Podcast: The Ride - Donkey Kong Mine-Cart Madness

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

We’re barrel-blasting onto the main feed in 2026! Come for the expert analysis of Epic Universe’s Donkey Kong coaster; stay for the discussion of which Kong characters are dating. The year may be new, but PTR is still up to its old tricks!"Chuck's Arcade" episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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The following podcast may contain safe candy. Beryl play. Befuddling family tree. and someone doing the impossible and improving on a red hot chili pepper's song. All that plus, our host swing from topic to topic through a tangent-filled jungle. It's D.K. Donkey Kong. D.K. Donkey Kong MindCart Madness is here on today's podcast, The Ride.

Welcome to Podcast The Ride, hosted by your. three guys who think if they dress like Funky Kong, no one will notice they've aged into cranky Kong. I'm Scott Gertner. There's Mike Carlson. Thinker, but you're right. If you think about it, you're right. It kind of describes what's going on.

It's this group of people. Jason Sheridan. Hi. Yeah. I mean, I've always been cranky con. And proud of it. And proud of it. But my stylish wife encourages me to take more swings on stylish clothing now.

Oh, let's ask, we got some questions. Okay. So what does she suggest sometimes you wear? Like, are you ever thinking like, oh, I don't wear, like, let's say a tank top or something or a sleeveless shirt? Yeah, let's say, well, let's say a tank top, a bandana, sunglasses, and swim trunks. I guess I'll get my mind off of Funky Kong for a minute and then we'll get back to it. But sorry, I mean, mostly like she got me this fillies cap, this brown and brown filly's cap. Okay.

She approved this. I don't know if that's pushing. you for that seems right in your alley which is something that you know style-wise you should do I probably would have sucked to regulation teens but she's the one regulation colors is risky yeah she's the one trying to

different things this is when you're a fall Phillies fan yeah yeah oh it's this is autumnal now granted that's when the World Series is and you should be maybe wearing the regular or winter then this is this is for the off season this is winter you know it's still a little while for pitchers and catchers

report to spring training Did they report first? I believe they report first. Yeah, I think they report at the end of February. That's interesting. Do we know why? What is that baseball? I think they gotta start working on their like give and take

because, you know, there's usually, I didn't know until a few years ago that catchers are often the one calling the pitch. Oh, yes, with the hand signals. Well, now there's pitchcom. Now there's like a little box. There's a little box in the receivers in their hat. so they get like I guess Morse code or something like it can we use the same technology and while we do the podcast I can give you little like things little like here hey hang back I got to kill a riff copy right or say set me up for this set me up for a dirty joke here stuff like that yeah it's set me make the show better I think so if it's if it's if it's five dots and then two long dashes and then six dots that means start weaving the conversation to Frank Marshall Yeah, right, right, right.

Because sometimes, sometimes I want you guys to talk about Frank Marshall, but you don't do it. So it feels inorganic. All times, I think. Oftentimes. But, yeah, sometimes I want to. So anyway, so you're just saying sometimes your color choices, perhaps. My color choices are, like, patterns or I feel like, like, she's poop-poot. Like, I showed her, like, a sweatshirt once that went from, like, it was, umbra.

I think it's the term where it fades from, like, black to white. to white. It was a shirt. It was a shirt that says bad ombray. It says bad ombray's get out of America. Yeah.

And she didn't like that, I guess? No, she didn't like, yeah. She doesn't let, she says I shouldn't wear too many big Johnson shirts. That's when she's out of this. That's when, that's boys' time.

So you were for the color change shirt or she was a good for it? I was for and she was like the, the fading of colors in the shirt. I think she just, didn't think it looked good. And it was probably a new name, Amazon brand.

Or like one of those heritage. Was it because it was sort of a generic brand? No, it might have been one of those heritage brand, like Rydell or Fridoulm or Haynes or something. She's very brand specific when we're talking. She likes, specific. Yeah,

she likes brands. I'll tell you what branding thing. I gravitate towards like vintage theme park shirts that say made in the USA on them. Because it's just fun. see like, oh, what these giant companies, like, making all their shirts in America up to, like, 1999, 2000. There is when there like.

There's an era where that is the case and then it stops being the case. Yeah, yeah. And then they're like, thanks to NAFTA, now we can outsource this. That's a NAFTA thing. Right. I think it's a NAFTA. It had never occurred to me how NAFTA affected the production of theme park shirts. Right.

How it would have affected how, like, pre-Nafta, maybe you're getting, you know, your like grumpy dad shirt made in America, but post-NafTA. And it's like, if this is being made in Bangladesh, do they even know grumpy? Do they know what he connotates as far as a grumpy dad on vacation?

Do they know the many King Feature syndicate characters in Toon Lagoon? Would Jane let you have a big, like, pink and black cat in the hat hat? like that people would wear it raves in 1999. I think I have said the phrase in the last year, should I get a big cat and a hat? I was about to say,

I don't think I would let Jason wear a big cat in the hat hat. I don't know where I would be going that like, if I just show up at a medical special, show up to any doctor's visit. Oh God, please do that. With a pink cat in the hat. Just regular clothes, but a big pink and black cat in the hat hat.

Have you been following the study for this new medication? Have you? And you have like a sucker in your mouth too, like you're going to a rave afterward. Like a big lolly or like a cojack kind of sucker? It's hard to ever tell you not to do the big lolly, but for this bit, I think it has to be a smaller cojack. You're talking about a blow pop. More of a blow pop. Or a bank freebie sucker.

Oh, a bank freebie sucker. Like you would get free at the bank or getting your hair cut. Or a safe. Or a safety pop. I love safety pops. What is that? Safety pops are when they don't have the stick. It's that like kind of curved.

You ever seen this? They do it for kids. Oh, I know what your dog. So it's like kind of a, it's a, it's like a. What dumb ass kid can't handle a stick? Say you're running with the sucker. You're, you're, you're, you're, you would be surprised.

Yeah, if you get fall in the face, you get, like, injury prone children. I got two boys running around, but they've never, of all the things, they've never had trouble navigating. A stick while running. You need to imagine these satanic patty kind of. Like worst case scenario. Or let's be honest, knowing the neuroses of Mike the parent,

something tells me there's going to be some safety pops in this house. Well, perhaps there will be safety pops, but it will be mostly because the flavor is good. I think the safety pops flavor, for whatever reason, is maybe superior to a blow, maybe, not a blow pop. If you can find a store, a brick and mortar store that's selling safety pops, then this is the kind of thing where you would bark out, I'm not buying it for the safety. I'm not for concern.

It's for taste. I buy it for the flavor. Yes. So safety pops are good just as pop as pops. I just loved, I haven't had them in many years, but I always love the flavor of a safety pop. I don't think I ever paid for a safety pop. I think that was, I was good during a haircut or a school fun fairer. a carnival school fundraising carnival.

And like the freebie prizes were. I don't think I paid for a safety pop or the family. I don't think so. Usually, yeah, you would get it from something or in a basket at the doctor or something. Mike has sent me any number of companies and different delivery methods of bulk candy, either like an L.A. San Fernando Valley establishment or a city of industry establishment. Or a place that will hook up your house so it just comes. comes in through a tap like your water.

Well, that's, what's the app? What's the live app you like? What not? What not, yeah. Yeah. Like live auctions of people filling cardboard boxes with candy bars. Flat rate ship boxes and they just throw candy in as the auction number, as the number goes up. Is there a concern with candy not being cheap enough?

Is this a problem that anyone encounters? It just makes buying more fun when you see it go in the box. That's really the long and the short. of it because I don't I've tried to calculate process you want to see some colors fly you can get OCR rates or variety like greater variety yeah they don't have that many that they don't have much variety on these Jason's trying to help you and then you're like I'm sorry that's wrong there is no variety the variety is not it's hard to find what you might call it sometimes in the chat in the chat I'll say you do you have any runs are there any nerds and they're like no we don't

what chat the chat on whatnot it's a lot it's your in the chat and so you're in there to try to suss out if you want to buy the I don't actually want to buy the the box what do you do with how are you spending your time you're in a chat for candy you're not going to buy not going to buy the candy I just like to pop in there for five ten minutes been through I think this was maybe club three stuff but we've I think we've been through that you're look you're just looking at hot topic just to see what they got but you're not yes browsing life you're living browsing a life of browsing staring things that you're can't but candy you're not going to eat life of life of browsing this is this

This is what the American pastime is. We used to browse when we're younger. You act as if saying that enthusiastically will make me understand it. Life of browsing sounds like a boring life. He knows what I mean. You like to browse. I love window shopping. There you go.

That's what I'm talking about. Now you can do it from the comfort of your own home on your phone. That's what's nice about the internet. I love window shopping but hate having to drive to a window. You would normally get into a chat about candy that you have no intention of eating. You would have to go to a can. candy store and see them pack the box through a window in the old days. And now they keep that in the back.

What secrets are they hiding? What razors are they inserting? Yeah, right. But now you see it's just like a lady and then there's like a family that does it. And then sometimes it's like the younger woman and then sometimes it's like a dude. And like you sometimes like, who's your favorite one of all the candy packers? I don't remember the name of. When is it like that?

When have you gotten into a discussion of who is your favorite of the candy packers on whatnot? Right now. Right now. Now we're discussing it. Now we're talking about it. What a great note to start 2026 on. I wonder where the pods going this year. They are discussing best candy packer on whatnot.

Right. And I follow now, oh, God, what are my YouTube? My YouTube subscriptions are insane because I'll subscribe to anyone. So I've started following casino nomads. Those are people who jump from hotel and hotel and live on, like, comps. Jump like parkour? Or just switch? Just by spending a few nights.

Okay, I was just making sure this wasn't interesting. No, not. There are cruise ship ones. There's a professional poker player who plays on cruises. And by doing that, he gets comped more cruises. And he's also making money from the poker games. You got to do this. This just has to be your life.

I mean, I. Cruise life, I switch his career to Candy Packer, to try to get in with the, and then you're coming back and you're bragging that you're like, remember I remember on whatnot

how I used to watch Vernon? Now I'm in the room, now I'm back with Vernon. I'm going to Vernon's birthday. I mean, the other one, the vending machine channels, I got ones that update every day and I'm like,

got to check in on top line thrift find, you know, quarter city. Yeah. And this is what, you don't stop the podcast records to, sorry, I got to do a quick book. No, no.

But this is, I think I've mentioned before, this is, mostly me and Ian Rick Bonny talk about these weird YouTube channels and he seriously I think he's a man with about multiple jobs

and getting an advanced degree and multiple children and he's like thinking about these vending machines so there's room in your life for vending machine content no matter how much you have going on I just watched the YouTube video

of the 20 oldest vending machines in Japan where a vlogger went around and saw like, oh, there's a vending machine that'll dispense some ramen or a hamburger, and they're very old. They're very old machines. I watch a ferry you can take in Japan. It goes from Tokyo Bay to another bay, like south of the island.

It's like 18 hours long, so you get like accommodations. But there's no restaurant on board. There's just a wall of vending machines and a wall of microwaves. Hey, send, hey, you've been holding. Donatomy? Send me this link. Hey, I don't want to overwhelm you with all these Japan accounts are, you know, they find out like Gulsap. I think he's going to be fine. I think if there's somebody who

could never get overwhelmed with content. This is why people aren't going to the movies and traditional TV and movies are dying. It's because Jason and I are consuming this content. This, yeah. Look, how can the latest offerings from Marvel and Pixar compete with vending machine content? Yeah, no. That's what's happening. Unfortunately. Steve Rogers is back, but someone was a few dollars short on their honor box collection.

An honor box is like a cardboard box full of snacks that you put in the break room or the lobby of the business. And then the person who fills it and collects some money is like, all right, it was perfect today. Everyone paid for their snacks. But then sometimes it was $7 short. I had to let them know. I see. We should talk about a. ride right now.

Yes, sir. I think we should give ourselves names, Kong names. That's what I think. I'm not sure what yours is, but I know what Jason and I are. I know those. Is mine sleepy Kong? That's good.

I was thinking streamy Kong. Straight from... Your stream dream. Oh, my stream dream. Yeah. Streamy Kong. Mine, it sounds bad, but you understand if you listen to the show. Mine, I think, is Tasty Kong.

