Podcast: The Ride - Disneyland State Fair with Justin Donaldson

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

The 1980s were wild. Cabbage Patch Dolls. Reagan. Real pig races live at Disneyland.  Justin Donaldson (AEW's Johnny Loves Taya, Tournament of Nerds) joins the hootenanny to celebrate another Eisner-era triumph, a limited-time event that featured lumberjack comedy and rad BMX stunts.  It sounds weird because it was! "Blast To The Past" episode is up at: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide  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. Help us discuss the limited-time 80s Disneyland event, State Fair. Yeehaw! It's Podcast the Ride, a theme park podcast that will not end until we've done a cross-country tour of every state fair where we rank the cute faces on all the blue ribbon winning pigs. My name is Mike Carlson. Joining me as always, Scott Gairner, who looks very confused and maybe upset. I didn't know if you were. When you said cute faces, I was like that are drawn on a pumpkin or on a dessert or something. But then the face is on a pig. On a real-life living pig, yeah. Not the face because I guess the normal way to say that would be the pig's faces.

But faces on a pig, I think, threw me for a loop. Well, I mean, they're technically on the body of the pig. They are. No, there's nothing incorrect about what you said. There might be a couple extra words in between two thoughts or ideas that maybe threw you off. Jason, did you understand? Jason Sheridan, did you understand? I understood.

We're ranking the pigs' cute faces. Yeah, Jason got it. No, I got it. I did not get it. He was right along with me. There was just something baffling to me about and do we really like the real pigs do we think their faces are cute you don't think pigs are cute i don't at a at a state fair a bunch of real big pigs run around i don't know if they are cute their faces

well i mean i actually didn't even think about another like cute debate happening on the show which has happened many times yeah this is an organic cute debate. But I do think pigs are cute. Jason, what do you think? Jason, share it in the comments. I think they can be. I think at state fairs, they're often tired and sleeping and lying on their side.

That's what I'm thinking. It's very like- Well, I was going to say it's very relatable. But look, I'm a side sleeper, you know? I'm a side sleeper too. I'm just saying. I think there was, look, that'll be part of it though. It's like, will there be like an unnaturally cute pig that we'll find across America?

I'm sure there are pigs that are cute. I just think you're running the mill fair pigs. It's cute, isn't the- So maybe what your issue is- A piglet, maybe. So maybe you're thinking we want more like a like some sort of a fancy show pig versus a fair pig you're like looking for a city pig versus a country pig i would i would think yes that if the pig is in some kind of a show then the cute likelihood is

higher that's interesting are there pig shows or do jason you know well i think state fairs you that would be the cream of the crop. That would be the show pig. You don't think there's like a fancy pig show somewhere that takes place in sort of a convention center like a dog show? I'd have to look into it. I don't want to talk out of my ass. Yeah, you're right. We don't want to spread misinformation.

I think that they keep these things outside or in sort of a, you know, covered air i don't think you're i don't think we're bringing a bunch of pigs into the the hilton into the marina room well maybe we should bring pigs into a hilton fancy pigs pigs that have more high class pigs that are like nines and tens you're picturing swine i'm talking talking about remarkable, classy pigs. Nine or tens on the scale, the Bob Guccione, whatever scale of attractiveness. I'm assuming that's the ranking. Let me say this. I have nothing against pigs.

I think pigs are neat. But I think pure face, cute, this is just what I question. I don't know. Maybe I have too much cartoon pig on the brain. Maybe that's really what I question. I don't know. Maybe I have too much cartoon pig on the brain. Maybe that's really what it is. Because I'm looking at, I saw art of what we're talking about today in which Mickey has a cartoon pig nuzzling against him. And this absolutely is cute. I have no, you know, pig depictions, certainly.

Well, when this comes out, I will try to find pictures of legitimately cute pigs, post them along with the episode, and then the audience can decide is the average fair pig cute? And maybe I'm wrong. I'm happy to be wrong in this instance. But I guess maybe, yeah. Maybe I'm just getting, my brain is clouded with the cartoon three little pigs.

As I Google, I'm seeing cute pigs. I know there's cute pigs. There are. We're going to do it. We're going to go cross-country and figure it out. I know there's cute pigs. There are. You're not incorrect. We're going to do it. We're going to go cross-country and figure it out. Wow. Let's bring our guest in. He's a director. He's a writer.

And he's a member, most importantly, of my Serious Toy Collector text chain chat. This is Justin Donaldson. He's here. Hello, everybody. And if you wouldn't mind, I would prefer to do a toy swap live on the air. Yeah, we can do this. Because we are going to do one of these right now. This is something that toy collectors do.

They look out for each other. They find toys. And then they do a trade. And we're going to do this live on the air. Wow. This is very exciting. Okay. So you'd just be doing this somehow.

We would meet up in the middle usually, wherever we are. We'll meet in the middle, and I'm going to trade him a NECA belly bomb. This is the one you said you wanted to kiss. I'll send it around if you guys want to take a look. I'm very excited about this. We talked about kissing this belly bomb on a

recent episode. There's too many sharp teeth to kiss this guy. Well, you kiss him on his teeth. Close the mouth, because the mouth closes, and you can kind of kiss him on his teeth. Which is a line in a Ryan Adams song, I'm realizing. But, I don't have to mention that. But the teeth, but so you're talking about the surface of

the teeth, because I don't want to get near those points. Well, some, yes. Close the mouth, and then kiss on the sort of enamel of the teeth. I guess that's not far from what I always said, because I chose, in talking about kissable toys, I chose a street shark, and they have sharp teeth as well. Right.

I guess it's, all right, so you close, all right. Close your mouth. No more objections, sir. And it's, yeah, it's a very phallic toy, and it's honestly one of the best toys I've ever owned. I say this with no hyperbole. It's so incredible. It's a character I've never had before,

and it's so well done it's really well done mike i don't know i mean in terms of phallic what penises have you seen that get really fat at the end of the shaft well on a recent episode i also said there are penises that are the shapes and sizes of things we can't even imagine that's right people have stuff going on down there that we don't know and i'm just saying i bet someone's looks kind of like that i suppose hopefully not with his eyeball right hopefully where the like the head is it's not just where i start to feel like you mr prude are seeing penises ever everywhere and in everything i've seen many youtube toy guys mention the phallic nature of this toy also.

He's a pink color. That's true. He's got a long neck. I think the color and the shading and kind of like where he bunches up. Yes, he bunches up. That's the most important part about the toy is that it bunches up in the right part. And I think that's where it does it. Now, that's not

why, I swear to God, that's not why this is one of my favorite toys of all time. But anyway, I'm trading it does it. Now, that's not why. I swear to God, that's not why this is one of my favorite toys of all time. But anyway, I'm trading this to Justin. Now, Justin has a very exciting toy for me. He can say it. This is the Toilet Taxi. Yes. And this is a re-release of a classic 80s vehicle, but with a new figure.

The original didn't come with a figure yeah so this is a vintage recreation you would have had to get this without you bring your own turtles to the toilet taxi right now you can get a donatello with a helmet and goggles um but i do have this somewhere but it's kind of broken and they just reissued it and i'm very excited uh because yeah this is and we've talked about this vehicle on this show before many years ago, I think, at this point, is that the turtle is sitting on an open toilet while he drives his vehicle around. So you have to presume that shitting or pissing in it powers the vehicle. Why do you have to assume that? Why do you have to assume that?

I think a lot of the vehicles were— Powered by pissing. Sewage. Yeah. There was a lot. There was a sew Powered by- Sewage. Yeah. There was a lot. There was a sewage theme. They deal in sewage. They live in sewage.

This definitely seems like a function over form sort of thing. Yes. What science allows poop and pee to- Well, in Back to the Future, Doc dumps a bunch of garbage into the time machine. So obviously, he could have probably picked up a couple- So it's Mr. Fusion-esque technology. Yeah, Donatello's the smartest, Doc Brown. He can figure that out.

So this is a live toy swap. You're seeing it now, how it happens. So it's very exciting. It's technology that big oil is suppressing. Hold on a second. Donatello is the smartest, Doc Brown? I think he is. I don't know about that.

Almost everything you've said, we've found problems in. You've only said like four things. Donatello is the smartest Doc Brown? I think he is. I don't know about that. Almost everything you've said, we've found problems in. You've only said like four things. Donatello created a whole like interdimensional travel portal that was in the sewer. He would bring people through. Well, I suppose that's true. That's pretty good. So I'm just saying that's on par with what Doc Brown did. And now the toilet taxi is different than the Ghostbusters haunted toilet toy.

Oh, absolutely. Which you sent to me, and it was one of the fastest purchases I ever made. Right. Well, please use the real name of the character, Jason. Fearsome Flush. Fearsome Flush. Excuse me. Yes, of course.

But yeah, I guess he eats human waste. Yeah, his tongue is coming out of the bowl. Right. And his eyes are on out of the bowl. Right. And his eyes are on the tank. Mm-hmm. You know. Yeah, so there's many different vintage toilet-based things you can buy now. Yeah, you get them all.

It was a big thing in the late 80s, I feel like. Right. And, yeah, I'm glad to see it's coming back. Slime, toilet, poop. It was all the same stuff. Right. Because we were embracing gross out for the first time, maybe.

It's a culture. We were experimenting with it. Well, that was thrilling. Boxes, two men pulled boxes out and now you have different boxes. Two men exchanged boxes. You both remembered to transport them. One man gave the other man a toilet

and one man gave the other one a penis. Eyeball penis. It was a beautiful thing. But look, we got a lot to talk about today. We're going to talk Disneyland State Fair, which was another one of these

limited time events. I keep wanting to say limited time magic. Sure, that's the current thing. Yeah, why not wanting to say limited time magic. Sure. That's the current. Yeah, why not? This was limited time, and we'll get into it, but on the second gate by now you've heard us talk about Blast to the Past, which was a 50s throwback

event, and we're talking about maybe we need to talk about the State Fair thing they did, and Justin has fond memories of the State Fair thing. But don't let that distract from where you're going. Oh, sure. I just want to bring up real quick I mean there's a lot of stuff Justin is a big Disneyland guy theme park guy uh Orange County guy and you went a ton as a kid yeah I was uh born up here in Van Nuys and we lived in Glendale until uh the summer between the second and third grade. However, I don't know what age you are at that point. So when I was really little, I was all about Universal. And also because I

wanted to be a filmmaker. And back then, making movies was exciting. I would go to Universal and see how it was done. So I would go to Universal almost weekly. And then we moved to Orange County and before we moved to Orange County, Disneyland was like a two or three times a

year thing. But then once we moved to Orange County, it became like an all-the-time thing, like Universal when we lived up here. Sure. Right. And every time there was one of these limited-time things, we had to go. They would sell discount tickets for them at Ralph's, which is the California Kroger, there was always some sort of deal going on

at the same time as these events. Sure, sure. And I don't know if I saw them on television. Somehow, myself and the family, everyone knew that these events were happening. They were pretty heavily advertised, seemingly. And with big budget commercials big-budget commercials, it was not like, come on down, this weekend there's a thing. They were, like, shot filmically and, you know, maybe presented.

