Podcast: The Ride - Gift Shop Grab-Bag with Zach Reino

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Zach Reino (Off Book Podcast) returns for a chat about a theme park staple — something exciting that nearly every ride features. Fun? Thrills? NO!GIFT SHOPS!We talk types of merch, styles of theming, and what kind of animal plush we prefer.Plus, Zach recalls his high school days singing in the Candlelight Processional at Disneyland!"Chuck's Arcade" episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Warning, the following podcast may contain comically large mugs. Charlie Brown having too many fingers. Excellent foot guessing. And onion trolls. All that. Plus, we browse through a collection of theme park gift shops with returning guest Zach Reno. It's the gift shop grab bag on Podcast the Ride.

Welcome to Podcast The Ride, a theme park podcast hosted by men who are more likely to eat a green salad if they're in Star Warsland and it's called Yoda's bed or something. My name is Mike Carlson. Joining me as always. Jason Sheridan. Yeah. I mean,

I think I'd be a little anxious because we're going to get to sleep. Well, he probably has a lot of different like foliage and different plant life that he could sleep in. So he probably makes his bed in various places on Dagobah. That's my understanding. All I know is going to have to make his bed end. line it.

And then you're, he's going to make his bed line and then you're going to eat it. Yeah. So I'll flick him off. Like there's soggy tomatoes on a sandwich that don't look great. Yeah. I like flicking, flicking Yoda away. Oh, you actually are flicking the character Yoda, not just pieces of his bed?

I'm confused a little bit. But he said he was going to be in the bed and then I eat it. So I'm just like trying to knock off. I mean, if you could do a thing where like he was. like a Yoda made out of pasta in a salad and then you ate this pasta on the top

and then ate Yoda's bed like you could actually put him in this like food concoction you're ordering Yoda's bed but you get pasta Yoda but you could also get pasta Yoda on top of the bed I love pasta in the cell

so what you were sort of proposing is a salad that does have pasta on top of it which is not a traditional food combination that one would sell not traditional but I've seen

You could have said like croutons or meat and you went with pasta on a bed of lettuce. It's a good question because I really, a good question why I did it. I don't have an answer for it. But okay, fine. If it was Yoda, what most resembles his wrinkly green skin? What food item? That's the other thing. The sort of assumption is that Yoda's bed somehow it looks like Yoda.

Because that's why it's a salad, right? Green Daegobah, Yoda. There's definitely a green connection in my mind. Green his house with a green little. window and a green corvette and everything is green for him right that's for the the has anybody done a yoda parody of the song blue of iful 65s blue i don't think so but we could yeah that feels like something you should do i know our guest zach rino returned to podcast the ride it's me from off book and all sorts of other things creative endeavors it's great it's great to see you

boys great to see you it's been too long i'm glad scott's out here i can finally relax finally we are indeed Scott free today so Zach can relax he wouldn't come back until Scott was gone yeah I've some peek behind the curtain I've known Jason and Mike for quite some time yeah Scott's oh Scott's new to me and I'm not sold new to you in the last eight to nine years that's yeah that's right and you're still not sold uh he just like he's still trying to like challenge me whereas you two let me be comfortable with my opinions and my bad habits well look you're the alpha. It's pretty obvious. That's right. You are the alpha. Yeah, I'm a classic alpha male. Yes, that's very true. You said that you've known Jason and I for a long time, which is true. And

there's the thing in the last year and a half I've really been trying to impress upon our audience, is that Jason used to be a little bit rowdier, dirtier, X-rated from time to time. I just wish you could back me up on this and say, I do recall the old days. Oh, God, yes. I'm going to be totally honest. In this moment, I wasn't sure that Jason was presenting himself as anything different to your fans. Okay, here's what Jason does now. Here's the thing, y'all. I'm a good point. It's not that he's a, first of all, I would never go so far as to say that Jason has ever

said anything that I would find objectionable. I have said that. I made that point as well. I'm very clear about it. But like when we're, when we're off mic, y'all, you don't know the real us. We're wild out in these streets. We're saying, we're saying things. He's, I'm just saying, sorry, I cut you a lot.

He's, I'm just saying, Jason's, he's, I'm just saying, he's, I'm just saying, is more of an academic these days on the show. He's sort of the researcher. He's the one who chimes in. But I just want the audience to know that he was the one who would be the first to say something, you know, a little bawdy back in the old day. Yeah, I mean, we famously had a group show that ended with Jason giving a monologue to parts of his reproductive system. Yeah. A good, sort of good night moon, if you will.

Yes. Yeah. To the vast difference. To the very medical terminology. The vast deference. Look, I'm not like, that's the. thing. It was I wouldn't, it was not clean. It was, I would say it's body, but it's also not like, it's not blue. It's not blue. It's smart. It's, it's, oh, it's blue for sure. Well, but it's academically

blue. So I think that Jason has always had these two sides at this point. And maybe he's just showing. I think you know, there's two wolves inside you. Inside all of us is two wolves. One that wants to fuck and one that wants to go to the, to do a presentation. To go to the library. And to study up and to present things on a PowerPoint. Yes. So I just, you know, I believe the listeners believe me, but sometimes I'm just trying to make sure people don't think I'm lying. Happy to back you up.

This is not a bit. Thank you. Look, we were all wilder in our younger girls. That's true. We were a younger man's clothes. Like I just, yeah, just like the Billy Joel song says. Yeah. That's right.

Now, I said a curse word just now and I immediately am nervous about it. Oh, you said the F word? Yeah. Why? Because I don't know what this sort of speech. is here. And also... Oh, we're profane. We need it. We let it go, yeah. But like, it was

unneeded. I was just sort of like tapping into a younger me and a younger Jason. And I want to apologize to your... I don't think you need to apologize. I'm not... It's not going to be bleeped. We have an explicit warning, you know. So that's okay. We, despite the fact that our episodes are often entirely clean, just to give us the freedom. Just to give us the field to run around in.

Yeah, you have run around. To play. Let me play. Right. You guys, you and Jess, your partner, off book. We did that podcast at this point, what, four years ago probably. We did a country bear show with you,

with you too. It's been a while. It was right before the pandemic because I remember when we were recording it. It was after the pandemic. Mm-mm. Because we were in that room. Was before the pandemic?

I think it was after. There's no way to know. It's no way to know. It's not like it's time stammering. I think it has four years. Four years. Four years feels about right to me. Um, but it's four years after the pandemic.

Yes. It's 2026. It's 22 now. I guess. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. No, the pandemic was seven years ago. Started seven years ago.

Not for me. What do you mean you've known about it? I mean, I was basically. It started in 2016. Oh, okay. Well, that's breaking news on this show. Yeah. Okay. I'm all the way over.

You and Jess, I think you sometimes have the vibe of maybe like clean comedians. Yeah, we're not. But because we do like musical comedy, we often have people be like, you should do a show for kids. And we're like, we don't want to. do that. But it's great that sometimes our show happens to be. But you have the aura of clean comics, which is interesting because you feel that way to me. Yeah. And I think we mostly are, only because I, that's not the well of comedy that I find the most, like, rewarding. Vaz deference humor anymore. Vos deference humor, I think, certainly had its place in my, I mean, like, look,

South Park was huge for me as, like, an early influence of my comedy. as was Tenacious D. Like, these are, these are like, these are bluer influences, and that definitely shaped me, but I find that the,

the longer I like do comedy, the less that's, like, useful to me. I like being able to swear when I need to, and I will, and absolutely, I think it's sometimes justified, but it doesn't like,

I don't know, it's a younger man's game. Wow, you and Jason on the same page here. Your body sides have gone away with age. Yeah. Well, me once in a while, if I have to let loose about tuna come or whatever that bit we were doing last year was, I'll do it. I have to do it. I'll have to do it. Look, I'll do it if the road calls for it.

That's where the road leads. Let's go. Yeah. I think the road was much more likely to lead to tuna come back in the day. In the old days, yes. I just know about more roads now. Well, yes. Yeah.

There's a lot more roads that are available to us. today's episode we are going to be doing like a grab bag i was going to call it the the gift shop grab bag that's great i'm worried about you boys and the number of things that you have already done on this show based on our conversation on trying to find something to do for this show but hadn't been done this is a little peek behind the curtain we were trying to figure out a topic and you suggested like 10 things yeah one of them was hey what if we just talk about that sword in the stone that you can pull out sometimes and you were unsure if you had done it before oh yeah but it turns out you We had, we had 2019, yes.

Like, you've done, they're not building new theme parks fast enough for you all. Well, Universal might. I mean, not going to be fast enough, but Universal is building a couple places. Have you talked about whatever the celestial gardens are? Substantially, yeah. Oh, yeah?

And it's just like gardens, right? Like, there's nothing there. Plants and stuff. Yeah. Are you talking about celestial park? Sure, probably. The one in epic universe. I don't know.

Jason, you know what he was talking about? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you both did. Yeah, I did. Because you've already talked about it. Because you have nothing to talk about. We didn't do an episode specifically about Celestial Park,

and it's characters that are only unique there. And the characters that have been canceled. There was a character that was canceled from there. Not canceled, not Celestial Steve. Just like, get it. Celestial Steve has a bad opinion. No.

He's a big Ricky Jervais fan. That's true. But no, Celestial Steve doesn't exist. As far as we know, He could in the future Sure the truth, fam I need you all to You've got pictures of celestial Steve

Still in the park Yeah No, the character name is Vincent Various And he was walking around in previews And he was like sort of the proprietor of Celestial Park And he was an explorer In an adventure

I'm assuming like Galileo or something And he was in the files And he was in some sort of files, yes The way they covered it up Like erased him Yeah. They redacted a lot of it. Do we know why?

Just because people were like, who's this dude? I think they were trying some specific lore for Celestial Park during previews and it was not so well received. Because we heard this and got so excited that they were going to do stuff like this because that's all we want. lore is all I care in a park. Yeah. It's, it is and we'll talk about this, but it is part of my, part of what I like about gift shops specifically. Oh, sure. Yeah.

I want, I want the deep cuts in the question. Yeah. Right, right, right. but yeah, I think maybe it just wasn't working. There's no pictures of him because this was preview so you couldn't take photos.

We never got to see him live. But so we don't know what he looks like. We just kind of know the legend of him. We know for sure he was in all the literature that if you were working there, you would have to know. So there's that. But someone can answer.

Someone, some listener of this podcast can't even a little bit. There's a lot of audio, fought music, you know, for Celestial Park. There's a lot of backstory for Vince Various and the Celestials. Did you call Vince Various? Well, yeah, they're close. No, I said Vincent.

Oh, okay. I just like that you're like Vince Various. Vince and I, you know. Marty. We were at Marty. Yeah. So, so there is more to talk about when it comes to Celestial Park, but we haven't, we haven't gone as hard as we could.

All we've really said so far is that it's very hot, especially in the summer. It's a lot of pavement. and not a lot of shade. Concrete forward. Concrete forward. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I mean, we can't talk about it now because I haven't been there. Well, we just saw it on a map and thought, I'm not familiar with this property.