Because I'm a taste maker. So it has to have the why there, unfortunately. That's sort of the way that most of them go. You don't think that in the world of the game, that Tasty Kong would be like a sexy girl Kong who looks like a 1940s. Well, there is a character like that already, but you can, I'm not married to this. I hear Tasty and I go, I think that's a, for somebody who's so uncomfortable with sexual terminology, I think you've picked a highly sexual name for yourself.

Unfortunately, that has to be what it is. think. I mean, if you have a better suggestion, I'm open to it. But that had like, because tastemaker is just, it's running wild. People are using it more and more. And I'm being, you know, I'm really sort of synonymous with that. So it has to be that one person, per outing to a 90 year old's concert at the smokeouts. Correct. Right. So I just feel like that has to be the name. And yes, some people might think it's sexual, but I, to me it's not. To me, it's wholesome. I just don't, I don't know if I have it in me to, like, to forget and then 50 minutes into the conversation.

Like, now the ride mechanism. Now, Tasty, I think you thought this was cool when we went back in March. Try it at 50 minutes and see. And maybe it'll stop us to a halt. It's grind us to a halt. But I think it's worth trying. Streamy is cuter, I think. It's a little more wholesome.

What am I? Maybe, you know, this is the first one back on the main feed after the holiday break, a holiday break in which I enjoyed a lot of nice red wine. and hazy IPAs and that I feel like I'm still in my haze. Oh, that's good. Maybe I'm hazy. Hazie Kong. I'm hazy Kong.

It's nice here. I was going to say rummy con, but that's, that's more. No, no, that's too judge. You didn't let me finish. I was going to say that's too judgmental. I think I'm hung up on the Y part. It is also just literally, it's one of the alcohols I consume the least for sure. It's a lot of, yeah, it's a lot of sure.

Even I don't like Ralph's. that much. Old time, an old time, like, alcoholic comment to real rum rumy,

rum pot. Yeah, this is an 1830s. HATI Kong is more, it's more fun than Drinky Kong. A drinking Kong sounds like a drinky crow, which is already charactered stuff.

You go true, yes. It's a Tony millionaire. We're like Navi Kong. You, I mean, currently. Navi Kong is, because it's not technically a Y,

but it's got the sound. These are the things that have defined the last couple weeks while we've been off on the main lead is having less to do, partaking in some nice alcohol and checking in on the box office of Avatar Fire and Ash

which, what a blessing. James has, Iron James has cursed his haters once again. The unsinkable James Cameron. It cannot be done. Yeah, I mean, we'll see exactly where it lands, but we've passed a billion as we're recording this. I think he's a little disappointed. I think he wanted to be done with this.

That's by philosophy. He was trying to find his way out. That he was just like, yeah, we don't know. It might not work. I don't know. I'm doing another movie next. And maybe if we come... He's welcome to do.

He should. I think if it helps him to take a break to step away, because I do think, like, you know, he's up there in years for a lot of people, but I think with this guy's diet and his, you know, physical proclivity, I watched some incredible footage of him, like, going through a, like, a firing range and perfectly headshotting 20 guys.

I saw that. Like, this guy's going to live. He's 104. So we got time. We got time for four and five. Yeah. So anyway, I think he's just like kicking the wall, though, a little bit. Like, shit.

I'm too good. I can't help it be good. Well, hey, like, you know, handcuffs he built for himself. Yeah. Billion dollar handcuffs. He's full, go like full John Ford mode. Hopefully he doesn't get the eye patch suit. But, like, he was very, you know, vivacious character.

A very, like, lived life to the fullest kind of character, I think. He won't need it. He's fortified his eyeballs. They're going to keep... Oh, yeah. I'm not worried about it. Those things can fire lasers. I hope he just downloads his consciousness into a navi.

Oh, man. He's ready to go. That's the secret that they reveal at some point, is that the program is real, that it all felt so realistic because he has been developing the program. And then now the day that he dies, we think, oh, no. But then cut to a blank Navi of... 11 foot tall blue James Cameron watching a video message of real James Cameron explaining to him how to do it. So then you made aliens and that was a big it, really, you know, and maybe better than the original some people say in Titanic. So anyway, just watch all your movies and you'll figure it out, have fun making all the sequels for the next 200 years.

You're going to have to like sit Chris Carl Sables sauce to get the eye level for humanity. But you are very tall as a novie. So either Neil or sit down. You run a tight ship if you're, you know, you're an intimidating director if you're coming in 11 feet tall. You're maybe scraping some soundstage walls a little bit, depending. Be careful. All I say is just share the technology with all the other old directors.

So we get Lucas Avatar, Spielberg Avatar, so Sisyy Avatar. Absolutely, but no old politicians. They got to go. No, no, no. Yes. But we have our rules about which 70 and 80-year-olds we, want to thrive forever. That's right. Avatar Dick Van Dyke making it to 200th birthday, yes.

Avatar, anyone who served elected office in the last 20 years, no. But Megaloplas too, yes. Yes. Navi, Francis. I haven't seen Megaloplas still. And yet, I did see Megalopi, which is great. It was fun to watch without seeing the movie. And that being said, I am in support of Avatar Coppola making Navi Coppola.

I want that franchise to get expanded. I just want to know it's there. There are now two Coppola document because there's Apoclips Now one, right? That is white. There are two documentaries that seem to be about, look at the way this guy makes fucking movies, huh? Yeah, yeah. He's a character. And there is a making of Captain Eo, but I feel like it's a little less judgy.

Pretty state. Yeah, pretty reserved. There was a clip going around of him getting into a fight with Gary Oldman on the set of Dracula. Oh, is he in the full hair? and red cloak. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, well, I wish there's one for everyone.

Jack, I'd love to see the full. I've never made it all the way through Jack. Would I watch two and a half hours about the making of Jack? Yes, it's sort of like our theme. I will enjoy a theme park attraction of essentially anything, even if I don't know the source material.

I will watch a full making of, the longest making of anything. Yeah. Even if I will never watch the movie. It's oftentimes more interesting. Yeah, yeah, can be. Anyways, this, though, seem like a fun place to kick off the year

with Donkey Kong country, the mini land in Epic Universe and Universal Studios, Japan, but primarily the attraction mind cart madness. Here we are. I liked this as a pitch from you, Mike, something that deserved an episode last year when we went to Epic Universe, you know, when we finally got to step foot

in a new park for the first time in forever. I don't know why we didn't do it. Glad we're doing it now. Thanks for the... Sure, yeah. Showing some... respect to these con boys. We still got to peel off more epic stuff.

There are definitely a ton, but this is a fun one to dig into. I guess, though, is there anything to be said about our feelings about the franchise? I mean, this was my... Oh, my God. To set the stage, we certainly cannot just talk about this 90-second ride without full context of our relationships. with the Donkey Kong Country franchise. Donkey Kong is a character. Yes, indeed.

I mean, it came out at a pretty important time, I think, in our, but is it a, it's a 94, am I correct? Is that the release of Donkey Kong Country? I mean, I mean, I mean, he goes back to the, you know, the original the arcade games in which Mario first appeared. But, you know, Donkey Kong Country is definitely where the land comes from and the, where the broader IP kind of lives.

And I, you know, on the second gate, we were talking about the thing, Spectrablast, which really, which is a kind of obscure universal studio show from 1994 that just reminded me of the glories of 1994, a real CD-ROM time, just a, I think a great, like, electronic music time. There's just like, I just keep finding, like, pop culture after pop culture from 94. that delights me so much. I don't know if it's just because I was nine years old then. But also, I don't know that I've stayed there in general. I feel like I keep veering back to 1994, maybe having gotten away from 94 stuff. And Donkey Kong Country, what's better 94 wise than this?

Yeah, and it's fascinating to think about, like, what video games will look like in 50 years. Is it all just like VR? Is it all in our neural link? Is it all in our brain chip or something? and it's like photo realistic or what, I don't know what, I don't even know what it looks like,

but it is, we, we're alive in an interesting time to see it from its like, almost the infancy to something very sophisticated. It's a very unique time. Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

No, to recall having old Pong in my house, my parents had whatever the take home system was that had Pong, which was very out of date by the time I was a kid, but just that I remember seeing that, just like, you know, fuzzin the hell out of the, the old TV where just you stick your hair to that and it's standing up straight for a week.

Yes. That we go from that to, you know, everything that we have now. We had it on Atari. One of the Atari's. I remember this from when I was very young because I got like an NES when I was in second grade. So later in the life cycle, that would have been 92 or so.

But my dad had an Atari that for some reason was packed up and in the garage. And every now and then we would bug him. him to get the Atari out. And I have no idea why this wasn't just left hooked up. So we had an in-television thing. But similarly, it was not hooked up. So again, like, I'm four years old.

I'm five years old. And, like, my mom says, oh, we have, like, it was a space invaders knockoff called Astro Smash, I believe, but it was the exact same game. And she was like, oh, we have one in the basement. And I was like, well, why is it not? here. Why are we not playing it? And she's like, oh yeah, so she went down and played it or got got it and then she was playing it. But again, yeah, it's interesting. Like adults, people in their 20s were like, oh yeah, video games. And then it was like it was like a fad maybe. Is this a common? I think it is. It's not 100% for every. This is a weird shared experience though. I don't think that I've had is my parents' relationship with video game that we all have the same situation of they had a thing that was not cool enough, good enough to them to. to leave out. Right.

It's interesting. So the dream for us to, this is way more important than like I was my first, the first generation of my family to go to college. I was the first generation to dictate, I want to be playing video games all the goddamn time. Right. Yes.

And I think it's interesting because like I play video games with my daughter now. And I was saying in front of my parents a couple days ago, I was like, you guys weren't good at this. So I had nothing to like look. up to. So I was like the best one almost immediately in the house when we got Nintendo. But now my daughter is seeing me

and I seem like I'm an expert which I guess in some level I am for an amateur expert or whatever. So she's seeing... I think cocky Kong is this guy's new name. Well, look, I'm fucking showing off to your kid and your mom. I was the best in the house, you see. So that's why now I'm the best in the house now.

I'm just being honest because my daughter will say stuff like, oh, I'm not good at this. and I'm saying, well, I'm setting an example that's a bar is so high. Aspirational. Right. But it was different.

So I said this to my... That's how it'll be when you guys start a podcast together. Sorry, it's not more hours. What can I say? Everyone else is doing it. Howie Mandel, the guy from Bon Jovi. That one's actually very popular, too. I get clips of that.

Everyone seems to have a podcast with their daughter. So I will do it as well. Wait, what is the Bon Jovi? Is it Pon Jovi and his daughter? Not Bon Jovi. One of the guys in Bon Jovi. Not Richie Sambora. Okay.

Different guy. I don't remember what the name of the guy is. But his daughter, but I think that actually is pretty successful that podcast. I guess Holly Mandel's as well. But so I said all this in front of my parents. I mean, I'm also... Including the part about the Bon Jovi podcast. Including explaining that it was not the two famous ones.

It's a different guy. Yeah. And my dad said, well, that Ninja Turtle game was impossible. So he was recalling, like, there was a time where, like, we got the original Nintendo. They tried Super Mario. they tried whatever, the first turtle game, and it was too hard for them, and then they never tried again.

Yeah, that was it. And then it was just me. I never asked my parents to play video games. They would maybe once in a moment, maybe if I had RBI baseball, my dad would play a little bit, but. My dad was pretty good. He would, like, jump on if we were playing X-Men or Simpsons at the arcade.