I mean, it was not the blast to the past. Wasn't there a McDonald's ad we talked about with Little Richard that was a national ad? So, yeah, they got this stuff in front of you. And you would go and get the discount tickets there. So each one of these had like a tie-in. Right, right. And so that was like a thing with my parents being like,

oh, the other tickets were on sale, blah, blah, blah. So we ended up going to all of these in 87 and 88. Which was kind of a new breed of, this is sort of an Eisner era invention. I think we sort of touched on this on the second gate with Blast of the Past. But I think there was a time, if you can imagine it, kind of right when Eisner got there, right before, where it was just accepted like, well, Disney's busy during the summer and the holidays. And then we quiet down a little bit. We even close the park some days. And Eisner gets in he's like what are you doing you should be making

money in every possible way from every avenue don't ever close the park down and like okay what's going on here you got nothing between summer and winter come up with some stuff make some things happen and that's where this uh where this particular event and the others came from. And it totally worked, I know, at least for us, because we went for our regular Disney trips and then we would also go for these special events. And we were there specifically for the events. Right, right. There is a State Fair Ralph's commercial on YouTube. And I believe what it was, if you spent $50 at Ralph's,

you would get a free child ticket with purchase of an adult ticket. And I believe they said, like, a $16 value. And it's like, oh, my God. I know it was nearly 40 years ago at this point, but children's tickets must be 10 times that price at this point. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, they would have to be. Yeah, easily.

But that's, yeah. And for State Fair specifically, like you said, you did Blast 2, The Past, and other events, but I would assume State Fair was your favorite. Absolutely. My favorite and my whole family's favorite. I remember everyone being very excited the next year that the State Fair was coming back. Yeah, this one they did twice.

Yeah. 87, 88. Yeah, yeah. The circus, I barely remember. The only thing I remember from it was the motorcycles in the middle of the hub. There was a metal ball that had motorcycles crossing each other in the hub. So they're depicted in the Simpsons movie. Yes.

These little cylinders of death. And that's all I remember from that. And then Blast 2, The Past, the main thing I remember from that was the giveaways. There were all these like 1950s toys. And with every ticket, you could exchange for one of those. So I remember that and the parade. And I think they also had the shooting the guy out of the cannon, which the state fair also had. I believe so.

The TV ads for both feature human cannonballs. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So at a state fair, they would have that. And in the 50s, they would have that. In the 50s, human cannonballs were all the rage. It was the main way

people transported themselves actually. It was faster and cheaper. Freeways weren't everywhere yet so yeah just getting a cannon. But the state fair felt like so much bigger. It's crazy how much stuff like last time I was trying to finish up like looking all this stuff up and I kept finding stuff and

watching stuff and I was like this is wild how much they had. Very park wide every corner. Yeah yeah yeah. Tons of big produced events. But if you search Disney State Fair you also get and this is a different

episode. Yes that's a whole other story. With like the inflatables going around to various actual state fairs in 96. But that's something else. That's something else. I'll say the names of all the things just to whet the appetite of the audience. We think that's an episode.

Oh, yeah. We can't cover that in two minutes. If we could find a video of it, I believe it's an episode. I think the undocumented is the- I found a video about it that had footage. Yes, I'm sure we watched that. I found these articles. I want to see the whole show.

There was Disney Fun Fair Extraordinaire, which Disney had a plan to run these weird balloon shows at all the state fairs across America. The Great Inflation Celebration. Mickey's Inflation Celebration, which was a very expensive, very labor-intensive show to set up and perform which they only i think we all watched this video midway to main street made a video about this but yeah they tried it at the washington state fair in the arizona state fair and after

one we're like this doesn't work at all yeah we have to hire so many people how are we gonna okay to set up tons of inflatable shit to do well all right so we gotta let's get as many hands as we can to transport all this stuff you all you're in uh later people find out uh these are non-union workers iotsy protests yeah oh shit all right okay so we're gonna be regulated on this you know how about not how about we don't do this that's the how about we deflate the great inflation celebration i love that there's just you keep uncovering like eisner eisner era failures so so many things we still have never talked about was it called club disney or club mickey or what i was just in in westlake village there's a shopping center yeah that now

is it's a pottery barn but whenever I'm there I remember oh that's where there was this weird Disney club thing which is different than Disney Quest there's

that was the Chuck E. Cheese thing I think it was sort of Chuck E. Cheese-ish I don't know much about it Family Entertainment Center did you ever do that Justin? no

like I didn't even know about it most people I don't think knew about any of this stuff but it was like constant it was constant. I was really aggrieved. We talk about Coutinho.

And I was on top of it even back then. I knew the themed entertainment news when I was a kid, and I had no idea that place. Justin, you lived in Southern California all your life. Did you ever go to, it's a thing I encountered recently, and it's a chain. It's called Boomers oh yeah well boomers it's a chain of family entertainment centers and it's still hanging in there despite

having multiple different like locations are owned by different companies yeah so boomers like came in and bought up a bunch of like miniature golf courses and stuff like that and like the one of my favorite places to go when i was a kid was bullwinkles and oh yeah of course yeah boomers bought the bullwinkles and fountain valley um so like i went to boomers but they weren't boomers yet when i went okay it's pretty pretty boomers. I remember after high school they started opening up more miniature golf course and bowling places.

I remember going to boomers just out of high school. It wasn't really a thing when I was a kid yet. There were a bunch of independent miniature golf courses and then boomers bought them up and like added other things what are the odds that you get into the weeds that you talk to the owners of these

places and discover that boomers was a cutthroat terrible pirate organization that like we had to sell we had no choice the boomers wave ruined the right it has to be that probably why else does before boomers came in like that bullwinkles in Fountain Valley was just amazing because you had the full Bullwinkles with the animatronic and the whole thing, plus you had bumper boats, which were crazy. Yeah, it was a very, very fun complex. You need a lot of land to have bumper boats. Is there a place within 30 miles that you can get in a bumper boat right from here?

Yeah, definitely. Where are they? I mean, Ventura, I don't know if it's within 30 miles, but golf and stuff in Ventura is what I flash to, which is right off the freeway, off the 101, so you can see that very easily. And it's on my mind because the Beach Boys filmed a very embarrassing music video there for a cover of crocodile rock and they're all in the bumper boats and shaking their hands they're not like doing jazz hands wearing like leisure suits and fedoras it's one of the worst things you'll ever see what year are we talking uh 95 96 stamos in

it for sure stamos is like a Latin lover. Slicked back hair, dipping girls. But I think maybe one in the Valencia-ish area too might have, I forget the name of that. That same golfing stuff is from Karate Kid too. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Oh, wow. Interesting.

Okay. Oh, and then they moved all the balloons from the State Fair to some show in Singapore, some Disney Fest in Singapore. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So I would love if we can get a video of what that balloon show was, a highly produced balloon show. Jason's ready to go without the... Jason's putting his foot down.

We're doing it. We don't need the footage. It's all the... Who cares if we said everything just now? ...inflatable parade balloon. It's our guys. He wants to list the balloons in the... It's our if we said everything just now? It's all the inflatable parade balloons. It's our guys. He wants to list the balloons in the... It's our guys? What do you mean? It's our guys. What does that mean?

Tell us what our guys are. Just that we like the balloons. Our guys are balloons? We always speak fondly of the balloons. He's right. We do love the balloons. What do you mean by the balloons? Are you talking about the balloons? Like the party grub but that's not part of this is it this

is a different thing the video alluded to some of those balloons were in the show okay yeah okay but i don't know which balloons specifically if it's the mini with the big like fruit hat on or something i don't know i just found it so strange that you're yelling, it's our guys at me. And I'm like, what are? Who are? They're my guys. Some people. If they're my guys, I should know what they are. If somebody has the video, please send it to email us and send it to us.

Did you go to the great inflation celebration? Yeah. Did you bounce in luxury? Be very careful searching that now or you're going to find Mickey going like, oh boy! Oh, I'm getting bigger! I'm about to pop! What? You are? Inflation stuff? Inflation stuff's like a rule.

Is that a sex thing? Like a rule 35. I feel like inflation stuff is a sex thing. Inflation stuff. If you feel that, then you know that's true. You're going to have to just admit it. Are you into inflation stuff, Jason? I am not into... No. I just know... I'm just an

anthropologist, you know? You study that people do this. But you think an example of that would be Mickey saying, Oh, I'm getting so bored. We haven't even gotten to the Ferris wheels yet. I know, but what is inflation?

Like, what is it? Like being inflated. Like being pumped in. So there's porno, or is that like cartoon porno? Sure, yeah, I believe so. Where like a balloon is being inflated and somebody gets horny because of that? I, like characters get inflated. Justin, you know what I'm talking about?

No. All right. He maybe just invented a thing. Don't send us this. He maybe invented a thing. Maybe that's an invented thing. I assure you, I have not. I think maybe you did.

I am not the expert here. I am just a casual observer. You're a creator. You're a creative. You're a young creative who's come up with a new kind of porno. No, he's not, because I've just found a Reddit where people are accusing the series Tiny Toon Adventures of being a way for the writers to make real their inflation fetishes. And they're proving this by, you know, like Babs Bunny would get big sometimes. Oh, like Violet Beauregard or something.

Tiny Toon Adventures was practically the writer's barely disguised furry weight gain and inflation fetishes. Oh, my gosh. Oh, no. Wow. Oh, no. Jason, you're really lurking on the dark. You're looking at the dark part.

You're not allowed to think of a part where a cartoon character blows up real big, and then that's... That was fun. That's just fun. That's not just you trying to write your fetish. I think it's just good old-fashioned fun. Like a turn-of-the-century state fair. Donald puts his mouth on like a...

If you think you're segueing back with that, you're incorrect, Jason. We're staying on this point. Good try. Mike, continue. I was going to say, like, Donald puts his mouth on, like, a helium tank, and he blows up, and he floats. And he floats away. That's for perverts, is what this Reddit person is saying, yes. The only

way you'd ever want to see a cartoon character blow up is to get off on it. What? This is awful. Thank you, Jason, for bringing inflation stuff to our desk today. I assume you then take the inflated cartoon character and, like, put it on your dick. That's what it is? I don't know. I'm assuming.

I don't know that that's a part of it. Jason says it's not and he's an expert on this. The inflation stuff expert. You just look at the thing get inflated? He knows. He's pretending he doesn't know. He knows. He clearly knows. It's not my thing. Yeah, right. The more he says it's not my thing. I think it's

making them real big and occasionally popping. Oh, it's not my thing yeah right the more he says it's not my thing making them real big and occasionally popping oh it's the popping that's this is what we're missing part of it this is like how every snowflake is different you know no two snowflakes are the same what it is no people no one has the same exact fetish different inflatable people like a different element of the inflatable. Some might not care about the popping. Right. Some might just like to see it. No, it's funny.

The popping's not part of it for me. It's too aggressive. I love the character. They're my guy. I don't want to see them pop. So maybe this is why they had to shut the state fair thing, the Mickey inflation celebration down, because people were getting too horny watching the show. So this thing has,

if I go in there, it has inflation stuff? Was that Michael Eisner? No, that was a leering inflation man trying to buy tickets. I guess my theory is that Eisner wanted to do it because he's an inflation guy. I don't know.

All right, for this fiscal year, my proposition, inflation stuff. I'd like to see Pluto get really big. Not because I want to see him pop. I just want to see him get big. Make it very clear. Not into them popping. Just like to see him bigger than normal.

Wow, inflation stuff. All right, now segue us back. Yeah, do it. Now we're ready. They were inflating a lot of balloons at the state fair promotion, right? He's upset now. Is it unfair to make Justin deal with this? No, he's all right. He knows Jason.

