Podcast: The Ride - Fantasmic!

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Grab your sorcerer’s hat from the closet, the PTR boys are tackling the legendary Fantasmic! (Disneyland version). Help us through the adventure by nodding at opinions, chuckling at jokes and putting up with just a wee bit more CityWalk talk. For bonus episodes like "Mickey Mania Parade" head to the The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide  FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warning, the following podcast may contain Mickey's hand sparks, teacher anger in green ink, favorite Mark Twain deck positions, boat ghosts, and a thrilling look at Disney's water-based spectacular, Fantasmic. You'll definitely be humming the theme for the rest of the day. It's Podcast the Ride! Welcome to Podcast The Ride, a podcast that is once again about theme parks after a month-long diversion into a different topic, food poisoning. I'm Scott Gairdner, joined by Jason Sheridan. Hi. Let's go to you. I just narrowly avoided, too, the measles outbreak.

Buka de Pepo. Oh, Buka de Pepo did, yeah. Narrowly avoided, too, the measles outbreak. Bucatepepo. Oh, Bucatepepo did, yeah. Bethany sent me this just this morning. Bucatepepo, a place where people may have been exposed to measles at the end of March. Now, I assume from that that we're still living in the alternate universe in which it is Bucatepepo. Yes. Yeah. That seems like that's what we are doing.

Okay, gotcha. Okay, so canonically from this point doing. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So canonically from this point on, Mike Carlson, hi. I'm here and I was also sent a list of CityWalk places that might have been the epicenter of a measles outbreak. Wait. This. Okay. I don't know anything about this.

Oh, you don't? No. I've missed this entirely. Oh, wow. If you can imagine that I'm not exactly staying up on CityWalk news now. We shouldn't keep doing more CityWalk, but I think we have to do this because there was a press release April 13th, 2024. Public health confirms measles

case in Los Angeles County. Health officials identify locations for possible measles exposure. And if you go down the list, Bucca di Beppo, if we're playing Bucca di Beppo in a different universe, Cletus' Chicken Shack is on the list.

Yeah, Universal Studios is also. Doughnuts and EC Food Truck is on the list. Sheraton Gateway Hotel is on the list. Oh, no. The hotels, too. So, yes. I was sent this yesterday as well. And so, yeah.

City Walk, we just, I think, narrowly avoided a measles outbreakly avoided wow we got out just in time my god yeah um especially because the two of you would have been like oh it's probably from somewhere probably a both of our cases of measles surely it can't have been city walk yeah well we wouldn't have blamed city walk if we caught the measles in our 30s and 40s started up there then it must have flown down on the famous from the famously windy food court all the way down to the bottom of the hill and we caught it there. Surely the conditions can't have been such up there.

Unless they were like ancient measles unlocked from some old, from like a Womp Hoppers or something from the old restaurant outside the city. I mean, it's possible. Oh yeah, they were doing construction on this new roller coaster. They unearthed some meat.

Unearthed a bunch of meat. A 30-year-old strain of measles that was in the ground. A group of early California settlers, like a Donner family type group. Right. A group that succumbed to the measles on the Coenga Hills. Right. Yeah. And now it's been this living in amber, some sort of amber casing, like Jurassic Park.

And then, yes, as they were, the bulldozers were just knocking down parts of the hill, the amber was broken. And measles were unleashed on the buca di beppo. Peppo. Was it on purpose or not, Jason? No, I just got too excited about, I have news about a measles outbreak. And I said pepo so many times after that entire thing you still haven't figured it out. You know

what? I hope it never changes. Ain't I a stinker? You just keep doing you Jason. Well yeah I didn't mean to do a whole reprisal of this is important news and I'd like to thank my friends for not texting me about this for knowing that I was emotionally done.

And we didn't text you about it either. Everyone made the correct calculation. Because while that was a lot of fun, I'm done. I'd say that I'm done. And I'm excited to be veering back this way. That said, listeners, this is the first main feed since the CityWalk Orlando saga. Thank you for all the kind words about that, for the support of that. I did have a blast.

And I would like to just make sure at the top here to dedicate this and every episode from now on to our friend Stephen Kepner. Yes. The podcast from this point on. I agree. Now, Mr. Kepner, in his infinite wisdom, during the saga in one of the final episodes he asked us is this still a theme park podcast right and i think this episode we will attempt to answer that question to be yes yes uh measles diversion or no that's part of it though you're right we're still on topic yes if well yeah of course if it came from the from it came from the Bumblebee food truck itself, then...

Cletus' chicken shack is in the theme park. Cletus' chicken shack is in the theme park. Emphatically, yes, is what I'm saying to the question. That's right. And that's why I am covered in measles. Oh, no. All right. Well, if it's a thing at theme parks, then it is our obligation to try it.

So let's find out what having theme park specific measles is like. Jason, I thank you for bringing it here today. Absolutely. It's time. We're doing the old chicken pox party.

Universal's new tagline is get infected by the movies. And that's what we're doing. That ties together because there are, there is an unfortunate

tagline involved in today's topic. Yeah, there is. All right. Well, why don't we check in with the... Oh, wait. That's not how it works anymore. We have to say it ourselves.

Today's topic, phantasmic. And we've been asking ourselves, where do we go from here? A big question post-saga. We landed at this. We wanted to do something primary theme parky disney which got no love for a month and they've got to be hurting yeah yeah not getting the love from us the boys oh yeah uh so we're back to disneyland we're back to a big theme parky thing uh something that's that's pretty epic historic timeless that uh we hope i mean it's on hiatus now but we hope that it never leaves the

park otherwise uh and that i assume for all the things that have been embattled in the recent past that we've talked about i'm going to take a guess here and say that the three of us are all very passionate about phantasmic if not passionate then we like it i was gonna say i'd like it i don't know where my when my when know where my, when we discuss my passion, when we discuss my passions, which we do often on this show, I don't know that it's passion, but I do, I like it. I really like it.

Yeah, well, I backed up. I didn't mean to over, no. No, it's okay. You can be passionate about it. Passion you say for your love, you give that to your love, but not necessarily. But you've exposed now that you're passionate for Fantantasmic which i appreciate okay i don't know if that's a correct calculation but i do i do really love it um you know i haven't i haven't gone to see it in a long time so that's why i think i'd be miss billing it

calling myself passionate about it yeah but you know what i associate it with was is growing up here and going to disneyland as my home park more than you guys i obviously loved disneyland every time that i went and i must have been three or four times before phantasmic but there was something about when this kicked in like wow we are cooking now in 1992 may 1992 this thing premieres and we're still in disney decade era it's before they decided there is no disney decade it was right after the debut of uh disneyland paris if you're a disneyland which uh killed the ambition of everything for a while so this was still very much in ambition era um you know we're getting to an eight i must have seen it for the first time when i was seven years old and now i'm getting to stay up late now it's not these quick little kid pop-ins which now you've done uh mike i think since the last record uh or uh i don't remember when you

did it but we'll get into that at some point your your child's first disneyland happened but you know you do these things a little bit low ambition you get out of there early you get them to bed at a fairly regular time uh and that's the kind of disneyland i was doing and now there's a big nighttime spectacular i'm old enough to stay up for it every new thing they add is killer like what did this what did this come after was it post toontown or was it on the way to i think it's post on the way it's post star tours definitely yeah yeah for sure and on the way to toontown on the way to indiana jones and you just feel like they're in a streak they're in an incredible streak that this thing uh keeps up and just adds something they oh i guess splash

mountain is one that I'm missing, not that I had done it by that point. But what a killer time. Between Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones and Toontown, all killers in this era, and they add something that's not just some nighttime show. It's a show that expands the scope of what a nighttime show can be, the ambition, technology you've never seen before that is now a part of any nighttime show worth its salt.

Do you have a memory of, like, just the idea that they're using for Disneyland, like the rivers, and like just that whole area now is a stage for a crazy show to me i feel like as a kid if i was like they didn't have a show there before and now there's a show happening in what used to just be like a river way or a river and just like tom sawyer island absolutely like that must have been pretty crazy to be like holy shit you can do a show anywhere anywhere could be a show yeah yeah you don't know well and that's and that's before you know the the the jameters sure that's before now even but oh that's just the custodians going by wait a minute hang on they're banging on now really a show can be anywhere now we're used to the idea but yeah absolutely it adds to it adds to the magic that like they didn't add new space

they didn't buy new property and yet they opened up a space where a lot of magic can happen and i think it adds to the magic day to day at the park where yeah you're looking at like during the day that's some rusty old shack but at night it explodes with mickey's imagination yeah and the boats the mark twain i was gonna say adding on to that it uses both boats right in the day mark twain is a shitty, boring old boat. Yeah, just a real, real creaker. Just a seasickness machine. Who likes the Mark Twain boat?

Yeah, but then at night, that's when it really shines. That's when I like it. During the day, get the hell out of here. I wish it would sink. You gave me a ride here, and now you have to give me a ride home, and I'm going to be bawling. Oh, good. It's not angry. You're going to be just sobbing in Mike's car.

What did you say? I kept it together during the record. I kept it together. I'm a professional. Now that it's you and me, I want you to see my hurt. I've never asked you to edit comments out of a show before. That's a lie. You've insulted me

hundreds of times and I've never asked, but this one time you've gone too far, sir. Any MAGA thing you want to say, that's fine. Feel free. But you insult my boat. Don't insult my boat, sir. That's right. We cut a lot of Mike's MAGA rants.

Right. They all go three hours and we cut an hour ten every time. I take a little nap touring them. Look, this is one of my criticisms

of Fantastic is I love a peaceful nighttime Mark Twain ride. Oh, right. Ooh, interesting.

And it's taking that away from me. Smee and the three little pigs, they get to ride nighttime Mark Twain but not Jason. Yeah.

Jason, it's not. I know, yeah. Buzz Lightyear gets to go on it. He's from space. He shouldn't even be in an old-timey steamboat. That doesn't make sense. He's hanging out at infinity and beyond. And I can't even ride the little boat in the little rivers of America.

He has everything he could ever dream of he has everything this is like what are you being jealous of us i don't want to be controversial but right away let me ask a question jason if okay how many phantasmic doesn't run every night but would you prefer phantasmic go away so you always have the option to ride the mark twain um no i i don't think i would go that far. Okay, but how far would you go? Pretty, I don't mind if he, once a week. Once a year plus. Has the year, wait here, continue your line of questioning.

I was just going to say, once a week? How many times do you think would be acceptable for Fantasmic to run? Oh, I think half and half would be fair. Well, what gets the four days, though? What gets the three? What gets the four? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, this is like, Mark Twain gets four days. what gets the three what gets the four oh yeah yeah oh this is like four days okay would you prefer weekends for the mark twain or weekend this is a

custody battle now a lot of during you know slower times i think fantastic mostly runs friday through sunday i would think because it's a high capacity show and that's when more people are there. It might watch it that way. They probably want to do less shows. They like it. They actually like it. They like the breaks to recharge and maybe some of them, maybe the people who work so hard on Phantasma can take a break, take a little moonlight boat ride as long as they don't

get in Jason's way. Sure. Do you have a spot on there if you're doing it late? Do you want to be on top? Do you want to be a top or a bottom? Mark Twain-wise. Definitely tops. I think second or third. At least second, if not third.