Sometimes now. I've never had that with a family member. He would jump on and play a level or a character. I specifically remember one G-IGO video game, which might have only been a rental, but we could not get past the first level and we'd have to drag my dad into the other route to like, all right, beat the boss at this first level,

so we'd play the rest of the game. So he might have been... So it's not a given that the kid is the best in the house. Right, not a given, but for me it was. My mom was always terrified we would break anything electronic, even though by the late 90s. We were unplugging.

game systems and plugging ones we borrowed from our friends and like doing stuff on the computer. Well, it's just, you had so much trouble with those safety pops. How could you be trusted with electronics? I said, I'm straightening out this stick or I'm throwing it in the garbage. What is this

loop bullshit? But it was too, it was too soft. I'm a big kid now. I can handle pokiness. But, but all, so all this conversation really is just like, it's interesting because when it comes to video games, there are certain moments, certain games certain systems that just looms so large

and felt like a big monumental shift in what I thought was possible. And Donkey Kong Country is absolutely one of them. Top 10, I think for sure. Yeah. It's when we got that. Because it didn't feel like the rest of Super Nintendo. And is it the, I don't know, I couldn't say if it's the first 16

bit game, but like, is, oh, wait, no. What's the, what's the chronology? What is the thing that steps it up graphically? Like I, now, now I feel. I forget the name of it, but there's some chip or something that rare, the company that made the game developed that made those graphics possible. Okay. Sixth Superintendents is a 16-bit system. It's all 16-bit.

Yeah. But that had some bump. That was able to bump it up, and I'd have to look up. Some nerds know the answer, but I, yes, there was something that rare the company developed. Like, it's not true 32-bit, but it felt like paving the way to 32-bit. Like, it just didn't, it didn't feel like the rest of Superd-S. in a minute. Right.

And it's kind of a big blind spot for me because we had a Genesis. So I was, and later Genesis too, because I was friends, my friend's spot, my friend's vector man, Earthworm Jim. God, I thought you knew a kid named Spot. I know. No, no, Spot, the seven up guy. Now I understand. Earthward Jen, that guy kind of went nuts, that creator.

Comic Zone. Do you remember comics zone with the early, it was like a cool Gen X comic artist who got pulled into the game and you got to fight all the bad guys. Yes, all of this stuff was very exciting. My friend had Genesis, so I would play it over at his house. We did not have any Sega stuff, but I loved Sonic and some of that stuff. The Sonic and Knuckles cartridge, you would plug in and plug the other cartridges so he could play his Knuckles and Sonic 3.

And then Genesis, when you're talking about upgrading, Genesis did have the 32X, which was a thing you plugged in on top of the 16-bit system. Okay. So there were like weird there was always like certain things that you, I vaguely understood. I understood how that worked, but I was still like, okay. And then there would be, there was an upgrade

to the RAM on the Nintendo 64 where for certain games. The expansion pack? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You'd have to plug in like a little extra thing to boost the graphic power there. Okay. For like perfect dark, which was another rare game, which was another big deal. A sequel to Golden Ice.

essentially. Golden Eye being another monumental moment in all of our lives. Played it for like two, three years straight. Just crazy amounts of Golden Eye. This is where I go in and out. I feel like I skip entire systems. So I'm a rare. I did not do Golden.

I never had N64. I think I go up to, I think I didn't have anything between S&S and GameCube. And then I did Wii. Right. And now I'm happy to say a great blessing from Santa Claus himself that there is a switch in the house. Oh, finally a switch. Wow. Which version?

Switch two or regular? Well, this is part of, so this was intended to be a Santa gift for the whole family. But then I had to, you know, bring Santa into the kitchen and say, like, is it okay if maybe we, thanks for the switch one. But I'm hearing a lot of good things about Donkey Kong Bonanza. So could we, could Santa possibly exchange the, which I felt? I felt so Santa quote unquote had to say she is like, oh no, did I get Lee Carvalo's putting challenge? Like, no, no, no, it's not that. It is this.

This is the game. You could have probably quietly just gone and maybe just on an exchange. Well, I mean, I did it as far as the children were concerned. Yeah, they didn't know. Yes, yeah, yeah. But due to wanting to play Donkey Kong Bonanza, which I've been hearing great things about. I know. And I wished heading into this episode

that I could say a ton of stuff about it, but I only played it for like, I've only had a chance to play it for like half an hour. It's very exciting. It throws you right in. It is a very thrilling and satisfying action of just punching rock walls and grabbing. I don't have it, but I've seen videos.

I don't have switched to you yet. And it feels really good in that haptic way, like everything happening in the controller. It's like, ooh, here we go. It's almost not relaxing enough for how it, in my Christmas break haze. But I think I will, you know, as I amp up my energy,

I'm excited to punch more shit. You should get Zelda, the last Zelda that came out for Switch, because it's just a very open world. You can have more of a calming experience. And then you can just build shit. Okay. Like cars?

You can do it ever you want. If you can find wheels, you can build a car. If you see a big mountain, you can figure out how to get up there. There's no, like, restrictions on the game. Uh, essentially, if you can figure out, out enough stuff and build it and climb it, you can do it.

And you can really, like, chill out. This Doggy Kong seems fun, but it looks like it's just the fun is destroying the game. Yes, sure. But if you want a tranquil experience. But I've been loving it, and it's been nice to have Mario Kart back in my life. Are we going to have to do some, do we need to start putting up some numbers among the screen? Sure. Do the listeners want to see us square out?

Do we need to get some ghosts going? Oh, well, I mean, you have the new, because we don't have Switch 2s. Jason and I, we have regulars. Well, I do, I have the old, I'm gonna play the hell out of the Switch 1 Mario card and then upgrade once I feel like. Switch 1 Mario card's pretty great. Yeah, yeah. They're all pretty good.

I, I've been playing the Switch one Donkey Kong Country Returns. I've pretty quickly learned I'm either bad at it or bad at video games nowadays because I keep eating it. I keep mistiming jumps. I keep running into birds or frogs. And so I'm only about one or two, like, stages in. What is the... Do non-second gate people know the story that Gio told about what was the video game and what happened?

It was the first Zelda on Switch. Okay. Yeah. Oh, that was a switch. Okay. Oh, so that was, all right, that was a Switch situation. That was not the one I'm talking about. But that was where, what was Jason's Malady?

I kept lighting a horse on fire. He kept lighting and taking your clothes on? Yeah, you stripped Link of all his clothes. and you let the horse on fire and you did it within 45 seconds and it seemed like you didn't know what you were doing. You were hitting buttons

and it was not something like you were like ha ha look what I'm going to do. It was just like you were like fumbling with the buttons. Link was naked and a horse was on fire running away. We had like a loin club. I think I was trying out. His dick wasn't out but you could see.

I was like oh I heard there's customization. So I may have, the near nudity may have done that consciously. I try not to light animal. animals and fire in any part of my life. A horse went running. A horse went running. That was one of the hardest thing I've ever laughed in my life.

So we didn't know that was possible. Yeah. So I don't know. We have yet to play. So if we do some Mario Kart, then we end up like, you know, he's Waluigi, and Waluigi dismantles the motorcycle and eats it piece by piece. And then we see Waluigi's butthole. Well, I've also been pretty...

They have that camera? I don't know. Jason found it. I'm pretty bad at Terror Fier the Art Cade game. Oh, you've discovered. Oh, that's too bad. Yeah, that one is I'm getting better at that, and I finally figured out. It doesn't have very clear save points.

Like Donkey Kong, at least, like, has a little guy waving a flag when you get to an auto save. Okay. But art's crazy. He's not going to give you clear save points. He's out of his mind. I mean, I beat. I beat the, because the whole thing is art and his friends are mad that a horror movie is shooting in town. Okay.

So I beat the first boss, which is the cameraman who shoots lasers out of his camera. I've not yet beaten the Hollywood producer with a giant pen who shoots lasers out of a giant pen. And you're working your way up to the... So I'm working it up. The guy who runs the clapboard. that shoots laser's out of the platform. Yeah, yeah. Chris Jericho is a playable character in these games.

That's fun. And, of course, his special move is using a steel chair. But so this is where I'm at with video games. You better get practicing. I'm trying. I'm trying. These are also this is a side-scrolling beat him up in a side-scrolling donkey-con game. And I'm still bad at that.

Yeah, I haven't played that Donkey Kong. And I still, like, I know the Bonanza, might be the best, just from what I'm reading, is like the most popular, successful one, even since the Kong country series. In a minute, yeah, sure. Because Donkey Kong Country 64, which is a big, exciting thing. Oh my God, Rare's making the 64 version of Donkey Kong Country was just not nearly the big thing that we hoped it was. Oh, really? Okay.

I wasn't sure if people were fond of that or not. I played a lot of it. I went to my room after school, played Donkey Kong Country 64, listened to Matchbox 20's mad season, or play. and blink 182's anima. Did not touch himself. No. None of that. Let's be clear.

None of that nonsense. All the rules, even behind closed doors. But graphically, Donkey Kong 64 wasn't that cool looking. It was a lot more cartoonish. And it just wasn't very memorable. I don't remember a lot of it. And I played it. Whereas golden eye in perfect dark, I know everything about it.

I'd remember everything. Tropical freeze. Also, it's good reviews. Yes, I think people like that one. Which is a switch. It might be an upgrade from Wii U. Yeah. I played a little, but I never owned it.

Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely games that people like. But, like, it's just I don't, they've never, at least, like, captured the, oh, my God, everything is different now. The leap forward from the original, yes, which I remain so fond of. I love all those characters. I have described having a little son following me around as being like, I'm Donkey Kong and I have a Diddy Kong. Like, feeling him by him by. behind and like if I turn this way he turns this way and if he turns that's funny I turn

this way I which is a perverse weird millennial referential way to look at parenthood but at the same time it is just like that's the thing you want like it'll be cool to have a ditty and that's good to have a did not that kind of ditty well my father you say he was like David crosbie and I was like a little Stephen stills falling is that true no I just as the quickest thing I thought of for his generation. Something from his era. In your mind, he's Crosby sales, I'm Nash and Young.

In your mind, they all follow David Crosby around. He was like the 500 pound gorilla of the group. Well, he was the first name in the list. Oh, okay. So he was the number one. He clawed his way to the top.

Oh, the list of the band members. I did have a Doggy Kong country on Gay Boy Pocket, which my brother reminded me of was pretty fun. It's like, you did have that, and you were good at that. Because I was asking him what he remembered.

Donkey Kong. Yeah. Can I say that I had to go and relearn this one? I'm not acting like I knew everything, but the Kong lineage of the Kong characters, the Diddy is not Donkey Kong's son. Oh, okay. That's his nephew. Oh.

Oh, we're in Duck Tales territory. And Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Country is not the Donkey Kong from the original Donkey Kong. Cranky Kong is. Cranky Kong is. Yeah. And then Donkey Kong Jr. is the Donkey Kong country's dad. Oh. Do you meet?

Is he around in the world? He's not in the original. So Cranky Kong is Donkey Kong's grandpa. And Donkey Kong is sort of a Pope-esque title that is passed from generation to generation. When you are kind of the primary, you are Donkey Kong. But you can age out of it into a title like Granky. But also Kong is like cat because there's non-family Kongs. Okay, yeah.

So if you're a Kong, you're not necessarily in this lineage. It's not a con. Okay, okay, I see. Right. But I had to relearn all of this. And it is interesting because, like, Dixie Kong is a cousin of Diddy, I believe. Okay. Okay.

And then she has. They can't date. Well, in some states. Or wait, am I wrong? Depends on it if they're, if they're weird thing and date. Wait, maybe they. Oh, shit. I've already lost my.

And then there's, I know Funky Kong is not related. Okay. Candy Kong is Donkey Kong's girlfriend. Okay. So they're not obviously related as far as we know. And then there's like, Lanky Kong is not related, I think. It's very confusing. But I didn't realize there was so much, like, specific lore to all of this.

Yeah, let's make sure Diddy and Dixie aren't boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe Dixie is it. Oh, you know what? I think I am. I think Dixie's a different family and their boyfriend and girlfriend. I'm trying to purse this. I think that's what it is.

Where did it's funky Kong full in? He's not related, but he's just a cool, he's a cool cat. He's just a guy they know. Yeah. Yeah, he's their Kramer. Is Cranky Kong married Rinkly Kong? Yes, okay, so Rinkly Kong, I know about Rinkly Kong, but Rinkly Kong dies. Oh, no.

And there's a ghost of Rinkly Kong in the game. Jesus. So Rinkly Kong, yes, was married to Cranky. And then Cranky Kong is also like a professor, and he starts doing experiments in Donkey Kong Country 64. Okay. I also can't believe how sexualized Candy Kong is in the pre-Danky-Cong is in the A particular family tree I'm looking at. I don't know if anyone's ever made a ranking of, like, sexy animals with human female forms.