He's known Jason a long time. He's familiar with all his different interests. Well, where does that... Here, this is a good reset. Let's watch a commercial for the State Fair. Yes, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Here we go.

It's not the Ralphs one, but it's a whole big musical number, and there's a part, as often with videos, where I'm just going to have to explain it and not... The listener won't understand it at first but there's one shot that uh stands out to me i'll hold a state fair the disneyland state fair's coming i know there's something special there for me disneyland brings 50 great state fairs all into one it's a whole park full of fun and games with all the ingredients for non-stop surprises with daily pig races and a down-home state fair parade all this and and Disneyland, too, every day. Oh, the state fair at Disneyland is something special, something special.

Something special, really special. Come and see. That's that. Kind of gives you an overview of the sort of stuff they had and the vibe and the Americana of it all. But what's jumped out at me is that the musical number is being led by, I mean, is it Bert? I guess it's Bert-esque. He's got the suit on.

Yeah, it's the like Jolly Holiday type mode of Mary Poppins Bert with the red and white stripes and the hat. And then if we're saying that's Bert, then there's a weird part where he is holding a bowl of chili with a ribbon on it and he's making a and steam only just now have I realized they're maybe they're conveying that steam is coming out of yeah and uh and he's making a face like yeah yikes hot hot chili Bert can't I live in England. I don't know from spice.

I don't know. How do you do this? The food is bland there. You put this kind of thing down. You shovel this kind of thing down your mouth, do you? He also is dressed like Professor Harold Hill from Music Man. That's what I think they were going for. Yeah, that song is the Wells Fargo Wagon song from the Music Man. That's what I think they were going for. Yeah, that song is the Wells Fargo wagon

song from the Music Man. A number that I don't think Harold Hill is in. Which upsets you, because it's not accurate. Well, no, that's the big song. That's Child Ron

Howard's big song. I'm just saying, do you like the mixing of music man like iconography and I do like it I I feel like a lot of the state fair music is just uh in the parade especially it's just production numbers of the music played on main street nowadays like the instrumental music yeah there's there's different types of state fair things going on it's not all sort of in the same like hello dolly music man era unfortunately for jason it is not all set in 1906 yes a lot that a lot is and i feel like the parade very much so. Yes.

The parade in Main Street. That's a big part of it. Right, right. Yeah. And maybe this has something to do with the chili being in the commercial, but the state fair was the first time that I ever remember food being a big deal at Disneyland. Seasonal. Yes. Offerings just for the special special event something that's very commonplace

now and they really push we do like really polished photos you got to come here for these months because you're going to get this thing you're right this might be the first time that was ever done because i like getting that chili was a thing you remember getting the chili oh very much so like maybe we felt like we had to because of the commercial. But I remember it being a big deal. It was made out of buffalo meat, which was like this mind-blowing thing at the time. I remember my family discussing if it was actual buffalo. So, yeah, like I feel like it's in the commercial for a reason.

Like, it was definitely, and the pies. I remember the pies being a big thing. I think single slice pies, like, yeah, suddenly were available. I don't know if it was just one place or all over the park. Well, they had booths set up. So, like, the areas that wouldn't be like really themed, like Tomorrowland. That's a tough thing to marry.

Yeah. There'd be like a booth with pies and maybe some carnival games and stuff. Well, and once again, Jason, this is a time where you could just grab slices of pie handily no matter where you are are even in Tomorrowland. Well you gotta wash down your chili with something. It's funny

because a lot of this stuff does look very fun but also it's like a lot of it is this chintzy corny shit that Walt hated. I wouldn't say a lot. I can't believe Jason's mad at this. I thought this was gonna be a glowing The only thing I can't believe Jason's mad at this. No, I'm not mad at it. I thought this was going to be a glowing.

I'm just giving the other side. The only thing I remember. The other side where it's shit. It's fucking shit. Fuck it. They did have two Ferris wheels. Yeah. But the way that they were presented and the places that they were, it felt not obtrusive.

Right. Right. They were on the railroad tracks? One of the years, yes. That's part of this, why he's upset, is because they were blocking the railroad tracks. It was shut down because of Splash Mountain construction. Oh, they weren't running the train? Yeah, because of Splash Mountain, the last year.

Interesting. So you would use the train station as a line for a Ferris wheel. Yeah, that's the one in the front of the park and so that gives you a so you're looking at the parking lot on that thing that's on the other side interesting and then there was one right in front of the castle uh one year and then the other year it was over by uh the rivers okay two ferris wheels i saw people online saying that they felt like this was another, in addition to his inflation interests,

that Eisner was determined hell or high water to get a Ferris wheel into the park somehow. And two of them he got. So when ultimately California Adventure happens and you have your big permanent Ferris wheel with its several names that it's had, people theorize that Eisner really was dying for a Ferris wheel. I think the Ferris wheels were at most of these events. I think they were also at the circus. Oh, really?

I think they were at the circus. I don't think they were at Blast to the Past, but I can't remember. I can't remember seeing them in any of the videos. They have a big record on it. Were you ever there at Blast to the Past with John Bowser Bauman from Shaanana? No, I think I would have remembered that because I was a huge Shaanana fan. Were you? Oh, man, we should have had you on the first one, too.

We were baffled by it. We didn't understand this guy, his appeal. We watched a special where he's telling us about the Blast of the Past event, and it's full of all these weird monologue jokes. Remember the lunch ladies? They look like they stink. I couldn't tell you why, but I remember as a kid watching Sha Na Na and really being drawn to Bowser.

Interesting. His charisma, I suppose. I don't know. Yeah, they picked up some of the Happy Days shine, too, I feel like. And recently I've been watching him out of the character as the host of Hollywood Squares and Match Game. They've been airing that era on Pluto. Oh, right. Yeah, they have a full Hollywood Squares channel.

When was he a regular? He wasn't Bowser on it? No, he was the host of Hollywood Squares squares and he was out of the bowser character whoa was he like does he have like a crazy different like an englishman or something crazy different voice not quite but it's definitely like weird like i didn't recognize put on the voice oh yeah full like yeah huh yeah bowser was a gimmick like yeah i knew it was a gimmick i just didn't know how much of a gimmick. I knew they were like a comedy act also in addition to a 50s revival act. And also they ended up playing Woodstock because Hendrix was like a big fan.

That's why? Yeah. What? Why? Part of him doing Woodstock was he had to book Sha Na Na. Is Sha Na Na in the Dimitri Martin movie About Woodstock Yeah taking Woodstock Taking Woodstock

I'll look it up and see if Sean and I I'm gonna have to ask my mom Because I feel like maybe we did that and I forgot Because going to Disneyland to see Bowser Definitely feels like something I would have done As a kid I just don't know how often he was there Because he was using the promotional material For that we might have done a show right kind too because like the virus was

at knots all the time oh and halloween season i feel like yeah it was a viral level celebrity you know you could get him down for a few i got nothing going on. Even as a kid, though, that whole thing felt like it was trying to capitalize on Back to the Future, which I didn't appreciate. Yeah, suddenly there's a new angle. There's a cool current thing with a lot of 50s stuff in it. Yeah, that's an underrated part of a while at 50s. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. This ad for State Fair, we're talking about pies. This ad is so good and kind of creepy and is so Knott's Berry Farm. Yeah, well, it's very Norman Rockwell.

I mean, here, let's describe some aspects of this. I have this too. It's a drawing, but a drawing of Mickey, Minnie, and Goof goofy as they're like suited in park characters yes and mickey's in a mickey looks sharp plaid bandana denim overalls yes uh minnie looks lovely and beautiful yes well what a bonnet and uh what kind of pattern would you say is on her dress? I don't know. It looks almost like a picnic, like a cloth that you put down for having a picnic. Gingham? That's right, yeah. Is that what that's called?

Could be gingham. And then like a white something. But she's wearing kind of a little dress, yeah, and a little hat. And then Goofy is wearing a drum major outfit or a marching band outfit. He's wearing Music Man again. Yeah, he's got a conductor's wand. and he's got his arms in the air and Mickey and Minnie are holding a pie like toward the, toward the viewer of this ad.

And it's, yeah, this just, this feels like if you were at Knott's Berry Farm, you'd be pissed that they were like infringing on your territory. Yeah. Yeah. Because of how much hominess.

Yeah. How much the whole thing feels like it. And just that the pie is like the thing they're presenting to the that's true yeah the disneyland's all about pies for this stretch of time i would be furious if i were like what the hell is this shit all we have is pies at knott's berry farm they have all the good stuff and the characters and here they come trying to take our market share yeah they already stole the idea of doing a teen nightclub. Right.

And they plussed it up by being less tolerant. Right, yes. To me, this feels like a ruthless Eisner, like kind of a ruthless Eisner. That is another thing I remember about this time period is we always had to get out of there before nighttime because of the teens coming oh right videopolis wave interesting oh wow wow do you remember being interested in go like oh if i was only a little older i could go to no not at all and like i remember my mom making

it out to be like a very scary thing because teenagers were scary right uh so no we had to get out of there. There's drugs, there's alcohol, there's inflation stuff. You don't want to go near this. You don't want to go near it. Although now you just give them an iPad and they're all iPad kids, so you can kind of trick them. Why don't you just have a couple iPads on you?

Yeah. It's no problem. Just some old ones. Yeah. Can I say one more thing about this poster? Yeah, yeah. I'm stealing this from a Reddit comment comment but somebody posted this nostalgic for this event and then in the comments somebody said uh boy minnie looks like she's seen some shit and you gotta look closely to see but but

like mickey is definitely he's looking at us like can't wait to see you and she just looks like she's like trying to hold it together yeah she's staring whatever the middle distance or whatever like where why is she yes staring here she watched earlier that day she saw somebody get crushed in the gears of the ferris wheel and then like i don't know if i can do the photo shoot like you hold it together okay the photographer is coming you have to do this you put on a brave face. She saw Michael Eisner kill a buffalo and put it into the chili.

He like slight Gus Fring style and Breaking Bad sliced the throat. Come this way, the buffalo habitat is just a few more steps. It's just right through this tube. Minnie, you didn't see anything. Minnie, you saw nothing. Shut your mouth. Keep your mouth shut.

She got splattered by buffalo innards. Come over here. I'll wipe the entrails off of your snoot. Don't talk about this. Aren't you scared? Aren't you freaked out by this goof? Look, I'm here to do a job. I don't ask questions.

So, yeah, this lists the things that you could do there. And I don't know. Do you have any recollection of Justin's image? No. Yeah, that doesn't jump out at me. But I would like a poster of this. This is how much I like this image. It's really good.

I also like that something I get nostalgic for, I don't do it as much anymore but there was a while where i was buying a lot of like like 80s magazines i mean i own a lot of the disney magazines from them but there was like uh la magazine and orange coast did you ever have orange coast magazine lyra what the events that are happening this week and listings of every bar and restaurant and yeah i used to buy a lot of i don't know maybe b arthur's on the cover you get to see her her vacation condo uh in corona del mar but uh i i would i would buy these magazines and it was something i always liked is like the the sheer volume of copy that like now ad now

ads have no words and it used to be like, pull up a chair. I got five paragraphs for you. But I find it very relaxed. It really takes me back to 88 and you're looking at the dense copy. Right. There's like four paragraph, five paragraph, four paragraph here. Yeah. The state you want to be in, it says. And so the idea, they said in that commercial, but it was like, we're combining the best of all the state fairs in the country.