Okay. Level of the Mark Twain. Gotcha. Now, Phantasmagoria going down for a year, and we are still in... Actually, you know what? We picked this topic, didn't even realize that we are this week is a year since the fire which took down the dragon that factors that's the main part of the climax of the show i mean well jason would call the climax the boat going by unless it just or

unless it makes you mad unless it ends the boat goes by and you're just in a jealous rage they usually have to pry me off the fence yeah because i'm like okay if i really leap i can get on there and you pen you come equipped with like you bring your own little cogsworth costume so that you can maybe blend in as one of the characters just bring streamers dress up like a little clock and then maybe they'll let you just be on it yeah i'm multitasking i'm climbing the fence i'm putting my cogsworth outfit on it's like that scene in the fugitive where harrison ford's in the saint patrick's day parade and he's kind of slips into a costume and he goes right on so jason puts the cogsworth hat on and goes slips right on the mark twain yeah or like the finale joker being in

the uh group of all the policemen at the funeral right of course yeah but you're not after any joker activity you just want a nice little bow right anyway uh i was saying this this week is a year since the dragon fell thus creating a year of no phantasmic how do we know has that opened up more nighttime mark twain abilities or do they stop running that at a certain point? I don't know specifically the schedule of the Mark Twain. I am sure that on certain nights, if not all nights, they run Mark Twain later, but I could be wrong. I don't know actually.

This is something I should have looked into, but I didn't even think about what would happen to Jason's beloved Mark Twain. And I believe Phantasmic coming back at the end of May. Yes, for sure yeah so we are yeah we're about to to break the hiatus and see uh what they have cooked up in the meantime and we'll talk about some of what the show was before uh before we get into the changes but here's something that i didn't realize i thought show back, so that means we get Dragon Mach 3. We get to the third Phantasmic Dragon, but now I'm looking into it.

It's coming back. No dragon. Didn't realize that. Yeah. Hmm. I don't know. I don't know. This is like a primary facet of it,

of the billboards, of any imagery of it that there's ever been over these many decades. This is one of those things where i start to get conspiratorial i start to get conspir like conspiracy brain where i go well what is the did they set the dragon on fire for insurance money we are back to one of the this this thing that this ranking that we kind of stopped doing the burning things down for insurance

money this is yeah it could be a possible version of that all right because why wouldn't it be back why wouldn't these build a new one it's pretty convenient that that's something they don't want to bring back maybe they don't want to bring it back because it almost shot a bunch of flames into people well i'm just saying though it was spectacular and you just make the flame safer somehow i don't know but you but the conspiracy brain I don't know. But the conspiracy brain, here's where I think the conspiracy brain gets into dangerous territory when you start accusing the company of like,

well, you realize if we light it on fire on purpose, it could shoot jets of flame from its mouth. And if it's not angled just right, it might go into the crowd. And you're saying like, I don't know if it was Iger or Chapek at that point at that point but somebody's like maybe and then just turns and leaves the room it'll save us a hundred thousand dollars it would only have a couple of human souls cost on top of that i guess it would have torched mickey not the audio because it's pretty far away

from the audience i suppose it could have shot across the rivers it is the probably the most convenient place where is something's gonna burst into flames at disneyland that's it's far away from the audience far away from everyone most performers and stagehands even are pretty far away from it yeah except for that mickey thank god this is an entire this is another story entirely if anything happens to mickey that night maybe we don't cover it as a topic i think probably the whole thing is just the just the the tenor of disneyland changes forever uh if a dragon torches mickey i think that's correct and maybe i don't say it's a conspiracy theory if that happened either um but it is funny when this happens because it's like the King Kong thing where it's like,

oh yeah, King Kong burned up and we have a new King Kong thing ready to go. And you're like, well, what's the chances? Sometimes the stuff lines up. Now, I think oftentimes when something breaks, everybody reassesses it and whatever their feeling about it was before, now it's just a good excuse to change it up. like converted a high eight like a millimeter film which was still pretty good quality uh for that format and um it is funny that the dragon caught on fire in 2023 because 1992 lots of the interesting thing was seeing how many beats of the show were already in place. A lot of big moments of the show are in place.

The majority of it, to some extent. But the thing that was surprising to me is how much the original version of the show relied on sparks. Sparks and fireworks shooting out of things and sparklers. And that did not cause the slightly goofier looking dragon to catch on fire and the instead of the art you know redone multiple times dragon is the thing that exploded yeah you know yeah i mean it did yeah it i think it was you'd have to put it in the sparks and fireworks category what ultimately did it because it wasn't the flame breathing it was the let the beat that did it i think was when like fireworks go off in his brain and yes uh which does always

happen that does happen every night which is crazy that they do like light it on fire from the top essentially yeah and it seems like that's the that's the one that did it in yeah and in it i mean i remember the night it happened within minutes there were multiple angles of it online people live streaming or people who happen to be there and got their phones out like you could see it yeah people knew that wasn't the badass like admittedly one of the most badass things dizzy had done and they didn't mean to it looked awesome it did it admittedly and again we could say it because nobody got hurt and the uh you know it's not like the if the trees had caught on fire if the island was torched but the fact that it was just a dragon, watching a dragon burn up, it was admittedly, it's

very compelling. It's very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what happens if, like, say no one was on the Mark Twain, but the Mark Twain just went up in flames, and there's a flaming Mark Twain going around the rivers of America as if it's like on a river to hell? Well, I think if Buzz Lightyear is burning up, that'd be less funny.

No, I said empty. I said empty. If it's empty, I mean, that would also be a sight to behold. It would, yeah. But I think you would have to rebuild it. Would they rebuild it, though? I bet they wouldn't. For history's sake.

No, no, no. You'd have to rebuild it by hand, I think. Oh, jeez. Out of popsicle sticks. Get blue. If the boat was on fire, you'd be like, take me, take me to hell, Mark. And try to swim across onto it. Grand circle tour to hell.

This is the way I want to go, you said. Look, it's been in my will. I wrote this 14 years ago. Light the Mark Troy on fire with me in it. And take me to hell. It's in your will that it be hell. If this part of it, if anybody ever sees the will who can make that decision, just let you know.

Because Jason blazes up blunts. And where are you going to get to do that? Hell. Plenty of fire. Plenty of sinful weed smokers down there. Oh, okay. Yeah, weed is the devil's drug. Most people in hell are there from even just one marijuana use.

From singular possession and usage? Just if you've been near it. Actually, if you've been near it and you didn't report it to the authorities immediately, that's hell for you. Yep. Listeners, you can do your own reflection on it by my rules if you're going to hell or not. Mm-hmm. Like most are. Although I don't know

with this audience. I'm not sure. I don't know either. Have you seen, do you know what weed looks like? If so, hell. No, this is making people uncomfortable listening.

I'm sorry. We apologize. We're going to leave it in though. Well, it looks slightly like Sour Patch Kids and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It's what everyone's concerned about. Sour Patch Kids? What? Huh? it looks slightly like Sour Patch Kids or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It's what everyone's concerned about. Sour Patch Kids?

What? The weed looks like Sour Patch Kids? I mean, no. I mean, like, edible packaging. That's very clearly, like, a ripoff. Oh, you're saying that. Well, this is something that Scott and I don't even know, that there's just constant, like, ripoff packaging.

Oh, yeah. There's constant ripoff packaging. You gotta give us the context here. We are an organization that's taking you right down to Satan's chamber, yeah. There's constant red balls. These are the things you gotta give us the context here. This is the information that's stored out. This is taking you right down to Satan's chamber, Jason,

knowing all this. That's such an evil... Sour Patch Kids have been tainted? That's a pure thing from my childhood. They're kids. Right.

Keep kids off of drugs. Oh, my God. You're gonna sit at his right hand. No, Zach's at his left hand if the award shows are any indication. The three of you will be unstoppable. Yeah. You'll take over Earth.

Yeah. Lil J sex. Okay. So, let's get into some basics about this thing. May 13th, 1992. A year ago went away but otherwise on and off it's been going for for a long time um history of it they were using the rivers and the space across the river for shows uh there is somebody named barnett Ricci Who was named a Disney legend last year And she put on a lot of the nighttime entertainment

That existed before this thing There's a show called Kids of the Kingdom She was one of the Kids of the Kingdom I'm not prepared with a lot of information About Kids of the Kingdom Either that will be an episode Or we start looking into it And that's the blandest thing you've ever heard of,

and we don't do it, I don't know. Research remains to be done. It sounds good, though. It sounds like a good episode. It sounds up Mike Sally, for sure. We're back to wholesome territory. Yeah, yeah. It just sounds nice.

That's all it is. I'm sure it was. There was something called the Rolling River Review, where jazz bands went by, I think for a long time, jazz bands played on the Tom Sawyer Island rafts. So they were utilizing this area for nighttime entertainment a decent amount. I think at grad nights, I think they had bands play over there. I remember reading forever ago that Cheap Trick played across the rivers of America.

That sounds fucking cool. Yeah. But at some point it's like our cheap trick replacing the dragon permanently i hope so um i don't know how wise of an investment that is for the future i'm not sure their ages and health but uh if hey just one summer a cheap trick and i'm happy non-fire non-fire based fireworks, rock and roll fireworks. That's what I say. And most importantly, over 60 year old guys playing rock and roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, our prime. Well, it would have to be. Those are the only people who play rock and roll. Yeah. They're trying to flip a coin. Are they going to play Tom Sawyer Island? Are they going to play The Sphere in Las Vegas? That's probably where The S sphere is heading i would imagine

given the recent bookings um so anyways uh but we can't just keep booking uh bands and you know play who demand salaries and run out the door there's got to be something permanent that we can place here and something that uses a little more imagineering magic um so they start planning oh wait oh wait and on top of that barnett ricci takes a trip to france and she discovers that there is a french company that does something quite incredible which is mist screens water screens that allow you to project visual images onto them they have that uh that copyright uh disney uh as in great walt tradition disney sees something and says us too yeah um uh and now this is in terms of like fundamentals of phantasmic this blew my mind when i was seven years old this is so cool and now we almost take

it for granted there's a lot of things of this nature and this is like a part of a lot of disney nighttime water shows but this was the first so cool i strongly remember uh being up close and not even that up close and you still get the mist on you even if you don't stake out those front row positions uh love this haven't done in a long time but as i talk about it now i'm kind of craving that screen mist screen mist is so interesting because the the term now makes me go uh-oh in 2024 because there was there's so a lot of talk of the tiana ride coming out now they've just released videos of all these robots and the robots look spectacular really perhaps any of my fears are stupid or whatever they look amazing but they were mentioning a lot of projections on mist a few months ago or a year or two ago. And I was like, uh-oh.

I don't like the sound of that. But I remember when projecting on mist was new because we had it at our local indoor swimming pool slash mild water park where I grew up. Wow. And I've said this before there was a hologram projected on some mist as we went down a water slide this was not this wasn't the your choice for the parks that made us this was something different uh it was not my choice this was just a low like they're all for some reason like the park district had some money so they upgraded a pool when i was in like fifth grade into an indoor pool that was like you could go year round and for whatever reason they had a

water slide that had a mist and like had a projection of some kind on it i don't even remember what the projection was but it was all the talk of like oh my god you could like play something on like water and mist mike what you're describing is the greatest use of taxpayer money i've ever heard of oh it's a ridiculous why i don't know why what was what was the point of it it probably cost a million dollars at the time yeah to cheer up all the kids in town we never think about morale well we make our budget decisions you don't get to go to the public pool generally in the midwest in the middle of winter but going to now branded waterworks it's close called waterworks and i believe it still is um they spent money on some sort of mist

projection what was on the mist i'm trying telling you i don't remember but we were excited about it nonetheless it didn't look very good as my memory but you'd kind of like try to make it out of what it was as you were going through it and it was not again it was nothing spectacular but for whatever reason they sold the schaumburg park district on this and we got to experience that's the first time i ever saw it and it was cool even though i can't remember what the projection was so you're when you finally then find out about phantasmic you're like oh so they're doing like a waterworks thing right it's basically they ripped us off of Waterworks. The Schaumburg Park District

did this first, as far as I know. This is just Disneyland copying Schaumburg as usual. They might have. You grew up in a wild, experimental town. Yes, of course.

Rainforest Cafe, Mars 2112, Waterworks, Little Caesars, but the play area. Yeah, yeah. A a play area. Yeah. A big play area. I am.