And she is certainly up there. Top five, top ten. The Jessica, not Jessica, but a Lola Bunny. She's only, she's an animal by marriage only. And then Riffraff's girlfriend, Jason's crush. What's her name? Cleo. Cleo?

Cleo. Yeah. I've been focusing on my list of top one most attractive female navvi. That's a different thing I'm going to. Scott, season of Verong. Is it Varang? Yeah, okay. That's one of my favorite things about the Fire and Ash Fallout.

You can't say that shit about there's no memes anymore. I know. That's the, he was the last frontier and Varang has conquered. Ferong is queen of memes now. Yeah, that's true. I see it everywhere. Your old SpongeBob meme has no dominion here. Yes.

And I was, just to confirm, yes, Dixie and Diddy, a boyfriend and girlfriend. I was incorrect initially. And then I'm a little, the specific tree that I'm looking at sort of confuses how chunky Kong figures in. Yeah, a couple of them I'm not so clear. There's a lot of cousins. There's Tiny Kong who's a member of Dixie's family. I think Little Sister, perhaps. Oh, I like seeing a family tree in which.

which Funky Kong is included, and there's a little link to Donkey Kong, and the link just says friend. Yeah. That's very nice. That makes me happy. But yes, Candy Kong, very bosomy, you would say. But they're not married. She's not married to Donkey Kong, who's Donkey Kong the third?

Yeah, well, this family tree says, rumored couple. That's if you're reading the Donkey Kong country trades. The gossip rags. Right. They haven't had a hard launch on the grade, yeah. And then relationship unknown, swanky Kong, karate Kong. Swanky Kong is like PT Bartum kind of Kong. Cactus King and ghastly King, rumored to be the same characters.

I don't know any of these. I'm also looking at one that says unnamed, Hatted Kong, who just appears to have just full, open breasts. Even though I feel like it's supposed to be a male character. Wait, which character is that? I don't know. The family tree that I'm. looking at says unused

Kongs. So maybe this was released for a game than never, and then I'm looking at a really weird, really weird looking little Kong, and it's just described as unnamed, hatted Kong. Huh. I think they have a hat on? They do have a hat on.

Okay. Like a fedora. Oh, okay. I'm interested in this gone. It's a funny hat for a Kong to have. This is the era. I mean, this is like the golden age of rare before Microsoft bought them, And everyone left the company and it's never been the same since. And Microsoft owns a lot of stuff.

But like this is the Conquer era where they're making a flower with big boobs. So like, I don't know, they're experimenting, obviously, at this time. They're at the height of their power. The kids are getting older. Kids are getting ready for to see sexualized monkeys. Right. They're stressed. They're having a million bad fur days, you know.

That was them, right? That was them. for a day. Yeah, trying to branch out. Or the Conquer era, right, right? Conquer. But, you know, a lot of these are a little unfamiliar to me because I do, I don't know why I didn't keep going with Dunk Young Country 2 and 3, but it's mainly about that first

one to me, which I have such fun as for, just love all those worlds. I love everybody you get to ride on. They really went, like, Yoshi is huge. Let's have a bunch of Yoshis, tons of Yoshis. And none of whom, like, quite have the impact of Yoschis. but I love, Ramby is the rhino, correct, who appears in the theme park land, but I love being on that ostrich,

I love being on that swordfish. Yeah. Do we know the name of the swordfish? What is the name? Mike has described the underwater level music. Have you called it like one of your favorite pieces of music? Yes, well, this was guaranteed to come up a little. Yeah. Aquatic ambiance, yes.

On guard the swordfish. On guard, I don't think I did. That was not in the back of my head whatsoever. I like it. No, Aquatic ambiance, I like, I remember loving the music and thinking it was very moody and cool, but I lumped a lot of it together, and I recall a lot of it being the underwater stuff. I was not aware until a few years ago the cults that Aquatic ambiance has. And rightfully so. I saw a quote calling it the Eleanor Rigby of video game music. It's been praised by Trent Rezner. It's been sampled by Childish Gambino. I was listening to it. and thinking it's sort of, you could just kind of amend it a little and put it on 808s and heartbreak. And you're good to go.

Sure. It's like kind of in that, it's, I don't know, like heavy, minimal, electronic, it's just, it's just cool as hell. It's really affecting. And like, I mean, I've seen people describe it as relaxing, but I don't, not to me,

because it's like pensive heaven. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's interesting because when we're playing these video games, I don't think most kids are realizing the impact the music's having on you while you're playing. Yeah, true. And how it might affect your...

Yeah. And then you become older, and then you start listening to it out of the context of a game. And then if you're at all, you don't have to be sophisticated, the listener or whatever, but then you're like, oh, yeah, this is a heavy piece of music. Yeah, extremely. If you heard it out of context, I think you would feel that way. Well, Mike, you saw that chamber orchestra conducted by Lady Atar

conducting a video game score. I'm happy she landed on her feet, you know. Everyone deserves a second chair. But she hates it. Gers, trapped, like James Cameron. Yeah, I mean, it's an incredible piece. David Wise is the composer, and I saw that the piece of music was inspired by a breakup

that made him feel like he was drowning. Boy, and he, a mission, accomplished, pal. Yeah, that is what it feels like. He did exactly what he said out today. And it makes so much sense to hear that, that there was something heavier going on for him. But it's incredible to take that,

because it absolutely has breakup energy. It has like just sorrow, worst you've ever felt. So sorrow. But to take that music and to put it, and now it is scoring the scenario of a monkey swimming around. And which got, and it makes you have to read into that, heavier of like now it now it's not just because we've seen mario swim around and mario it's it's

it's like it's just bubbly and kind of waltzy and as opposed to just the heaviness and the torment of it just makes you feel like he doesn't know how he got there he doesn't know why he can breathe underwater and he's afraid of doing it and he's afraid the ability will go away and what if i sink too deep for too long and i do drown down it it's an unease Mario is a pro at swimming. Donkey Kong, due to this music, feels like he's having a panic attack. Every second he's down there.

Having a nervous breakdown of boys' section of Sears playing demo levels. Is that your experience? Yeah, that's my main experience, although like an old man, I'd probably clock the most hours playing the Mario, the original, original Donkey Kong,

either in arcades were like on Game Boy, like, reissues, Game Boy Pocket Reissues. Okay. But you're not a king. You're not a king of Kong. You haven't.

I'm not a king of no way. You haven't shirted anywhere. I can't touch Billy Mitchell, you know. Or Will Forte, who has a score that is extremely high. That's a known fact, right? That he, like, he was filming a movie and it didn't have a lot to do in his downtime. So he got incredibly good. Like, he did, like, I believe he is, like, a very high-ranking Donkey Kong play.

Yeah. Like, he, he, okay, what? I'm seeing is that he at one point had the 29th highest registered score in the world. Wow, really? Yes. I heard something about that, I feel like, but I didn't realize how good it was. This is like flipping through YouTube live streams, and it's like a world series of poker poker prequalifier. And I'm like, is that Jennifer Tilly?

And it's like, yeah, Jennifer Tilly is an incredibly gifted poker player. Wow. Sam Simon, married to Sam Simon, who had a poker show on the game show now? Bravo? Or was it Bravo? Is you part of the Bravo one? Yeah.

This is well, like, well, you know, wearing multiple hats, being able to compete in addition to your job. And that's how Mike is going to be if they ever do competitive candy sorting. Candy packing. It's maybe my, it's up to me to start it, perhaps, the whole league, candy sorting league. Well, you're the one identifying characters and going, this is a guy. This is a guy. Yeah, like, if you believe, you could be the Marty Supreme of, you could, you could, you

could, at least that's the goal of Marty Supreme, to crack it open. He already had, if he's Rocky, you know, he had his older bird's Meredith to yell at him when he's like punching cuts of meat. I feel like I'm in some ways a talent scout. Now, what am I scouting for? I'm scouting for people that are entertaining to me. That's what I'm a talent scout for.

But I do feel like I've discovered. You found that like, you know, you scouted Randy Gerber and Randy, Gerber has not played as a character on a full co-host level. Right, that's true. He has some appeal over on the left side of this room, but on the right side, but that's, but that's fine. You can have a selective appeal. Right, that's true. But yeah, I'm, I'm constantly on the lookout for my talent agency for a viewing party of one.

That's what I'm doing on whatnot, on YouTube, you know. I look, there's a podcast YouTube channel that I don't know that more than 200 people watch it, but I went up to one of the guys at Comic Con and said, this other guy that hosts, I go, he's a star, and he did not know what I was talking about and seemed confused by it. You said to one host, the other guy's a star? Yes. What do you do?

He praised him first? He tried to start a comic play? No, no, I praised him first. I said, I watched the show. I like the show a lot. And I go, you got to dig in. on so-and-so, he's a star. And he was dismissive

of that idea. This is all right. 2026, Mike the tastemaker, is done. New thing, if you see Mike, go up to Mike and say, Jason's a star. I would say, of course he is. You're right. I scouted him years ago. I knew that's where you were fishing for was that you scouted Jason.

I wasn't going to say it, but I said he scouted him. Your finest taste making indeed. I have impeccable taste. Tasty over here. I have impeccable taste. You've just been trying to build a whack-packed back, a stern height of his power whack back for years. Right, but a very much more positive version.

That's the way I think of it. So anyway, yes, that's what I'm doing basically when I'm on whatnot in YouTube. But anyway, back to Dixie Kong. Back to, well, we should look, we've been, we're almost an hour in and we've not started talking about the ride. The land and the ride. The ride is probably good. So we talk about, I'm excited to hear this as Kong enthusiast,

you guys being Kong enthusiasts and someone who we've, step foot in this land because I didn't. Yeah. You haven't even didn't go over there at all. I didn't go on the ride and I didn't make it to this land. Okay. Gotcha. Yes. Well, yeah, we did it in our first visit

when we got a little preview visit which I was very excited to. Now just kind of to set the stage here I so you know, mine levels a big part of the game

from the beginning. I was, I was going to say, you know, I think Aquatic Ambience gets a lot of the shine as far as the cool, moody, Donkey Kong music. Can I just really quickly? Because I was like, the other ones were good, too, right? And I would just like to just make sure that life in the minds gets a little bit of glory.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If we're talking about minds. Sure. Yeah. Really, really good. So reverb heavy. And sort of. What a glorious time that we're dealing with.

not pan flutes, but synthetic replications of pan flutes. This is very 1994. And there's a lot of instrumentation. Maybe it's not exactly the same, but a lot of instrumentation that feels similar to Golden Eye. When you're in that facility that started, I'm sure, other levels too, where it's just like there's like drips.

They're like boop. Like there's these weird little noises that are so good and now nostalgic for me. But it seems like there's some overlap there as far as stuff that sounds that were used. Can I say really quick? I think we've talked about this thing online of Super Mario 64 sound fonts of music remade using the Mario 64 sound font. And the other day as we're recording this, I forget the user. I'll shout it out if I find it.

But there is a full front-to-back version of Brian Wilson's masterpiece smile. I listened to it this morning, yes. It's incredible. Wow. It was blown away. Because I was going through. It gave me all the emotions that smile makes me feel. and it made me think how, well, yeah, because it's like a piece of classical music where you can transpose it and do it in different ways and it still packs the punch from just the melodies and what it is on paper.

It's the thing I brought up before where John Bryan was on the podcast Sound Opinions. Oh, yeah. He explains the like performance piece versus like song that's melody against like whatever piano part or whatever. And that's what it kind of is. It's like that melody will hold up almost in any context. And it can be performed as a, as a song. is not, yeah. Right.