50 state fairs rolled into one. Yeah, and the different things would also say which state they were from. And I remember there was either a sticker or something from each state. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So did you know that they would sell these? These are stickers that have characters on them and then list Minnesota and Donald as an axe. I assume to chop down a tree. I saw that

people would get them when your car parked in a lot. They would give you a sticker. It was a different one each day to get people to come back to collect the stickers. Yeah, and then some kids would stand on Main Street trading them.

Like an early pin trade. They were trading. Oh, interesting. Like the toy thing you did. Like an early pin trading. Right. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

I feel like there was something like that for each one of the events. Yeah. There was some sort of collectible element to it. Oh, and it's too bad that some of these have Mickey doing things culturally that he should not be doing. Wearing clothes that... Also, there's one with the texas one i what character is it mickey with a bandana over his face holding two pistols

i think he's being like a yosemite sam they're stealing knots now he's stealing yosemite sam shtick yeah i just googled disneyland state fair, and some are nice. Like South Dakota, it's a Mount Rushmore with our characters on it. And then Wisconsin, Minnie's got butter urns. What are butter urns? Yeah, churn must be in my head, but I'm like, it can't be an urn, is it? Jars, what do you put butter in when it's done? The whole butter holder? texas and wyoming mickey is holding two different types of guns really and then new york he's oh jason would

like the new york one where he's like a like an old-time chappy he's like he's in a pinstripe suit and a bowler hat yeah it's a little surprising for California. He's the Zodiac Killer. He's got the bag over his head. Wait, John Wayne, it's the John Wayne Gacy Clown. What the fuck? A different event I think you're looking at. Oh, yeah. Serial mid-90s.

Illinois, he's Al Capone? Throwing his enemies in a river? Poor Chip and Dale. Oh, for New Jersey, is the devil impregnating a woman to create his cursed spawn? Why is he that? Jersey Devil? Jersey Devil. Oh, okay.

Look, I'm looking at some nice ones. Goofy's bundled up Because he's in Alaska Oh that's nice Ship sold in the Georgia peach Idaho Donald's relaxing Next to a giant potato

And he has a big old gut Like he ate a lot of potatoes It looks like he's pregnant Yeah Wow It is an interesting drawing Or Has he been inflated

Oh no! Inflation stuff! That's a lateral move to, I believe the term is impreg stuff. With a pregnant Sonic. I believe. I believe. I'll fool them if I say I'm not sure. I don't want to seem like I miss you.

I don't want to seem like I'm disrespectful, but I've definitely seen pregnant Shrek, pregnant Sonic. And that's a sex thing oh yeah okay and is it just you look at it or is there other stuff i don't know don't even have to yeah you can't i don't know the mechanics i don't believe you but i'll roll we'll go through because we already did too much on this um i this is like they still do, like, little stuff sometimes, but it's like your annual pass holders go, and they get, like, maybe a magnet once in a while.

But none of the magnets are Mickey shooting two guns in the air. None of the magnets are that. This is a time. Yeah. Do you remember having any of these? Yeah, I think I still have one with Goofy on it. I'm not sure which. There's a Montana Goofy that's so lazy.

It's just his big face and he's got a cowboy hat. I think that's the one I have. Is that the one? Wow, wow. But that's like, no, they couldn't think of an activity. They couldn't think of like an action that is Montana. We ran out of time. Well, he's the governor, inspired Yellowstone, you know.

Inspired later season plots. There's, like, a lot of stuff online on eBay. There's, like, hats that they had, like, kind of cowboyish hats. I did bring my State Fair 87 button. Oh. Wow. Yeah, there it is. That looks nice.

Good logo. Good bold. Yeah. Blue, there it is. That looks nice. There's a good logo, good bold blue ribbons on here. Like this poster, let's see if I can get a bigger version. And the Ferris wheel square in the middle of the logo. Wow. The castle pushed to the side. Get out of here, castle. Get out of here, Matterhorn.

Eisner hated the castle. He wanted to replace it with a Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel is given prominence. It is up there with the castle and the Matterhorn. It's like it is an equal partner. Yeah, he was pushing it. This poster I found, that's a really well-produced piece of art for this thing. You can feel the effort that was put into this event.

Yeah, especially I feel like this event, they did a lot of this stuff for the other events, but this one felt like it had a little bit more than the other stuff. Yes, I would agree with that. We haven't even listed yet all the stuff that was there. We were talking about the Main Street area was more like Hello Dolly Music Man, but then over New Orleans Square,

there was a bunch of hillbilly nonsense. And then over at Videopolis, there was like 80s... The hillbilly stuff was more like Big Thunder, Big Thunder Ranch. Where New Orleans Square was more of the lumberjack stuff.

Yes, you're right. I apologize. Rivers of America had guys trying to balance on logs and stuff, and they'd fall into the river. And then climbing, log climbing competitions too? Yes, that was part of it. Yeah, it was like a, I want to say like 20 minute to half hour show that they would do a bunch of times a day on the rivers of america uh that had like you know some it it had the competition between the lumberjacks but it also had like built-in bits and comedy things okay it also had a band that was a different band from the pig races which we'll get to uh captain mike

and the cavalry band and i believe they're all dressed like Confederate soldiers. Good. I think that they're here. Maybe they're Union. I don't know. The footage isn't so good. Yeah. But they seem like Confederates to me.

Yeah. You know, all 50 states were represented. Of course, all 50 states. But yes, they were all, so two families, I think it's the Aikens and the Barkers maybe? Yes. And they were competing for a bag of gold. So they would send a member of each family to compete in the different events. One was climbing the big pole.

One was out in the rivers running on or what do you how do you call that what do you call that on the log yes log rolling log rolling and they would both be on a log and whoever fell first lost uh and this is wild this this one in particular i think is like one of the wildest things to me that you could just see people in the middle of the rivers like falling into it off of a log oh yeah very weird and doing bits on the logs and like i remember i don't know why i remember this like this must have been like one of my earliest uh exposures to improv comedy but i remember we had just had a big earthquake in Norwalk. And I was watching the Lumberjack show and the MC was doing crowd work like across the rivers of America. And he was asking people where they were from.

And someone yelled out Norwalk. And the guys on the logs did a bit where they acted all shaky because there had just been an earthquake. Wow. And I still remember that to this day. Sure, huh. Like being impressed with that level of crowd work. Well, and that you could go to Disneyland and hear something referred to that happened this month.

Yeah, a topical joke. Yeah, yeah, that it's not all. But I feel like that was more common at Disneyland at the time because you and especially the state fair had so many shows like this because you had that plus the pig racing plus there was like a diving show uh and then there was like a show on the train tracks in critter country well it was bear country at the time uh with like robbers and cowboys like really i didn't find that uh so there was stuff like yeah all over the place all dive show was yeah in front of small world i guess huh which is wild uh the amount of stuff

but yeah like live we've said this many times like a lot of the like live performer stuff is what you end up remembering as especially if you're a kid but like i've said this like just the stormtroopers hassling people in tomorrowland is like stuff i love and i feel like that stuff people like it's so much more fun when you like get tapped on the shoulder and the stormtroopers are behind you it's like that stuff like you remember more. I was definitely more into the shows at Disneyland when I was a little kid than the rides. Like I was a scared little kid. So like I didn't love dark rides. So like you had this mix of like shows with live performers.

And then you also had like America Sings and Country Bears. And that was the stuff I was always more like drawn to. That's a different perspective. And yeah, I guess especially then it was sort of a more show environment. It wasn't until Star Tours opened that I actually like loved a ride. Oh, wow. Huh. Makes sense.

Yeah. You've got unlimited access to music, but time? Now that's limited. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard gets you unlimited PC Optima points, free grocery delivery, and time back for what matters. Save time and earn $1,100 in average value each year. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard. The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit PCFinancial.ca

for details. Value is for illustrative purposes only. Real quick, I think Scott will be extra. We're all going to be excited about this, and maybe you found this already, but there's a clip of Miss California from 1988 with the California Secretary of State sort of

doing a little speech at Disneyland during State Fair. I don't know if you found this or not. And somebody makes an appearance, a specific version of someone makes an appearance, I believe, during this. So if it's not queued up, here we go. Welcome to this momentous occasion as we honor the state of California.

Welcome to Disneyland. I'm sure Mickey and Roger will agree it is a pleasure to have you with us. Right, Roger? By certainly. And we believe you do. That's right, Roger. And we

hope that you have a wonderful stay here at Disneyland. It's me, the wrong one. It's the wrong weird Mickey voice. The Burt Jack Wagner Mickey. This is what we're doing. We are comfortable having Mickey.

It's our biggest character. Sound like this when you come meet him. Prime spot for Roger. You forget Roger Rabbit was on the level as Mickey back then. They clearly rushed him in. So that must have been because the movie comes out in 88. So by the 88 version, they're pushing Roger in the TV ads. Yes.

In the parades and stuff. I feel like maybe right before that, they mentioned our brand new character. Or welcome our new guy to Disneyland, Roger Rabbit. They make a big deal out of Roger. I remember it being a big deal. Yeah. to Disneyland. Roger Rabbit. They make a big deal out of Roger. I remember it being a big deal. I don't feel like even though that was the beginning

of the renaissance of Disney animation, you wouldn't see new characters in the park that often. Yeah, it wouldn't be a quick thing like that. And they went all in pretty quickly too. Yes.

But now I think... He wasn't inflatable. Now I think they would... It would take three and a half years to get... And they try to make that... You got to come back to the park. I don't know who it would be now, but that's how long it takes at this point to just get a new suit.

I would love it if they did a Poochie kind of character. Like, our new character, I think they were maybe, like, back to our piloting, the Wishing Star from Wish, and then that didn't really take off. There's a character that's a gag in runaway railway the little chirpy bird at the end oh right and they sell stuffed animals with that and and that's like i feel like a joke in that you know you what you might miss is like oh it's her new character yeah but they're not pushing the chirpy bird like he's roger no they're not pushing the chirpy bird like he's Roger Rabbit. No, they're not pushing the chirpy bird and the star that you wish on did not really catch on.

He's just a Shondoo type, like from Sinbad, where it's like a cute character and maybe it could turn into like a fun parks character. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of like, so the original characters, there are, I don't know if I should go here first. Let's go back to the cannonball guy because the cannonball guy is a character with a name. I don't know if you found this. Yes. Captain Zoom is the name of the guy who would get shot out of a cannon on Main Street.

Okay. Was it the same name for each of the events? I don't know the answer. A crossover. But there was a whole intro on Main Street with Captain Zoom. Really? There would be like, so you can see here in this YouTube video, there's a big banner that says Captain Zoom.

And then a guy would come down the street in the like Burt outfit. So it's probably like the same, whether it's the same actual performer, but it's the same character is from your commercial. And he would do a little spiel introducing Captain Zoom. And I don't know that any of this is particularly good, but I'll just play it. Fasten on a speeding bullet, A.A.s.

And post-counting presentation as the one you are about to see. Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Zoom will go 135 feet into the air. It's guaranteed to make your palms persevere, to make your heart palpitate. In just a few moments, our fierce hero will climb into that colossal cannon to accomplish the unbelievable. With nothing to rely upon but his courage, his fortitude, and the grace of the cosmos.