And it sure does look big on this map. It is big. So it must be something, but it's not. It must be something for sure. It is something for real. Yes, we won't talk about that. I did really quickly want to talk about something you brought up that I did not know you were involved in. when you were younger, the Candleite Processional.

Oh, yeah. At Disneyland. Did you know he was in this when he was a child? No, I didn't know that. I mean, a high school child. High school child, sure. But I did it twice. I did it.

But, oh, God, no. I may have done it all four years of high school. Really? Yeah. Because the Candleite Processional, do you want to fill people on what this is? Yes, it's this like big Christmas performance pageant that's very religious. Explicit religious.

Yeah. Religious. It's religious. Bill Marr over here. No, but it's like, it is, it's Christmas songs and not the Santa Christmas songs. Yeah, yeah, it's the like Jesus stuff. Yeah, it's literally, it literally ends with like the Alleluia Choir.

Yeah, oh God. Yeah, and it's a big choir. It's usually like a celebrity reading the passages. It's a celebrity reading the passages and then the choir is made up of like one billion different, I assume, California high schools. Right. People that can like drive there and do it while they're there.

Right. And it's like a one day thing. Like you draw like you rehearse all this stuff at your school. Right. Then you go in the morning and you're in just like a giant rehearsal room like a like an airplane, literal airplane hangar on Disneyland property. Yes. Okay.

Because as soon as you're there, you're there for the whole until you're done. Right. So you're there. You spend one day to rehearse. You put on the robes that they give you. they give you a candle that lights up, you do the parade route, you walk all the way down to,

that's pretty sick, to where, um, because where does it take place in front of the train station? Yes. Yeah. In, like,

yeah, uh, where they have constructed like a ton of risers. There's infrastructure there that isn't right there. Yeah. And then you do this like 30, 45 minute set. A substantial show.

I've just like a bunch of Christmas like church music. Right. It's really fun. I mean, as a Jew, I'm only in it for like, the musicality. I'm not like moved by the spirit. I was going to say yeah, you're not quite the religion that they're, uh, I don't know, trying to get the word out on at Disneyland. I'm explicitly.

I'm explicitly not. But, but it's um, it was really fun. It was cool to, to be like in a Disneyland parade. Yeah. You're with a bunch of other high schools. You get to feel like your high school is maybe better at singing it than some of the other high schools, depending on which high school you go to. And then without fail, three or four people lock their knees and faint over the course of the Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I mean, talk to anyone who's done choir and there's someone locked their knees and fainted a lot. Choirs, because I was in marching band and I don't recall any locked knees when we marched in the world. His marching band people are used to are more physical.

We're tougher guys. Yeah. Than the choir 100%. You think so? Yes. Carrying. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Because we're carrying heavy things and like wearing heavier outfits. And you're just practicing walking. I can tell it like I can count on. one hand the number of shows I did walking and it was that one because it's singing and walking I think also the Disney of it all stresses some people out sure yeah which is ridiculous because there's hundreds of you and know when it's looking at you this is a thing that it Disneyland it's a special event like one maybe two nights and then in Epcot in Florida it runs for like a month or more Oh, whoa.

They must have like actual professionals doing it then. They have a lot of famous people. I wouldn't say they necessarily do. You don't think they would just bring in a bunch of high schoolers every time? Well, here's the other thing that I'm now trying to think of because it's been quite some time since I've been in high school. Now, ostensibly, this would have been around Christmas, right? Yeah. When I would not have been in school.

So like, I'm wondering how this actually worked. Well, we could check. I mean, we can check when it was. I mean, it might have been like first week in December. Do they still do it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's see what it is. They're getting a good word out about Jesus. Don't worry. I hear he gets us. What's that? I keep seeing these commercials that says Jesus. He gets us.

No, that's Santa and it's he gets you things. Yay! Santa. You must have misheard, Jason. It was about Santa and he gets you things. Oh, okay. What I'm seeing here is that at Disneyland, Benjamin Bratt did the, like, reading this year, or last year.

They do it every year? Yeah, yeah. I know I did it at 12. I don't know if I did it more than that. Did everyone in the choir go or did you have to just sign up for it? I think everyone in our choir that wanted to, your school had to submit. Yeah. Okay.

And do you know, like, were there 10 schools, five schools? More than 10. I would say probably like 100? No, less than 100, but probably around 20. Because it felt like, because like we brought probably 30-ish people. And I feel like there were several hundred in the choir. Right. Yeah.

now let me ask you this I guess it could be 10 I don't know I'm bad with numbers Were you like holy crap We're performing at Disneyland Or were you like kind of cool and jaded No I think I was real excited for it Okay

I mean I didn't have any Illusions about like That anyone was going to be focusing on me In any way of shape of There were so many of us You didn't think maybe this is my big break I did not think it was my big break But also I think

I may have performed at Disneyland in junior high high. Whoa. Jack is holding his hand like he's unlocking memories from his brain. It is coming back to me now. Okay, so you know on Main Street that like,

it's not like barbershop lookingish area? There's like a stage off to, as you're walking down Main Street into the park, off on the left, like around the like soda fountain shop area. Yeah. There's like a stage tucked away back there. Yes, in the fantasy land. It's right past the entrance to frontier land.

Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. It's where people like line dance, or not line dance. Swing dance. Yes, yes, exactly there. Now it's called fantasy fair

and it's got a little thing and there's like a figaro animatronic up there. Okay, yes. I'm pretty sure that my junior high choir had like a set of like eight songs that we did there one time. Okay.

So you were in choir since seventh grade or? I mean since sixth grade, yeah. Okay. Oh, right, because you guys have three out here. Oh, no. Six was. It was elementary school. Okay.

Because I'm confused. Everyone has a different with these different grades. Yeah, we had junior high, which was just seventh and eighth. And then high school was 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. And do you went to, is this a joke we had, but you went to a Montessori school growing up? Is that right? Okay, up until fifth grade. So the first year that I, there, my school, because Montessori did not have a choir,

there was not enough kids there. But sixth grade, I transferred to public school. Okay. And I was in choir from then on, basically. Because I think the old joke was that, like, I just pictured you in like a white robe like saying la la la la la through the thing and then they'd be like i've never had a grade right i've never i called my teachers by their first names and like a dawning of the age of aquarius you're like dressed as mr burns from the x files episode now you know i won't get that reference oh yeah it's true

you know much yes that's well that was explaining why you didn't often know some pop culture that we were all so steeped in because i was a monosauri because you were montessorri you were in the fields all day that's right saying la la la la and you were too busy you were so much that's why that's too big learning French, which I've not forgotten. From an old Frenchman who is out there. That's right. All your teachers are just like it spots in a field and you'd have to run to them and then they would give you a pearl of wisdom and then you'd run to the next time.

Look, some of us graduated from yellow door to orange door to brown door and it shows. Well, look, you know, I make all the jokes, but you're the most well-adjusted person I know. So who's laughing now? Look, I mean, I'd say it for my most formative years worth it were in public school. Okay. Montessori was great. But it is because of Montessori that I still have a more problem reading an analog clock than I should. I can do it, and it takes me longer than I would like to admit. But if you hear a bird chirp, you will know what season it is.

I know what season it is, and I can tell you all about the feelings that makes me feel. And I can express them freely. Well, there you have an edge on us in that regard. So difficulty with analog clock, when you. can paint with all the colors of the wind. That's right. That's right. I've heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon. Very valuable lessons.

Yeah. Very valuable skills. In many ways, I'm Pokemon. So you performed design many times. I never knew this. I think three times. At least three times.

I know they have like, you know, all different types of high school and perform junior. Sometimes you'll be there and it'll be like, they'll be a choir of kids. So that program still exists, I think, in some ways.

Yeah, they tuck you off. a little stage of the side and your parents can go over and watch and no one from the park will pay any attention to you. It's very safe for them. Yeah. And there's not as much space in Disneyland to do it as there is in Florida because there's so much room. Oh, yeah. You can cram a bunch of junior high students in like any corner of any four park or any of the different hotels. That's great. I was just, um, I was just at Animal Kingdom. Yes. For the first time. And we were walking around And whatever the Christmas music is

that Animal Kingdom has in their rap right now, absolutely rocks. Wow, really? We left and tried to go like find it and we could not. Wow. It's basically entirely instrumental. It's very marimba forward, I would say.

But it's so good. We talked about it a lot after we left the park. That is some of the magic of the park. Sometimes you'll hear like a piece of music or something specific that you didn't go there and that sticks with you more than like a big ride sometimes. Yeah. So it seems like that is the case here.

We had a show, so we weren't there that long. Also, maybe a lack of experiences is partly why this is stuck with you. Sorry, we've made this such a Christmas episode in the new year. I think it's okay. Oh, that's fine. I mean, the tree's still up. Does this feel there is a tree sitting here at the Claire Sheridan household? That's right.

Yes, so you had never been, you did do Pandora. You did all that stuff. I read the might. I rode the mighty. The mighty a cron. You felt the great beast's breath between your legs. I felt a breathing betwixt my thighs. Yes.

And you rubbed powerful. I rubbed the big barnacle to make it spurt juice. The big seed. The big seed. The big seed out front of Pandora. When you walk in, there's a big seed. And then they encourage you to rub it. There's a sign.

Yeah. And that's good. It's good. Did they encourage it? It's good that it's there. And there wasn't a sign that says like, don't rub the seed. Or rub the seed.

Right. You had to know. Someone had to tell you. Sure. Well, that's good. I mean, you need a guide sometimes if you've never been to the animal kingdom. Because the animals will get you. They don't tell you this.

The animals are out. Oh, yeah. Where the animals were out? They're just walking around. Huh. That's not my experience. Yeah, they'll hunt you. They were fighting the Christmas puppets.

That's right. That were walking around. What do you mean puppets? Oh, there's like, like, woodblocky kind of marionette, like Christmas puppets and the main drag. Yeah, yeah. animals that are out. That's what I'm talking about.

We're talking about the same thing. Oh, okay. I got you now. The Arctic wolf is out. The Arctic wolf. The big moose. He was sweating. With the employees with the little

like puppet things above them. What do you mean? You know, it's Pinocchio. There's those, what do you call the four? A marionette? A marionette? Yeah. I don't know about that.

All I know is that the animals are out. I'll believe what you're saying is that the animals were out that day. All of them. They're out and they're after you. Oh, wow, they're fun. That is, I wasn't sure what they meant when they changed the park motto, too. They're out. They're after you.

They're out. They're after you. They're out and they're after you. It's clear as day. I don't know what I was thinking. All right. Well, let's do a little, not a little. Let's do the meat of the episode.

Let's do some gift shop talk. Let's get Yoda on that salad. Let's get Yoda on that salad, if you know what I mean. that's a clean way to say something Jason used to say I bet get the Yoda off on that second

so he doesn't like it Michael no he hates it when I bring this stuff up he hates it he gets really like frustrated with me cultivated a cult of personality

that is forever evolving and shifting yeah and he doesn't like be dragging him back to being to the hours only forward

only onward I'm trying to unleash the beast that's what I've been trying to do okay So, you know, we talk about gift shops all the time, but we've never really done a dedicated gift shop episode when we sort of talk about in general what we like when it comes to this

like necessary part of theme parks. I love it. And I have a couple of thoughts on this, but we can, would you want to like go around? Yeah, go for it. Yeah. Okay. Now, there's a couple like, I mean, I love a gift shop in basically any context. I love a museum gift shop.