Look, I'm mildly jealous whenever this list comes up. I know. And I didn't realize how good I had it. Yeah. Why'd you move? Move back. All right. I will. All that stuff is gone except for Waterworks, but I'll move back.

You're right. Maybe there'll be a new restaurant coming to Woodfield soon. Hopefully fingers yeah for the the legacy fans um anyway they uh i never heard any of this history this was all news to me that there were premises for what this would be before phantasmic uh the first pitch was something called river haunt and they did a whole bunch of imagery of this that you can look up river haunt was supposed to combine the mythologies of Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean nearby this spot, the Rivers of America, so it makes sense. It's just artwork, so you can't exactly make heads or tails of the plot, but it's a bunch of ghosts and a bunch of pirates and maybe ghost pirates yeah and maybe a big leota sounds kind of good do you think we missed out should it have been river haunt i think the name is bad sure but the concept is cool they might have maybe they would have gotten

it there they might have yeah so i don't know if they said like phantasmic's going away and we have a new version of river Haunt, maybe I'm in. I don't know. Michael's River Haunt. There's that scary. Remember they repurposed, was it in, it was in Disneyland Paris. They repurposed the Mark Twain as like a big scary boat. Do you guys know what I'm talking about?

No. I don't quite remember. Let me see if I can find it. But it looked crazy and I'm like, oh, that looks really cool. But let me, hold on, let me find it. But yeah, I mean, maybe the issue with that show is they're kind of limiting themselves And I'm like, oh, that looks really cool. But let me hold on. Let me find it. Yeah. I mean, maybe the issue with that show is they're kind of limiting themselves by making it a fully scary show. Now, it does not attract the broad Disneyland audience.

For example, me, I would have heard those words and been out and never seen River Haunt until I turned 21. Yeah. Oh, this is OK. It's the thing that was tugging the Mark Twain. It's this big, scary ghost. Oh, I've seen that. Yes, okay. Weird hooded creature with no face. Like a giant tugging the Mark Twain.

Like a tugboat, not tugging it. Like, you know what I'm saying. Like Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Yeah, sure. Kind of Grim Reaper. It's so... It is the ball and chain that's been put on this creature his right destiny in life is to tug this boat now if jason that was

his destiny this would be a big smile on this guy's face oh yeah the hood is to keep the sun and the smile the big sensible the big smile would be reflecting and hitting people in the eye because yeah burning smile constantly yeah um but yeah something like this i don't know obviously phantasmic uh definitely a crowd pleaser sure so probably the better choice but yeah they got they got to something that is it's only scary at times there's some scary parts of phantasmic maybe like a scary phantasmic around halloween time that would be awesome sure something like this yeah it would be awesome. Sure. Something like this. Yeah. It would be awesome. The only problem with like entertainment that could potentially scare you,

there are active walkways that people are walking on. You mean people would get like, suddenly a jump scare, maybe not. People would be jumping into each other's arms constantly, like in an old cartoon or movie.

someone's arms are going to break at some point. That's true. We don't want that. It would look like a popcorn machine. Constantly. Yeah, we don't want that. So they end up with, probably at some point in this development, they realize that involving classic characters in Mickey Mouse would be a good idea. And they put together somewhat

what we know today. But they initially call it imagination. And I think it's far down the road as imagination. That's the song. I bet the song was written because phantasmic is never said in the song. So there's posters of that, maybe even advertisements outside of Disneyland saying, come see our new show, Imagination.

And Imagination is in the song. They say that word. Yes. In your imagination. That's not in a night that's phantasmic right because the name here's something that we have missed okay well first things first exclamation point yeah i should have said it out loud when we said the topic yeah um the name what how has this name always struck us our whole lives did it ever hit the ears weird? No, I always liked it.

I always, it always, it's funny because it's just like, I was just saying this the other day, all the things that Disney decides to name things these days, there's a blandness oftentimes. And it's not that Fantasmic is so amazing, but it's just enough of a twist to make you go, oh, okay, that's memorable and somewhat unique. Yeah. It's strange. They made up a word. Yeah. enough of a twist to make you go okay that's memorable and somewhat unique yeah like that's it's strange they made up a word yeah and it's in my i guess i always thought it was so wait so it's fantastic but phantasmic is what i what i always thought was the entomology and how they

landed there but then you're changing more than right it's It's... Oh, yeah. No, it's T-I-C becomes M-I-C. But that's not how they got there. What it is is a shortening of phantasmagoria. Because it involves... Like ghost stories. Yes. Yeah. But I never figured that out because it doesn't have most of that word in it.

Right. And it's not a P-H. It's an F. And someone says it in the show. Maleficent says it? Really? Is the word said? Oh.

When she's the old crone, she goes, I will turn this into a phantasmagor. I love that you said the old crone. I think that is a- I forget her official, is that her official name? I think I've heard that character referred to as the old crone,

but I do wish it would be- That is why I'm saying it. I'd like it to be said more. I mean, we're coming up on a presidential campaign that is Old Crone versus Old Crone. That's true. I think it's time to get that phrase back on the books. I think if we push them at these conventions, they could get VPs who are even older. I hope so. i hope so i hope so uh yes let's you know what my complaint about both of these guys is they can technically still speak let's get a real let's get a guy who's like a cut to and a laurel and hardy movie like just a guy who looks he's the

craziest looking old man just don't ask him to say anything. The last surviving Civil War soldier. I think they could be VP come January 2025. That's the era they want everybody to go back to, so why not have somebody serve who was in that era? Now, I'm looking up. I don't know if she does say Phantasmagoria

because I do have the... I swore she was in rant in her rant like before she turns the old drones rant she rants and raves chronically the price of groceries but then if you try to engage her of like well don't you think all these conglomerates merging grocery store change is a bad thing she just like write you off entirely came pretty naturally jason who's the old crone now i don't think it's any argument that i'm not an old crone he's 38 he sounds like he's 68 um i so the and what i found that was funny is how they landed on Phantasmagoria.

So, the show is in rehearsals. It's going great. Everybody's like, wow, this is going to, this is really going to land huge. We like everything about that name, Imagination. It's not proprietary. You can't really put it on merchandise because it's just a word. So, according to Disneyland president Jack Lindquist, we got a dictionary down from Michael Eisner's bookshelf. Oh, wow.

And started going through it page by page. We got a dictionary down from Michael Eisner's bookshelf and started going through it page by page. We both kept throwing out names and rejecting them. Finally, we reached the P's and Michael threw out Phantasmagoria. It immediately intrigued us both.

It had the right feel. They took it to our team who I rightfully said it's a lot, it's long though and they put Mickey in there and that's it. So, kind of comes from Eisner. Comes from eisner it's all good things doing it yeah we land there over and over again yeah uh yeah i think if he had anything if he had anything to do with city walk we never

would have gotten sick there oh that's a very good point uh-huh no we know we didn't touch that with his hand his golden if all he did was go there and change the name of one place right he had named the wind-up store that would have left a legacy that would have ensured no measles forever um anyway old hag i ever credited as in the script i'm looking at okay and she at one point says now i'll turn that little mouse's dream into a nightmare phantasmic okay yes yeah um okay so i mean she's an old hag she could be sundowning and just making up words who knows is crone gender specific and can it not be can we i always think of it as enable everybody to be a crone yeah it's supposedly an

ugly old woman that's what a crone's definition is on this when i look it up okay oh dang sounds so much worse though crone just sounds like an old crank yeah yeah oddly maybe a little softer in a way um and i just like it i want men to have the ability to be old crones yeah this is my sounding yeah well you know it's well there's folklore too we could really get into the history of crones i suppose in folklore a crone is an old woman who may be characterized as disagreeable malicious or sinister in manner often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructive. So the crone is also an archetypal figure or a wise woman.

As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag. So there's a little bit of a history lesson here. That implies that they are different, that technically crones and hags, not the same thing. Yes, the word becomes further specialized as the third aspect of the triple goddess, popularized

by Robert Graves and subsequently in some forms of neo-paganism, particularly Wicca, in which she symbolizes the dark goddess, the dark of the moon, the end of the cycle, together with the mother crone, the light goddess, and the crone maiden. Wow, we really stumbled on some fun stuff here. This sounds great. This sounds like not negative crones at all. This is the crone maiden wow we really stumbled on some fun stuff here this sounds great this sounds like not negative crones at all this is fun crones mike you start reading it from a dusty old book that appeared in your hands i didn't see well yeah that sounds like the work of some some old crone to me wow look all i'm saying we get working on the script for uh crone versus, and then eventually

down the line you do Crone X Hag, a new empire, because eventually you just want to see them be friends. You want to see them hang out. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Best way, you Terminator 2. You flip it at some point. Yeah, of course.

He becomes good. I also, I was curious if anybody has called Trump an old Crone, and I did find the headline from this year, Crone backs former President Donald Trump. called trump an old crone and i did find the headline from this year crone backs former president donald trump what an old crone no for uh camden county republican chairman tom crone no oh no that's not quite yeah uh that's not a something related to neo-paganism that's not mother crone or the light goddess yeah that's not fun yeah yeah it's not as fun uh um anyway uh well yeah more crone info to come but uh so anyway they land on phantasmagoria they do so much stuff to this area to prepare it to do a big nighttime spectacular they drain the rivers of america they finally replaced the clay that was at the bottom of the rivers of America since

55 when they filled it first and then it drained. So they put a bunch of clay in there, which drained much more slowly. We just found this out about Submarine Voyage, too, that the leaking of Submarine Voyage is unbelievable. Rivers of America, I don't think as bad, but still pretty bad. And it was during that time that they replaced the clay with gunite so next time you're there no that's what's down there gunite gunite uh more facts to bore your group with uh you know that's gunite um then you get pushed into the river um So they fixed the river. Less draining.

They built that entire, that facility was not there, the shack or whatever you call it. Because what I didn't realize is that that's this giant high-tech facility that goes five stories down. Oh, my God. That's like a crazy vault there, even though we think it looks like a musty old shack. Every inch of it is different, you know, is computer equipment and lighting grids and also space to put the massive, massive show pieces and elevators that bring them up. You talk about this dragon thing and, you know, the dragon, there were dragon problems from the beginning and problems with other things the show used to have these big pinocchio marionettes that they stopped using because sometimes wires would snap and they just plummet down into their grave at the bottom of the like this this show i'm like i mean amazing that there weren't more problems in a way but the problems

that did occur are so massive in scale you got to give them credit for plowing through and getting it done night after night even though it's a this is a destructive show these are props that could like crush dozens of people under them i was going to mention the pinocchio marionettes because marionettes i've never seen those i feel like in the versions of phantasmic that i've seen i think they were gone by the like mid-2000s when i started going to disneyland but in the newer version there is a little the genie makes a little like mickey he turns he turns him into one yeah it's the same style and very pinocchio marionette and it's a nice little nod

yeah uh without having to build these these potentially rigorous props um they were kind of scary i remember they scared me because they have that day glow vibe yeah as a lot of things did in this show um everything like that i can go back back into history but like that that's if we just talk about like things that resonate with us about the show um the big car the snake that walks around pretty intense yes yeah yeah um that shoots like late it's got laser eyes maybe not lasers but like big light eyes that kind of scope the crowd kind of hypnotic oh yeah which is causes people yeah i don't think it's laser it's not blinding no they don't they don't fry audiences with lasers each night every night there's a lucky family that will be horribly scarred by our new nighttime production phantasmic

unless it gives them superpowers okay yeah that's it they could get fantastic ford yeah that would be fun um that stuff's cool the um the king louis and the apes and that that go by at some point uh all this day glow stuff because that also felt like uh look it wasn't new in the 90s obviously day glow was technology that we had but with uh batman forever and the buster rhymes put your hands where my eyes can see music video it felt like that we were living in a great time day glow wise and and not to discount cosmic bowling and to leave that out of it too black light right black light and black light paint i see i love that as a kid i loved all black light stuff might not even be the correct term is day glow right um that's a good question i know what you

meant but maybe it isn't um perhaps i don't know i'm seeing i'm seeing day glow paint that glows in the dark yeah well then that's probably an important word to say. An element of it. I feel like it's just gotten more elaborate as the show is seeing different iterations. Yeah, take a little paint and it looks like that's what you're talking about. Yeah, totally. Yeah, no, I was obsessed with this type of thing. Glowing in the dark and neon colors. Forget about it. That's one of my top five things I liked as a kid.

