the animatronic Reagan, very funny. Oh yeah. A little risky for something that reagan is in himself right yeah and then they they're like we gotta watch mud wrestling very very weird very

weird runner to end it doesn't feel like what they do it does it yeah did they ever watch like mud first of all was mud wrestling on television maybe pay-per-view yeah that's what i would guess so the bar the bar from cheers paid 40 dollars to watch women mud wrestle? They used their diner's club car to order women's mud wrestling into a venue. The final line of the special. Can we please go back to mud wrestling? Wow. And then Lilith stands up at a protest in the special. It's directed by John Landis.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. And then you're... So for everybody who didn't know, you really didn't know, then that must have like... Yikes. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And then you're so for everybody who didn't know you really didn't know then that must have like yikes. Yeah.

It was crazy. Also Deborah Hill was a was an executive producer and she's like John Carpenter's producer. Oh wow. Which is very very strange. Huh. And then yeah we get the credits we've already talked about. Well the the end summation from from john landis is so i went out there and shot this thing which you ever see it is insane some of it's very funny i

enjoy doing it miss piggy's funny in it but it's awfully odd it says it's about right that's about right yeah yeah yeah must be especially i really thought that it was a premeditated thing to get landis and like well let's but for the 35. Let's make it very cinematic. Go for it. Discovering that it was just a happenstance. Henson was mad. Henson mad. One of his final decisions in the year of his demise. Another thing that would happen in three months is that he would be dead.

Three months. My God. And people close to him say that like all the Disney stuff, like Disney trying to acquire the Muppets, like really took a toll on his health. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So any of these fun specials that the muppets are in remember that when you're watching it think

about at what cost i did get a brief commercial break mid credits that then they then go back to all cut in but like we get uh a commercial for something called a micro cup which is just a hormel like dinty more stew like that you can put in the microwave oh my god that's what i'm talking about you have micro cups at home right now brother you have them at home right now i do i have them in my pocket right now very 90s commercial though like very like and like very fast zooms in on the micro cup uh my it's funny you say that my mom does have stories of like when you were little and starting to eat solid food you loved beef stew

stories multiple we get a companion commercial to mcdonald's coffee is fresh mcdonald's eggs are fresh that's because our chicken's like two and a half million uh eggs every day and then that makes a cartoon chicken that was dancing die it like passes out because it's uh really distraught uh then we get a classic you just won the super bowl uh joe montana oh for the set you won it for the second time in a row you and the 49ers have won back-to-back super bowls uh what are you gonna do and he says i'm going back to disney And he says, I'm going back to Disney World. Wow. Nice. Commended.

Is it back to? Wow. And I haven't thought of those commercials in a very long time. Oh, yeah. And I looked it up and I guess I was naive

at the time, but obviously, these were paid sponsorships. Yeah. They felt like casual or something. Right. Yeah.

Because I only experienced it as a kid. I never really thought about it. And also, they paid the losing quarterback to also do this. Oh. Because I only experienced it as a kid. I never really thought about it. And also, they paid the losing quarterback to also do this. Oh. Because they would air it right after the Super Bowl.

Right after. Oh, right. So they'd have to get both of them. So they would pay, you know, John Elway or whoever was the losing quarterback the same amount of money

and then it just would never air. And still going? I feel like you do it live on the field now. I don't know. Peyton Manning said it once and was not paid just because it's part of the lexicon. But sometimes, I think it depends on where the Super Bowls help. Sometimes they say Disneyland,

and sometimes they say Disney World. I looked this up. They record both. They do both. Regionally, they air a different one oh i wonder what the mini episode of the line is all fascinating so mine was disney world because pittsburgh is closer to florida oh it's not based on which one the guy's going to it's based on the market the market that's airing the commercial yeah wow wow and so that was like an unexpected

like disney commercial uh yeah now they would do it with, for certain regions, they would do, I'm not going to Disney World because of their woke agenda. And then they got a promo for a special DuckTales Valentine episode coming up with Afro Ducky. What? Afro Ducky? The Aphrodite. Oh, Aphrodite? Yeah. Oh, okay. oh okay oh wow i don't remember her yeah it was a very is a ducktales valentine and then of course stay tuned they do the classic the credits are scrolling back to the credits on the special and they do the classic someone speaks over it like stay tuned for

the greatest practical jokes of all time and uh cop meets, they just describe lethal weapon because lethal weapons also play. Okay. And then I got a very, before the video cut out, I got a very, very, very quick second of a Cosby promo. Oh, great.