Of course, yeah. Agreed. I think the worst kind of gift shop. gift shop usually is like a hotel gift shop or an airport gift shop. They're like too, generally speaking, too broad. Because I think what I really like about gift shops is gift shops that allow you to buy things that are of the world, quote unquote, that you're visiting. Yeah. Like I don't want a picture of the pirate. I want the pirate's shirt that I can wear. So I can be the pirate.

Right. Unsurprisingly that like in Disneyland, my, as a kid, my go-to gift store, gift shop was pieces of it, which is the one that you come out of when you come out of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Right. Because they got swords, they got like gems in a pouch that you can buy. That's the kind of stuff that I want from a gift store. I want immersion. Yeah. You want gems in a pouch.

I want gems in a pouch. Yeah. I want de bloons. I want cutlasses. Mm. Wow. And I realized that, um,

My ideal, like, gift shop experience is kind of like Renaissance Fair, where most of the stuff there is that. Oh, yeah. I guess it is mostly gifts. Like, the idea is like a lot of the stuff that you can buy is to sort of immerse you in this world that is being presented for you. And less shirts with the logos on it. Now, my second thing is if we are going to do shirts with the logos on it or merge, I want it to be of the most specific part of the rise. or attraction that I, for whatever reason, have fallen in love with. Well, sure.

No arguments there. That's hard to do because you never know what's going to pop. It depends. Yeah, and it depends with the experience. It experiences. It depends all sorts of things. Because I think a big thing with the gift shop is that you want to be able to take home a piece of what you just experienced. That's really the core of it.

I mean, the real core of it is we got to make a little extra scratch. Oh, sure. Make a little extra money. But I want that for them because I, like you, want to take home a piece of it. And I'm willing to spend a little extra scrunch to do that. Sure. Yeah. And it's the same thing with a concert, with the t-shirts, with an album, with something, I don't know if

you're seeing a band where the lead singer wears like a scarf or a hat, you want to maybe buy a replica of that scarf for a hat. Concrets are different for me. I don't know that I want to look like the singers when I go to see bands. If you go see Aerosmith and they're selling Stephen Tyler's a scarf, a scarf, maybe you're going to buy that scarf. I mean, that's pretty good. I don't know that I've ever seen something like that offered.

You know what? For wrestling, it's like that a lot more. The one wrestling that I went to with you was a lot of just T-shirts. Well, that's a very DIY setup where wrestlers are just bringing a duffel bag with shirts. Are you saying that there's somewhere I can go where I can get Dalton Castle's peacock wings? Well, first of all, company AEW that he works for doesn't sell that, but they should sell that. Okay. But yeah, so like luchadors, you'll, you can get their masks sometimes. That makes sense.

A friend of the show recently re-signed to WW Mac Cardona's wife, Chelsea, has a hat that they sell. Like, I forget even what you would call it, but it's a very specific hat, but you can go buy the hat at the gift shop. Smart. So like concerts and sports events. You go to more concerts than I do. I love to rock. You do love to rock and roll. I love to rock and roll.

You like to roll, I think, more than you like to rock. I do a fair amount of rocking, but I do roll quite a bit. That's right. I'm a roller. Yeah. And Jason doesn't either. I simmer. I just find a nice quiet spot off in the corner.

You stew. And I stew. Yeah, low and slow, baby. And you sip and sonder as well. Sure, yeah. You can do those two things. It's the name of a place that was in downtown Disney, but now is no longer in downtown Disney. Is it gone?

It's gone. It's gone. Because you said it. And so rust came off of one of my neural pathways. And I was like, right, what's sip and song? Why have I heard that before? It is a place in Santa Monica. So luckily they still have that place there in Santa Monica.

But I had never heard of it. So with that name, like you're saying, as soon as we heard it, we were like sipping saunder. It's like all I wanted to do was say sip and saunder for the rest of my life. Does saunder mean anything? Yeah. It means concerning yourself with the interior lives of others, I believe. It's basically like people. It's like to have some coffee, sit down, watch everyone else,

and imagine that they're all living lives. Michael, you can never falsely accuse Jason of being a false academic. Did you hear that? That was good. It was right off of the dome. I think specifically because we looked up like a dictionary definition. Hit him with a couple more words. Okay.

Stump them. Try to stumb him. Mammoth. Very large. Nailed it. Yeah. Check that. You're right.

You're right. He knows. Microwave. Oh, it's a oven that quickly reads eat stuff. He's saying convection. He's three for three. Yeah, you're right. He's good.

He's smart. He's got the highest IQ, I think, of all three of us. I believe that. But you have, Zach, is a different thing because of the Montessori school. Yeah, I can tell you about birds feel. Right. It's animal IQ. That's right.

Animal emotion IQ. I have empathy. You're more empathetic. So, yeah. So, you know, like, I was trying to think of other examples of gift shop. and like obviously museums you were saying but like when you go to 30 Rockefeller Center in New York there is a gift shop at the bottom of that

so you go and you see a taping of the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and then you go downstairs and you buy a coffee cup that says the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. If that you're like you're going with your family and you go, what's that big New York trip? But is that the same coffee mug that he has on his desk? No, but they should show.

They should, right? That's crazy. That's the one you want. Do you think there's any tonight show fan that is such a fan that they want, did they have a desk set up exactly like Jimmy? Tell you what, I bet if you go on the internet, I bet that mug is for sale many,

many unofficial places. Yeah, for sure. What is his, do we know what the mug is? I don't know. I don't care about late night TV the way that you two do. Well,

we care about when we were kids watching late night TV. But I've never cared about it. I know. You were watching television. I wasn't watching television. You were outside with my, I was outside with my field. I was outside with my friend, the worms.

Yeah, the animals sung to you and told you about their culture and their pop culture. But there would have to be somebody that's, I guess, specific about, like they had... Conan always had that Dwight Eisenhower mug on his desk. Yeah, but I don't think they ever sold it. I never saw a replica of it. But yes, I agree. That is what I want when it comes to things I like. This highly specific replicas of stuff.

And I think that the general public doesn't have this specificity. I think you're probably right. I think most people probably don't care about it the way that the people in this room do. Like if you were going to get, well, I think you, you two and me as well. I don't know about Scott because I don't know him. Sure. Yeah. Delight in the sort of minute, like the yaddle of it all, right?

Yes, that's a good way to put it. Like we know that there is a female species of Yoda, what is Yoda called? A Yoda species, I think. I don't think there's still not a technical name for it. There's another one named Yaddle. And we were obsessed with her for a long time. On the Jedi Council in the prequels. Sure.

You can see her. But her name is like never said. Not in there. But now that we know she exists, if we were at like a Star Wars park and they had a bunch of shirts and it was like, oh, there's Bobafat. Oh, there's Han Solo. Oh, there's Yaddle. We're all buying the yaddle.

We're all getting different sizes of the adams. We're buying the plush yaddle. We're buying the shirt yaddle. Yeah. If there's a yaddle, meat and green, we'll wait for two hours. Why do you think that is? Yeah, there's, that's a good question. I don't, part of it is probably like a smarty pants.

Like, I know everything. I'm the, I know the obscure stuff. Like there's, there's probably some know-at-allness in that. But even like, in, so, this is the reason I brought up the second point. about like whatever niche character I'm obsessed with. Mickey's Runaway Railway has that orange bird in it. Yeah. Chubby, the bird.

Chubby. Yes, Chubby. Shobby. Shows up at the end and it's just like there throughout. But my wife, Nicole and I went on this ride. And for whatever reason, we became obsessed with this bird. Maybe just because of the funny stuff it does in the video right as you are leaving. We were like, this bird rocks.

Yeah. And when we first came out through that gift shop, there was basically no merch for Chubby. Yes. Which was weird to me because he was like, it's niche, but it's not that niche. Like there's quite a bit of Chubby in that ride, despite the fact that Chubby is, does Chubby exist in like the Mickey Cannon of the TV show outside of the ride? I think it's original for the ride. Right.

Because I think when it originally opened, there was more of a gag of like, it's the new hit character, Chubby. Oh, well, it's. From the ride you like. And then there was just tons of different stuff, Chubbies. like it was a thing that I believe they were doing early on that was likely quickly dropped. Well, they rolled it back. Yeah. It's back in now.

Chubby's back. Because when we were in Florida, I found multiple things with Chubby on him and I bought them both. Yeah. So maybe they took the note too hard or maybe they just needed to wait a second. But like I want I want chubby stuff more. than I want making a mini from that ride. Yes. Yes, that makes sense.

I mean, there's stuff like, I mean, you technically, I guess, call the Droid Depot a gift shop, the place where you build your own Star Wars droid. Yeah. So that is getting, yeah, closer to what we're talking about, which is what we like.

Those are almost, I think that almost takes the jump from like GIF shop to immersive experience store. Yeah, but we're in favor. I'm in favor of this for sure. I mean, don't get me wrong. My favorite gift.

shop is like an immersive store. I just went to, and I know you, you didn't episode about this already, but the Meow Wolf's Omega Mart in Vegas. The first room of that art installation is the Omega Mart, and there's a lot of stuff that you can touch, but a lot of it is just for sale. And it is, it is not the gift shop. There is a separate gift shop outside, but you can go through the Omega Mart shopping line and buy a lot of the Omega Mart products, and that rules. Yes. It starts with a gift shop and the first part of the experience. That one's enter and exit through the gift shop.

Yeah. Yes. Smart. I bought one or two of those fake boxes. I think I bought one. It looks like Advil PM, but it says corn PM. Oh, yeah. That whole store is so good.

Yeah. There was some weird Yeti that was the mascot for whatever the fake like primordial ooze slush. a mammoth. It was a mammoth for the slushy machine that they have there. Yeah. That I was like, I might have to buy this, this, this mammoth. I didn't, but I wanted to. Right. Well, yeah, that's, there's a lot of different stuff. I'm trying to think, is there something like in Omega Mart that you were like, oh, I wish they had this in a gift shop or no? I guess that, no, that was it and they had it. I mean, I'm a sucker for like cute animals, you know.

Right. If there's an animal mascot, I want. For most of your life. Yeah, they were my, my, my, my, my, my, my, I'm a little. I mean, I'm a little. I'm a My closest confidants and my Jaris teachers. Yeah. But like, I don't hate just a regular hotel, what you're talking about earlier, functional gift shop. Yeah.

If it's stocked well, if we got, if we're taking swings. Right. But if there's a little theming, at least it goes a long way. Because so much of the Disney gift shop stuff is just for the general public to go get grandma, a thick sweatshirt with the year. I went to Disneyland, here's the year. Right. Yeah.