Wow. Neon in general. Whenever you got a box of crayonsons i'm sure i've said this before on the show whenever they added like five neon colors to your box of crayola crayons i lost my mind i loved it yeah and like because i feel like that was 90s when all of a sudden like you know what kids you got neon colors now i don't know like we found new colors between the colors they're brighter colors they have names with attitude this is a gift to your generation our scientists are crayola scientists have uncovered new colors they've been researching they've been in the mountains the crayola mountains and they found them and now we're making them into your crayons and like i just was like this is so like i definitely would use those colors first when I was I don't know coloring or drawing would you let me ask you this yes did you like it as you aged

and people started getting different colored pens what do you like like not just black or blue ink but like green or purple ink or of course I did I just I recently mentioned this when Griffin was here for a club three episode that I had one of those pens with the four different colors on it. I love the four different ones. But then when I was a kid, I would have a pen that had the 10 colors and it was a big thick pen. And you'd have, you ever see these, Scott? You remember these?

I guess so. And it would be like 10 colors and you just put like, click down which color you wanted. But the pen would obviously have to be big because it had all those different things of ink in there. Incredibly easy to destroy. Yes. Like they would break if you looked at them too hard. But that was, I had a big purple like metal one of these

and it was like my prized possession in like third or fourth grade. Wow. I don't know what happened to it, but it was. I know, I had a space pen at some point in like middle school that I lost and I was heartbroken. Space pen because you could write sleeping down.

Well, yeah, you'd write upside down. Yeah, I was heartbroken. Space pen because you could write sleeping down. Well, yeah, you could write upside down. Yeah, I was dead asleep. I would lucid dream right. A lying down is what I meant to say. I think I said sleeping down. Sleeping down. Yeah, in that case, if it gives you the ability to write while sleeping,

while sleeping down. When you're sleeping down. Which is, because I don't think, you know, there's sleepwalking, but who in their sleep writes? And that ability comes from the pen yeah was that different was that fun colors though or no it's just black ink all right so you weren't a fan of the fun color no i like the fun color therefore process of elimination you don't like fun colors jason he's a nazi let's see what he says uh did you have i specifically remember teachers though like losing

their shit on kids where like you can't use like green ink yeah there would be sometimes like always like specifically you shouldn't use anything fun it would be blue or black like what's going on what's going on with them what's their problem if you can read it what's the problem from a practical standpoint i suppose pink ink is hard to read yellow ink also hard to read yeah so i could see if you're grading like 30 papers and there's a bunch of pink ink on it you're like sure this is kids are writing in red ink and teachers like no i use the right another yes that's another legit concern if they're writing with red ink because you're not going to know because yeah you could be a kid what if you just

tried to fool the teacher and did the whole test and then just did the red and just gave yourself a hundred percent and an A plus I definitely fooled some teachers

that weren't all the sharpest for sure work yeah well you know that's the way to get them just put that grade on yourself

they'll get them every time yeah so that's yeah try that if you're in school right now if you're in elementary

school try that grade your own test in school right now, if you're in elementary school, try that. Grade your own test with a red pen and see what happens. Or in college. I don't know. Try it in college. A parent turning off the podcast. I thought these were good boys. They're giving cheating ideas.

Yeah. Back to the history of the show a little bit. The show cost $ 30 million at the time but to compare star tours i think cost like 32 to 35 million so we're spending attraction money yeah on a show uh there's also there's also all this infrastructure stuff to do because they have to tear and kind of like the terrace where you watch it i've never looked at numbers of how many people watch or can watch phantasmic um the area is meant for 6 000 people but i think can sometimes attract eight and i was trying to it feels like it some nights i'll say that yeah yes and that's the biggest

deterrent to not going to this or trying to you know what i like is like can i find some little corner kind of see some of it from the edge but then get out of there yeah beat the crowd out of there because yeah that is a and you got to get their way early to scope but it's it's though i love the show it's not something i'm willing to put the time into doing that yeah it's more i'll say that it's it's much more pleasant if you are staying in Anaheim, because then you can kind of like easily kind of slowly let the crowds pass a little, then gradually make your way back, make your way to a hotel or whatever.

But dealing with crowds, dealing with Southern California has some pretty cold nights a lot of the year, some pretty cold nights a lot of the year. Some pretty, like, chilly nights. And so dealing with that and then to get back to the parking garage and then drive back to Burbank. It is such a Jason concern, though. It is! It's tiring! I think, though, Southern California,

we're really, like, we have it so good weather-wise. Now we're gonna, it's chilly some nights. It is chilly. It's too dry out here. The chilliness. And it's not exactly a phantasmic problem. It's chilly at night in Orlando, too, sometimes.

Yeah, but it's humid. More so, I'd say. And it's warmer. Is it warmer, you think? Well, they say, there was an LA Times infographic about this where it's like, oh, 50 degrees out here feels a lot colder because it's drier. There's not as much of a moisture in the air. I'm willing to believe that.

I'm willing to entertain that. Say, Jason, you want to see Fantasmic tonight? I don't know. The dry cold. If it were a wet cold, maybe. Maybe some of that mist will get on me. But that mist is going to be cold if it gets on you. That's not really.

Are you saying that because you have to stop and stand, or just in general, at Disneyland, are you concerned with the chilly nights? Is it just because you're at, because sometimes if you're stationary. Chilly nights, this summer at Disneyland. You get colder if you're standing. That's a good point.

But if you're roaming through Disneyland at night, generally, it's not so bad. I think if you're roaming through and you're going on indoor attractions, you probably don't notice it as much. I see. If you're just standing outside in the middle of all these people, you know. Yeah. It can get chilly.

When you think it's chillier, though, do you think it's chillier seeing a world of color? I bet it is, because there's more open air. There's a lot of mist off World of Color, I feel like. A lot of mist, seeing World of Color. I bet it is because there's more open air. There's a lot of mist off World of Color. A lot of mist, a lot of projections, but then I feel like there's more things

in the way of the full like windy, like gusts that you might get. I feel like, yeah, DCA is gustier. I think DCA is gustier. That's my premise

that I share with Jason. This and the food, what is with you guys and wind these days? The food court at CityWalk is so windy It is crazy windy Can I ask you this? Sorry, we're going back to CityWalk

Go ahead, yeah I've never experienced this wind in my life Really? I let it slide in the episode Are you sure you wasn't just windy that day? Did you see his mouth open like mine? It's always windy up there It's always windy

Yes No matter what time of year city food is always windy or 90 of the time it's all right it was what i shouldn't be opening it up now but as it was happening in the moment i'm like here's a very mike and bison old crone kind of thing i'm shocked by this if this is old old crone behavior consider me the oldest crone uh it's always windy up at City Food. I don't know why. I used to go out there for Dollar Fish Taco Tuesday nights, and it was so cold up there

eating those Dollar Fish Tacos. That's a five-timer, and sometimes you go up and there's people working up there. That's another five-timer. Working up there. You talk about how there's people who go up on business lunches. That's something that's come up a zillion times. Well, there's plenty of business travelers staying at those fine hotels. He's right.

When he's right, he's right. Now, chilliness at Disneyland... I've also gone up there and done creative work in the past. I'm not as concerned with chilliness as Disneyland is, Jason, is, but we are in lockstep on the windiness of city food. It seems like you're a little bit concerned with DCiness is disneyland as jason is but we we are in lockstep it seems like you're a little bit it seems like you're a little bit concerned with dca gustiness well i'm just saying it is gustier and i think you could probably get chillier and get hit with the gusts more aggressively at disney's california adventure during a world of color than phantasmic uh but that's just like honestly that's a guess that's something we're going to need to test out in the

next year it's a it's a gust guess it's a gust yes i'm gust a guess. That's something we're going to need to test out in the next year. It's a Gus guess. It's a Gus guess. I'm gusting on Gus's here. Gus's here. Our guest today is Gus Guest. Gus Guest, you mother. He's going to take some guesses about Gus. Son of a.

Look, we need to do more work in year, what is this, seven of this podcast on the gustiest parts of the parks. We don't have good gust maps when it comes to our home parks, like Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure. People leave. They go to these parks unequipped. They don't come with the proper gust breakers. Exactly. They're thrown out to the elements. They need that.

To the chilly California nights. Yes. That is a big change from big change from orlando light you just throw a light sweater in your bag you know day and night not that different much of the year although it's one of these it's one of these coastal things because i go to i go to disney world i'm like this weather is bonkers but you guys grew up on that side of the country so you're like it's perfect florida weather, notoriously perfect. Nothing more comforting than some old-fashioned hurricane weather.

You know, I've been there where it's been on and off rain and 10-minute stints for the entire day. Just wear a sweater. Duck in a shop. That's the fun of it. Check out the wearers. Now, that's fun, but gustiness? This you must come equipped. You must plan.

What clothes will protect me from the gusts? Now, you must deal with the power of California gusts. Oh, my God. What if there's a new dragon? I guess not a dragon, but the new bad guy or character is gusting at the audience, not shooting flames. Well. The gusts are hitting the audience now i

mean that'd be evil and it would probably also hit the standby line when that tiana ride opens yeah oh you know what it's also like an ingenious thing too because you would you would sell light sweaters in all the gift shops around the rivers of america so everybody would race into the gift shops to get a little light sweater and purchase at a disneyland light sweater so now there's they're making hand over fist money with the different people that are just a little chilly they were exploiting people running into the brand new critter co-op store critter co-op they're running into the general store the new haunted mansion gift shop that'll open this year all these new places are just designed to sell new Disneyland light sweaters. These motherfuckers. Did you guys age 28 years since the CityWalk saga ended?

Now we're concerned with shawls. Well, Disney is concerned with selling us shawls. But it is always, look, it's just practical to have a light sweater when you go anywhere. Or a sweatshirt. It could be a sweatshirt as well. It could be a sweatshirt if you're going to be a young person. If you're going to be younger, it's a sweatshirt it could be a sweatshirt as well it could be a sweatshirt if you're gonna be a young person if you're gonna be younger it's a sweatshirt yeah yeah so if you're is are you saying that sweatshirt is a young person's term it's cooler than a cardigan these kids in their

sweater sweatshirt and sneaker and uh yes their air what's his names what's that basketball player i couldn't tell you i can't keep up with the kids. If you're sort of in college, you wear blue jeans and you wear your sneakers and stuff. But after a certain point, you become an adult and you switch to slacks. What are you talking about? You wear your loafers. Blue jeans? You wear your loafers.

Blue jeans is a college term? Like dungarees. Hang on. So as an adult, I'm supposed to start saying the brand names? Blue jeans is a phrase I retire as a young man? I don't know what's being said anymore. Look, if you don't understand it, I'm not going to explain it at this point. Because that's just a difference of, I don't know, how we were raised or how we are maturing.

With morals. In a lot of ways, it's just differences in how we're maturing as adults, I think. The way in which we speak. Abandoning childish things, like the phrase blue jeans and sweatshirts. That's right. Sweatshirts and blue jeans are for young people. That's all I know. That's what I know as an adult an adult man podcast the riot hosted by one man in his late

30s and two who are mentally in their mid-80s but mostly the two mostly wear joggers it's up for some reason they switch from slacks to that they haven't worn jeans they haven't worn blue jeans in years. All right. I'm going to play. How about we play a clip? Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Please.