That was the last thing. It's like a jump scare. Yeah. I truly think, and maybe if your listeners want it, I can upload it because it's digitized. It's truly Bill Cosby popping out from behind the wall. He's scaring Phylicia Rashad.

Oh, no. Going like that. It isn't saying boo or something. Wow. Wow. Perfect. Well, I mean, this is everything you want from an old special. You know, weirdos who've done odd things since.

But then, you know, some of the greats that you miss like Tony Danza, Michael Eisner Michael Schwartner the three little pigs you get them all fun to rewatch, fun to revisit for these purposes yeah and I

appreciate the opportunity to watch it again because it's like I will say when I was digitizing this tape not long ago, it does it in real time. Yeah. So I put it on to get like the,

however long this tape was and like left the room to go do other stuff. And then I did come back during the earnest part and I was like, what on earth is this? How did we get here?

And so I'm glad I got to watch it and get the full context. To know how cruddy the Ernest segment was. Well, thank you for revisiting this with us. This was a blast. Joke was all you survived. Podcast The Ride. Oh my God.

So happy to have you. Long overdue. Thank you guys. This was a blast. Great topics to do with. Let's exit through the gift shop. Anything you would like to plug? Of course, my special

is on YouTube at Helium Comedy Studios page, but you can just search Ooh La La and Joe and Helium and you'll probably get it if that's what you do on YouTube. But yeah, that's the special. It's called Ooh La La. And also, if you want to just click on a link for it, you can go on my Instagram and TikTok is Joe Qua.

Twitter is Joe K Joe K. I have all the links all up in there. And soon, keep your eyes and ears open. I have a sketch album coming out. Oh, cool. Funny Songs and Sketches. And that'll probably be out in August. Oh, I'm excited for this.

I really like that idea. Hey, lots down your rabbit hole, I would say. Great videos all over the place from you. Your podcast, Who Cares About the Rock Hall, which I love doing. Thank you. rabbit hole I would say great videos from you your podcast who cares about the rock hall which I love doing and thank you happy to go the other way podcast be on this side of the desk

or the table where you do it to be a table in that case but pretty much the same thing and Joe I was so glad we finally had you back on but you and I had talked about another we'll tease we'll tease this something which is that uh my girlfriend has an exceptional cranium command story which maybe i think this is the best place to do it yeah to reveal that

story i mean some someday we hopefully we can figure that out oh great i really love this story and that's all we'll say about it. And you, you told Scott there is a story. I know what the story is. Yeah, Jason does know because I pitched it

to Jason. Okay, okay. And I had, when you met my girlfriend, we were talking about it. Yes, yeah, yeah. But it's all under, under wraps

what the content of the story is. Yeah, yeah. No spoilers for me. Yeah, I don't know. This is like Dial of Destiny. I don't want to know what, cover my Destiny. I don't want to know what...

If you cover my ears, I don't want to hear any more about the dial. Well, sorry, I don't mean to spoil anything for you, but that dial could change the course of world events. Oh, no, no, no. Okay, but just don't tell me if it does. Too much.

Now I know there's a lot of repercussions to this dial. Well, yeah, thanks so much. Well, yeah, that's a good tease. We'll figure out how to unveil that tale. And for us, you can find us on all the socials at Podcast The Ride. Thanks to Brett Bohm at Forever Dog for producing this episode.

And there's a video version of this. It's a good one to do it for. We should make a playlist of this and your special and this special and maybe just that Bill Cosby clip right at the end. Right after your special if it was the face people remember yeah curious about and yeah absolutely we should see if we can

actually retrofit it into the special but if yeah there's honestly there's any clips that i described from the commercials that anyone wants to see i i can i can cut that and put it out what an offer oh geez that's that's very personal uh um hey and and if you want to see us in Las Vegas, then please come to Podcast the Ride's Big Vegas Groove Blender Saturday, July 22nd at the Space LV. Tickets available at thespacelv.com and the Patreon, Podcast the Ride, The Second Gate, our VIP tier, Club 3, all of that at patreon.com

slash podcasttheride. A lot of fun to do this, but hey, we got to go now. It's Jungle Cruise time. All right. All right. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner,

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