And the grace of the cosmos. And the grace of the cosmos. So it's in God's hands now is what he's saying. I hope the cosmos is feeling graceful today. And then I find this footage hilarious and scary. Like, he really, honest to God, shoots himself out of a cannon down Main Street. And this is happening. Did you see this live? Oh, absolutely.

It's insane. They built this Spider-Man animatronic, you know, that does a less impressive thing in Avengers Canvas. But they had a human doing this multiple times a day. And this was like a level up from when he did it during the circus

because for the circus, I think it was over the rivers of America. And now this is over cement on Main Street. He could be Captain Splat. So this footage is so crazy to me. Loved this as a kid. Listeners, you're going to hear a human cannonball. Oh, fuck!

Mike, why would you show us that? Oh, yeah. He exploded like a big bag of blood yeah i can't finish the episode i gotta go puke no stop tough it up toughen up come on like so mean very high yes it's crazy and lands in a net yeah but it was yeah like they're talking about now like all these different like drone rules and stuff they can't fly the drones over the heads of people guys out of cannon they're shooting guys out of fucking cannons guys they can do yeah guys fine guys he signs his life right away but a little robot is too is too uh scary or too dangerous wow um so yeah captain

zoom would do this and yeah i don't know if it was always captain zoom or there was a different uh thing i don't know if disney owns captain zoom or this was this guy's gimmick i guess we should look into i would assume disney owns captain zoom so they just found a cannonball guy well yeah back then i'm sure it was a lot easier to find a human cannonball than it is today there was well it was like it was a lot easier to find a human cannonball than it is today. It was a family tradition, maybe. People were doing it. It was people's livelihood in the 30s,

and then they trained their son and their son. Right, it was a trade. Maybe a daughter. You know what? Hey, first female human cannonball. There was a lot of death defying going on at these events. Wow. What else? Was there anything more dangerous than that? Like the high divers also were very scary.

The log climbing. I saw a video of the log climbing where they're coming down because you want to pick up speed. You've got to climb up and ring a bell. But then if you allow yourself to just kind of essentially free fall down that thing, you can win a little easier. But at what cost? That looks so scary. Yeah. Yeah.

And I guess the bike stuff was a little scary, but not as bad. Yeah. I will say that, I mean, I guess we should talk about that real quick. There was a goofy suited character that would do BMX tricks. Oh, yeah, there was amx i i forgot about this because like just not interesting to me there was a bmx trick show at videopolis yeah this may have come up a little bit when we talked about videopolis many many years ago i don't i don't really remember yeah but it was i don't maybe i didn't connect the dots that it was for the state

fair because it doesn't have the vibe of the rest of the state fair. Exactly. I think it's notable for its name, Wizards of Rad. Wizards of Rad. And this was during a point in time where I feel like most of the Southern California theme parks had something like this. Yeah, Knott's had bike guys. Yeah, Knott's had it and. Yeah, Knott's had it, and SeaWorld had one. Oh, wow.

Very odd. Everyone had a pre-extreme sports BMX skateboarding type event or show at some point. Interesting. That's what kids were into, so gotta get them they've got to get the bikes there well i also what i liked from the show is that the i'm trying to put what song are they playing oh it's you can fly but a new lyric but yeah a rock version of it performed by a live band that was always that had to be there singing this song live i don't think they're doing that these days no but uh yeah a rockified you can fly you know like bikes do they fly briefly it's long yeah yeah yeah

a long version of this solo and they shred i'm just gonna play the one the little like lyric amending that i like i think it's cute up right let's do the limit break out i suddenly like this song i like a peter pan song he's also like it's like supposed to be a rock version but he's very lounge singing like he's a lounge guy as well and like it's so it's such a funny mix and they're like you got it i'm kind of like poison meets melt or may right right so they had a jason thing they had a live band there and then a live band at the rivers of america and and at the pig races tomorrowland oh my god and in main street so you have five live bands. I do. I legitimately, it's upsetting to me

that they don't do this level of live entertainment anymore and they'll never go back to it, I'm assuming. I mean, some of this is, how would they ever approve any of this now? But even for something that's synergistic with a movie, I just think it's never going to happen on this scale ever again. I mean, I was complaining about Pixar Fest this year

not being to the level of Donald's Quacky Duck City in Tokyo, but this blows everything else out of the water as far as stuff you would go, like original, unique stuff. And it's this kind of thing that is why this podcast remains proudly pro-Eisner. That's right.

This thing, this decision that has been made that he ruined the company, and, oh, look at this. Look what happened. Right. This is just one of the many things. There were so many odd things like this, not even counting all the new shitty-added attractions and hotels. Right.

Bob Iger does not approve confusing things, and that is the problem. That's right. It all makes too much sense. It makes perfect corporate sense. Michael Eisner, you throw some weirdness at him and go, it's a state fair, but there's BMX bikes, and also there's a hillbilly pig show. Yeah, okay, that sounds great. Sign off on it.

This is before PowerPoint presentations, you know? This is before you had to present all your ideas with slides and decks. You would have to verbally do something. You would get confused. You'd have to verbally, yeah. You think Eisner would have approved it? I thought there were slides in the 1980s, but okay. Well, there were slides.

It was an overhead projector. But that's so expensive. Yeah, overhead projector. Disney couldn't afford some overhead projector. I feel like these came so fast and furious, these events, like one after the other, that they had to, even though they were impressive, they had to be kind of

slapped together in order to happen. Like they had to be planning the next one as the other one was happening. Yeah, and then some of these like blast to the past, I can never remember. It is kind of not the phrase.

It's in 88. These are both in 88. Like, there's an overlap. I was reading that. Yeah, 87 and 88 were the two big years. So, like, there's stuff constantly happening. At the same time that you have Star Tours is brand new. Captain EO is brand new.

More new. They're building Splash Moon. What a time. Right. This was a time. Yeah, it was very, very exciting. I'm so curious what, like, just your Tony Baxter, obviously he's working on Star Tours, but what did that core top-level Imagineer think about some of these events, which were seemingly slapped together?

I wonder if they didn't like it. I wonder if this felt like, if it felt. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah, yeah. Because money was definitely spent. Yes. Like money had to have been going here instead of creating new attractions. Right.

But at the same time, like Scott just said, like we were in this run of, yeah, big attractions. Maybe it'd be in support of the theory behind it, but maybe think some of the execution was chintzy. That's yeah. I wonder. Because, yeah, you don't. Yeah. You hear all the big Imagineers talk about the big projects. But I'm always curious about what like what department did this stuff and do they have any input in it whatsoever? And were they like, there's a big Ferris wheel in the middle. This like I'm assuming some of them weren't pleased with some of the choices, but I guess it's temporary and maybe they didn't care so much. I don't know.

Well, have we talked about the notion, the theory that's out there that maybe we've said this some episode long ago, but that the Ferris wheel. I think people really hated the Ferris wheel being in the hub and blocking the castle. Yeah. And and then that was not the case the next year and i think they even i forget what was there for circus they kept these these events i think nobody like the motorcycles were there for the circus oh it was motorcycle okay well yeah i think people thought that was really silly and people in the company and the theory is that the partner's statue the walt and Mickey statue, was built as a permanent thing that you can't move

so that they can't put a bunch of bullshit. You can't have sumo suit wrestling for an entire summer in the middle and blocking the castle. What was funny with these events, though, is it was almost like you weren't there for Disneyland. Like, you were there for the events. Especially with my family in particular, for Disneyland. Like you were there for the events. Like especially like with my family in particular

like my mom had a very specific way that she liked me to experience Disneyland when we went. Which was going down Main Street crossing the drawbridge going through the castle. You had to do it in that order. Interesting.

Before you do anything else you had to go over the drawbridge and through the castle. You had to do it in that order. Interesting. Before you do anything else, you had to go over the drawbridge and through that castle. And then we would do the Fantasyland rides, and then we would take the Skyway to Tomorrowland and do America Sings and that stuff, and then walk across to Adventureland and then Tom Sawyer's Island and then Bear Country and then get out of there before the teenagers came.

At the end of the day, a mad dash. Yes. But for these special events, that was off the table. Wow. Oh, then you broke the rules. Interesting. It was all about these events. It was all about getting that schedule at the beginning of the day with, okay, we're

going to see the pig races at this time. We're going to see the lumberjacks at this time. We're going to go this, this, and that. Try the pie. Try the chili. So it was almost like we weren't at disneyland that was kind of a secondary thing that was fun like when we did that throwback night a couple years ago even though that was still like on brand disney it is interesting how just changing some of the music and changing a few things about it really does mess with like your normal Disneyland day.

Like I could see all this new stuff just being thrown around and like, you go like, well, it's, this is a different thing. They've really, they've really changed. We were there to experience that,

to go to the state fair, to go to the circus, to see the blast to the past stuff. Thumpers Easter. You mentioned this before we started recording. What was Thumper's Easter? It was like an Easter egg hunt, and the Easter bunny was there.

It was very lightly themed. It wasn't like all over the park, though I think maybe the Easter egg hunt. There was a real physical Easter egg hunt and then a sticker thing. You stumped us with that. I believe that only happened once. Oh, okay.

And then the other limited time events that I remember going to, which was the only one that I was very disappointed in, was the Disney Afternoon. Oh, right. Oh, I loved it. Maybe I was just the right age. I would like whatever they gave me. But those ride overlays and inflatable stuff.

I like that balloon. I like those big – it had such a – I mean, my love of, like, you know, 80s purples and teals is very influenced by those big inflatable tubes that ran through the small world. I did love the ride overlays, like the boat overlay with the gummy bears. I loved. But I just remember hearing that they were building Duckburg

and I would be able to go to Duckburg. And when I got there, seeing Duckburg and just being so disappointed. Yeah. That wasn't very good. That was like flats. Yeah, I see what you're yeah i see what you're saying you know what i was like the the slight slight age differences make it such that

i was not ducktales was not my show like the it's so the micro micro like because what it was ducktales and then chippendale and then darkwing. Those are so much more my shows, so maybe I wasn't as offended by an inaccurate depiction of Duckburg. But if DuckTales is your molten core, that makes sense. I wonder if this is a syndication thing, because I watched hours of DuckTales. I did too. It wasn't like mine.

Oh, it wasn't? Yeah, yeah. The other ones did come later. I did too, I just don't, it wasn't like mine. Oh, it wasn't your, yeah, yeah. The other ones did come later. I'd also seen in like magazines what was going on in Orlando with Mickey's Birthday. Oh yeah. Oh, Mickey's Birthday Land. Yeah, and the DuckTale integration there.

It wasn't as good, it wasn't that good. But to me, like, just seeing it in the magazine, it looked great. And I was expecting something on that level, and I felt like it wasn't even on that level. It was bigger. I agree. It was kind of chintzy on the general scale, but bigger. Yeah, I remember feeling that way seeing it. Because the idea that you would go see the money bin, obviously, was very exciting.

But it was very exciting. But it was not giant. It was not to the correct scale. I mean, I felt the same way about Birthdayland when I would see pictures of Toontown in Disneyland. Gotcha. And I would be like, oh, well, that's amazing. Oh, this is okay. It's less good.

It's less... There was also some of this limited time stuff, you would wonder why they didn't just keep it. Like why not keep the cutouts of the gummy bears in the boat ride? No, sure. Yeah. Why are you de-theming? That's a ride. We've never done an episode about motorboat cruise, right? I don't think so.

That's a dry one, I think. Oh, that. I'm so mad. I never got to ride the dry. Mike and I are both like boring boat. Jason's like, I know. It tears me up. We haven't done an episode.