And could you just clarify what you mean by sound font? That they, I mean, look, I don't know how it works, but that they clearly are pulling from all of the sounds that were made and available for this game. Okay. You reminded me of it with the drippiness. Yes. How, like, yeah, because it will incorporate sound effects into the,

and not just, but mainly it's about the instrumentation. So, yeah, there's a lot of remaking, you know, music that people love using all of the sounds available in Mario 64. All right, let me, I'll, just because we have to get to the ride on the land, but I do want at the end now. Beatles ranked as the user, it's incredible. There is a channel, and I've brought this up before, that for whatever reason, the person that uses a lot of the Donkey Kong country sound font

loves the red-out chili peppers. Okay. There's a full Californication album. I think there's a full blood sugar, sex magic. But I was listening to the, by-the-way, Donkey Kong country sound font version. And by the way, if, okay, if you like the Reddod Chilpeppers, I feel like, you're like, it's all right, it's all right song. But for whatever reason, the first part of it's kind of boring. And then when they kind of go into like the chaotic part of the song, it sounds, it blew me away.

Like it's better than the original? It's maybe better than the original. And it also sounds so much in the vein of the actual opening main song of Donkey Kong country. Wow. Like it seems like a jungle party song all of a sudden with that sound fun. too is that you it's like we're using it's like we're remixing to get more of the

video game music that we like it's like it's a simultaneously it's new donkey Kong music and new jelly peppers or beach boys or whatever you're talking about it's very interesting but there's a ton of this stuff there was a great area on melancholy hill donkey Kong country I don't know if you know that song

really nice song like I don't know it's like low key it's kind of like a sweet sounding like low-key songs 15 years old at this point probably i think it's on whatever the bobby walmax album where you had bobby bo-max sing a couple songs uh uh stilo that's the name of the single okay and i can't think of the name oh plastic beach jesus christ it's plastic beach uh anyway so that's on there there's so many different songs this one person i think they have a patreon set up too oh wow i don't know if it's successful but we should

all just support this one that i uh that i like uh um but anyway well I'll play that at the end. Okay. But that main theme, the main Doggy Kong country theme that we haven't played, which is just a, you know, jaunty sort of song. It starts out a little slow and then it kind of turns into this fun little jungle song. That's playing when you enter the land. Oh, yes, yeah. And that is very, even more so than hearing the Mario stuff in the Mario land is very exciting.

Yes, yeah. It's the, yeah, I guess, I mean, we should talk land too in addition to to ride a little bit. It's a thrilling entrance. It's, you know, so this is, it opened in Japan a little bit early. They were building these things concurrently. In Japan, it's an extension of Super Mario World that was open already. Ended up opening December 2024, opened it Epic Universe, new with Epic Universe. And when was that?

May 2020, 2020. Spring 2025. But in that case, opened altogether. But I, so, you know, you enter, it's the portals situation of Epic Universe. So you've entered your Nintendo portal, but then you get one more tunnel that takes you into a whole. So I like that you're within a tunnel. Yeah. Within a tunnel, which is like a dead end that takes you all the way back there.

But it is really exciting for those of us who perhaps were a little underwhelmed by Super Nintendo World here in Los Angeles. Yeah. being that we got sort of this small version, this abridged version, this no Yoshi's adventure version, big mistake. And there is no extra tunnel that takes you anywhere else. It really improves the franchise to me that when you think you're done,

you got one more tunnel to go through. It goes to, I think, at least to me, a more appealing, more up my alley place than Super Nintendo World proper. It's a good, I was thinking about this. It's just the really the wow factor with the Mario lands, plural, is there.

It's just, unfortunately, it's almost like it's like you would almost, you'd like standing in there, but you just don't, you can't hang out there. It's sort of unpleasant to hang out there. That's the problem with it. It is amazing to look at. It looks just like the video game. So many colors, it's high, it's tall, whatever.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. When you saw it, the first time you're heading down the star way and it's there, and the first time you walk it. into it. No, it's a mind blow. But that said, I think as a place that I want to be more day to day, it's probably the DKC. It's a little more of a chilled out area.

Now, I'm sure when it's packed, it might be unpleasant, but it doesn't have that feeling of like a weird fortress that you're stuck in that does, like that's the feeling I feel like I have when I'm in the Mario thing. It's like we're stuck in this fortress. We're stuck in the judge in the dread building or the raid. You got to get out of here. I love looking at this, but we are stuck here. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think it helps that you're getting tropical vibes. You're getting tropical vibes in the music. The area of music is fantastic. Just like the type of, of course it's weird, it's, you know, fake plastic trees. I'm sure that exists in a sound font somewhere. God, it has to. But they're very appealing fake plastic trees. You get your seaplane.

You get, you know, a very Jimmy Buffett-esque thing, but it's funky Kongs. this case. There's not much to say about that little souvenir stand, but I love that there's a plane in there. And I love seeing the Kong letters scattered throughout. I failed to bring my power band, and I wish that I had. I also forgot to bring my power band.

It was like the last time. I was kicking myself. I knew I forgot something. But the, yeah, that's fun. You get a mini game where you got a bang on bongos, which I think is a, I think you are banging to the rhythm of a major track.

in Donkey Kong lore and world. I don't quote me on that, but if you get it right, Ramby the Rhino pops out of a crate and quote, celebrates with you, at least that's how I saw it phrased, which is delightful that a rhino would celebrate with you, which just means kind of like, and he leans his head a little bit. But it's really great seeing him physical eyes.

That is very exciting, yes. And this is one of those, I've said this before, I think Epic Universe did a great job of using kinetic energy of rides and making the experience in the land have the ride running through it so that you're like, as opposed to a roller coaster where the tracks just live over there, and that's just like a corner. I think they've done a great job with rides that, you know,

when you're surrounded by the coaster, the land is the coaster, is what I'm saying. Yeah, I think everything's very clever. I feel like that's how the Train Your Dragon is. It's how the kind of the werewolf, of course, the werewolf coaster. Multiple reviews pointed out like, oh, this ride is really fun to look at when you're not on it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's very pleasing.

What's the other thing people like back here? That float, it's served in a plastic barrel, and it's like, oh, right. Tollwip pineapple juice. I didn't have this, but it looks. looks really good. Like, I don't, sometimes, as we know, big theme park treats designed to be viral aren't the most appealing thing for me. But I look at this, I'd probably dig this.

Banana pineapple, soft serve float with pineapple soda, waffle bowl, sprinkles, taffy pieces, and caramel popcorn, which kind of looks like big gold nuggets, which play a lot into Bonanza. Right. New game. It's very, I don't know. Like, they managed to make the food itself feel very much in the world. Ooh, not getting away from the old man, Cranky Kong accusations, because I almost just said the phrase,

well, I love toffee. I do too, though. I'm a toffee person. I'm a scorebar. What's the other? What's the more popular toffee? Heath Bar, score bar, kind of. What's the most popular toffee?

I think it's Heath. They might have discontinued scorebar at this point. Heath really suffers from having the dullest name. You could, it's such a mundane name. Summerfo, whatcha'ma call it? And then Keith. Heath Bar. Yeah, Heath Bar.

And then it's Toffee. Maybe all kids might not like toffee. Am I crazy about that? That might be an acquired candy taste. I was definitely a weird 12 year old. I'm like, oh boy, chocolate covered coffee, you know. Yeah. I think I'm pretty young.

I think I was a Wothers. Well, I loved Wothers. Yeah. Like boring, just person's name of a can. candy, but that's simultaneously for kids and very old people. Two Werther boys over here. Got a couple of Werther boys. Freep Savers.

Does Tasty approve? Do you not like the taste that we've made tasty? No, I like, my grandma had some Werther's hanging around. Carmel Cooch at Epcot. You know, it's Worthers, Brandon. I choked on Worthers and swallowed it once, and I felt so bad. So shit. Yeah, it was scary.

Well, yeah, you really can't trust this guy with a safety pup. Yeah. With anything but a safety bump. I got too excited, yeah. Were you a cream savers boy, Mike? Creamsaver. I like Creamsaver. Yeah, they were like a strawberry.

They were like orange cream flavor. Yeah, orange cream, strawberry and cream. I haven't thought about that in a long time. Can you get those in your fucking app? Oh, my God. I'm sure there's some sort of cream saver influencer that Jason could direct me to her. I mean, I was a cream saver guy. It wasn't one of the fruity alt toys.

People were die-hard about those fruity altoids. had these, but I never dreamt about them. You never dreamt about having them. It's the rare candy. The tasty over here doesn't have dreams. Yeah, I wasn't a big hard candy kid. I was into the counting Crow's album hard candy and the song hard candy, but I was not into hard candy.

Are you into what presumably podcast exists hosted by one of their daughters? As soon as somebody points me in that direction, I will be. But yes, I haven't watched a documentary on HBO that's out now. So I got a lot of counting crows to catch up on them. But so, yeah, it seems like, so good little store, good little dessert, but it's definitely a mini land because there is not another major experience. Oh, in mini game, as I said. But the, you know, centerpiece of it for sure is mind-cart madness. Now, you said, Jason, that it is fun to watch even if you are not on it.

And that is due to the ride mechanism. And I think most people listening probably know about this. But if you don't, it's something that we were building up and talking about. about for many years before. That's correct. This is definitely one where, Mike, you must have caught the patent somewhere. Somebody.

Alicia Stella caught it or something, and I stole it from her. I think Universal was working on this system before they're like, all right, we're going to give it to donkey. We're going to put it. Oh, just the possibility. Maybe. Possibility.

How do you describe it without just, because I was about to head into a description confidently. And now I'm like, so it's like the tracks here, but it's actually up here? It actually goes up above. There's a real, there's practical track and there's a show track. Yes, okay, that's a good way to put it.

Yes, where it is, the track is more vertical, yes. Yeah. It's like, like it goes long ways. And then the car is like a sea shape that allows the vehicle to move around a fake track that is made out of stylized Donkey Kong wood. Can't believe, is that the, it's not hinge. I heard that word,

Cantilever, but that doesn't do much for me as far as I'm like, oh, cantilever, huh? I got it. What does Cantilever refer to otherwise? I think it's that piece in between the track. Like, it's holding up the car. Okay. And this is. That piece is the cantilever?

I think. I watched a bunch of videos without how this worked and now I can't remember. He was watching a cantilever influencer. I was watching Cantilever Influencer. But basically, the track ain't the track. That's the simple way to put it. So that in a very Donkey Kong mind cart fashion, when there is a break in the track, you keep going. And it looks like you're flying over it or that you have to hop to different pieces of the track.

And this, I feel like satisfies or tries to satisfy a desire that people have had in theme park world for a long time. The idea that there is missing track, but you keep going. You can jump. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is really the first attraction, I feel like, anywhere to really make good on this. for maybe there's like a beat of a ride that kind of fakes this out for a second. Right. But, you know, different than the entire ride kind of having that premise and mechanism.

Now, we were talking about this for a long time before, and I remember talking about it in hushed tones, where you would describe this and we'd go, oh, my God, that sounds incredible. I don't know if this is a good time to discuss, do we think this is incredible? Well, I think that when I heard about it, you go, oh, my God, that does sound amazing. I think the, you might call it desperation for it to be amazing, got even greater once we went on Mario Kart. Yes. I think perhaps my desperation, I'm speaking for myself, was like, all right, but that next one is, that's going to be the one. You know, because the ride system's new and it's going to do this whole thing.

I don't know if I think this was a successful endeavor. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think that ultimately. that whatever technology that makes it look like your jumping track looks better for the people on the ground that aren't on the ride

versus actually experiencing the ride in the cart. I think I agree with you and I feel like from being on it there was maybe one moment where I had kind of the visual bug out the cognitive dissonance of oh my God there's a gap

there and we're landing. Like, like, you don't know, you want that effect to be bugging you out the whole ride. Right, yes. Like,

and you know it's an illusion, but you're buying into the illusion. But you are realistic, I feel like only once. Maybe the first landing. I felt like, oh, that's pretty cool. You get shot out of a big barrel.

That's your launch. And the first landing, you kind of feel it. And other parts, I don't think, quite. I think you're helping it along because you want it

to work. Well, and I think there are parts just you can catch this on videos where it's just unthemed roller coaster track. Yeah, it's hard to avoid. It's hard to avoid. Yeah, they try to paint it and hide it, but it's never 100%. Yeah. So, I know, it's a, it's a bummer because really, if you were to like take away the, the fake track, what's going on is that there's like an arm attached to a roller coaster track that's holding you up in the air. So you're not directly on a track. So the odd. You're on a very tall coaster.