Let's see a clip. Please. When the show is on its way to opening, they tease it on what I would have to imagine is an Easter special. And there is a tour being given to a group by one of the Disneyland plaid-wearing tour guides. And one of the kids in the tour group is Home Improvement's Taryn Noah Smith. This is one that I strongly remember seeing. Didn't see it for decades, but remembered it in a scared way. And I think you'll understand why when i play the clip so know that the scene

as it begins is uh between youngest home improvement child tara noah smith uh who today is a submersible expert apparently uh now you know that uh he gives his life to submarines now uh and this tour guide but will she remain a tour guide for long? I can't. I wish I could see it now. Ooh, careful. Wishes do come true at Disneyland. I didn't come here to be careful. Oh my God, she turned into Maleficent. Very well. You have been warned. She turned into Disney sing-along Maleficent with the shinier face. Not as shiny as the Disney sing-along maleficent with like the shinier fate not as shiny as the disney

sing-along maleficent but close it is a little bit shiny it's definitely in that family yeah yeah was i particularly afraid of maleficent in the cartoon no but you live action this maleficent yeah you give her shiny green and then uh digital red eyes. This sequence is terrifying. I definitely remember watching this. He does a big Macaulay, I said it wrong. How is it? Macaulay. Everybody yelled at me about

this one. You said like Macaulay. Macaulay or something you said. Macaulay or something. Macaulay there. You said it like Mater would say it. Macaulay Con. That's sort of how you see it like Mater would say it. Hey Macaulay Calkins. I turned into.

Scott's such a hick. Listen to him say Macaulay. Hey it's Macaulay there. He's got the same vocal tics as Mater the tow truck.

Tow Mater. Finally got it done. He's got an angle on Scott. Scott is such a dumb fuck hick. He thinks you say Macaulay.

It's Macaulay C mccally he don't eat well yeah scott scratches his butt scratches his rear and says mccally all day get her done get her done scott um mccauley i believe mccauley uh so uh anyway then uh he then it becomes night and he's like, all of Fantasmic is happening to him. And then Maleficent chases him around the park. It's a terrifying little scene. If you take these park specials at their word and you think this is what's actually going to happen. Right. This is a nightmare.

And I did. I took every single. Splash Mountain is going to take a I did. I took every single. Splash Mountain is going to take a full two minutes to do the drop like Ernest. And I'm going to be hunted down for sport by Maleficent. Uh-huh. Yeah. No, I didn't see this when I was a kid. Thank goodness.

Because it would have really colored my feelings about the show. But any time. And what's weird also about it is these specials feel very... They don't feel like a movie. They're shot kind of like... They're not like a home video, but they're not shot on some film. They look like it's shot on video.

So that almost lends itself to feeling like it's real, more so even than a movie, which you can articulate it as a kid, that you know what a movie looks like and feels like. But almost there's some distance between you and a movie versus this, which is shot on video, which to me as a kid would make stuff like that feel more real. Like the news. Like the news.

Yes. Right. Like they, yeah, they just pointed a camera at this. They didn't do anything. I'm glad. We were thankful. We're like, oh, I'm glad on the East Coast and the Midwest, far away from this hell park where child actors

keep getting comeuppance after comeuppance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Individual kids might be victimized by specific Disney villains.

Right. It could happen to you. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm just glad. I think they have targets on their back because they're celebrity kids.

I was always hoping that the anonymity would make it so Maleficent wouldn't even see me. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that. And she didn't attack you when you went to Disneyland. No, I can't attack. Unless I have repressed this greatly. I don't remember Maleficent attacking me. Okay, that's good.

Okay. You were comforted in early, one thing about early Fantasmic, the old hag had like a pretty comical like character head on. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, she transforms from having a regular face to having like a big Muppet face. For sure. Like hopefully fire, like it's mostly fireproof cladding.

Yeah, I hope that's a concern with all the wardrobe in this show they used to soak all the costumes in gasoline but they had to stop doing it so it's fun if it catches on fire yeah yeah um there is a point where the the mickey i believe it's when he confronts the dragon and the the very old version holds up a sword, and you can see the hose of sparks. Wow. You can see the hose that is probably filled with... Sparks.

Sparks. Lighter. Spark fluid. Spark fluid. Shoot sparks out of a hose. He's always, you know, there's been, God knows how many Mickeys

are actually on that island, but I... A thousand? Oh, God. There's so many. They keep coming. They keep reproducing. The one has the gloves, the Spark gloves.

That has been a mainstay, I feel like, on this show. You know what? You bring up, Mikey mentioned the sing-along songs video, the Disneyland Fun sing-along songs, which is our first Club 3 episode. And I think that ends with a pre-phantasmic mickey shoot of the sparks from his fingers right i think this was something they had this is something they could do maybe for commercials or uh very special events but they made it part of

nightly entertainment and as we're talking about maybe we can start getting into the show and just call out moments that we love. I mean, this is great. And the music builds to it perfectly where it's like, the music has so many great, like it's dynamics and hits. And I like that that's like, dun, dun, dun.

And it lets you go one arm, two arm. They go up one more time, sparks. And Mickey shoots sparks. And we discover that mickey is a god yeah that's right it always delights me the spark gloves yes no matter how much they like change the lighting or the projection to be like crisper and brighter like spark gloves still still is as great as when the show started i feel like two things that two things that I like, well, I like seeing Mickey do a lot of things, but the two things that always pop out in my mind of what I like to see the costumed Disneyland Mickey do

is shoot sparks and drum for real. And he does that. He hasn't done that in a parade lately, but when there's a performer that's a drummer and they're wearing the Mickey outfit and they just go crazy on the drums on a big float, am delighted and it's pretty equal with the sparks well let me throw something at you yeah both that's how they that's how they up the game oh wow they're shooting he's drumming and shooting holy shit while he does it now is that safe no no let's let's give it a try wow only one way to find out

and it should be one of those like neil peart uh like a hundred different drum all around or let's you know didn't i think tommy lee had a mechanism where he'd like float above the audience yeah yeah and they're all it's like he's trapped in a drum cage travis barker did it on a blink tour once maybe well so all the great drummers have done it. So why not include the greatest drummer, Mickey? Wow, that would rule.

Let me ask you this, Mike. Do you like the walk-around Mickey? Do you like the one that can blink? Do I like? Yes. You like blinking, Mickey? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know that there's a Mickey I don't like that walks around. Well, sure. But even blinking, well, I remember I went to the talking Mickey. Yeah, when did I know? One with his arm around Minnie.

Well, I don't like it as much. I don't like him as much. But yeah, yeah, I like the Blinky one fine. I wish the talking one was back. They retired the talking Mickey for some reason. Yeah, they retired him. They put him on that island with all the Mickeys. We don't know how many are out there.

They put him out there to pasture. Welcome to Mickey Island. How do you eat, you ask? Quill, rats, squirrels, and perhaps other Mickeys. Good luck. The original nightmare mice that were from the ice skating show that Walt just bought a mouse costume from, with the holes in the face, those are out on Tom Sawyer Island. They're still out there.

They're on the island. We've been trying to find a way to kill ourselves. They skitter if you go out there in the daytime and you see something just in the corner of your eye, but you look and there's nothing there. Right. That's the mutant ones. Right. Mickey's Birthdayland.

Mickey's out there. Yeah. They're all out there. But yeah, it's uh basic yeah so they retired the one that talked that i met in disney world where i met him in his dressing room wow yeah well you so i'm glad you caught him in that window then well right because i i was upset when i went to the city hall to complain that initially oh that's didn't get the talking mickey yes right but now so yeah i like blinking i like talking i like stationary face as well dear city hall mickey doesn't drum while shooting sparks

well how am i supposed to keep coming to the park until this is a reality yeah yeah i've complained about any sort of thing uh can i ask this i meant to bring this up earlier um were your guys's family because i was texting with my dad about like were we did we camp out a lot for shows or parades you know what i mean like setting up well before because he's like oh your mother was always on like getting a good spot for the parade getting a good and i was like but we wouldn't be there like an hour and 90 minutes before. And he's like, no,

like half hour. That was the most we ever. I think I'm similar. I feel like my mom would be willing to do it. And if it was something new like this, I bet we camped out for a little bit for this. Yeah. And only my mom,

dad and sister out. I think there was the other time you're remembered was, and we'll talk about the phantasmic in Florida down the line, but that loading in the early days, I think took a lot of time to really load in and out people as they were getting up to speed on that one. I'll tell you what, it is a thing that I do not ever do today.

This is, will I get back there? If there's shows i feel like uh my son would really enjoy then possibly i could see getting back to that point but for now a camp out it's been decades oh yeah i don't know well i mean like there they have the thing where you upcharge like we did the the um oh that was great electrical yeah so we did you eat a blue bite they you know you pay a bunch of money and then you have like a little spot they give you oh sure so that's sometimes a little treat you can do they do that with world of color and stuff i don't think we that's not especially when you go so often it's not something

i make a point to do okay but once in a while and if it's like a Mickey and the Magical Map or whatever that show was called that was in the theater with seats, that's more of a like, well, we can go early and sit down for 45 minutes. Yeah, easier with seats, but those seated venues, they may not open.

Well, it depends. For much longer. It depends if they're doing like three or four shows in the day. I feel like you can get in there a little early. But if they're like, I forget, what's the Little Mermaid show

at Hollywood Studios? I feel like that's running so many shows per day. Well, that's been down for a while. Sure, but I'm just saying I think they run that show more often.

Oh, yeah. They run that a lot. Than some other shows. So it depends. But yeah, no, especially in a home park, you always have that feeling, well, I can always do it next time.

And maybe that's wrong. Maybe that's a wrong instinct. But I do feel like I have it with a lot of things. You never know when something will catch on fire and then they'll change it forever. Go down for a year. Yeah, yeah. Somehow Waterworld hasn't caught on fire that much.

Sure, that's true. Just one character on purpose every show. Let's talk about some stuff that we like in the show. Speaking of fire, fire on water. Now, they didn't invent this. This is possible. This has happened in the movies. But had it ever happened in front of me, I don't know.

And at that scale, it's pretty unbelievable. I mean, it's second only to the projections onto water in terms of like that's possible uh blew my kid mind really loved it and you could feel that mystery you could feel that heat very cool feeling the heat yeah i mean i'm trying to remember when i even maybe it was like six flags stunt show or something when you feel the heat like as the batman stunt show i saw in the early 90s where it's like they blew up a barrel of gasoline or something and it was like oh my god like that really will scare the shit out of you as a kid yeah we want our shows to stink yes our shows you can smell the eye heaven or yes barely a show um but yeah that's the the flames on the water is pretty crazy that feels like that feels

like end times to me that feels like hell is on earth now like it shouldn't be possible i understand how it works i think i do at least but it doesn't feel right it feels magical fire when in water my god yes i know that the oil tankers spill oil and it catches on fire i know how that works but i'm just saying it's like seeing a live oil tanker shouldn't be right it must have been tough in the wake of exxon valdez right yes hey to get so much dawn soap up there to clean off those animals um yeah i just uh uh i will even i guess i should have said this earlier back i also like when i went to disneyland for the first time because in Disney World, this is its own thing. Yes.

So, when I was a kid, that's what we saw it in its own, like, little theater thing. In an amphitheater that they specially built. Yeah. So, they did create a new area for this. And the plan, I believe, is to talk about this down the road. Yes. Second gate question mark. Yes.