And there's, you know, $25 sun tan lotion behind the counter, water, and then there's just the general plush of the top, whatever, 15 characters. But I will say a specific thing is like the big Disneyland hotels, the Grand Californian, wilderness lodge or boardwalk in Florida, they have hotel-specific merch. and if that's cool and you can't get anywhere else. Yeah. I like that. I think, yeah, and I can see wanting to get something from that

if you are like having your anniversary there and you want to think to remember the literal hotel that you were in or like you love the hotel so much. Also, I like it when they do it in the style of, right, like if the Grand Californian shirts are made to look like shirts of a certain era. Yeah.

Like that sort of. of reflect the time of the building. Of the arts and crafts movement. The arts and crafts movement. Right. I guess that's a bad example because I don't know what an arts and crafts t-shirt would look like.

All we know is in the context of hearing it on the tram when you're headed to Disneyland, they say the arts and crafts movement. And we go, you nod along. Oh, well, going up in California, we do know what the arts and crafts movement is.

The style of architecture and it's absolutely everywhere. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm not from here. I know. I'm sorry. I'm from Illinois. You didn't have Stickley.

Stickley didn't blow up around here. No, I don't know what you're talking about. It's a, I would say a very, like, blocky arts and crafts style of wooden furniture. A lot of, not overly intricate, but like a lot of hard edges, bold angles, leathers. Dark woods. Dark woods. Jason knows what you're talking about.

Yeah, I'm going to have to look it out. There's an arts of crafts. Movement Museum in Florida. I get their newsletters. Is it a physical newsletter? No, it's an email newsletter. How often? That still counts.

Once a month or I didn't say it did it. You know, they rotate exhibits or they got new pieces. No, it's not too far from Orlando. I just thought it was interesting when Florida history account posted it once. Oh, do you read the full? How long is the newsletter? I mean, it's just a few paragraphs and pictures. Oh.

Sounds more like an email. I mean. It's an update. Yeah, it's an update. Okay. Well, that's interesting. I mean, I'm open to learning about it. Yeah.

It's got news in it. Newsletters don't have to be long. I guess you're right. Is there in a word count that something has to have before you consider it a newsletter? I just know all the news that's fit to print. So there might not have been a lot of news in March. Despite the fact that this news is specifically not printed. Right.

Yeah. It's digital. But is it. Can you call something printed if it was like a digital print? I think you have to. I think, yeah, I think with context,

you know what we're talking about, but technically it's not right. I think that's right. Okay. I now don't know what we're talking about it anymore. You're really trying to get to the bottom of this. I was just interested. How many newsletters do you have do you think?

Oh, I don't want to talk about it. Oh, now I want to talk about it. You subscribe to a lot of mailing lists? Yes, he does that for sure. Yeah.

Is your inbox just a nightmare? A lot of journal, huh? Is your inbox just a night? nightmare? Oh, usually, yeah. Could you do a search

on your email and just click and just type in newsletter and we'll see what comes up? Um, the only reason I'll say no is because a lot of them

are not labeled. The spicy ones. I don't know. A lot of subsack people are on there. People are on ghost. People are going to be using the word newsletter.

It's probably way more. Porno newsletter for January 2020. I mean like, look, you joke. What's going on in the world of porn? What are the new cameras? What are the new positions? CES just happened, Michael.

Right, yes. And it's often lines up with an adult film expo in Vegas. Oh. Because they tend to be on the cutting edge of technology. Is that a themed experience we should be covering? The adult film expo? Yeah. Yeah, none of you care about your marriages, right?

Well, we don't have to go have, do anything on tour. Yeah, none of you care about your marriages, right? We would just be there to cover it. it's fine. None of you care about your marriages, right? That is, well, it's pretty new. I still kind of like it. Well, look, I mean, look, if our wives can't handle

us going to do our jobs, then we're going to have a big problem, pal. In the, don't film industry. Right. Because it's the, I mean, there's got to be like a photo op and a gift, there's got to be a gift shop there. So there's got to be things to cover. Sex work is work. So, you know. Absolutely. Let's do it.

Yeah. Absolutely. Let's do it. Including you. You're going with us now. there. So in general, you said your favorite gift shop is the Pirates in Orlando specifically? No, no, no. Or the one out here? The one out here.

Okay. I've only been to Orlando Disney, maybe twice. Once was like a couple months ago or once was in December. But we went to Disneyland like every year because I'm a California kid. Right, right. Okay. So you did buy some of this stuff? No, I don't think I actually ever bought anything there.

just wanted to buy them. That's interesting because I think when we're assessing gift shops that we like, it doesn't have to be a place you've ever bought something. Just like, just enjoy the experience of the browse. The vibe. Yeah. The vibe and the brows.

Yeah, yeah. Like it's no longer there, but they used to have a very like specific Indiana Jones gift shop in Disneyland, right by Bengal barbecue. That's been folded into that bizarre now. Yes. Which I still think the vibe of that particular gift shop when I was told Nicole

was coming on this show to talk about. gift shop she was like that's my favorite yes that one right there and that's still the vibe of that little indiana jones thing too they put less billabong there's just less billabong there's more lilo and stitch yeah yeah you're gonna have that there's some teaky there's some enchanted teaky room stuff but but what's the necessity of putting the gift shops in separate spots at dizzle land you know it's because they didn't have so much space but it leads to some fun like theming i feel like Because if you were building Indiana Jones and you had all the space in the world,

you would build the gift shop at the exit, exit through the gift shop. But that's not the case over in Adventureland at Disneyland. It's pretty close, though. It's close. It's across the way. You exit and then you see it on the other side. You don't have to physically walk through it like Jungle Cruise,

where you are actually walking through the much smaller thing that has some parrots. Right. But Dad can probably find Indies big fedora. Yes. They for sure so. It's a souvenir too. Well, then they sell the artifacts from each movie.

Or at least they did a year ago. And that's good. I like that. Well, that's great. That is what we want. I've not bought them. I'm not going to buy them. They are kind of prohibitively expensive.

Yes, they are. But you can buy a crystal skull. But like, yes, which is the kind of thing I want to be able to buy. I think I talked about this last month was on this show. There is a tiki bar in San Diego called Mothership. Yes. You've been there. No.

Because you thought with that out as a topic and I said, I would really love to go to that before we talk about it. So like the theme of it is, it's a tiki bar, so it's tropical, but the theme of it is spaceship crash landed on a tropical planet. So like half of it is the real space. Yeah. Half of it is like the planet. But they're on every table, there is like an LED light up crystal thing that is like the table

light that is changing colors and all that stuff. Yeah. And they do sell that. Oh, okay. It's 3D printed and you can buy one. And yes, I do have that in my home. How much? I think it was maybe like 35 bucks.

Oh, that's not bad at all. No. for a piece of like 3D pinched plastic with a light inside of it. Yeah. For an experience to last a lifetime, a multicolored lighting changing crystal of my own. Well, I mean, it's pretty, is that the, when did you buy it? How long ago? Last year.

Okay. So it was recent. Yeah. I got to get down to this place. Also, they sell all the glasses at the drinks come in. That's the thing I like about TV bars. That's the thing I like. Right.

Well, then you don't need the gift shop for that because like a trader Sam's at Disney. Obviously, they just give you the box after you're done with your table. They usually take it back and give you a clean one. Yes, no, they don't let you take. Though that always was a little disappointing to me initially. You want the one that you've slurped out of. Don't you? No.

What about you? As long as it looks at the same, I don't care. I mean, it's much more practical the way they do it. Yeah, like the food fest, they don't give you a clean one. Like, I drank some of the pickle milkshake at Epcot. And then I drank all I could and then dumped it down the drain. rinsed it out so I could give it to Griffin Newman that night because I told them I'd save it. Right. Was that a plastic one? It was plastic, but it looked like a can. It's one of those cups

that looks like a can. I mean, let me put it in this context for you. The one that they serve you the drink in has been drunk out of by thousands and thousands of people. Yes, that's true. Which is fine because they clean it every time. I know from a realistic practical reason, You don't want to just pick up a glass bird mug that you just drank out of that has alcohol still in it that you then have to go to the bathroom and clean out yourself.

But you want the one that you have the spiritual connection with because it is the one that you drank. You want this. That is what it is. I totally understand that. Stage used, on stage mug. You want the one that you were holding

while you had those memories. Yes. I get it. I get it. And actually, I think I might agree now. Yeah. I think I'm on your side.

I actually, when I started with this opinion, And I was like, do I believe this for sure? And I do for sure believe it. That's the memory. I want the one. Because you want the one that you were sipping out of as you were, you know, having a fun conversation with your wife about going to a porno convention at the Disneyland

hotel. You want a memory of that. And you want the bird or the pirate's head or the nautilus, whatever. Or in my case, just the normal shaped glass glass because now they all match no matter where restaurant I got them from. That's true. Do you have a cupboard full of? souvenir glasses? Not a cupboard, but there is a section of a cupboard that does have a bunch of

teaky glasses in the place. Jason, do you have? You have a full cover? Oh, they're all over the place. Oh, they're not in one central location? No, because some of them I'll drink out of, some of them will put pens in. Or, like, really big ones that have, like, remotes in. Really? Like, what can I see? No, no. Yeah. Like, I have the, like, opening 1999 Island Adventure, like, mug, pre-opening. and when I ordered it, I didn't look at the measurements. So I thought it was going to be a normal coffee mug, but it was like a chumbo coffee mug.

I mean, it was under $20. I still have a Garfield glass cup from you that says use your friends wisely that I think we store pens in. Wow, do you remember that? It was a kid grift gift at some point. Yeah, I think I bought a bunch of coffee mugs, like funky mugs.

Yeah, it was a funky mug. At that point, that sounds, little threatening. Use your friends wisely. Yeah. It's like Garfield and he's making Odie pull him around or something. Oh, okay. That's less sinister.

Yeah. He doesn't have like a knife. He's not like hacking someone's stealing someone's identity. I think and look, this is for a real deep fans of the host of podcast, The Ryd Lour. I believe it's the 15th anniversary of our first Herald show, which our first improv show at UCB this month. Whoa, that means we've known each other for 15 years. So we've known each other for 15 years.

You do probably longer, but I met you basically. A little longer. A little bit, but not a couple years maybe. Sure. And if I told this story, because we all have to, who had to audition for this, and then the UCB theater put us on the team. And you were friends with Lindsay before.

That's right. And I met you guys. And I think before the audition that we all did and then all got put on a team, it was you and our friend Richie go their first time. and it was my fourth time auditioning. Your first time, Jason's third time? I think.

And I believe I gave a look. Fellas, no one gets on the first time speech to you guys. I think I just made myself look like a huge asshole. I don't remember you coming off that way. I don't think I maybe came off like that. But after the fact, I was like, I told them not to worry if they don't get on because it's really hard to get on the first try.

And then they're on my team. Really, really looks stupid. I don't know. A bunch of crows whispered the secrets of him. proven to my ear. I believe that. I was set up. I believe that the crows told you.

See those connections. You make them early on. You and I did our audition scene together in the, in not our initial scene, but in a callback. Yeah. I remember. And I did my call back with Anthony Gio. Also on the team.