You're on a very tall coaster, but it's, yeah, you're not thinking about it like that. So you're on like an arm. So you have an odd feeling being on it the whole time. Yeah. And I think it's because you're not sturdy attached to something. There's still a little wobble going on. So you always feel a little unsteady on it. It doesn't help that it's a small car where my needs.

knees get crushed. That is also maybe an issue as well. Apologies. And a lot of the movement is just not fun. Well, I read, I did see a video about this. And apparently, the farther way you get from a roller coaster track, the rougher it's going to be. Now, aesthetically, that kind of works for Donald Kunt's mind card.

It's rough. But you don't really want it to be rough. But this is a problem on some, like, oh, the tracks. in the middle and there's spinning seats on both sides like X2, the further away seats are going to feel rougher than the closer

ones. If you're in the window seat, essentially if you're in the window seat. It's rougher than the aisle. Now, I don't remember where I was sitting, so I'm not sure. I can't speak to that aspect of it. But I do think, I'll say this, I think I liked it more than you, Mike. I don't know if we ever really confer

on this. It wasn't, it didn't satisfy Oh my God, it's fake track. And that's going to bug me out the whole time. But I didn't, I did enjoy it. I never found this to be an unpleasureable while on the road. I didn't. I like it.

But it didn't live up to the hype. No. And I think there were mistakes made. Sure. And unfortunately, another Nintendo ride that doesn't just like clear the like B plus marker of like. Well, it should have been easier, right? It is better. I mean, this again is why I go to Yoshi's adventure,

because Yossi's adventure is aiming for a B minus and gets a B. Yeah. As opposed to aiming to revolutionize rides and landing it. Right. Maybe B plus. You are leaning into the low expectations, high delivery. Yeah, I think so. And I don't know that I'd even call it high delivery.

I think it is barely higher than expectations. delivery, but that helps. Right. There's robots on this ride that are great. The end scene is great. Yes. There's plenty of elements to like, I'm just saying the sort of central idea

doesn't quite work. And then on top of that, even if it was just a little rougher jerky, so there's the point where you jump tracks left and right. Yeah. That, like, it doesn't hurt, but it didn't feel good. No, no. I don't think that's a successful part.

I think visually it's not lit right to make the effect really work. That is the weakest zone, I would say. Right. So like that part, and I hate to compare it to stuff, but I'll compare it to like a 30-year-old rise. Indiana Jones, they put so much time into figuring out what you would feel in this car to simulate going over this terrain. Yeah. And it's amazing. It's still amazing.

Yes. It's an old ride system. It's never been used other than dinosaur, but they haven't recreated it in some wildly different ride. But they put so much work into it. And even though that will jostle you like crazy, it's fun. And I think it's doing things that more passive theme park attendees who are not like us are not even thinking about. You realize that was fake and that was fake and that was fake and that was well years in I was like, oh, that motor is not real. Yeah. That's not.

Stuff like that where you're just like... And getting whipped around is an enhanced thing. I'm sure most people go on that and think it's uneven terrain. Yeah. Because your brain would just assume that. It's, I mean, you know, granted, I think it's hard to make a coaster do something that... Of course. I'm talking about, like, simulator kind of stuff.

But it's not... As you were describing just the inherent effect not being just super effective. I flashed to, like, Soren. Something like Soren where you're like, wow, this abs... Like nobody, I don't think would, I think everybody goes home and says, oh, if you go, you got to do this ride where it's like your hand gliding. Nobody's like, it's got to do this ride where it's like you're on a track, but it's not really. I don't think anybody, you might say there's a fun little donkey con coaster, but I don't think you're describing it effect forward. Does that make sense?

I think so, yeah. I think so. But even that, that's 24 years old this year. Yeah, right. Amazing Adventure Spider-Man. It's 27 years old this year. Wow. And it won a Legacy Award last year at the Theos.

Legacy Awards, like an award of like, oh, this ride's old and it's still awesome, basically. Yeah. Forget the term, exactly. Because like I think one of the first and this, maybe everybody likes it and I'm being too negative here, but like the first time you land off the jump, there's no impact. No. So like just I don't even know if that's, maybe it's not possible. There's like a clunk sound effect. Yes, there's a sound effect.

But I was just imagining like, okay, it'll feel like you bumped or bounced or something. And then you're. Because those impacts are clearly big in the game. Yes, right. Every, every, there's so much track jumping and you got to get good at the track jumping. And you, it's really, you feel it, despite it all being visual, you go, oh, ow, ow, ow, ow. And I think there's just a disconnect between what you're seeing and what you're feeling. And then then the unpleasant left and right part.

But, like, there's just a little bit of a disconnect on it that feels unsatisfying. It's soft when it's meant to be hard, and it's hard when it's meant to be soft. Yeah. That's not good. Yeah. No. Yeah. The thing we haven't mentioned yet, I feel like, is the big elephant in the room.

This ride is less than two minutes long. The current wait time on a Sunday early evening as we record this is 215 minutes. That is the elephant in the room for sure. That's a elephant in this room across the country. That's longer than Fire Dash. It is longer than the film. And assuredly, the line is a less exciting experience. Well, and that's what...

There's no sexy Navi in there. People mention this. This land, it's all practical. That's great. That means the line is all just cave paintings of Doggy Kong throughout. You're so right. And like something that I wrote down in my notes and I don't, I stand by this. I like that there is a cave painting as if here's the tales of old.

what our civilization is based on, and that it is a cave painting of the original Donkey Kong game. Yeah. With its like, you know, canted beams that barrels roll down. Clever way to use 8-bit old graphics

and to equate those to cave paintings. Great. I don't think I'm touting that as much if that's all I have to stare at for 70 minutes. The Mario Kart line is amazing. We've said that before. The line is awesome. The line is great for so much cool. to forgive some ride stuff.

The sets in the ride itself. Also great. Yeah, absolutely. The line for Donkey Kong is underwhelming. It seems pretty oppressive, yes. Now, Mike, you and I got to do this in a privileged way. Soft open. Yes, we did it in the preview, and we went with friends who allowed us to do it in essentially a line-skipping way.

So that changes our perspective, even though we're still, I guess, saying bad things about the right. But I remember I called this in an episode of a lot. long time ago. At some point I said to you guys, I am worried about this ride. Because it was open in Japan and I watched the ride through and I'm like, that's it? Aaron said, that's it. And we went, uh-oh. And if you're waiting for hours and hours for that, now I don't have the experience of what it's like to wait for hours and hours for it. But I can't imagine it feels good. Well, we did. The throughput, the hourly throughput on this ride of four-person mind carts is very, like right around a thousand. Compare that to Monsters Unchained.

The current wait time on that is 25 minutes, and it's amazing. Yeah, well. Because it gets people through fast. And it's weird because they do send out vehicles. I feel like it's every 45 seconds on Donkey Kong, I mean. So it is sending, it's like, and it's always moving, right? Like the loading platform is always moving. So it's like another one, another one, another one.

But it's only four at a time. So it can only go, even though it's an efficient system, when you've got everyone in the park trying to do it, it just can't. And I think the max ride vehicle on track is like 16 cars. And they're often just running nine. Right. Now, we tried to go on our second trip. Yeah.

We waited in this line. I rope drop. I thought hard about what I want to rope drop. And I did not choose Monsters Unchained because I figured it'd be easy to get on that. And I didn't even want to fuck with that Potter line. and it was over here in things about six hours. Yeah, yeah. That sounded just like soul crushing.

So I was like, what do I want to give me a jolt of energy in the morning? And this was after I traveled the day before. I picked a hotel due to its proximity to Epic Universe. All of my plans were around. And I went like, I want to get a good night's sleep. Let's get a good night's sleep so I can be there and get on a ride and defeat these lines that are crushing the morale of everybody in this park. So I did.

was like, I'm gonna, and I'm gonna fight the time zone. I'm going to bed early, responsibly. I'm popping a little Xanax so I can sleep nice. Then the fire alarm in my hotel, the entire hotel went off at 1230. So I'm fucked there. So already we're at a lot. And then I realize, oh, it's not that close. I have to take a shuttle and the shuttle stops at a bunch of hotels that are not close to the park.

So I fucked that one up too. But I still get in there. I still am rope dropping, right? Yeah. And I get there, like, I choose Donkey Kong. I had a lot of fun on that one, and I want to get to this before the lines are crazy. And we did, and now we're ushered into the land, and then into the next land, and we get there, and you join me, and I'm excited about this, and then we were standing there and duke-dunk, duck-duck-d-do-do-do-do-do-do. Oh, boy, here we go.

We're at Epic. We're back, baby. It's going to be a hell of a day. These lines aren't going to defeat us, and then we realize it's been 20 minutes, and we haven't moved whatsoever. Yeah. And we looked at some things, and we went, this is down, isn't it? We are seeing empty cars, are we not? The music stopped.

or something like... Maybe. I forget. It's why it was in my head. Yeah. And do we know if it ever reopened that day at all? I believe it did, but I think it took a while. But it took a very long time.

Yeah. And at this point in time, I was like, hang on a second. Do I hate this park? It is possible. Yes. You were having a real time that morning. Yes. Yeah.

Well, when you, when do you're like, I'm going to fly across the country to rope drop. And like the only the bar that I have to clear. is to be done with a ride in the first 90 minutes of being in this park that I got to at the opening time. And I failed because it broke and other ones I didn't even try broke. I mean, I don't think that's an, I don't think that's an insane. I was definitely like, I remember I was very heightened. I'm not saying I was like happy about it. Yeah, yeah.

But no, because I was just like, because there were like, there were issues like that on the even in the preview. Yeah. So now they figured it out, right? No, not really. I was at the opening suburbs of Animal Kingdom and Islands of Adventure. And as I was seeing the epic, I went, oh, right. Yeah, this did happen with openings of new parks.

I blacked that out because I even, like, say Marvel Superhero Island, Island, Island of Adventure, I was so nervous that day because it took until parking. closing to successfully get on the amazing adventures to Spider-Man. Yeah, we waited four plus hours. Yeah, we waited. First time we went on it. We saw the rest of the park in the time of like, okay, we'll go back at the end of the night to do Spider-Man.

We're so determined to do it. We were in that line for hours. I think I waited an hour for like Dr. Doom's Fearfall for summer. Well, and you would wait again for Dr. Jim's fearful. Well, I probably, well, I wanted to see all the Doom bots in the queue, you know. It would be your privilege. Here the Tom Kenney original cartoon made for that. Oh, right.

Yes, voice of a Latvarian ambassador, I believe. Let's get him in Doomsday. Why not? Sure. Sure. Yeah, hey, put SpongeBob, Patrick, Mr. Crabbs, Sandy, Pearl. Get them all in there. At least in Secret Wars.

They will, they will return in Avengers, Doomsday. So, yeah, no, that was not a good experience. Yes, I guess I, you're right that I didn't have to wait. in the line, but I did wait in the line, and then ultimately never go on the ride. I didn't go on that day. And I like this. That's the thing. All my memories of this are positive. I've watched ride-throughs. I'm like, oh, yeah, fun.

Like those robots. I like, I like the land. I like the music. I want it all to work, but your ride has to work for me to like it. And the exterior of the ride looks so cool. Oh, yes. We haven't said the Golden Temple, with a waterfall pouring out of the mouth. That's incredible. Awesome. That should

be every universal park. across the world should be so lucky to have that as part of the skyline. It kicks ass. Right. And then, yeah, you're in the queue, it's a little bear versus the Mario Kart situation. And you do get an animatronic in the line, which is awesome.

Cranky Kong. A lion exclusive animatronic is a good thing to get. That's great. There's not a ton of those. You know, you got your Buzz Lightnier and you got your Millennium Falcon dude. Why am I not coming? Hondo Anaka?

Ando Anoka. Yeah. So it's always nice if you get one. Monsters Unchained, a very good one. Yeah, Victoria Fragutstein and Frankestine's monster. Yes, yeah, yeah, great. Who is not the original Fragutstein. It's another generation of that monster.

We need a family tree for that. But the bride is original, I think. I heard that. I don't know. The bride is the original bride. We'll do a full... Put SpongeBob in that, too. Full ride version.