Let alone the gummy bears version. When we do our stressful pitch meetings of what episodes are coming, Jason stands and says. Any time there's one where it's like, oh, that's a little dry. That's a little boring. I'm like licking my chomps. I'm like there's one where it's like, oh, that's a little dry, that's a little boring. I'm licking my chomps. I'm like, let me at it. I loved the motorboats when I was a kid. It's parking lot tram.

It's exciting. Michael Scottrick, I stand today again and say motorboat cruise should be... Where did you get Scottrick from? You had to dress up my name. That's your legal name he's found an overhead projector

yeah at much expense the talking about thumpers easter i i don't know out here on the west coast i mean i'm assuming it aired everywhere but i remember growing up

the disney easter parade special was as big as the disney christmas parade like and so we would have to tape it before we went to church or like catch it uh uh before we left or whatever um but and i don't know when that went away, but they would do the full parade with the top hats. The Hello Dolly stuff. Yeah. Or the Easter. So many petticoats.

There wasn't room on Main Street. All of it was filled with wide petticoats. Speaking of the Christmas parade, the Christmas stuff was the one thing I never saw because as a local, you stayed away from Disneyland during the holidays. Oh, right, right, right. Oh, sure.

So I don't remember going to Disneyland and seeing Christmas stuff until I was a teenager. Right. Wow, wow. And then, yeah, they didn't do Halloween on the level they do now. They didn't do Halloween at all. Is do now. They didn't do Halloween at all. Is that right?

They didn't have anything? I think the state fair was kind of around that time. Oh yeah, maybe. I wonder when they first tried, like they first did like a Mickey pumpkin. Like I don't remember

any sort of Halloween stuff at the parks growing up. Hmm. The first time I remember, like you would go to Knott's Berry Farm for Halloween. Right, right. That was the thing. Wow. And then I remember like you would go to Knott's Berry Farm for Halloween like that was the thing

and then I remember when Horror Nights started at Universal and like Penn and Teller being there oh wow and also as a scared kid like I didn't want to go to any Halloween stuff yeah yeah right

and the Disney version was a little too intense yes can i play a little bit i just want to zoom through this actual parade the state fair parade yeah uh uh just get us get a sense of the song and then get a sense of some of these characters i've never seen before and have not seen since i assume you guys saw a little of this oh yeah um but this is just a little bit of like the the music you would hear And like, this is, yeah, this is from 1988. Appetite for Destruction came out a year prior. I always like to think about, like, kids are like into Guns N' Roses, but they're going to see this in 1988.

State Fair. State Fair. State Fair, and then maybe you have a song from Meet Me in St. Louis. Uh-huh. But yeah, a bunch of straw hats and I don't know how you would describe it. Like Bert from Mary Poppins style jackets, green blues, big dresses. The whitest white suits. Yeah.

And just, this was a huge parade. Huge. There are so many floats and people and performers. And just like a couple weeks before this, they would have been playing like 50s television characters in the Blast to the Past.

Right, greasers were just, they've just traded their greaser outfit for. They went back. They went 50 years before the Blast to the Past. And then a couple months

before that, they would have been like lion tamers or whatever in the circus parade. Right. It's wild. Show your chops chops and it's not like anything is so like crazy impressive expensive but it's just like there's a tractor coming down main street and there are weird scarecrow guys and weird crows and they don't look like disney characters that i've seen before they got

all those uh i was okay i was just saying they look like they look vaguely like the scarecrow from return to oz yeah vaguely but they don't think they had did they have returned to oz ever in the parks no i don't think so i don't think so but i'm just like oh these suits seem like they might have been created for this. Well, then you got a whole original lineup of characters. You got the vegetables. Well, right, yes, and that comes after this. So you see these scary scarecrow type characters.

I don't know if you saw these, Scott. These are very much like Raggedy Ann, Raggedy Andy style performances. And they're dancing with crows that are also human size. Right. We're having so much fun. The scare crows and the crows are getting along. Right. And then coming up behind.

So this is like a tractor. Yeah, I hate these crows. Oh my God. They're giant gaping mouths. Yeah. And now here come the vegetables. There's a giant anthropomorphic carrot, tomato, broccoli with these big nose, like floppy. The broccoli boys.

Big floppy noses that look like they're inflatable noses. They're just bouncing up and down. And have you seen these characters ever in your life at Disneyland? Where did these suits come from? Did they, I don't know. The corn has like overalls to act like it's his whatever is what do you call the outside of a corn husk thank you um and boy it's just that's weird and then here come like chip and dale and aprons yeah like all of the costume characters like that

had like different versions for each of these events right Right. And this is, by the way, three minutes into it, like a 12-minute parade. There's so much stuff they packed in here. I don't mind the broccoli boys and the vegetables. I could stand the vegetables hanging around. Sure. I'm not mad. I would be interested to see all of them. I just wondered.

Hey, I think the tomatoes look cute. Yeah. I agree. Beautiful eyelashes. Well, the tomato look cute. Yeah. I agree. Beautiful eyelashes. Well, the tomato looks a little beautiful. Yeah. It's a little sexy, if you really want to be honest. You feel free.

I was complimenting. I said cute. Well, I'm just, you know, like I'm talking about like, you know, weird tomato porn stuff. That's what I'm thinking automatically. I don't know, Jason. Is there a tomato? You're being weird. You're normal.

I just said that her eyes sparkle, and now here you are talking about tomato porn. I knew what you meant. I was reading your signals. Now the pumpkin, hang on. Now the pumpkin, I don't, the pumpkin seems like a real meanie. Oh, yeah, yeah.

This staring must of the pumpkin will foreclose your house on you. The Disney characters that get featured in this parade the three little pigs are in there sure uh clara cluck i feel like is a she's in a barn yes she's in a barn and like the top of the barn yeah um i had to double check that name when i was watching the parade. I was like, we chicken from old Disney. Okay, Clara Clark. And I believe one website about her referred to her as an old friend of Mickey's. Okay.

So I guess she was in some old shorts with him. I was famous. I keep her around. I got to be nice. You got to be nice. The people you came up with, you got to be cool too. We had like a Nichols and May. So we dated for a while.

And then we were working together. We were a comedy duo? And then we kind of, we stayed friendly. But we're not as close as we used to be. And then they just start bringing live animals down Main Street. Oh, boy. Yeah, too. There are like these big pens or cribs that i think there's a cow and

there's a maybe a sheep in there there's a maybe a pig in one of these but i think there's a cow there there's these weird i don't know how you even describe these i guess pens like fancy kind of fancy cages fancy cages that are being dragged down main street with like sleeping animal real life animals in them and And then more animals. Dopey is in a car being pulled by a mule. Whoa. Like a real-life mule. Dopey's behind the animal husbandry exhibit.

Right. And there's a human being making sure the mule doesn't go out of control and run into the audience. But then there's a goat just being pulled down Main Street and horses. And what are these? Ox? Ox? Like oxen?

Like oxen are coming down Main Street pulling a big wagon? I didn't make it to the animal part. These are notoriously cantankerous animals to be surrounded by people. There's a bunch of them. And we're six minutes into a 12-minute parade at this point. So I was just like, this is wild. This is where Justin tells us that he was attacked by an angry ox. He had to recover for many years, and this podcast takes a very serious turn.

But they would let you pet the animals. Yeah, they were walking close by. They were encouraging it. Right. And then we get to the part where you get an anthropomorphic box of sugar. You get a sugar box. Weird. And then I think this is a milk bottle with eyes walking down.

I completely missed all this. Who are these characters? Where did they get all these? These are the elements of the pies. Right. These are the pie ingredients walking down Main Street. What's that one? What's the bottle? Vanilla. Vanilla extract. A bottle of the pies. Right. These are the pie ingredients walking down Main Street. What's that one? What's the bottle?

Vanilla. Vanilla extract. Bottle of vanilla extract with a big bow and gloves. Now this, Jason, you have to admit, turns you on a little bit. This feels like Jason's vibe, yes. This is for all fair. This is for private times. This is just wild.

We're seven minutes in now, and we have the ingredients for pies walking down. Jason doesn't want to hook up with any of them. He wants them to all get in a big pile. Because when these guys get in a polycule, the baby they make is a pie. A polycule?

That's what you refer to in baking. It's a polycule of ingredients. Makes a delicious pie. Jason starting his own polycule that's all anthropomorphic pie ingredients makes a lot of sense. So, yeah. Okay. So, yeah.

We're going down and there's- Is there a butter stick? I don't- Hold on. This is- I don't know who that one was who ran by. He looked mischievous, though. There's a little, like in the Itchy and Scratchy Parade,

there's a little cute axe. That's what that looked like. Yeah. It's one, like, scurrying behind. There's flour, that's milk, that's vanilla, and then, what, is this salt or sugar? Like, the sugar was over here. It's too far away, and it's overexposed.

I don't know. Yeah, that looks like a sugar bowl. Yeah. Maybe a dish of some kind, yeah. So, I don't yeah that looks like a sugar bowl yeah yeah maybe a dish of some kind yeah so i don't i'm just yeah and then there's a there's country bear representation here and like big like floats um and then i'm trying to see if there's any other real like donald shows up and i don't know this is wow and then like full like like marching band style like performers are coming down with and they perform with i don't know what you would call this people that perform with sticks

in a marching band what do you call those performers yeah they got those marching sticks uh then there's flag performers i like this is more ambitious than any parade even like paint the night paint the night is like i feel like 10 performers in it and impressive floats this has like 200 performers and like that's a big reason why these events felt special like all the performers like it was kind of overwhelming wow so like yeah i was just i didn't know the grandeur of this i had always heard they did a state fair thing the end yeah i didn't know the scale um we we've only briefly mentioned the peak races we We gotta get there. That is the main event.

Believe me, we can get there. We can do that right now because, yes, back in Big Thunder Ranch, they were having an event called Pig Mania. When I told my mom that I was coming on the show to talk about the state fair, she

immediately said, oh, the pig races. I loved the pig races. Like, my family loved the pig races. Wow. And it was another thing that I remember openly wondering, like, why is this not just here all the time? Because there was nothing else going on back there. This was before the barbecue restaurant. Right.

Whatever it was called. Before whatever's there now. What's that thing called is before the barbecue restaurant. Right. Big Thunder, whatever it was called. Before whatever's there now. What's that thing called? I don't remember. Galaxy's Edge? Something like that. Something like that. Were the goats back there?

The goats were back there. Okay. This is the first time I ever remember going back there. It was for the pig races. It's possible. No, you didn't go to this. If you're a kid and you don't go on Big Thunder, maybe you don't go back to that part of the park at all. Exactly.

Yeah, because we would do Fantasyland and then Skyway over to Tomorrowland. So I don't know if I ever went back there. The pigs lured you to this zone four pigs at a time, seemingly. Yes, four pigs at a time. And then they would do a hee-haw type show yeah it was another like big production show where you had like another mc just like at the lumberjack show and you had another full band yes and they were doing bits and they were also doing crowd work and you're gonna make us do a second gate about hee-haw justin's the expert on hee-haw no really he loves hee-haw you can't

after the show yeah yeah yeah we'll do it yeah talk about that that just seems like a mike campaign of the future i love hillbilly nonsense i love it yeah i didn't know i heard this phrase before i love it more every year i wrote like a hundred you love hillbilly nonsense more every year this is an effect I knew about you. Yeah, well, when I was a kid, I was very much only space. I didn't like the past. I was not interested in the past in any way. I didn't care about that type of thing, like fiddles or banjos.