And did the scenes with him. And he's been on this podcast. Yes, but not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And we should say you were missed. We did do more parade talk. I invited you, but you were on tour.

Yes, I was out. So we did do it. Geo was there. Scott was there for that one. Well, okay. Well. So that's, I mean, you're glad now. I was on tour, probably.

Probably. We told him you were on tour. Scott, I love you. I'm kidding. We told you. We told you. I told him that was. Scott gave me a job in a Conan O'Brien branded advertisement before I knew he was in the show.

Mm-hmm. Got to hold that. I was in two Scots, Conan Scots. Two Scott Conans? That's right. Two, maybe three? I don't remember. I think two for sure.

Anyway, yeah. So that Indiana Jones. So, yeah, like, let's imagine that that area of adventure land and Disneyland, which is very much like, you know, how would you describe it? Like a bizarre or like not quite fully like Galaxy's Edge Star Wars land, but like outpost-y kind of. It's 100% tropical adventure outpost. Yeah. No way says almost. Sure, yeah.

Yeah, I'd say jungle, jungle oasis is pretty on point. Yeah. Yeah. But the vibes in there, even if it was, like, let's take all the fun merch out. let's put the merch of a hotel gift shop or like a holiday in and put it in there. Does it completely ruin it or the vibe so strong? It'd be worse, but like the building itself is still good. Yeah.

But I think it becomes better when the merch also like lines up with that. Right. Which is why I think Galaxy's Edge, I mean, Galaxy's Edge is really Disney dipping their toe into deep immersion and then immediately getting cold feet and like abandoning it. Yeah. But I think that the remnants of it in terms of. what they sell and the way that the shops are laid out is good. It's like really good.

The way it's presented is the classy, immersive way. It's not just like Star Wars gifts and it's out like. And it's like just the right amount because also I don't need to have like a full argument with a stormtrooper to buy blue popcorn, you know? And I don't want those people to have to do that. I want them to just be able to do their job. Let like cast members be cast members, which is everyone at Disneyland. and I know, and that's sort of like where it gets tricky.

I do wish there was one place where you would have to argue with a stormtrooper or in some of the art, I think there was like a alien looking thing that might have sold you like the Ronto wrap or I don't know, a different type of meat that was cooking on the pod racer engine. So it's like in that, like I wish there was one place. If you were feeling good, you could go up and do a little show with somebody, but you could also mobile order. the item and just take it. Which they kind of have, right? Like Ray walks around, Chivaka walks around, some droids walk around. They could have gone full like this feels like a living place with a lot of actors playing various people that you don't know from the movies just to immerse you. But they run into, I think, a couple of problems. One is just like the absolute tonnage of people that come through that place. Yes. Yeah. And two, like Disney is not actually.

trying to really be an immersive area. They're trying to... Was a push and pull between immersion and commerce. And capitalism, yeah. And capitalism. And I, like, for Star Wars, like, the immersion still wins.

Like, they haven't totally surrendered everything. No, no, no. And I think that, like, credit where credit is due, the land looks great. I really appreciate, I like that there are characters walking around in a way that isn't just Mickey in a cowboy hat who happens to be walking around in like frontier land. No, I wouldn't mind.

I think that's good too. Yeah. Like there is no, I don't think there's like Mickey and a Darth Vader helmet walking around in Galaxy's Edge, right? No. None of the other like, none of the other like costume. Not yet. Not yet.

I wouldn't mind that. Yeah, I would not mind that. Now I think like with theme park, I almost think in the old days of theme park gift shops. There was more of this and it actually has swung a little less specific, at least in the merchandise. Because you go to Knott's Berry Farm and you see like very specific like gift shops all over the place that are very much in theme and often have like craftsmen or artisans working.

Like you can still get a wooden sign carved. There are a bunch of there are a bunch of sort of independent artists who seem to have like rented almost like farmers market stalls. at Nott's. But also then Nott's will do like the Boisenberry Festival and then every single thing in Nott's is Boisbury Festival. Yeah. Right.

But I do think like that was more of the template in the old days was to have like very specific. More specific and you think it's like more in general. Well, I mean, Nats is still like that. But Disney, it still feels in a lot of places Disney, it does feel like it's the sweatshirt. It's the plush. Yeah. It doesn't feel.

Like on Main Street, I get it that those are the main, like, gift shops. But to me, I'm like... I agree. Leave that on Main Street. Do that there. Right. But you still go into, like, a lot of the other gift shops and a lot of the same stuff is there. I like the ones where it's usually a very small store.

And the clothes are a little nicer. Like, there's a little more... There's more buttons on it. Better... Better... Yeah. I get more. wear it on the golf course.

Sure. No, but it's like stuff's either like nicer material or more like interesting designs. The one on Main Street kind of over by the glass blowing and silhouette store is apparently called Disney Clothiers Limited. Yes. And then the one at CityWalk, Hollywood used to be called Universe without Vowls. and now I think it's called Universal Bazaar. Yes.

Yeah. And that is something in general, I don't want to hijack conversation, but what's funny is I don't know the names of a lot of these places, but we go in them all the time. I'm looking all these up now. I had to look up what pieces of it was called. Yeah, I looked up a lot of these last.

But yeah, so much of it is just like you go in and you're not looking at the actual name and the theme of it. I would have called it the Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop. I appreciate that you looked it up. Yeah. Because that's the specificity that are audited. I care about the two of you

and the product that you make. Thank you so much. And I feel like it really shines when one of you in particular is not here. We don't have to say who. The balance of power is shifted. It's Scott. I don't trust him.

Right. I understand you weren't on a Herald team. You aren't an improv team. Scott really likes Steely Dan like I do. That is true. You does like Steely Dan. Never mind. Scott's great.

But you famously, and I think I've brought this up with Scott before, this is a true thing. You have said that you prefer the counting crows of the band to the Beatles. To the beach boys. To the beach boys for sure. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. And this is something this is before I even knew, Scott. Yeah. Is that you threw that out. And I just started laughing like crazy because like obviously to the rock snobs of the world. And I'm not even saying, Scott, I'm just saying in general, anyone who has an opinion on greatest bands. Like that would be blasphemous. Well, I'm not even saying they're the greatest band.

I'm saying I like them more. Right. More than. And I also say objectively, I think they're better. Well, sure. I don't necessarily agree with that. more important in the sort of like, you know, Uvro of rock. No, absolutely not.

But better? I mean. I mean, what's, okay, what's the poetry of recovery the satellites? Is one of the counting crows songs better than God only knows, which is I'm sure the most famous. That's really hard. That's hard. That's hard, Mike's hard. Do you think that, but so.

That's Mike's hard. I'm putting you on a spot here just because like these are the. No, no. No, I don't think so because I also don't know that any song like. It's better than God. only knows? No, I think there are, I think that's about as good as a song can get. Yeah, I think you can probably argue that, yeah. No, there are, there are counting gross songs that I like as much as that song.

Like what? I like another horse streamers blues as much as I like that song, but I love that song. It's very personal to me. I don't think anyone else in the universe would think that that song is as good as that other song, but. Adam Durwood's might. Adam might. Have you watched the documentary on HBO? No.

You know what exists, though. You told me about it. Yeah, you should have watched it. You told me about it before it was out and then I forgot. Yeah, I haven't watched either. Is it out now? Yeah. Well, what are we doing?

We should have done this episode about the counting post. What are we doing here? Long December, I feel like it's having a little moment. I feel like people are covering it left and right. Well, not anymore because it's January now. Well, that now, yes, but a month ago. I mean, look, you sent me a thing that I think the counting crows may be tweeted, which was happy long December month to all who celebrate.

Yes, I did too. Just very funny because it's like, sorry, do you mean December? Do you mean to say happy December? Happy December. Yeah. Well, they're trying to memeify one of their biggest hits. Look, they're young, they're hit. MJ Lenderman covered Long December solo.

It's some like GQ thing. He's like, he's by himself with sunglasses. This is a young man that I like, a young musician I like. This is before any of our times. But that song was like about as big as a song can get without being like at like at the time. I think people like really knew that song. That's their biggest song. Yeah, long December.

it was a pretty big song. I would think so, but I don't know that actually off the top of my head. Maybe, okay, not as big as a song can get, but you talk about like 99% of the bands that have ever been on Earth. Well, that's the case then, yes, of course. Long December, yeah. Are you looking up the charts, Jason? Well, I was seeing where it was like Spotify. Is like that their number one, probably. Of their top five. But I feel like they could have been like the cover of big yellow taxi or something. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. It could have been the Sunday did for Shrek. It could. have been accidentally in love. For Shrek 2, excuse me. Right, yes, which has a very weird video with a CGI dreadlocked bunny rabbit. Good. Which I think is like weird, like the bunny rabbit's like

purving on a girl or something in it. I can't tell you. It's not a well-made music video. I can't tell you how the sigh of relief that I and I think many Ken and Crows fans breathe out when Adam Duritz got rid of his fake dreadlocks that he had had for far too long. Aren't they bad? He's still got big hair now, though. Because I think he shaved him all off, but I feel like his hair is back being big. It's not dreadlocks on.

I don't know. I, by the way, I'm mad that he shaved those off. Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones. Okay. That's number five. That's number one. Oh, oh, yeah, of course.

Number two, accidentally in love. Number three, big yellow taxi. Okay. Number four, round here. Round here. Yep. I don't love round here. Number five along December.

Okay. That was totally wrong. I mean, that just means they have four. other songs that are also as big as a song. I can agree with that. I can get behind that. That they have mega hits. Yeah.

They got five mega hits that the world knows. Right. Can I talk about gift shop since you got your account and crows out? Yeah, of course. Okay. I didn't even start it, but would you please, Jason? Well, I apologize. I don't mean to cut off the guest.

No, no. It's okay. I was shocked that we got to do that. Sure. Yeah. No, I want to be polite to the cast. I was a big gift shop kid Like any gift shop I would go into

I feel like when we checked into the hotels Even it was like a no-nothing Like non-the-bargy hotel They're like where did Jason go How we wandered to the gift shop? For sure Starting to eye stuff up It's like when I got into the hotel room

Immediately turn on the television Yeah Did you have like a thing you wanted to buy? at most gift shops? I would have stuff I would keep my mind. Did you have like a category of things? Like for me it was always stuffed animals. Yeah, for me mostly.

Well, okay, I guess key chains. Sure. I don't want to say thimbles and spoons because that's a bit. Like that's not true. Is it true? But I would usually eyeball them. And I mean, like, maybe this is a trip.

You were like thimble curious. Yeah. This is a trip where I go. on the thimbles. I don't ever remember seeing a thimble in a single gift shop I've ever been in my life. Now, spoons, like collector spoons, never bought one. But I see the appeal of that. Those look like they were pulled out of like a treasure chest.

Yeah, they're pretty fun. Which again, I guess is what I'm learning about myself with the Renaissance Fair and the pirate is that I just want my swords. You want swords? I want to be a pirate. You're chasing booty. I'm chasing booty. I'm much like Captain Jones.