Yes. But, okay, and you're right. And that's great. Love that. Great. Cranky Kong, his parrot, squawks the parrot. Yeah. Great.

Now, let me say this. I just liked the idea of it. I never watched what it did. I watched a video of what you get in your little amatronic. I don't know if I... He doesn't do a lot. No, he doesn't. No, he kind of just tells you a little bit of story.

Story that doesn't still really... It's kind of like the Incredic coaster is a story. Actually, I think the Encratic Coaster is a more coherent story than... than Mike Cart Madness Yeah, yeah I don't know, he kind of tells you The teak The teak clan is gonna attack

Okay But you see yeah Golden bananas But it's all just kind of fluff And I'm like He doesn't say anything funny Yeah I don't really care for his voice

I think I want a more fun old man Yeah I want to Who's an old There's a guy of Walter Who's an old man named Walter What am I thinking of? An actor?

Like a Ray Walston I want an old I want a good old grouching grouchy guy. My favorite Martian? Yes. Yeah, I want him to be more like my favorite. Does Frankie Kong say anything?

Yes, he gives a little explanation of the ride, but it's not like, but it is not like, it should be like. Walter Brennan is who I'm thinking. He should be like an old Walter Brennan guy. Like it should be a Mr. Potato Head thing. Like it should be a character that like kind of talks about the care people in line. It gives you a lot. It gives you like, I'm, I've been standing around and I've gotten to see a bunch of stuff.

And if they can do that with Don Rickles, then why can't, I don't know who this voice is. Yeah. We only get, maybe, am I wrong? Is there of a bigger loop that I haven't seen? I'm just going off of video. No, what I saw, yeah, maybe I missed it too. Whatever I saw, it was just a shorter thing. But like it feels like the Mr. Potato had, obviously like it can sometimes be very specific about people in line.

So maybe that's too advanced, like, not advanced, but too expensive. Hey, you two teenagers, stop holding each other and making out. You're making everyone uncomfortable. Hey, everyone in the rest of the line, get eyes on this. Or don't. Shame them. But definitely he could be like doing sort of general theme park tourist comments. Complaining about somebody's like, you know, get your selfie stick out of here.

You just like have him go. The guy at the front of the line is a funny hat or whatever. And like you can't really see from that vantage point. So it doesn't have to be specific. You know, you could do stuff like that. No, no cutting. Squawk, no cutting. Dad, wake up.

I didn't know you could fall asleep, Samming. Like a horse. There was an hour ago, a lady came through with a big perm. You should have seen that hair. Just, you know, cover it. Like, you don't have to actually look and see. So he's not having to be so specific. Refer to people who are out of ICE.

Yeah, yeah. This part sure looks better at night, huh? Wait, no, squawk doesn't say cranky would say that. Okay. Now, look, these aren't the greatest suggestions. He'd say better at night. Squire. Oh, okay.

But, you know, there was a kid in here with a, with a pink and black cat in the hat hat. He had a sucker. What is that all about? You know, just general comment. Probably got to poke his eye out with that day. It's the youngest 40-year-old I've ever seen. So, uh, anything like this might be cooler. Yeah.

But the, but visually it's great. Yes. Visually he looks awesome. The way he moves, it's very fluid. I love a good cartoony. Right. But there's not much to it. I like animatronics throughout.

Dixie kind of goes like, yay, when you leave. Great. I was delighted to see Dixie. You get like, I don't know if it moves, but you get like a big tiki head that's kind of shaken around. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's moving, but I don't know if its mouth is moving or whatever, but that's kind of like a little jump scare right before a big foggy dive that you do.

You know what? I think that the drops are fun. I was surprised by the speed of the bigger drops in it. considering that it's family coaster and it's this weird cantilever mechanism. It was a little more thrill than I expected. And you get a, I think that the cannon launch is satisfying. And then obviously, final donkey Kong great, final ditty con grade. Yes.

I mean, I agree. Again, I don't, I did like it. I would like to go on it again. I would not like to wait two hours. No. But I like it. Well, lucky for you. You won't.

You'll wait four. Well, for certain rides. No, I think you don't have any choice. You're going to have to wait for. If Dave, what Jason said is. A fire nash screener on the boat Is the queue. How long do we have before?

I mean to watch it all right. I got full out of fire nash. And I could watch the entire credits. The, like, spaces themselves do feel narrow and odd in general. It's like you're, like, turning down alleys in, like, in sort of office buildings or something. Like, I don't know. Yeah, it's true. And they feel like cold and metallic.

Odd vibe too. that you're never in like the cartoon version of the Indiana Jones right that's why I think I'm thinking of Indiana Jones because I'm like there's a temple we've been in a temple yeah now I'm sure somebody who's worked on this is like pulling their hair out listening to this going these three assholes or two assholes this was the limitation we had this much space I know but we know that well we know that our problem is with that it wasn't enabled to be the right sky you know that there is like a 200% better version right and I feel like what it is but it's but yeah you're still dreaming of you can feel what it and it oh and we've said this before we especially said it on mario cart is that maybe it was your example or suggestion scott of like you could do a small dark ride that's satisfied it's not that we need like the billion dollar version of this this stuff yeah i thought it should be a wild mouse that's going fast through and like you're barely catching what everything is but it definitely feels like it definitely feels like you never get like oh we're in the temple it always feels like we're in

just odd tall alleyways or something. Sure. There's a weird. I know what you're saying. Even just like one scene of like a little, like a room we're in right now, which is not that big of room. But a room this big where you pop into it and you do some like tricks to make it seem like you're in the temple and there's some space and depth to give you a fake feeling. I hate what I'm about to say. But was this somehow better with screens?

Do we actually want screens? If it was a small room and you wanted to do like the thing they do with like screens and there's some objects in the front to give it depth and the screen makes it feel like it goes on forever or something. Like that potentially if there's a space limitation. I mean, I think what this ride needs looking from the outside is it needs more dark ride or more roller because it at the very least needs to be longer. Yeah. And it needs more people per out. I'm sure there was like...

Yeah, the capacity. I'm sure like Nintendo is... Capacity Kong. Famously protective and hands-on with their stuff. And universal, I'm sure everyone's on the same page of trying out new technologies, new ride systems and stuff. It feels like the thing, the companies are the same on. But I feel like there's a lot. of give and take of like

they were sacrificing ride capacity to do this correct. The Nintendo of it all is interesting and I don't have any good inside sources about what that is all about but I do think just in general the feeling is like Nintendo is very involved

and they have specific ideas of what they want I don't know if that is anything to do with the things we think are the weak parts of this right I'm not sure but I do think that's an extra level of like cooks in the kitchen that potentially can make stuff worse. Here's the problem.

I think this is the unified problem of Mind Card Madness and the rest of Super Nintendo World. It's very nice. I like thank you for doing this for us. It is a great land. I want, I need it to be an entire theme park. I think, right?

Well, sure. I don't think that's that crazy. And that's an unfair thing, I guess to say. But don't, because if you aren't trying to, especially fucking Hollywood, where you're jamming it into the space of one sound stage you grew up or whatever it is. But I want Mario Kart to have the space to go fast and be as well done as it is. I want that ride to be three times bigger.

I want Donkey Kong to be at least twice as big. It's this weird, why are these lands? Why don't we decide they're weird little corners? I wonder if not right. They should be huge and sprawling. High rules should use like a male. If they're going to do Zelda next, they need to, like, do something. That's the rumor of next land in Epic.

I think that's still, I don't know, I don't have any fresh rumors, but that's still, but I don't think it would be that big, that big, like how big you're described it. Like any of these portals are that big. They're not that big. Every land is a little small at this place. Yes, I agree. And as I've said many times, I believe that the sectioning off of the, of the lands make them feel smaller.

Yeah, sure. I was happy there was an exit next to the portal. Yeah. Monsters at least. Okay, yeah. Like, I was happily you could get out easy. Without, not going through the main. And I was happy the portals were not like choke points.

They kept those pretty clear. Both of these, both Mario Kart and Donkey Kong feel like in the pitch and the hypothetical, you go, the ride, you're going to be wearing goggles. It's going to make you feel like you're right next to all the racers. Yeah. And you go, holy shit. Shit, that would be amazing. It's going to feel like I'm right by it, and they're going to look like the characters in the game.

Going to look like the characters in the game. Amazing. And you'll shoot shells at them and they'll fly. Whoa. Donkey Kong, we're going to get a mine cart. It's going to jump the track. And you go, holy shit, they've never done that. We've never done it before.

Yes. We've got to do that. Incredible pitches. Both of them in testing should have gone, yeah, shit. They don't quite work. Neither of them quite work. I don't know what happened. I take no pleasure in this.

I don't either. I'm not trying to be a Frankie Kong. Yes, that's exactly, as opposed to there's other things where I think we'll go, fuck that thing, we'll shit all over. Yeah. I don't like that I'm raising my voice. I don't like it. About these Nintendo ride about these properties that we love. Both of them in the hypothetical, like in the planning stages, once it was determined that this doesn't really work very well, they should have just switched Mario Kart to a dark ride.

Fine, it's slow. Who gives a shit? Donkey Kong is just a regular roller coaster. It doesn't matter. Oof, but is that the answer? No, it's not. Although it being like a little, I mean, because it being a little faster

and more thrilling and not having to have this. It wouldn't. Scott, your thing about it like a wild mouse for Mario Kart, that might solve for both these rides. It's like you take the dark ride beginning and or end, pluck an off-the-cart wild mouse in the middle with some projections.

Or you find, you know what I don't like about wild-mouse rides exactly is that they're they're kind of contained in these weird little squares if you could make that kind of track mechanism and those like those really those surprising thrilling suddenly you go suddenly you're swooping down at super speed if you could get it out of the little box

you know like a wild mouse that could explore the space sure yeah yeah yeah um I think that sensation though of feeling like you're about to go off the track I mean that works when I was a 10 years old that worked when I was like 30 years all of them Like it's still, and it's been around forever.

I think like the one rumor about the high rule like Zelda attraction is it's a boat and then it goes on land. There are a bunch of goes in the air, I think. Goes in the air. Okay. Which is like the back of it and flies you. That's one of the patents, I think. There's a bunch of. I'm not getting hype for anything in Nintendo, though.

I'm not going to give you the holy shit that looks amazing, even though deep thought I want to say it. This sucks. This sucks that we're not getting hyped. Why? We should be so hyped. I know. There's a bunch of rides coming at other parks that's like a boat that becomes a roller coaster. Okay.

And hopefully that technology will be fine-tuned enough. Yeah, yeah. I have a question about like broader genres as far as do we like this genre of because right here. But before I explain it, let me just throw out this question. Is there a good mine ride? because when you think about this when you think about

Mines and Donkey Kong when you think about Temple of Doom you go which it feels like a ride to be watching those scenes you go this is a no brainer like a mine ride would be the greatest thing

and there's been rumors of they'll do that for Indiana Jones and then we get this but it's not it's not the like crazy like God I feel like there's no chains or anything here but you know

know what the actual ride system that exists, at least the closest I can imagine, is a wooden roller coaster. It's ghost rider at knots. The feeling of this is coming apart and it's rickety. And it feels like you can read like you're bumping for real. Yeah.

That's the closest thing that exists to the feeling mine, right? Well, you put it in a metal. Yes, but which I want. I want. Part of it is, you're right about the feeling, but I do want to be in a little cart. Make it in a little like silver car. I mean, they, but I'm saying,

like it looks like it's some temporary structure. That's a good path for a good mine ride, but what am I, I might be, I feel like maybe I'm neglecting something in the middle of the country or like a, like a non-Disney universal. You're saying a true mine cart ride. Yeah, and listeners

yell at us in the comments, but if there's a very good mine ride, because it doesn't it feel like that should be a slam dunger, there should be like so many incredible mine rides? And I don't know if there are. Nats is, but it's slow. But it's slow. Big Thunder Mountain's a little faster, but even that's kind of a small.

It's a small. It's a little mine. You know, it's a whole train. But do you consider it's Snow White in Florida? Because you go through a diamond, like a jewel diamond mine. I guess so. They're not really. They're cute.