I was already a huge Country Bear fan at this point. Yes. Country Bears was my favorite attraction at the park. He's a longtime hillbilly nonsense fan. Oh, yeah, from way back. So this was like a live version of the Country Bears. Yes.

Which was great. Right. Wow. So yeah, no, I'm in the last decade, I'm much more into this, this genre.

You know, it's the little Jimmy Dick. We talk about the old time country music I'm into after in the wake of Bob Wills, little Jimmy Dickens. This is definitely another episode, but several times I went to the Country Music Awards at

Universal. They did it at the amphitheater? Well, they would do the awards in the amphitheater, but then they would sprinkle the acts throughout the park. Whoa. So it would be like, live from Jaws, Brooks and Dunn. I didn't know that. And then they would do their song, and now would come Jaws.

In the performance, really? It was wild. Whoa. Wow. We got to do that. I meant to bring it up earlier, but your father had a hit song in the 70s. Yes. Billy Don't Be a Hero.

If he was here, he would tell you three hit songs. He would correct you. Oh, I'm sorry. He is not a one-hit wonder. He would be mad at me. You're on the flip side of the Buffett thing. He was in the top 43 times. The 20 songs that all Jimmy Buffett,

that all regular people know. But a sane person would refer to him as a one-hit wonder. Sure, sure. Okay. Hang on. I'm a three-hit wonder. But yeah, Bo Donaldson and the Haywoods. Bo Donaldson and the Haywoods.

The Haywoods. Yeah. So you were around a lot of the old music, not the old time like Jimmy Dickens, but the old music. Well, eventually I was because, so my dad had a pop hit in the 70s. Right. And then his band broke up in the early 80s. Actually, toward the end, he was playing a lot at the Disney parks. They were one of the regular bands on both coasts.

Geez, wow. And actually, I had been searching for footage of them playing at the parks my whole life. And finally, someone uploaded footage just a couple of months ago. Really? Of them playing on the Tomorrowland stage. Oh, cool. On the Terra, up the rising. Yeah, exactly.

That's cool. So that was also a thing as a kid is like, since my dad played there all the time, he knew about like the behind the scenes of the park. So my dad was always telling me about like the underground corridors and stuff like that when I was a little kid. Oh,

so it maybe sparked the interest. Yeah. And then my mom would also like tell me the history of the park. Like she would always be like, Oh, this is where the flying saucers used to be. And this is where the house of tomorrow. Well,

like, so I was getting both like sides. I feel like, so really making me like a Disney junkie at a very young age. So I was getting both sides, I feel like. So really making me a Disney junkie at a very young age. Your dad, I feel like I talked to your dad. Was it about Michael Iceberg? Yes.

The keyboard guy at the Tomorrowland? My dad said that he was one of the best musicians he's ever seen live. Wow. There was a bar at one of the best musicians he's ever seen live wow like they there was there was a bar at one of the hotels in florida that like all of the musicians would hang out at and my dad would hang out with him wow yeah and talk oh an iceberg that's amazing yeah he loved him wow it's the guy who like and there'd be mirrors on stage so you could watch what his hands are doing yeah we should do more we should go more in depth than this real quick because we just were talking Wow. It's the guy who, and there'd be mirrors on stage so you could watch what his hands are doing. Yeah.

We should do more. We should go more in depth in this. Real quick, because we just were talking about him recently. You, when your dad would tour, did he tour with Bobby Boris Pickett? Oh, yeah. Well, this was not in like the- Like the Monster Mash guy. So in the late 80s, early 90s, my dad's band reunited right uh the uh morning la morning disc jockeys mark and brian uh reunited my dad's band wow uh and i think like 91 or 92 and once he was back together he was like we're hitting the road like we're doing this

he meant it okay so he was really into country music at the time so he put together a country band and uh because like my my mom was really into country dancing which we would also do like line dancing or yes line dancing like Yes, line dancing. Like she taught line dancing. And actually, we spent so many nights at the Neon Cactus at the Disneyland Hotel. Oh, I've always wondered about that. So that sign really takes me back if I look at old pictures. We spent so much time there. Wow. Because it was one of the only all-age line dance places in Orange County.

In the city, in Orange County. So my mom could bring me while she was line dancing. Wow. So it was during that time that my dad started a country band, and we'd go to the country music awards and stuff like that. This is in prime Billy Ray. Prime Billy Ray. My mom— Where'd you find any room in the line dancing club?

My mom made me cut my hair into a mullet because of Billy Ray. Prime Billy Ray. My mom. Where'd you find any room in the line dancing club? My mom made me cut my hair into a mullet because of Billy Ray. Like we were all into this early 90s country stuff. Oh, you were a mulleted kid. Oh my God. But when that didn't work out, my dad decided to go back playing the hits from the 70s. So he went on the road in the mid 90s with a bunch of other acts from the 60s and 70s and I went with him first just like help out and then I became their road manager at 14 so I went into like a schoolwork

program where I would just take my school work with me and we were just on the road for my teenage years. And one of the acts that we were on the road with was Bobby Boris Pickett, who did the Monster Mash. Wow. And I remember meeting him for the first time in Boston when I was very, very young. And he was just a very uh reserved nice private man uh i remember we'd all go to like a cracker barrel and he would ask for a different booth so he could just like quietly read his book just like and i'd not be with them yeah just like did not feel like a showbiz guy at all. And then he would come out every night just to do the Monster Mash,

and he would turn it on, and he did all the faces with the voices, and he had a lab coat with a fake spider on it. Sure, yeah. As you would. Well, he was reserved. The horrors he'd seen. Dracula's, Frankenstein's, Wolfman, you know. And Bobby's, my favorite thing about Bobby is that his rate went up the closer it got to Halloween.

So he had a set rate from November through August. And then September it would start climbing. It's like Homer Simpson investing in pumpkins. And there was a theme park that he had a standing Halloween date at that booked him out for years. Wow. I don't remember what the park was. Yeah, Bobby was a super, super nice dude. That's nice.

What do we do? Disneyland's got State Fair. How do we compete? We've got Pickett. We've locked in Pickett for 20 years. It's ironclad. We have three minutes of entertainment every Halloween. It's going to bring people out.

No one else can do the voice no one could perform this song it's an impossible impossible no one does an impression uh what's his name uh well we got to do more like some old time tomorrowland like rock band stage stuff i feel like uh and if your dad has more stories or anything also i have mentioned on the show before that you put me on a three-way call with your mom to talk about Randy Runyon, a.k.a. Chucko the Clown, because she remembered him from the old days. She remembered the show. Yeah, my mom grew up in Hollywood and spent a lot of time just being in the audiences of shows like that.

Right. And your grandfather was a performer yeah my grandfather was on a variety show uh called the western variety hour uh the ktla western variety hour um and he was around like during the days of like ktla almost becoming a national network and stuff like that. And yeah, so my mom grew up in Hollywood around the entertainment industry and went to a lot of those tapings. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Local kid things. Yeah, it was just like what you did after school. Sure. So she knew all the locals. She knew all the most famous clowns in Los Angeles. KTLA almost becoming a national network reminds me of a thing that fascinates me. A lot of it is lost media at this point,

but the DuMont Network, one of the first television networks, and it's just gone.'s gone like all that stuff is like hardly preserved it's in every night at home where is dumont stuff do uh siri download dumont plus um so let's go back to pig mania real quick. Maybe not real quick. Maybe long. So the character, the Barley Boys were the band and the hosts. And some of the performers would go on to be Bill Hill and the Hillbillies who played at Disneyland for years. And then they got fired right before Star Wars land. Yeah, I think this is kind of the lasting thing from the State Fair,

is that the band that was over with the Lumberjacks, they would go on to be the house band at the Neon Armadillo at Pleasure Island. Oh, I didn't see this. Because Eisner saw them performing at the State Fair. He did a full like that guy. Yeah, exactly. He was like, this is special. You've got to be performing at one of my hot clubs.

And then the band at the Pig Races became... Bill Hill and the Hillbillies, yeah, who played for years at Disneyland. So this was the beginning of that, like with more comedy, a larger band. Right, and then they were hired. I don't know if they're still at Knott's, but with more comedy, a larger band. Right. And then they were hired. I don't know if they're still at Knott's, but they were hired by Knott's after that.

Pretty quickly. Yeah, but I don't know what their status is right now, if they're still going or not. But yes, they would do a whole hee-haw-ish routine with jokes. They would play swanny, but they would say it's swiny instead. There would be a lot of pun-style pig jokes. And much like the movie posters that we would get eventually at Muppet Vision, there were fake movie and event posters with pigs in them. Yeah, so this is a picture of a Jaws parody with a warthog's throat and it says chops instead of Jaws.

And there was a Rambo parody and a Frankenstein parody, Pig Casso, Albert Einzwein. So that was all in the queue to get into the tent where the races were. Hambo. Rambo parody. I like the. Hambo. Rambo parody? I like the phrase Hambo. Pretty good. This is like Chuck E. Cheese style animal parody stuff. Huh.

And there was a big kind of circus tent where the show would take place. Yeah. And it's interesting. I'm kind of confused by the geography of it. I remember the barbecue restaurant. It's pretty much exactly where the barbecue restaurant was. So, yeah just interested to see what because it feels so big it feels so this feels so much bigger than the area around big thunder ranch my my memory of it how does that all fit

in there um because i know there would be like would open up certain things for events even 10 years ago and right yeah we're going when we were all going a good amount. Yeah. Crazy Kirk and the Hillbillies are their new name. Still seem to be performing regularly at Knott's. That's good. Disney held on to that Bill Hill and the Hillbillies trademark with an iron grip. Oh, yeah. I don't blame them. They wouldn't let them take that name to Knott's.

There's some lawyer threatening them. Well, it's like pro wrestling like oh you can't leave you can't be teddy outside at wwe i know but you can be ted sure it's different i just think they should have allowed it that's all i'm saying but i guess yeah if you want somebody you know you want the option to do the show again it's precious ip but i don't you know what i don't feel like they're to ever really bring back full hillbilly nonsense to Disneyland. Never say never. I feel like it's sort of not a vendetta.

I have no idea what a vendetta this was for you. I don't think I would have ascribed you as being interested in hillbilly nonsense at all. You don't think so? No, I haven't caught this. Well, because of the country bears and like Tang, whenever they kind of reignited my, like I like country bears. Well, I probably, what's probably happened is that i've put up a wall when you talk about you know who i've been listening to is uh little little little little whizzy biggins like all right can i make a face that shows i don't want to hear

any more about little whizzy biggins i know you don't want to hear about it died of cholera on 1990 it was uh the first noted case in America in 100 years. Well, little Jimmy Dickens has a song called Hillbilly Fever, and that it's he talks about how it's going around. Did you encounter much of this in Illinois? No. Oh, okay. I didn't care about it when I was a kid. This is all mostly an adult thing. So when you were a seven-year-old child, you weren't interested in hillbilly music from the 1910s.

No, I was not. God, child, it was this. I just meant more as you got further into the sticks. Or like, the Wisconsin desks. When I would be seven and we'd be driving into the sticks to go to like an old, like the Creek and Hero banjo player. Pennsylvania has some sticks. I think maybe I encountered it a little more.