I'm just saying it for context. So, like, part of it was just almost when i was going here for the first time with like noticing all of the fun like oh this shit all these lights are here and they're hidden here and i didn't notice that that was a big rig for the whole show oh yeah so like later like almost like putting it together after the fact not realizing maybe when i first went that phantasmic is just it's right here and all this stuff is kind of hidden in the background so you're there like much older and not even realizing that's how they do thinking like it's you know you know it is this like

sectioned off amphitheater right and then you're in it you're everybody's walking through that amphitheater all day and walking on the show pieces you're on the ships it's all happening and then they uh in a matter of hours they convert so i should have said earlier but yeah even just before any of the actual scenes itself it's just like i was i thought that was cool that it's all like that's hiding in plain sight i have a question on a similar note to that yeah um the uh when the okay there's like king louis and then there's a portion of the show that i call rafts of love and that is when the romantic sequences go it's it's beauty and the beast and uh i think at various times been little mermaid or uh tangled um i and you hear very adult contemporary versions of the love songs from the movies

are those converted tom sawyer island rafts or or those their own vehicles because they certainly resemble them oh yeah do they switch those out during the day or not that is a good question I hadn't even thought of that but maybe I mean they repurpose so much stuff yeah but is that a big headache to flip those and like put glowy roses on them or whatever. Yeah, they have a lot of fiber optics on them now, I feel like. I feel like I always saw those as separate barges. They might be. And maybe, I can't picture the Tom Sawyer Island ones, maybe those look woodsier, folksier.

So I might be wrong on that. That's just one of those, like, is it in plain sight questions I had that I don't know. Another one that i was like wow this was in here pretty early in in the old old video ariel is sitting on a rock with flippers i don't know in the new one she is still doing that uh-huh um i don't know i saw i said there's yeah is that in the that's a good question i have where is it just ariel with legs she has flippers i think i'm pretty sure she has but i'd have to go double check that um i like the i like the um it's in the newer one is the

aladdin and jasmine with the carpet yes and the mist and stuff like a mist on the lake that is that's really cool that looks great yes when they i think especially when they flip it to um less projection like almost like the mist goes away and there's more like stuff on the island oh i see what you're saying yeah you're so it's like a good reveal almost it's not really revealing anything but it's like it yeah just the it's putting more focus on the carpet and the performers i suppose um but yeah that looks really cool um um i really like the pink elephants sequence yeah i like that we have kind of a scary psychedelic moment in the

show uh it's maybe the coolest use of the missed screens because they think you know if you're you're it's like you're not meant to like stare at anything on the missed screens for a long time so it's better if it's more abstract and cuttier uh and it's in crazy designs and patterns and that's what that sequence is completely but what i really like about it uh i've always really loved the music in that section because i find it to be such like funny meathead 90s prog it's so like the burgeoning pink elephants they play which is very guitar heavy um i mean you'll see it's just like so bright it feels very like pro tools core uh and let me give you a taste to see what I mean. They're like guitar,

like guitar monies. The guitars are playing. I'm going to go through a little solo and get to this one little part yeah it's that's really funny yeah silly the dumbest like guy thinks he's cool rock that's a real dad playing guitar moment i'm busting out this rocking version of Pink Elephant's song. I'll pick a term. Same aesthetic as all the Marvel superhero island music. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Through your foot jacks. Double guitar. Yeah, you're in the zone of like Power Rangers rock. I think it kind of sounds in a way like kind of like Steve Vai type. Like, you know, get to say triani like guitar 90s guitar virtuoso music uh it's like really technically impressive but it's also like generic yes it's also very generic everybody playing is fantastic but it is produced like so yeah blandly but it also sounds like stuff that i listened to to like

sure with the express purpose of like take me back to 1992 uh so i i kind of love here and i love that it's never gotten fully un90s um yeah and on that note the music let's talk music a little bit i love i love this theme i love hearing it well out in the in the uh you know in the esplanade uh i've i listened to it like the specifically if you get it as the exit music on spotify because you can listen to the you could go to spotify and get the entire 25 minutes score of the entire show yes right there is a lot to get through. But I like playing just the exit music, which I guess is as people walk out.

That's what the word exit means. And I just, it's just such a, it's got some inherent 90s, but also very classic and so bombastic. And so if you're talking instrumental music in the parks, it's one of the pieces that moves me and transports me there the most yeah it's it's one of those songs and i'm maybe i'm misremembering or i've implanted a memory in my brain that doesn't actually that shouldn't be there but i remember hearing this seeing the show for the first time and then us humming the song the whole trip the i don't remember which year it was which trip it was where we saw this for the first time but it was one of those where we were like humming the phantasmic

theme and it's just i don't know top five top ten of any of these at least instrumental maybe pieces of music in general i would say and the only theme parks and the time only i mean maybe when soren after this and then after that music that like you hear, but Soren, I don't even think the first time we did it, we were like humming it

in the park even though it's really memorable. The only other time now in recent memory is Sinbad in Tokyo DisneySea where we were like humming the song

the rest of the trip. Immediately. It was immediately memorable and we were just like singing it for the rest yeah all those so many days or whatever we were there how many was it was it three and a half was it four i don't remember how many days we spent well however many it was we were singing let's not go back to that we don't want to go back to that um but yeah so so but i but i'm pretty sure phantasmic and that are the two things i remember

the most when music that we're hearing for the first time in the park like just sticks with you immediately and it's like i it just like makes you feel like i'm on an adventure yeah this is the little theme of my adventure right uh it's the star of the show yeah it's the it's the best thing in the whole show full of good stuff yes i don't think there's no not got anything else but if it wasn't that if it wasn't tied together by that magical fanfare yeah i don't think i don't think phantasmic is phantasmic and maybe doesn't last as long without the music yeah i think you're right because they've done other like they've done other great shows where there's not necessarily where the music's fine but it's

not as as memorable as that but like nothing i mean maybe years before we were doing this podcast and i hadn't seen fully phantasm the only the thing i below there's a dragon or mickey yeah but the song that's the big that's the fireworks of the show is the sound of the like the song what the song makes you feel a certain way yeah with incredible speaker i mean the sound setup of this thing is is unbelievable especially that it stays hidden all day right and comes out at night uh let of the like chiller version of it which is that yeah yeah the exit music it does feel like it could be in some sort of like industrial tape to teach fast food workers how to clean the equipment thousand percent and that's

what i love about i chase that kind of music i understand that's exactly i want that's what i want to hear all the time it relaxes me so much when cleaning the fry cooker at mcdonald's make sure you will often find find some old video just some arbitrary thing it's just yeah it's for kmart internal use only and you're like damn that song what is up with it goes hard yeah yes uh, it's for Kmart internal use only. And you're like, damn, that song. What is up with it? It goes hard. Yeah. Yes. So it's such a common occurrence.

When you're working at Kmart, make sure not to wear your blue jeans. Make sure to wear loafers and khaki pants. Leave your young person clothes at home. You want to be treated as an adult. Bring a light sweater as well, because sometimes the Kmart gets chilly, but we like to keep our guests on their toes by keeping the temperature. Leave the blue jeans at home. The blue light is what's the focus here at Kmart gets chilly, but we like to keep our guests on their toes. Leave the blue jeans at home. The blue light is what's the focus here at Kmart.

The exciting world of Kmart. So, let me say this. Without saying the name, there is, I had a conversation once that changed my, that kind of warped me on Fantasmic forever. When I was talking to somebody who is a music industry person and also a big Disney Parks fan, and when talking to a music industry person, I want to ask stories about David Foster, who's come up on the show recently.

80s mega producer. Why did he come? Oh, because of his Alan Th alan thick collaborations a couple months ago some people have reached out like really wanting to nerd out about uh david foster with me and i appreciate you do it anytime i am available for david foster talk uh any and all times uh but i i asked about david foster and this person said boy well if i were david foster i would be pissed about phantasmic and i said what does that mean and he said winter games and i said i of course know what you mean winter games the 1988

winter olympics theme performed by david foster for his beloved canada as they were in calgary that year um what i'm gonna play this this is not a rip-off, but I think you could see, tell me if you disagree with me, but ever since I heard that, I am like, I think we're at least in the same tone. These are at least in the same genre of music, I would say. So here is a little bit of David Foster's Winter Games. that's funny

really those hits the hits the hits really a big dynamic and then kind of like glistening like the river of piano going through it and if i played the whole thing i think like the the movements of it interesting i'm not making any rip-off accusations i'm happy that there's room in this world for both of these pieces of music i just wonder if they were inspired by it feels like a demo of phantasmic or something yeah yeah yeah uh-huh well that's that's a knock on the lush orchestration of winter games but i'll let that slide to the song winter game um what i would recommend either way whether or not you see musical similarities there here's what i'm going to recommend to any and all listeners and to you guys you go on a road trip

you're on a little getaway that you're really amped for you start that road trip with this playlist phantasmic exit music bruce healy david foster winter games and then i i believe see if this playlist, Fantasmic Exit Music, Bruce Healy, David Foster, Winter Games. And then I, I believe, see if you go with me that I, I think that this is of the same,

maybe, I don't know what to call this. I was thinking on the way, maybe is it like triumph rock? Is that maybe the genre of this music? It's kind of athletics. Yeah.

I mean, Mickey isn't in the Olympics, but it's Olympic level feats. And I think part of all that, I think number three of that playlist could be a very famous sports song. Well. John Tesh. I mean, it's got the hits. It does.

It's more hits. It reminds you of the the glory of victory of uh the defeat of enemies like old crones and i don't know the trailblazers if you're rooting against them um great snl sketch about this song yes a forte tim robinson sketch yeah yeah um yeah so uh anyway highly put that playlist together that's good uh uh yeah and also and you know if you if you get the john tesh live version on spotify then you get a little bit of the basketball sample at the beginning yeah because you know he tells the story of how he oh i've seen it yeah yes of course a great play yeah he left himself an answering machine message. He plays it, stirring to hear round ball rock live.

I think that's all part. Whatever the genre is called, triumph rock, I love it. So there's my little musical tear. What have we missed? The big changes. I want to highlight one moment from the old, old version of the show that i don't know that i've ever seen live there was a giant ursula float puppet thing like a bit she was a big barge she was a big barge she's lit up for maybe 40 seconds and it looked expensive you know what is she inflatable because the arms wave but it might

be in an inch like where it's kind of being the arms are being selectively blown so it looks like she's like singing or casting a spell i thought it was cool i mean she was a big that was a big villain at the time a recent villain and i you know what? Some of the magic of Fantasmic, and for me at that age, is we're getting my movie, the recent movies that have hit me as a kid. Oh, yeah. Because we grew up in this Disney Renaissance era. But they weren't able to put in permanent attractions yet. So we're getting Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast gets in there fast, too.

And it didn't in significant permanent ways for a long time so uh so yes uh that's great i think that was gone by 97 that's in the phantasmic uh problems category yeah continuously broke down um ultimately was replaced by not replaced because it took a long time but uh just as kind of a spiritual replacement they did big flotsam and jetsums her uh eels is that what they are yeah uh and uh which i never knew how they worked but i saw like a uh kind of a diagram of it uh that those were run on jet skis they it was like a big like a big mask that they put over a jet ski uh i guess similar to that scary thing pulling the disneyland paris boat and uh i mean imagine that's your job you're driving gigantic eels around via jet ski cool yeah well the jet ski i mean i recently we saw the the purge show at universal

at horror nights with jet like neon jet skis and i would imagine i mean that's cool too because that you get to be more showcased now you're the guy or whoever the the person driving a neon jet ski but be hauling a hauling an eel behind you or next to you that'd be awesome yeah um anyway i mean in the cross section i'll try to post that somewhere is so crazy um the uh these however capsized all the time bumped into each other all the time these did not last very long yeah it's saying something though that like they were they've always tried very ambitious stuff in like limited space for fantastic and there's been technically a lot of troublesome stuff be it like the pyro or the dragon or ursula ursula or the eels but it is it's good that they keep trying new things and iterating new things. I think one of the

interesting things might be a short comment. As the show is going on, I feel like more and more is taken over by missed projection. Yeah, true. And all of and the like, you know, the whatever

what is the projecting perfectly onto the wall? What is the- Oh, like how they do with the castle and stuff? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, thank you. There's a lot of that, and I don't, well, I don't know. I mean, I'm just, like, tired of it. Yeah.