Jack Sparrow, I'm all about that booty. Of course. Jason, do you have any thimbles? Do you own any thimbles? How do you sew things? Well, that's Jane's category. That's Harry Territoy.

She might have some thimbles, maybe. I have two for sure. I think I probably have more. I don't think I have any fimbals. No, practical ones. Oh, okay. Workhorses. Yeah.

Leaders of the pack. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about? Like when you were a kid especially and you go somewhere on vacation, whether it was Disney somewhere else, if you got to the hotel at night especially, you get in there,

there was something magical about like settling in and then going down back to the lobby. Going down, getting ice, used to be my big thing. Getting ice, getting a soda. And then if that gift shop was still open, wandering around that gift shop,

that felt like the first little experience of the trip. Vacation. That's vacation. Of the vacation. Right. Yeah. It's a little trip. And it's just like the TV stage. They have different channels.

You know? And they might have informational channels. That's true too. So those were my big ones. My family was always been like, well, okay, remember stuff. Get it on the way out so we don't have to carry it. But I'm like, I was stopping in every gift shop. You know, I really, I like the big ones at the exit because they're really big.

they might have some like diamonds in the rough. Yeah, they got a corner full of specific weird stuff because they already covered all the sweatshirt with the name of the place on it. Exactly. Yeah. So the Emporium at Disneyland, the Islands of Adventure trading company, Islands of Adventures,

I also have always been fascinated by, so at Disneyland there's two little like kiosks right when you exit. and they do not have any names. Like when you go... Yeah, there's no theming. There's no theming. I feel like those are...

They have like... Bubble wands. Years and spinny, lead-up wand things. But also bottles of soda. Sure. And water. Yes. So I feel like I, I've always been fascinated by those.

Just to see what they think is selling or what people gravitate to, because I feel like I only ever bought like postcards to send to people there or like, oh, it's long drive back. I'll get a bottle of Coke or get a Diet Coke. You know what my thing that I'm buying at gift shops now is because I want to like some, like y'all, we go a fair amount of places on tour and I want to remember those things, but you're traveling pretty light on tour so you don't want to like bring a bunch of stuff.

I often can't even get like a clothing item because I also have show clothes and record. Sure. Anyway, but like, stickers have been my new go-to of things to buy it from the places that I go. Stickers or magnets are pretty compact. Magnets are great, stickers are great, but I just like have a book now that I fell up with stickers from some places that I go. Is it like I have like what kind of a, like a little journal-y kind of? It's just a blank journal, but I don't journal in it. I just use it for stickers.

It's just stickers. Oh, it's sticker boat. Cool. Yeah. That is a good idea. I'm not a sticker guy, but I like that idea. Wasn't either, but I am now. I was the kind of person where, like, if you gave me a sticker,

I'd be like, well, I don't want to put this on anything because things break. And like, I will, like, I put this on a water bottle, then I'll lose the water bottle, then I'll lose the sticker. Oh, yeah. So a corner of a drawer just became a little more whimsical. Right. Yeah. And even then, it's like, well, what if I get rid of the furniture?

So now I have a thing, and the thing is going to keep the stickers for forever. And I'll never get rid of the thing because its point is to hold the stickers. That's good idea. Yeah, that is a good idea. I mean, you know what I say this funny? because, like, I am not a sticker guy now, but I did love when they would have, like, sticker books back in the day. I don't see these at, like, grocery stores anymore.

Do you remember that? There would be a book. It would be, I don't, I don't think I had a Ninja Turtle one, but, like, it would be a book. And you would collect the sticker in the packet. So you get a blind packet of stickers, and then you would try to take, like, complete the book, essentially. Yeah, that's good. Which is a great money.

That's really, really good. Money scam. I liked, was it color forms or place? forms a lot. That existed. Where it was like a static electricity base. So it was like a background and you would put a little detachable sticker on it. Now that definitely solved the problem about not sacrificing a sticker. Because then you just peel them all off at the end. Can I, you brought up Natsbury Farm a while ago and I just remembered something that I must share with you because it's very, very funny to me. I don't know how much like Disney is doing this, but I'm sure that a lot of AI art is, starting to make its way onto merchant stuff because there are corporations, they're making, like, they're making new things for everything. They want to pay people as little as possible, so that that's happening. Yeah. But I was at Knott's with a friend who is a, um, a graphics designer and an artist and does all sorts of art stuff for some like very big companies. Um,

and we were looking at keychains in, I think like Snoopie's camp house or whatever. Camp Snoopy. Camp Snoopy. It was the Camp Snoopy gift store. And there's this one little Charlie Brown with his arm out and she's like oh my god and I was like what she was like the modelers didn't touch this this is when they send you a 3D modeler of a character

they give it to you standing with one arm to the side and one arm out as a display of what this thing could do and then you're supposed to move it into a shape before you print off it and they just printed all these one arm out

Charlie Browns are is the keychain that they were making there now. No, but we let. And she also was like, this sweatshirts AI, this sweatshirt's AI. I was like, how do you know? She's like, I just know. Artists know. Interesting.

I don't know, but she's, but I'm not as visual. I thought some at some of the Cedar Fair of Six Flags, like, uh, vlogs of like, here's what's on sale at like, scary farm or, um, uh, uh, what's the Six Flags one called? Fright Fest. Fright Fest, yeah. And I'd be like, I think that's AI. It might just be a shitty job.

Yeah. Could also just be a bad job. It could also be a bad job. Everybody's like investigating now. Because like the Disney one, there was that Halloween one that everyone was like, it's AI, it's AI, it's AI. And then people are like, no, it's just, it's just not good. So like everybody will pile on sometimes online and they're wrong.

But I think, I think every, like, you know, AI anything. You're like, I think this is AI, but I'm not sure. who know like I mean there is there are and have been AI tools working within graphic design for a long time sure but

I think that I do think this trend will slightly correct itself if only because it's all like soulless and bad yeah it's pretty recognizable it's ugly people will buy less of it like yeah there's like AI doesn't design the Disney castle

the logo. It just can't. Yeah. If you want something that iconic that people are going to like fall in love with, it's going to be done by a person. Right. And it's not, if you're going to put an AI picture of Charlie Brown and the thimble, you're going to have to make it look good or Jason's not going to buy it.

I mean, if we, like make him kicking over a football. Or make him like a 3D character sheet that hasn't been manipulated. Right. That's funny to me. I would buy that in a heartbeat. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to think there was some other as I screen grab.

Oh, at the, at the, um, when you exit the Universal Parks in Florida, they have little like last chance for buy something for someone at home, but they're named, they're named Port Provisions. Oh. At islands. And then, uh, it's a rap at Universal Florida. And that was a thing that I really loved as a kid. The lingo of filmmaking or like clap,

or any of that stuff, if Universal was selling it. I'm like, well, it's a movie studio. It's been around for a very long time. Yeah. I mean, Universal, I think Universal largely does a pretty great job with its gift shops. Like, even the ones at Universal Studios, Los Angeles, the one that is basically Hello Kitty, but it's Hello Kitty in every single Universal property movie you've ever seen. Like, that's quite good.

And unfortunately, the one that I like the most is one that I will know. ever ever buy anything from because it's like hogsmead which is the whole place is a is a gift shop yeah that is just an immersive place where it feels like you're walking around and buying things as if you lived in that universe but you can't buy it because you can't wear it because because of the whole thing it's not fun anymore because we love trans people and jk rolling it's a fucking lunatic um it is one of the only examples of like out of the park that's so done up with the theming that that hog like the part of like the city's like general universal gift shop that's like that has like the the harry potter section has full

on it looks like a train station yes vibe of even the hotel gift shops at universal florida the like corner of the general gift shop looks like hoggwards kind of and like that's like some of the downtown disney i mean i guess world of disney and downtown disney and then was it called world of disney in florida as well what is that one called i think that's world of disney those used to have much more crazy fun, whimsical things going. A goofy was in some sort of contraption on the ceiling or whatever. And now everything is very pared down. And it's not minimal is.

I imagine that those trends also, though, change with like how the, how the, not the stock market economy, but like actual economy is doing. Sure. I'd be willing to bet right now because things are so bad. They're like, well, we're just going to make the sort of middle of the road like sell as many sweatshirts with the name of the thing on it as possible. Whereas when things are going really well, you get the more,

you get more the crystal skull because people are going to spend more. With merchandise, I think that's true. Because like the theming, like the theming I'm talking about that's gone away is, is recently gone away and there was there for a couple decades. Sure. Certainly with merchandise,

they're not going to take risks when the economy is bad. The economy's bad. They're not going to make, we've made a million crystal skulls. we're hoping on them to sell all of them by the end of the year. That seems, and they're, oh, they're all $200 each. I really am finding, though, that I do like eventized stuff.

Like, if I'm at Disneyland, like, during. Oh, a specific time. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You want a thing that has something to remember. Well, when it comes to, yeah, what, like, specificity, it's like, I'm trying to think. Like, on a lot of my, of course, purchases are,

action figures. Sure. And play sets, you might call them or other things. So, like, I am going to... There's a fair amount of gift shops

where you can buy that kind of thing. Not the kind I'm looking for. And not enough, right? And not enough. But I do think, like, again, you want a piece of whatever the experience was to come home with you.

And then, yes, if it's something that's like, we're here for our Christmas or Halloween, you want something to commemorate that moment as well. And I think for most, again, the general public, it's like the shirt with all the friends says Halloween 20, 25. Mickey's not so scary.

Even though now people are making those shirts to go to the park in. Yeah, right. Third parties. Yes, true. But not if you're bringing back a gift for someone else. But I want like, I want in a gift shop, I want like Mickey in his specific 2025 Halloween outfit figure. Whatever his little pants look like. Limited edition.

Of course, it has to be limited because they're going to do a new one next year to commemorate. So, like, I think it depends on how we like to bring a piece home. It's stickers, it's thimbles, it's spoons. It's, whatever that is, you want that, you want a very specific version of it. Yeah. And sometimes you can get that.

Like, sometimes you can. In the last season or maybe the second season of Star Trek Lower Decks, there was a creature called, Oh, God. What's it called? It's an episode you were in? No, I wasn't in Lower Decks, though I wish I was.

And I bought it because I loved it so much. Yeah. You're going to have to edit this out. I'm hoping that I get to go to a Star Trek convention this year. That's one of my fingers crossed things I want to do. I would love to. I don't know why I haven't been. Brent Spiner, John,

that Franks have a new podcast coming out, and I'm very excited about it. I don't know. That's just unrelated to what I'm talking about. that's just another Star Trek piece of information as I stall for Zach to look at this up. You're going to have to add this out. It's not the gorn though, right? No, it's the one that drinks bones.

Was it an original creation for Lower Dex? Oh, it's Moopsie. Oh, that's fun. It's moopsie. The Moopsie is a little alien and I bought a limited edition print. Right. This was in at a gift shop, though. No, this was online.