If I had seen Pigmania, but I think as an eight-year-old, whatever I was, no, I was being younger than that, and I went to Disneyland and it's like, okay, there's pig races over here or Star Tours. I have a feeling I would still have been like, Star Tours is awesome and I'm confused by this.

Maybe it's too sophisticated. I was too kind of a dumb little child to understand the sophistication of the hillbilly humor and the music humor i'm glad you're putting down your child's self i was a dumb ass you see now i understand that hillbilly nonsense is where it's at why go to space when you can roll a log you know what if i'm really analyzing myself if i really if i i think when i really start to get into country music or the start of it is getting into Wilco in college. Alt country, early Wilco is considered, which is an annoying title, alt country. Or no depression music.

No depression, yeah, yeah. And Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy's original band. So that's maybe a straight line to me listening 20 years later to... Wilco eventually leads you to like, oh, I got hillbilly fever, it's right on the hunger team. Yeah, to listening to Bob Wills and Tommy Thumb.

Now I live in a pig pen. Something like, a song like Pecan Pie, like there's definitely a connection between the two. Yeah, but forget the flowers. There's plenty of little country shuffle type songs from the early. So that leads to me listening to, I'm trying to think, Y'all Come by Little Jimmy Dickens.

It's a song about everybody coming over, having a little time. Oh, my wife and me Got one tooth between us I don't know I like the idea of a song about Everyone come over now Yeah that's all it's about Y'all come

And that comes back to the country bears I get it And you're a big country bears guy And you're very pro new show From what I remember I get it. I understand. And you're a big Country Bears guy, and you're very pro new show from what I remember from a couple weeks ago. I do. I think it's great. Like, when I was a kid, you know, the Country Bear attraction felt like it was always changing because we had the summer overlay and we had the holiday overlay. So, like, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to...

There's precedent. There is precedent. Sure. The things that bothered me were very, very small, but they bothered me a lot. Just like removing the stovetop hat... From Henry. From Henry.

Right. To me, he doesn't look like Henry anymore. Henry lost his hat. He's a different jacket. Yeah, the jacket's fine. Right. But why lose the hat? Well, because Sammy would be in the stovetop hat or whatever. That's the whole gimmick.

You can wear a hat and there's not a skunk in it? That's still possible. That bothers me. The name change, I feel like, is a little clunky. Yeah, yeah. But the actual show itself, like, I think, like, I have the same kind of feeling about that that I have with Tiana's, which was, like, Splash Mountain was so broken down in a shell of what it was. Yeah.

And the last time I went to Country Bears, it felt the same way. So I'd rather see these rides be updated like this than just rot away. Yeah, yeah. Can I name the pigs that would take place in the race? Yes. First race featured Chop Suey, Pig Oh My Heart,

Four Squeal Drive, and Pigfoot. I like Four Squeal Drive the best, I think, of all of them, name-wise. I like that you're just laughing at all this. It's fun. You're feeling it. Say, hey, man, I love it. It was done like Medieval Times, too, where it would be like, this section is for this pig. That section's for that pig.

And they'd put the names of the pigs up on a board. Would you get anything if your pig won? Just the pride? Oh, okay. So was anyone gambling on these races? Oh, I'm sure it had to happen. Oh, okay. You had to do it on the slice.

Because these were real pigs, so it wasn't like they could rig. Yeah, I guess we should have clarified. Yeah, these are real pigs. It's not animatronics. It's not suits. Though, they would do a fake out before the final race, where they would build up that the final race was happening. And then instead of the real pigs coming out, the three little pigs and the outfits would come out and do the race, sometimes chased by the big bad wolf.

Yeah. And then they would do the final race. Right. Well, first of all, let me go back. Second race was Boarwinkle, Piggy Sue, Piggy Sus, and the Curl Next Door, which I guess the curl is the tail. I suppose that's the joke there. Yeah, I like that one.

And then third race features Three Little Pigs, The Olympigs, 1998. And this is followed by a race of four very hefty black pot-bellied pigs who fall and crash into each other a great deal. The show ends with the band and the three pigs singing and marching into a rousing version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic with new lyrics. About pigs?

Well, now that they need in Galaxy's Edge. We need some. The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Yeah, we need to see all the characters singing that. Mm-hmm. And yeah, this is like a 20, I think 20-minute show that you would get. And it had like a full set.

Did you see, you watched the videos and everything? Or saw a picture of it? I didn't watch the full pig race video, Michael. No, I'm not asking for the full. I'm just saying you a full set. Did you see, you watched the videos and everything or saw a picture of it? I didn't watch the full pig race video, Michael. for the full, I'm just saying you saw the set

and like, I know that they had this. They had a little set here and yeah. So, I was trying to figure out, I think I would have liked,

this may be blasphemous to say after I was talking about hillbilly music, but I think I might have even liked the parade better than the pig races. But I wasn't there. I wasn't feeling the thrill.

Yeah, you weren't feeling the thrill. Of the live pigs racing. And it was a mixture of everything. It was the atmosphere. It was the excitement. You got to meet the pigs after. Sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember just absolutely loving this as a kid

and everyone in my family loving it as well. And being very excited that it was coming back the next year. I believe these are the lyrics to their new version of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Suey, suey, hallelujah. No one loves you like we do. We raise our banner and salute thee. Our pigs go racing on. Our pigs go racing on.

Sue we. So you would all do a sing-along at the end there. Yep, they would bring that banner out, and you would read the lyrics. Is that disrespectful to the United States of America? Probably. To rewrite the lyrics? I feel like somebody, I made like a parody of the Pledge of Allegiance one. Some adult told me that that was like a very disrespectful thing to do.

And does that extend to all the different- I pledge allegiance to the fart. Yeah, right. And like, does that extend to all the different sort of America songs like this? I don't know. It feels like Walt wouldn't have liked it if it was, and I don't know. They would have disrespected his legacy like that. The whole thing was a salute to America at the end of the day. Well, of course, yes.

But, yeah, so I guess they approved it. They approved it with Ronald Reagan, and I'm sure he signed off on it. Ultimately, it's his country at that time. I mean, his mind was gone. Nancy was running the country at that point. Sure, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I just, I don't know. There's probably stuff we're even forgetting or leaving out here, but I just, I'm.

I feel like I'm so worried that you're going to find more pig names, more lyrics to these songs. I'm, around every turn, I'm like, what's left? They probably changed the names, yeah. No, I don't have anything really. I mean, I was just looking through. There was a blimp that had State Fair on it. I don't know if this was just for an ad. Do you remember this? Go watch out for this.

It's going to hit those Space Mountain spires. It did not. As far as I know, there was not a Hindenburg. And it scanned, which will cause it to pop. Uh-oh. And remember, not everybody likes pop stuff. No, but some people really like pop stuff really into the pop stuff um so yeah this is just one where i just i again i get sad i get upset that

we'll never get some dumb thing like this on this scale ever again things that cause your depression on this show yeah i don't get to go see quacky town thereown. There's a parade with three big Donald butts walking around, and I don't get to go Pixar Fest. If I had to choose between Donald's Quacky Duck City or State Fair, I would want them to bring back State Fair, hands down. And I liked a lot of, obviously, I really liked a lot of the Quacky Duck City stuff. But the idea that you would have so much new dumb stuff to see at disneyland is would be

very exciting to me i don't know i guess should i end the episode should we just stop recording i am finding that your enthusiasm for this is oddly high i think it's very is you're waiting for us i think to go hell yeah I'm not expecting you to do that. I'm expecting this guy over here, but he's not backing me up. He's my co-host. I've known him for over a decade. He's not backing me up. Yeah, I thought Jason was going to be really into the State Fair.

No, I'm into it. I'm just quietly pleased, I guess. I already got all my... Are you thinking about balloon stuff? No, I'm thinking about turn-of-the-century set musical. I'm thinking about The Music Man and L.O. Dolly. Oh, that's why. We said the names of the songs two hours ago,

and now they're just spinning in his head. I'm thinking about chili pots and pies. He's thinking about chili pots and pies and a polycule of anthropomorphic ingredients. What is a recipe but a polycule? Perfect. You know. Perfect tune.

Yes, I do really. In the way that you thought I was going to be into back blast to the past, I'm into this. Yes. Wow. The true, it's not, you would rather, you'd forego your beloved rock and roll in favor of hillbilly nonsense.

I guess we just learned a lot about you here. You would have loved the Western stunt show at Universal on the upper lot. Oh, yeah, yeah. I've seen some. Yeah, I've watched some of that. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good, too.

It's like you put dynamite in your pants. Yeah. More hillbilly fun. It blows your penis off. Yeah, that's funny. Live, real penises blown off every show. I also liked seeing, I didn't realize that Disneyland did grocery store promotions. Obviously, I saw that a lot with Six Flags growing up, but I feel like Disney World was not.

There was Disney World promotions at McDonald's because you had the anniversary and then you had different events and stuff. But you're excited by the idea that you would go into Albertsons. Yeah, go into Ralph's, spend enough money, get a free coupon. But the coupon is you have to do this to activate the coupon, which is very much Disneyland now. You want steps. Whoa, whoa, whoa. If you buy a ticket, you have to make a reservation. Of course, yeah.

All right, well that is- There's something about, now that we're talking about excitement over Disneyland market promotions, I think suddenly, I'm feeling like the, I think I'm relating to the way David Sims has been feeling

at the end of every Blank Check episode lately. I think I'm Sims-ing. Okay. This is a reference not for everyone. Sure, sure. For some listeners, it's an overlap is an overlap of course you know you've heard it you know what i'm saying uh okay with that look i'm calling it justin donaldson you survived podcast the right my current feelings notwithstanding thank you for bringing us this uh this topic and all this stuff. You're very welcome. To the gift shop, anything you'd like to plug?

If you're here in LA at Dynasty Typewriter, you can see Tournament of Nerds. We've been doing the show now for 16 years. Wow. We did it for 13 years at UCB, and now we're at Dynasty. So come check us out. You can watch a web series I wrote and directed for All Elite Wrestling called Johnny Loves Taya. A new season of that is coming out soon. Isn't Hillbilly Nonsense Boy in some of that stuff?

I'm in it, yeah. I don't know if I'm in season two, but I'm in season one. We're riding you in there. Okay, good. Yeah, Mike plays the dog's agent in the show. Johnny and Taya's dogs. Oh, it's about time we got him taking more bumps. Whatever you need me to do.

I claim that it's professional wrestling's first romantic comedy. I don't know if that's true, but that's what I like to say when I'm on these things. It sounds good, yeah. It's a good tagline. Yeah, I think that's about it for now.

Great, great. Well, yeah, thank you for joining us. Thanks for these memories and spotlighting these seasonal events that were more meaningful than I realized. For us, for three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast the Ride The Second Gate. Or get one more bonus episode on our VIP tier Club 3.

You'll find all of that at patreon.com slash podcasttheride. New $20 tier where you get customized Podcast the Ride inflatable stuff. If you want to see us grow, if you want to see us grow if you want to see us pop that's your place to do it we do demand a little more money for that it's worth it but i realized i just found a button you get when he says my pig won at disneyland so i'm assuming you got a button that said your pig won look at that you don't say huh now if i hit the red button down there that would stop the recording can i just reach down and that would just... It's actually, it says extend the recording an hour.

It's actually... Well, we gotta talk about this new button. You gotta talk about the button? I'll just leave. You can do it. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner,

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