I think we've kind of- It's been used a lot, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a little bit of clutter in the Fantasmic Context. And you'll be happy to know that, you know, the Pirates of the Caribbean was on the sailing ship Columbia for a while. I believe Peter Pan coming back in the new version. Your favorite. The return of Peter.

Pinocchio is still, the maquettes are still gone. The marionettes are still gone. We haven't seen the new show. Maybe there's Pan's back. The maquettes are still going. The marionettes are still going. We haven't seen the new show. Maybe there's pans back. The maquettes are back. My little puppet boys are back. A little boys that don't want to grow up are back. And puppet boys are back.

That should be the tagline of the billboards going down the internet. Puppet boys and boys that don't want to grow up are back. Thank God. Thank God. What can we do? Certainly, we can't move on from this I get Look other people don't feel this way

Other people are not creeped out by Peter Pan As I am I just added a new area in Disney Sea I just I don't know But I guess I'm being very age picky Here I am upset with you guys For being obsessed with breezes and shawls.

Yeah. I guess I don't want you to be. I just want you to be your age. You see, just enjoy the age that you're at. Yeah, but you're the boy who never grew up. Are we? Yeah, exactly. I am not that.

We're like Peter Pan's parents. That's really what Jason and I are like. We're Peter, what's Robin Williams' name in Hook? Peter Banning. Peter Banning. Banning with a B. But he's Peter. He's not the parents, right?

He's Peter. Yes, he is Peter. Does he have parents? Do we see his parents in that movie? I don't remember. I don't know. I don't think so. No, I don't think you do. Here's my question. It's called Fantasmic and this is the closest you have to a fantasia show or ride oh i forgot to say and that was an idea kind of pretty there was river haunt then it was is there some like we do phantasm phantasia live right show clips play live live music and it kind of grew out of that so that's at the base of it but um um but yeah they show you know there's clips from fantasia miss there's the churnabog stuff but it's kind of

mixed in with um like monstro there's a clip of monstro whatever there's all on the projection but but you get mickey and his fantasia sorcerer's apprentice outfits yes and that's the closest yeah that's like there's never been a i mean there's really never been a Mickey ride, but you do, it's, I guess that's probably, it's like the closest thing is as a mashup of Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia in some ways. That's like the kind of climax of it in a lot of ways. And it's kind of interesting. Like, I kind of think it's interesting to mash two movies up. Steve and Willie, two in there, pirating Mark Twain.

Yeah, and obviously there's a ton of movies but also like in my mind the primaries the things you think of are Mickey and his outfit and Maleficent Dragon which are from two separate Disney movies so I think more

mashup shows like that are good ideas potentially sure I don't know we could brainstorm real quick I don't know

two things Peter Pan and Pinocchio perhaps there used to be a lot more send that back to the cardboard I don't know what two things uh peter pan and pinocchio perhaps i there used to be a lot i don't know take this song there's peter pan and he's fight like monstro is fighting peter pan that's interesting um i just want i can we let's just match up oh yeah peter gets turned into a puppet boy. How about that? Peter Pan is now... Oh, we found a way to worsen the... And he's got strings, but he still wants to fly.

All you gotta do is draw those ventriloquist lines under his mouth, and now I'm even more out than usual. That's pretty good. There used to be a lot more Pinocchio in this show, admittedly. How about this for a mashup go ahead going really small characters the rescuers uh meet uh the great mouse detective okay all right so kind of around the same time periods i feel like right at least have first

more realistic mice meeting up. Well, let me ask you this question. Will the mice be to scale? Will they be tiny mice? Because it'll be hard to, because the rescuers and the great mouse detective are actually the sizes of mice in the movies. Mickey's more of an anthropomorphic.

For a live theme park show, it might be hard if they were to scale. That's a good thought alright you're thinking yeah and if you you know if you're at a distance like across the river

but for a motion picture where you can zoom in do some close ups so you're talking about a movie maybe too yeah now I'm just caught on that

the great mouse detective meets the rescuers meets the rescuers okay alright what do they go do they save somebody or I guess there's

there's a some sort of a mystery to be solved and a rescue that need to be enacted at the same time. Well, somehow Radigan has returned.

And that's the opening crawl. Yeah, that's the opening. That's the opening crawl. Did they kill Radigan at the end of the Great Mouse Detective?

I feel like he gets tossed off much like Moriarty in the... It's like a Gaston. It's like a generic we said but again as with palpatine that was a fall to the death that turned out to not be true so right yes we could be in somehow territory they do kill a lot of the villains off at the end of these movies

yeah but in a way that you don't see right you don't see the splat the kids don't see the splat yeah yeah which isn't too satisfying If you really If you hate Gaston If you hate Rattigan Right right I want to know I want to see a corpse Scar gets eaten At the end of Lion King

By the hyenas Right Yeah That's sort of what's implied But you meet his son Later on You meet Scar's son later Isn't that like a

TV show Or a Direct to DVD Oh maybe I don't know Scar's son I believe it Scar's bastard child Yeah yeah But does he talk about Isn't that like a TV show or a directed DVD? Oh, maybe. I don't know. Scar's son? I don't believe it.

Scar's bastard child? Yeah, yeah. But does he talk about- Oh, that's the title. Great. Now, yes, that rings a bell now. Yeah, Scar's bastard child. Does he talk about how his dad was eaten, though? I hope he-

I don't know. I got to look into all of this. Hmm. I was going to keep talking, but I had to sneeze, and then it didn't come in. Oh, no. Now I think it's coming again. I may have to sneeze anyway. I'm trying to fight it. Okay. I'm going to sneeze. Oh, there had to sneeze, and then it didn't come in. Now I think it's coming again. I may have to sneeze anyway.

I'm trying to fight it. Okay, I'm going to sneeze. Oh, there it is. All right, I did it. Okay. It's fine. Everything's fine. It's amazing that doesn't happen more often.

I was just thinking that this is crazy. A lot of mid-show sneezes. That the adrenaline is pumping so much during the show that rarely do I ever have to sneeze. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm in fight mode or whatever. It's so high octane, yes. Yeah, no, sneezes are weakness, I say.

Yeah, you would think we were editing that. And we feel so strong. Sure, yeah. It's like we've all got, I mean, we do, you know, Mickey doesn't drum

with spark gloves, but we are podcasting and shooting sparks out of our fingers a lot. Of course, yeah, yeah. Of course. It's weird we don't film it, actually. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah. Of course. It's weird we don't film it, actually. It's pretty exciting.

What have we missed about this thing? You know, we've... Okay, so... Yes, go ahead. We've already alluded to it, but if you're not seeing the show, it absolutely ruins Disneyland at night if you're trying to get from point A to point B,

that's around adventure land, frontier land. But then it sucks a lot of people out of it. That is true too. But it is something, if you are going to see it, go early, see it and stake out a place or do some sort of dining package. But if you are not seeing Fantasmic, avoid at all costs.

Avoid New Orleans Square. It is hard to get around make sure that you have done uh you know pirate saundered mansion anything in that direction the entire west of the park make sure that you have cleared it out yes uh and hopefully tomorrowland becomes a ghost town stick to batuu or tomorrowland but then don't but youuu. But don't exit that one way. Batuu is empty at night. No one's there. Despite the fact it looks terrific. No performers. No people.

That's not the issue. Okay. Supposedly Sabine Wren or whatever is hanging out. There's new characters around in Batuu. I don't know if you're messing with us. No, I'm not. I think I just said a name of one of the characters. Sabine is the name? You didn't just put some arbitrary sounds together? Sabine Wren. I think i just said a name of like one of the characters you didn't just put

some arbitrary sounds together being ran i think i actually got the name correct yep and she's going to be in galaxy's edge or is already there what is she what does she do from a show she's not an old crone i hope she's no she's a mandalorian warrior and a graffiti artist oh and she's got a creative and rebellious spirit so is's gonna do is she gonna do like airbrush art of the kids she's gonna do yes you can get a caricature of yourself painted by sabine ren yeah sabine ren will draw you with a baseball bat in your hand eating cracker jacks that's correct will she like spray paint like calvin pissing on snoke. On his body? Yeah, on his dead body. On Snoke's dead body? Remember he died.

I certainly do remember that Snoke died. He didn't go into a tunnel of ambiguity. Snoke did not come back. Snoke hasn't returned yet. But somehow, in episode 12, Snoke could return. If they give me the keys to the Star Trek Star Wars... No, do it! If they give you the keys to

Star Trek, get Snoke in there. That'll surprise everybody. That's a very good point. You'd never see it coming. Snoke shows up. Yeah. No, here she is. Sabine Wren is now appearing for a limited time in Galaxy's Edge.

How about that? Okay. Well, took the helmet off. It's on a phone far away from me. Fair enough. But, you know, maybe that'll draw some people from Fantasmic. I don't know.

A question. Will the dragon come back? What is this going to be? So a really quick history. Original dragon was a big head on a cherry picker. Yeah. I kind of liked it.

I kind of liked spindly, old school dragon. I like it too. Yeah, I don't know. I liked that he just kind of became abstract and he was a wiry guy I almost found the second one like goofier with his big pot belly yeah what damage is this guy gonna do if he has to take one step he's screwed it's all about fire breath if Mickey runs 10 feet away that guy ain't running i think this is a perfect i don't think they can do it

but i would love it if there was some drone element at the end some sort of drone thing yeah and i don't know because we've talked about this before there were patents filed by disney for drones to like puppet giant marionettes down main street which i think are not against it's against the law to put drones over the guest's head and i think this is the over the river that's what i'm saying so this almost feels like this is the perfect place in disneyland to do it because you don't have to have them um over the guest's head but what is that gonna be that how is it not just a bunch of drones well i don't that's a good question i haven't really thought this through but

it could be some drones making the shape of a head or a character because they can do that now they can they have the technology to do that um but if it's the puppeting where like you know you have four drones basically acting as if they're a puppeteer hands just put a big pinocchio at the finale yeah i was gonna say i have a really famous puppet puppeted at the end and mickey just the dragon is replaced by by pinocchio it's just a fun dance there's not a fight well it could be evil it could be evil but i think it would be better if they just have a nice dance pinocchio and mickey just have a nice dance he wants attention to get out of phantasmic yeah it's too stressful is one of my problems with phantasmic i just would like mickey and

pinocchio big pinocchio big like a two-story pinocchio you make pan a puppet and i hate him more you make pinocchio big big oh god yeah and then the drones just sort of pilot him kind of going up and down i'm gonna go like this show on fire i'm gonna i will personally i will make those through yeah yeah yeah i'll shoot sparks at these drones i'll kill this mega pinocchio before it kills us okay well how about this how about a big evil stromboli and he tries to puppet mickey i'm into that he's gotta shoot fire at him and then stromboli just goes up yeah like kindling like a deep fried turkey at Thanksgiving, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Flash, like what do they call it? Flash? Flash frying? Flash fry, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what?

I love that. I think Stromboli is a more relevant villain than most because he is an evil show business character with a certain look and does he not you know he's like the the warning to not get you know to be very careful if you're going into the show business direction right is he not the original harvey weinstein absolutely so to see him go up in flames would that not be that might scare a lot of kids out of child acting. Future Tara Noah Smiths, who left the industry correctly to follow his submersible passion. Yeah.

You know, if anybody's tugging on their mom's shoulders, I want to act. You put a big Stromboli in front of them, that'll send them running the other way. Very good point. Sure. Yes. So yeah, more Stromboli maybe just in general at Disneyland then. He's everywhere. Mm-hmm. Stromboli on Main Street. Hey, you are come with me.