This was bespoke. These things, not bespoke, but this was a very limited run of these things. Got it. Because the kinds of things that I want to be in the gift shop are too niche to be in the actual gift shop. Yes, right. I mean, that's, I mean, you really get to what we want and it's like it has to be made online. They're going to make less than a thousand of them. Or a thousand weirdos in the world that want exactly what we want. Yeah. Do you, have you talked about Pokey Park Canto yet? No. No. Okay. Is that in Japan? It's in Japan. It's either

just opened or about to be open. Yeah. Um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, simply must go. I'm so curious. What? You eye in a trip? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, go live in a Pokemon world?

Yes, please. Yeah, no. I'm there. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go tomorrow. They were in hot water because they were like, we're not making this accessible to people that aren't able to walk a lot. Oh.

If you can't walk a lot, too bad. And people were like, wait, what? Why? Yeah. Well,

that's no good. Let me talk about a negative thing. when it comes to give shops. High prices. Specific. Very specific. Well, high prices I'm no fan of. But there's a place, I guess it's my, well, the Polynesian's my favorite hotel, I guess, in Florida, in Disney World.

But contemporary is a close second. And they have, you know, this is an old, I'll show you this old photo of the contemporary. It's got that weird mural that we love. Oh. That's, you've ever been here, Zach? Mm-mm. The contemporary? No.

It's right next to the Magic Kingdom. The Montereale goes around the lake, goes. through the actual hotel and takes you to the Magic Kingdom. So this was any kid who went to the contemporary or drove through it on a monorail was just like, holy shit. I can't imagine you didn't think that as a kid

and don't think that as an adult if he still likes fun. Anyway, so this is the 70s. There's a lot of fun places to hang. There's tables. I mean, I think it was a little restaurant on this side of it. And all of this, in the last so many years, was replaced by,

by this kind of cramped gift shop that almost looks like temporary. It's got like kind of fun mouse ears where you enter. It's called Fantasia. Oh, that sucks. And that's now sort of sitting in the middle of this amazing structure.

Giant roofless gift shop. And it looks like they built more hotel rooms in the inside of it. No, I don't think they did. This is the other direction. This is facing the other way. And there's another gift shop right next to it as well. So this is a separate gift shop that they sort of just like put, you know, no,

you've been in this, of course. Well, because I think I've told this story before. I was staying at the Bay Lake Tower right next door. And I walked over and I went in like not the Fantasia gift shop, but like the slightly nicer gift shop. But I'm looking around and I'm like, you mean, uh, hold on. Is it called Bayview gifts? I believe. So. Yes. And they say it's BVG on the outside. So you need to know what those letters stand for.

Oh, I got to check out BVG. So in the future, when we talk about the gift shop at contemporary, we need to call it BVG. Sure. Because I don't think we've said the letters BVG on the show. No, no. But going forward, don't call it Bayview Gifts. Call it BVG. BVG.

Let's not tell Scott. Let's not tell Scott. And if you ever calls it Bayview Gifts, we're going to laugh at him. We don't know why. We don't know it. Hey, go to BVG? I... Hold on, Jason was going to say something.

Oh, yeah, I was going to say, I went in. I was like, hey, do you guys have any, like, T-shirts or a ball cap or pins with the contemporary logo on it? Because they had, like, a cool throw-backy logo at the time. They're like, no, no, we don't have anything like that. And I'm like, you're the big, you're the famous hotel. You're the BVG. You're the BVG.

And you're BVG. This is BVG. You all know me? Not the BFG. BVG. BVG. So I'm expecting more VG, okay? And now I'm getting non-VG.

You're not the LVG. No. Less view gifts. No. But yeah, they threw this, they threw this like temporary. I don't mind going in it, but it's like that's where you get like plush and stuff. And it's ruined. The contemporary is the like one of the ultimate places just if you could sit and hang and just look up and watch

the Monorail go by and watch people like I feel like they've just taken out such like prime real estate for hanging. From the pictures that I saw of what you just showed me that it used to look like what it looks like now. I'm sure it looked modern at the time. Now it looks. I'm showing this is different.

That's just like a little area to like how it is now or how it was. Above, yeah, how it was. That's great. Like it feels retro now. Some tree. I think the move to like update it all to be modern when it was really meticulously done the first time.

Well, right, because modern, quote, unquote, changes every, like, three years. So just leave it. We just stayed. We were doing our shows in Florida and very quickly, stopping by the parks. We stayed at Cabana Bay. And Cabana Bay is like, really fun. Like, the theming of Cabana Bay is great. And it's not even like a particularly fancy hotel. It's like a very family hotel. The whole thing smells like chlorine. there's there's um it's massively huge yeah yeah um but the vibes are like what 50s 40s 60s 60s 50s i mean it's beach boys sure and it's good yeah but they've not counting crowsish no that's okay it's jersey shore kind of wildwood like design mid-century modern kind of design

It's big elements from a hotel in Miami that I can't think of, but the inside tree in the middle of the lobby. And when they do, you know, we were there during the holidays and they do the Christmas things in the same style. Yeah. And like the vibe of the whole place is incredible.

Yeah. They have not updated it. And I think it is only going to feel better as time goes on instead of places feeling this need to like, I mean, you see it as people remodel houses too. like houses have all this character when they're built and then the cheapest flip comes around and everything is the same white countertop

because you needed to appeal to as many people as possible. Yeah. Sure. Can I say that there used to be real quick to go back. The contemporary used to have two shops, contemporary man and contemporary woman. Thank God. Because if I was walking through a woman's section

of a clothes, of a clothing store, for me, a man, I don't know what I'd do. Yes. So you could, yeah, was like express at the mall. Which is still subdivided. Which is still,

yes. They're still separated, yes. Which is useful in the context of what I'm looking for. Sure. I mean, you could still figure out like I'm looking for a suit jacket.

I don't know that they need two different. You can just put it on one side of the store. We understand how it works. Like, oh, like, oh shit, I put on a dress accidentally. I meant to put on a suit.

I fucked up. And something happens. But it won't happen. Like, some of you put on the dress and you're like, oh, I look great in this. But I'm not going to buy it.

If they don't have it. if they don't have it in express for men. Right. It's just they've had so much confusion when they had one store. Well, I do think clothing is a little bit of a little bit of the toy aisle problem. In what way? Of like,

of like, okay, so I have small feet, right? What size? Amen. God, maybe like seven. What, Jason,

what are you working with? Seven and a half. There you go. Oh, Jason just put it on the table. You might have bigger feet than I do. I don't know. What do you think I got?

What do you think I got? 12? Correct. There you go. Are you good feet guesser? Not really. You're tall and you have big feet. Yeah.

But like when I'm buying shoes, they're frequently shoes that are made in, like, the shoes that I'm wearing now are just like normal Adidas. Yes. They're black and white. They're mostly white. They make these shoes for men and women. They are identical. I don't have different feet than a woman does.

So like the fact that we sell these in women's. sizes and men's sizes doesn't make any sense at all. We should just have shoe sizes and sell them in those sizes. Unless it's wider. Because I have wide feet. But I don't know that you have wider feet than a woman does. Like some women have wide feet too. Well, sure.

My feet aren't that long, but they are wide. Jason and I both have wide feet. I also have wide feet. If there's a seven wide, then I'll take that. But that's also, it could be 7W or 7E or 7E or 7E. E.E. What is E? E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. I've never seen E.E. E. E. E. E. But it's out there. Only for the real heads. I guess the sneaker people would know. If you're looking at a Nordstrom

rack or a Ross, you might encounter some ease. I can go on Zappos.com and find some ease, I bet. Sure. This is, I guess, related, tangentially related. But I was talking about shoes. That is, they make like very, you know, expensive, specialized shoes now for different, like, shoes, like different shows and different movies and different characters. Cool. Would you, Jason, want a pair of shoes that evoked the contemporary? Oh, that could be cool. Yeah.

Like a hotel theme for your shoes. I will tell you when there was the Animal Crossing collab with vans or something. Oh, yeah. They had some shoes that came out and I like, if they had looked better. Yeah. I might have bought them. Yeah.

But I'm, I'm into that. Something has started happening to me recently where I'll be watching an anime show and a character will be wearing a shirt, but because it's made for a Japanese audience, but the shirt is often in English. So it's just like,

it's just a shirt with like a weird troll on it that just has onions under it. And it's just a good shirt. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't even remember the name of the show, but I'm like,

I'd buy the onions shirt. The Onion's shirt is funny. Somebody had to have made it if it's like a shirt like that. I don't know. Anime characters change clothing a lot more than other, like... It's not just Charlie Brown's shirt, and he's worn it for 80 years or whatever. They don't all change clothing, I guess, but in more modern shows, like people are... Yeah.

High school students be changing their shirts all the time. Sure. And he wears his onions shirts a lot. I think he has it on a mug, too. Yeah. Like with, like, pirates, for example, like, I don't necessarily want to... wear the outfits of like say the auctioneer in pirates of the Caribbean what about the what about red's dress though that's pretty cool I'm not saying the auctioneers outfit's not cool

I'm saying both of those are cool outfits but I'm not looking to wear those outfits I think you're right that that is actually not what I want mostly in a gift shop but I do like some of it there I would love to see that it was available I would be like oh wow you can buy reds dress for a thousand dollars which is usually what you can buy it from probably I think you literally can buy Hermione Granger's dress from Yule Ball. I'm now really? I think so. I think that's right.

Yeah. Oh, interesting. Or like a bad version of it. But again, you shouldn't. Sure. But red is, okay.

I wasn't going to. You shouldn't. I'm not going to buy it. I promise. Don't do it. I'm, shit, I just bought it.

I just bought it online. Shit. Mike is fast. I really, well, you got to do one click. You got to set it up so you got one click. That's how you beat out the

competition. That's how you beat out the competition. Sorry, hold one second. I have a weird, not a weird, like I hit in a plain sight. Yeah, go for it. Gift shop recommendation. And it is at Epcot Center. And it is one of the first shops you hit going in the park.

But Gateway Gifts is built into one of the legs of spaceship Earth. So it's kind of limited in what they have. there. Okay. I bought a Diet Coke from there. I'm listening. Yeah, sure. But like the giant character shop,

which I think is what the main gift shop is called there now. It's newer and it's like in the middle of the park. It's not that great. But gateway gifts, sometimes you can find some novel stuff there. And Gayway Gifts has the specialness of being part of the spaceship earth structure. Yeah. Because like all you want to do,

and you know we're talking about the big ball in Epcot. I've been to Epcot once and I was I think like five But this is another thing I think for like If you were there when you were a kid And you went to the big ball There's a ride in the big ball at Epcot Spaceship Earth

But as Jason's saying the gift shop Is in one of like the legs So it almost feels like this big spaceship There's another little room you can go into That's not just the ride So you get a little extra bit of spaceship earth By going and purchasing your diet Coke In that room

Yes I think what I think we keep talking about Is like gift shops with unique architecture. Yes. Makes it really sets it apart from like just another store to buy something in. Well, and in a human beings, and I'm talking about us, are so dumb. We're in movies. That in Galaxy's Edge, when you get a Coke that's in a circle, it's in a sphere.

I love it. You go, holy shit. Like, when they change the font of Coke on a normal Coke can. Right. Yes. We are so stupid. That's not stupid. I think that's like, that is an attention to deep.