I want a rusty metal like Donkey Kong. And not to be adding rules here. But I, you're right. Snow white's good. So it's good. But the cars are not. The cars are cuter in wood. Yeah.

They're not. I just still think that we have not conjured anything that feels like the Temple of Doom scenes. There is a great level in Mario Kart 8 for Switch that is like an old west like mining town industrial town. And there are some insane drops and caves and turns. Is it Wario's Gold Mine? It might be Warriors Gold Mine. I have played that level. I've been like, ooh, this would make a great ride.

Like it feels like a ride. That's true. Yes. Throw it all that. Let's make the full. Wario's gold, I mean, almost any mark or level. I love Wario so much. I'm such a Mario fan. No joke.

I would love a Wario because there's those weird Wario games that are these like micro games where you have to like get a finger up a nose or something. Very strange things. I'm like, give me like a small Mario ride. The two things I want the most of Nintendo is some Mario

ride in a Star Fox ride. But that's not happening ever. Yeah. That's not a very popular franchise. But in an entire park you could. That's what would be great. I would like a R-Wing simulator. Luigi's Mansion often cited as like a potential down the line. I think that's on the possibility list for sure.

Yeah, I don't really know Louis. That's another blind spot I have. Do people like? I actually know I only played the GameCube, the original GameCube version, which is fun. But yeah, like you can do a fun, silly, dark ride with that. Yeah. The name of the game is always interactive, which I'm worried about. They're going to give you something.

to do something with... He has like a vacuum to help Luigi. Suck the ghosts up. No, thank you. Pokemon's gonna be... That work is for you to do. I know.

Pokemon's gonna be interactive, whatever that is. Hopefully that's in the land. No, I think that's... Do you think it's in the ride? Oh, I think probably, yeah. Alicia Stella's one report was mostly about

you walk around the land with like a Pokemon you can catch... I hope that's wrong. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but I have a feeling there's gonna be an interactive part That's going to be nice for someone.

That is something that I will never do. There's no way I'm walking around with a Pokeyball. That is just not. I would walk around with a Pokea ball. What if I were tell you? Pocateball. Pocateball. Oh, Pokea ball.

I'll walk around that. Is that... Oh, I was just saying. What would change your mind if I told you that, that Pocoball costs between $40 and $50? Yeah. Yeah, that else.

Whatever a wand or a player's band, whatever, those things. Can I do anything else with it when I'm not here? No. Yeah, paperweight. That at least looks, that's stable. That at least looks cool. If you're like no Pokemon, it's kind of a cool looking design. Yeah.

No, that's going to be big for many people, just not for me. If the cell on the land is catch all the, no thanks, no thank you. Well, supposedly that's, is that still going on? I still have so much, I still have to uncrack so many codes with my data pad. I don't have time to. Well, we're always cracking codes every time we get. I mean, I'm wondering. Chains still a big Pokemon Go player.

Really? Is that incorporated to the Pokemon land? Oh, that'd be clear? I mean, maybe if that's the... Do they use that as a backbone? Something. It's apparently still very popular. Yeah.

Supposedly that's going where Simpsons is going in Orlando. That may have changed. Again, these are like six-month-old rumors at this point. I don't have any new info. Could be lost on then now, they're saying. Oh, are they really? potentially. I don't have any decent info other than the YouTube videos.

I feel like all the rumors right now are so stale that I have. Six months ago, I felt like I was sitting on a hot, fresh crop of rumors. And then none of it's been confirmed. Nothing is going to be like that. If you're actually the future replacing Fast and Furious, we haven't had any more talk of that really. Other than there was some like ride system that was shown off in Florida a couple months ago that looked like it at a Dolorian in the video. Well, there's a few things.

Now there's talk of a quickie, back-to-the-future thing going in a Fast Furious supercharged in Orlando. There's also talk about like, is that a coaster for Fast and the Furious? Or no, for back to the future in England. Yeah, I think it is for sure. I mean, that's what the picture. The picture is Hill Valley in England. Yeah. Quick, climb aboard my party bus.

The easiest overla. 30 passenger party DeLorean. I invented a party bus that can go back in time. I do, yeah, I don't, we'll see. The Universal announces stuff late, so yeah, I don't know. Here's what ultimately, I think kind of

I think what kind of condemns this thing ultimately is that it just isn't, I think I wanted it to be like, okay, here's the big like the big high-tech ones are Monsters and Chained and Potter, but then like as far as family shockingly satisfying once the lines someday die down,

this will just be like almost like a big thunder level, like just solid, good. I think that was my expectation of MindCarp Madness, and instead it's a little bit like wonky. And that title for sure goes to Hickups Wingliders, which I did no idea. I just, like, I hadn't read anything, I hadn't watched anything.

I didn't know anything about any of these rides. But it's when you're just, so getting on it, I'm like, what's this thing? And then that is by far the more, satisfying, like you can't believe how good that is. Being that it wasn't one of the main hyped ones, you know, at the gate. Yes. I never went on the rocket rods.

And I don't think Donkey Hooker's like rocket rods jerkiness of like where it doesn't the system doesn't quite work. There's no reason to get rid of it or anything. No, I don't think they should get rid of it. But it just, I'm just of all the different stuff that I was hyped for for it not to just sort of deliver base level is such a bummer. I hate it. We started so hot on this episode and we've all, we've run out of steam by the end of it because we're just so sad.

I would say in terms of shorter maybe family appropriate coasters, and it might not be family appropriate because of the spinning element, but Cursa the Werewolf is like, yeah, doesn't have much of a line, a really solid coaster with some minor story elements that maybe you like, maybe you don't, maybe you forget all about them. Doesn't matter, yeah. But it's pretty fun for like the actual two-minute coaster. It's, you know, it's what is this thing trying to do? It's the, what, Roger Eber talking about how you review a movie?

What is it trying to do? What is it attempting? Does it get there? And that, yes, the werewolf is like, all it's trying to do, got a couple things, it spins. It's really fun. Yeah. The spinning is really fun. Other than it being cramped, uh, it's really fun.

And you're like, great, that was great, great little ride. Great C or D ticket, which I think, it was a lot. lot of criticisms of newer park lands they leave out the smaller filler rides right and the exterior of dunking you're like holy shit look at don't going to temple oh my god you're going to jump the track and like it's all just a little unsatisfying it's all just a little under the bar of what you think it should be and it bums me out yeah i know man what do we do now how do we get out of we get out by saying it's the end well it's by the way for the sound font of dunk gun country It's going to pick you up.

What's that going to do for me? Well, when it sounds more like the Donkey Kong country theme, then you will be picked up. When it's just the melody of by the way at the start, which is not the most amazing melody or anything. Well, I guess what I'll just have to do is picture Candy Kong dancing around to it. It says 2026, Mike and Scott get really into chip tunes. Get really into a genre of music I don't know if I'm using correctly. It's retro now. Yeah.

Oh, Retro. You know, the kids are getting back into chip tunes. Well, look, I don't know. As we said, we don't want to be feeling this way. I tried to go on it. The first thing I went, the first line I got in, and it broke my heart. But I still, I look, I like the land.

I like the stuff. I know. I do too. It's so close. It's so close. It's just a lot of work for, like, a really short about time, which is all I always hear our critical. of theme parks in general.

But I feel like I don't notice myself unless something is very short. Right, right, yeah. And just like, look, I'll never get excited about Nintendo right again. Man. Oh, they broke him. You see what they did?

I have to say. Look what they did to our boy. I have to protect myself. Yeah. Emotionally going forward. So I love, I'd love to fall in love again, but I'm not looking for it. not looking for love.

You landed at what we all have to do with career opportunities. That's correct. Mike has finally... I've resigned that I'll never work in the business again. Mike has finally implemented healthy boundaries and arms length away from being disappointed again and solely only doing it for Nintendo

based... Nintendo based... A lot of personal growth. Right. Boundaries. Yeah. You know, you're keeping your heart safe for what really matters

candy packing chats. Right. Now. That you can give your heart too. If they add a bunch of animatronics to the ride, if they add Candy Kong to the ride, I don't know. Maybe they can fix it in some ways

and my heart can love again. But until that moment, I have to be like this. Make it go twice as fast, but you get to go around twice. And candy gives you a little kiss at the end. You blow you a little kiss. Now, I don't think enough parks

have utilized the thrill of do you want to stay on? Or like you're going around again. This ride goes around twice. But isn't that only just because that would screw the park? Do you want to stay on is usually a more empty park? But building into the design of the ride, it's like, you're going twice.

No. So? But if everything's a twice, isn't it a once? Yeah. But he's still a twice? Hold on. Let's investigate this real quick. Would it change this?

second time or it's the exact same ride. It would have to be the exact same ride. It's probably going to be the exact same ride. Because people going on it the first time then would have to experience it the same way. Mike, I'm trying to make this feasible with what they have right now. So you go on it twice. Both Nintendo car, it's second

life. It's a promotion called you get a second life. It's not related to the video game's second life. I would turn, so you think I may turn around on the ride if I had gotten one more time around. I feel like you got some value.

Right. I got more of a deal. And made some sweaty people waiting the line longer. I think you're just looking for ways to poo-poo second life. I'm just asking questions. Okay. Oh, yeah. All right.

I'm just saying, would I enjoy the ride more if I had gotten what I perceived as like a freebie? Maybe. Freebie ride. Maybe. I think it's worth pursuing. I think some people should look into the second life program. You've thrown out a valid idea. this point we got to put anything on the table.

Yeah. If we want a Nintendo attraction to deliver. It's called thinking outside the box. You know, extra life. Call it that if you want to separate it. Oh, that's actually. Extra life. That feels more fun.

Yeah, okay. Because then you get a surprise. You're like, oh, I didn't know I had one more. Wow. Wow. Doggy Kong country returns. I have been using all the lives and dying a lot. I am grasping all those balloons, those red balloons.

I want to see you play video games now. You've really hyped it up to be the same. disaster. Well, we were going to play Terrorfire that one day. We never ended uploading. I was talking too much. Yeah. I came over. That's some curvature. Save your voice. That's what this is for. I know. All right.

Well, with that, you survived podcast The Ride First of 2026. We're trying to start positive. We started the episode positive. You're right. You can't say we didn't try. We tried. We did try. Look up all this pleasing music

that fellas have discovered. Too honest. We had to be honest. We also have to be honest. And yes, for three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast the Ride, the second gate for which Mike saves his voice for you. Because he's not going to go talk to Jason anymore. And not record it? Are you crazy?

We could be selling that shit. That's true. Or get one more bonus episode in our VIP tier club three. You'll find all of that at patreon.com slash podcast the ride. All right. Now, we've been talking about getting hyped, but then being let down. So I sure hope that this, by the way... There's no way you're going to be let down.

There's no way what I said is in... I mean, I guess how high could my expectations go for a cover of by the way. The first part is just very simple. Well, skip it. We're at the end of the episode. We've been doing this for two hours. All right, but it's like one of those hour-long YouTube things where like if I skip it, I might go way past. Well, use the arrow button and do...

Oh, yeah, I guess I could do that. Yeah, yeah, skip, you know, 10, 20 seconds that it's at that. But you don't want to skip is the secret. I just tried and it could remove them. thing off. I don't want to blow it. I wouldn't have agreed to this song being played if I knew it had to sit through all the boring parts. It's about to happen. All right.

We're about to launch through the cannon. Wait, is your good part not the chorus but the rapping? Sounds just like the actual Donkey Kong. They've replaced all of it. And I'm like, well, this is better than the don't, then by the way itself. It sounds like perfectly made for Donkey Kong. Yes. And then you can hear the like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, in the middle.

It's basically the same. same type of lyrics Anthony Kutis writes. It's just noises. Anyway, enjoy the whole album. That's a whole band full of funky Kongs. Well, that's true, yeah. Except for Chad Smith. He's more of like a bro. Well, no, I guess he's like funky.

It might be the most bro-y name. Did you know, Chad Smith doesn't really, like, hang out with the other guys because he's kind of different. He'd rather be with Sammy. That's right. That's more Sammy's kind of guy. His other band, yeah. Bye, bye. Yeah, so that in Pock is right.

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