Around any turn, there could be a giant Stromboli. Giant Stromboli, giant Honest John. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Honest, yeah. But put Stromboli in Galaxy's Edge too. Yeah. Now, all right, again, I'm about IP surprise,

Snoke and Star Trek, Stromboli and Star Wars. Right. Now I'm interested. Now we're innovating. Unkar Plot was kind of Stromboli-esque. Unkar, oh, Unkar Plot was not a Stromboli, you think? I mean. I don't think so.

I think he had roped Rey into kind of a shady business deal for that inflatable bread. Well. For that big deal for that inflatable bread well for that big obviously that quarter portion yeah he wasn't on the level but i don't know that he was so nefarious i didn't get i didn't get that from uncar plutt in his brief time you think so he's no stromboli i don't think uncar plutt is a strong they're odd areas because neither of them are like Satan. Right. But Strongbowl is a bad guy. Yeah. He's a bad dude.

Unkar Plutt might have a heart of gold. We just don't know. Does he have anybody in it? Does he have a droid in a cage back there? And does he tell the droid you'll never be a real boy? I hope not. I had a good feeling about Unkar Plutt, honestly, until Jason said that. So he's really...

I don't know why you'd have a good feeling of it. Maybe like the no feeling, maybe neutral, but I don't think he's I don't know why you'd have a good feeling of it. Maybe like the no feeling, maybe neutral, but I don't think he's a good guy. Well, I had a good feeling about, I enjoyed him. You're behind the scenes knowledge that Simon Pegg was in that outfit.

Oh, was he? Oh yeah. Wasn't that? I think he might be right. Yeah. I think he did play. But that might've been coloring your reflection.

Maybe that's what it is. You know what's also coloring my reflection is that one of the best parts of the sequel trilogy, and I mean this sincerely, is that's what it is. You know what's also coloring my reflection is that one of the best parts of the sequel trilogy, and I mean this sincerely, is that bread. Oh, yeah. That bread is so fun and good.

Yeah. And is one of the top five things in those sequel trilogies, maybe. Maybe top ten. So, being that you associate him with the bread, as far as you know, he might have invented the bread. Yes. It's possible he invented the bread. Who could be bad if you invent magic bread? Yeah. Hmm. So. All right. I'll give you that. know he might have invented the bread yes so it's possible he invented the bread so that's why i like

you invent magic bread yeah hmm so all right he needs to be in put him in batu it's smack in your leg you're insisting on this well there's it's fun give me fun stuff he's from the sequel trilogy that's in the same timeline he didn't get killed in the movie juice up mobile pickup. What do you mean? You know, mobile food ordering. Juice up the pickup spot. Have an Unkar Plutty and Matronix screaming at people. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. Faster.

Yeah. And then not selling the bread is a mistake, too. We've talked about this before on the show. Well, I think they were for a little while. Were they?

But as like, it was just a custard puff. What do you mean the bread's made up, though? You can't do the bread really. You put some green sponge cake on top of custard. I want the bread more than I want the milk. I want the bread from Seven more than I want the blue milk. I don't care about the milk anymore.

I'm never going to try that milk again. I did it opening weekend. No interest in having the milk ever again. Did you try the green milk? I don't remember. It's a little more herbal. I don't care. I want the bread.

Wow. We try it in Florida. You are returned. You can get a little, you know, a little. Oh, you get a little more herbal. I don't care. I want the bread. Wow. We try in Florida. You are returned. You can get a little, you know, little. Oh, you get a little. Well, now we're talking. Now we're talking. A little nip in there, you know.

I get my flask out. I put a little in the green milk. I was about to say that you guys were recovering some of the old person energy until you called it a nip. Nip took it up 10 more years. Of a little sip of alcohol. I want to say also just on the way out the door i i i i was inspired by mickey i was starting to use my imagination and i thought

of a little a little show i mean i don't know where it goes and how we could do it but i did start conjuring a little show called phantasmike um it's a journey into your imagination okay mike please yeah where you use the power of your imagination uh to get prince and bono to come to your birthday okay um you know they they're they have in this world they have very busy schedules but when they hear that a cool youthful seeming guy with a really chill vibe is having a birthday they drop everything so they could come okay a part of it uh you got to have villains as part of this of course of course uh so the villain is me it's a green version of me i show up and say people don't really know the song black balloon

by the goo goo dolls oh yeah it's making me mad hearing the dialogue. I know, yes. As angry as you've gotten every time this has come up. But you, Prince, and Bono show me you lead an all-star jam for 20 minutes of Black Balloon. Olivia Rodrigo shows up for the first half, and then she cuts out of there. Yep. And, yeah, and I melt and scream. And Dr. Chase Meridian and Minnie come and give you kisses on the cheek. One each, though? I don't want it to be excessive. Hey, use your imagination.

Wait, your imagination is to keep it limited? Yes, just one on each cheek. Make Minnie on the right, Dr. Chase on the left, and then they leave. Yeah, yeah, great. You advise them, girls, you look a little chilly. Might want to throw on a light sweater. Not a sweatshirt. Ladies, do you have a light sweater?

Yes. That's a good plus up for the end of it. Watch out for drafts. Okay. Yeah. No, I like all of that. I think that's nice and wholesome. Yeah.

Are you big? Are you a big robot of some kind? Yeah, I think I could be. Yeah, yeah. Why not? Yeah. A Stromboli style. Okay.

And give me, all right, I'm all the villains. We're mashing up villains, like you were saying'm great i'm all the villains we're mashing up villains like you were saying so i'm all the villains i am massive i am green okay and i have a big stromboli beard and you have the puppet lines by your mouth as well you know what i'll give it it's your show it's your imagination and since i'm the one uh who's who's ruining this beloved song for you you can paint me any way that you want. Can he have Chernabog wings? Chernabog what? Wings. Oh, I like that. Yeah, yeah. I don't mind this. Ooh, this is

cool. You know, I was actually pretty old when I learned the name Chernabog. That seems like something I would be an annoying 12-year-old about. I think I was pretty old by the time I heard the name Chernabog and knew what it was. I think I was an older man when I knew what I learned. I was something years old.

I'm sure I definitely told people who were not asking that the wizard named Yen Sid was Disney backwards. That old crone. Yen Sid, the famous old crone. Right, Mickey's mentor. Mickey's shitty mentor. Wizard, yeah. The guy who stops him from dreaming. Mickey's shitty mentor. The original wizard, yeah. Mm-hmm. The guy who stops him

from dreaming. That's a real, like, that's a relevant villain as well. If Stromboli's like a Harvey Weinstein, Yen Sid is the boss who doesn't want upward mobility,

who probably doesn't pay very well, who doesn't like the, you know, you turn the other way while the employee uses the facilities to pursue their dreams.

Yeah. You don't need a union. We're a family here. the other way while the employee uses the facilities to pursue their dreams yeah you don't need a union we're a family here yeah those normal healthy units families those brooms tried to unionize on me and i took away their ability to talk i killed you know like only four months ago all the brooms could talk. One zap, that was the end of that. Can't talk back when you can't talk. Set them on fire.

So you knew that years before you knew Chernobyl. I feel like that was like a did you know kind of fact at the Disney hotel room channel or around MGM Studios

or something. And now you're a professional did you know factologist. Yeah. That's really, isn't that what this is? The most beloved kind of person on planet Earth. People love it. That's all I know is that.

People love it. People's likable type. That's right. That's what we are. Did you know? Well, did you know that there is a whole other world of Fantasmic at Disney World in Florida, at Disney's Hollywood Studios. And did you know that if we talked about that,

this episode would get much longer. So here is my proposition, that after Fantasmic finally returns, after the, by then, more than a year hiatus, when we determine what that ending is, in the lack of a dragon, if it is a giant flaming stromboli, if it is just a nice Pinocchio made of drones, we'll see.

I propose that the episode is we talk about that. We say, do we like that or not? We talk about Disney World version. We talk about Tokyo version, which I saw. So, you know, just a big old potpouris of the rest of phantasmic sure we like the sound of that i think we love it okay great well that will be coming down the road which means we can close out this one uh unless there's any further thoughts about uh temperatures conditions in which light shawls or sweaters should be packed i will will say this. I don't, I don't have any other thoughts about,

um, well, windiness or, but ever since we talked about city food, I've been hungering for a firehouse. I want like a, you know, we've got a North Hollywood location.

That's like $2 cheaper. I think we should go. I think we should go there. I will say this. I don't. Okay. The, the brand,

if you want to try the brand again, that makes sense to me. But the idea that you would specifically want to go back to the CityWalk Firehouse subs post piece of plastic in the sandwich, which Jason described online as just a little nub. Just a little nub. One of the most disturbing things you've ever said.

Just saying a lot. That's Just a little nub. Yeah, just a little nub. One of the most disturbing things you've ever said. Just saying a lot. That's where I draw the line. There has been a thing nubbing at me since the City of Wilderness. I let this pass. This was in the last Main Feed episode, which was the finale with Weiger. There was a point, I don't know, maybe I was just preparing for the next thing. Maybe I wasn't listening to you carefully enough, Mike. But what the thing was, and when I was editing, I found it i found it and you said well i have the strongest stomach of all of us

you're talking about yourself because jason gets tummy aches and scott you know he gets sick and he throws up yeah yeah and i was i was watching it back in editing i was like why didn't i say something i don't i do not This only happens at two places. City Walk Hollywood and City Walker Land. I do not regularly have stomach problems and I let it happen. I let you toss it all out. Like Scott and his weak, trembly stomach. It's basically made of liquid.

It can't even retain anything. Scott basically eats paste. And even that he throws up a little bit. Gosh, look look i wanted to be i shouldn't have said the firehouse subs thing obviously in hindsight but i mean look there's no better place to test your metal as far as eating is concerned and your stomach is concerned than city walk this is this clearly is the premise what i am i don't want my metal tested all right this is the only place where my metal is in question.

These are not regularly... Now, Jason, I feel like sparkling water makes Jason sick. Yeah, it's kind of a crap shit. He's got his banana in the morning issues. A banana in an empty stomach is an issue. I really don't. As you say, I have the strongest stomach. Scott has it, but this is not a problem.

I don't want to be cured of a pro i don't want to be cured of this i don't want it to be like hercules i feel like i'm hercules hang on hang on i'll let you say that but you can i'll only if you call yourself city walk hercules i'm city walk hercules all right i'm city walk hercules i like that i like the weird dubbed movie version of hercules that you're doing I can eat a Pound of candy From it's sugar And then a

Then a shake From two Dr. Toothsome And then three Pieces of plastic From Firehouse Subs An entire nub An entire nub

Sunday Just a couple I would laugh In it's face I wish Harryhausen Was still with us To make City Walk Hercules

One nub Baked into each Meatball please Can I have it With nubs Terry housing was still with us to make City Walker. One nub baked into each meatball, please. Can I have it with nubs? Whatever plastic you put around your food, leave it on. Oh, you were already going to? Wonderful. His only weakness is flounder almondine.

That's the only weakness he has. And even that didn't make him puke or throw up or anything. It just made him bite his mouth just made you bleed yeah uh but it's stomach no more city walk for months we won't even say the word i swear i don't i don't swear but i swear i don't swear uh all right well uh with that uh tribute to city walk hercules we'll give you a victory parade. As we say, you survived Podcast the Ride. Glad to be back in theme park world, although, you know, we might step back, you know, a little nub at a time.

For three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast the Ride, the second gate. Or get one more bonus episode on our VIP tier, Club 3, eventual more Fantasmic coming. You will find all of that at patreon.com slash podcasttheride. I kind of want to end it with Jason saying, wait here, I'll whisper it to you, Mickey's last line. Some imagination, huh?

Okay, Jason's saying it as Mickey. Dun, dun, dun. Some imagination, huh? Dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. Some imagination, huh? Forever Dog This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan,

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