Look, they didn't have to do that. No, they didn't. You would have bought a Coke no matter what. Right. So the fact that they gave it to you in like a cool space bottle that makes you feel like you're walking through a cool space port is good. I completely agree with you. There's a Coke robot.

There's a Sprite robot. I love those robots. Yeah. There's a Sprite R2 unit and a Sprite Coke unit. That's late stage capitalism and I feel conflicted about it. But I do think it might be good. But like just fill up the trough. We're little pickies and we're going to feed if you're going to give us that theme.

If you're going to, look, if we're going to have last-stage capitalism, which seems like we are. We're here. Which means we're going to sell Coca-Cola everywhere. Yes. Then do I want Coca-Cola to be spending their big bucks to make it robot themed? Yes, I do. Snort. Give me that slop.

Don't give me that slap. Make the artist figure out what Coke is like in an alien language and put that on the can. I'm into that. Right. That is good. I wish it was a different flavor. They'd really have me over the top if it was just like they added a separate Yoda salad flavor.

A Yoda salad flavor or something. Or it was Yoda. Yoda's bed, sorry. Yoda's... Yoda Cola. Yoda Cola, yeah. And it's just like it's his mixture. He made it out of the swamp water.

Oh, it's in his pot. It's in his pot. If it was at a soda fountain and above, there was an animatronic of a Yoda bubbling in a big pot. And it's bubbling over the side down into this thing and you pour it into your cup. Yeah. I mean, that'd be great. That's good. And we're getting closer to just being able to have this in our homes because you go to whatever, Home Depot, Lowe's around the holidays.

And they are selling anima. For reasonable amounts of money. That are crazy detailed. Right. So you could get in the future, perhaps, a Yoda, like soda stream. And it's a big Yoda animatronic. A Yoda stream. A Yoda stream, if you will.

Yoda stream is a billion dollar idea. 100% it is. And it's just that Yoda will mix up your soda in a big cauldron. He has a dirty, like, spoon that he's stirring with. Well, what is it going to be clean? He's in the snuff. No, I feel you. He doesn't care.

Degabah's bubbly. Lucasfilm has bought the Coppola wine, the winery. In this scenario, yeah. So they can focus on Yoda Stream. On Yoda Stream. And the Alton's not a streaming service. And they all trances pay off some bills from Megaloplas. Right.

Sure. I'm fine with all of that. But yes. Yota Stream is not a streaming service, but it is a better name for Disney Plus than they currently have. Yes, that's correct. If we were also subscribed to Yoda Stream, I think we would all feel a lot better about it. So all of the stuff that we're talking about it. about which would make life better under late stage capitalism would be having an animatronic

in your house doing like a Flintstone's prehistoric bird's job that would at least give you more whimsy during the day. I think those things are out there to be found in various ways. Right now they're just mostly decorative and they'll say something and they'll wave their arms around. Yeah. Yeah. But we're not have I mean we don't we don't have animatronics for things that are functional. There's not like a BB8 Roomba that exists yet. Right. So why haven't they done a Roomba that's the Roomba that is a literal Roomba but painted to look like a droid? It's crazy. As we reach the end of this podcast, I'm giving out billion dollar ideas here. Yeah. Because yes, why wouldn't that makes too much sense?

Yeah. And I imagine the only reason they haven't is because Roomba is not owned by whatever parent company. Maybe, but they could like it. I mean, You can license the characters for whatever. Disney X Rumba collab. It's insane that every sort of like Nespresso machine has not done a Star Wars collab. Yeah. Because marriage have money. Everything is, I mean, there's going to be a Ninja Turtle Pizzeria that was opening in Santa Monica in a couple months.

Is that true? Is that true? Fully licensed. There's already like Sonic cafes. Like pop up or like forever? Well, forever as far as like how long is that going to last. But the plan is. I think.

I can go eat pizza with Michelangelo? Right. Yes. That's good. I mean, I think it's good. I'm excited about it, which maybe I shouldn't be. Because like what is it really going to be in there other than pictures of the Ninja Turtles on the wall? Yeah.

There's like a pretty good chef that I have DM'd with already who's in charge or who's doing it. Is he trying to figure out how to make the pizza cheese really drippy to fall off the sides of all the slices? Because if he's not, he does need to figure that out. If you look through his stories, he was literally researching, not necessarily what you're saying, but kind of like the flop. I think he said like maybe the pizza flop. He's trying to make Ninja Turtles pizza. I think so. I think he's trying to do an authentic job of it.

He was messaging with Mike of like, hey, hey, do you know how to make a pizza? Do you think of advice? You're not going to make my pizza flop? I will slide into people's DMs now more than I ever have in the past. and in the last few weeks I slid into the guy who's making Chuckie Cheese toys DMs

to give him my thoughts I slid into the chef for the Ninja Turtles Pizzeria to see when is it opening we would love to cover it on a podcast to ride as a journalist you were reaching out as a journalist

yeah yeah no this is not nefarious this is not lascivious in any way and then I messaged the official account well I said slide Mike never liked it if I suggested

sliding into Deans back of the day. I didn't like it. I feel like you never, you're always like, oh, God. Well, you probably were like, I'm gonna, here's what I'm gonna say. And I went, oh, no, don't say that.

Well, no, I've always been a very respectful young man. Oh, no. Oh, gross, Jason. Don't say that. Don't send that picture. The third one, DM, though, that I've thrown out there that has not been responded to was to the official Jonathan Frakes Brent Spiner podcast account,

asking if the gentleman were doing any press, they wanted to do any other podcasts to promote their new show. And that has not been returned. Neither of those men run that account. Yeah, somebody's nephews doing all of it. There's some AI looking art for it as well. But I'm very, yeah, I'm very bold when it comes to these D-Ns. Well, for Star Trek, you have to go boldly. So, well, that's true. You're doing the right move. That's very true. And I hope they get back to you. Can I hit you guys with a few general facts about gift shops? Yeah, right. Please, yeah. Because I looked up the history of gift shops. And really what I did is I

looked at Wikipedia. A gift shop is a shop where gifts can be purchased. But they think, you know, museums are like kind of the first dedicated gift shops that exist, like towards the end of the 1800s. Which is good because I need to be able, and now modern day, need to be

able to buy a very important piece of art as a magnet so that I have it in my house. But it's small. Whistler's mother as a magnet. Yeah, correct. One a handful of laudanums fill form. We're saying different things, but I think we agree.

Yeah, oh, I got to appreciate the magnet. Don't come in. Don't mean in the middle. Let's just move on. And then I think the oldest, like still open shop is yield curiosity shop in Seattle, which was founded in 1890. It is ye old. Was it always called that?

I believe so. It is a classic example of an early curiosity souvenir shop that's still going strong, full of oddities, memorabilia, and tourist items. So it also has been always been like postcard type stuff. In Seattle. Yeah. I'll check it out. It's a store that sounds like it opened with the dust and stuff.

Yeah, I'm sure, like, it was already called ye old. So I'm like, when is it supposed to be? What? Is it themed to be like even older, you know what I mean? Oh, that's good. You mean like it started out theme to be like. Well, he said it's always been called that. Well, it's open in 1890.

But it's called ye old in 1890. Right. So what year were they going for? Well, when did they start calling things, ye, ye, hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. way before 1899. Yeah, that's true. Because who said, hear you, hear you?

Every medieval crier in the world. Anyone unfurling a scroll? Here you, hear ye. Did Paul Revere say, hear you hear you? Yeah, I think we can go even a little bit further back than Paul. I'm just asking a couple of people,

look if they said, hear you, hear you. Paul Revere, though, he said the British are coming, but did he say, hear you, hear you, or didn't have enough time when he was on the horse? No, I think he most said the British are coming. Yeah, a lot of the British are coming.

But didn't he say something to start the, statement? Yeah, well, it wasn't, you listen to my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Ravir. I know that's that. But he's not saying that. Yeah.

He is saying the British are coming. One if by land, two, if I see. He was saying that? Huh? Did he say that in his ride? And I believe that was the message he was given.

Right, because he would say one if by land, two, by C, because he was looking out and it was the lamp lights. He didn't know if it was one of by land or two if I see? No, he knew.

But I'm saying he didn't, say by sea then. I guess he would have, yeah, he would have just said, oh, they're coming, what, did they come by, did they come by sea?

They had to come by sea, right? I think they came every which way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he didn't, here you hear you was much more like a formal gathering around

in the town square kind of a, yeah. It's also sort of like, Franken and Bass is like, here you, here you. Franken? Franklin, what did I say?

You said, were you talking about Rankin and Bass? What are you talking about? Oh, yeah. You're talking about the stop motion? Why didn't I think it was Franklin and Bass? I think he said Franklin, like L.

Is there a TV show called Franklin and Bash? Frank. Franklin and Bash. I think Rankin and Bass. That was the TNT. The T&D show, Franklin and Bash. The Brackett Meyer vehicle. The guys that made all that stop motion, the Franklin and Bash.

Yeah. What is the name of the stop motion people? Rankin and Bass. Rankin and Bass. Rankin and Bath. Yeah. There's like a here you, hear you letters for Rudolph. Oh, okay.

Like something for Rudolph. So people in the North Pole are saying it. Letters for Rudolph? I don't know, Mike. I thought it was Franken and Bass. You can't listen to me. The kids sent letters to Rudolph? To like cheer him up?

Maybe. I don't know. Letters to Rudolph. Well, also I know this is such a mix-em-up. It's the type of case Franklin and Bash would definitely... I don't see anything about letters to Rudolph. I'm sure that's not. what it is because that doesn't make any sense.

Letters to Rudolph Giuliani, maybe. When he's in prison. I feel like, I feel, I'm trying to think of there's like a, you know what I mean where you have like an audio clip that you remember and it's running through your head? Yeah. There is some stop motion character saying, here you, hear you, hear you. I think it's one of the Christmas ones. Yeah.

I don't know what comes after before that. And the listeners know, don't tell me because I don't need to know. Yeah, you'll feel bad. Yeah, it also suddenly were to say Franken and Bash or Franken and Bass. Or Franklin and Bash. Do you know who El Franken is? I do know who Al Franken is. Our disgraced senator?

He was a senator, yeah. And, of course, Saturday Night Live writer as well. Did you know that? Is that the same man? Yeah. No, I did not know that. See, this is the pop culture you miss. This is what we were, Jason and I were eating up as kids.

It's like, oh, El Franken's been on the show since 19, 7. But did the street cats teach you about all the best places to feel love in the world? No, they didn't do that. In the sunlight, I had some suggestions. Right. And we're filled with more anxiety now because we know about Franken and Davis and all the different sketches they did on Saturday Night Live and how Al Franken wanted to be an update anchor, but then Norm MacDonald got it in the 90s. That's how long as tenure lasted at Saturday Night Live.

Cool. Very cool. Extremely cool. I'm glad you guys know that. We do know it. Mike, any more final gift shop thoughts? I don't know. There's other stuff.

I mean, we'll talk more about, I mean, we haven't done the contemporary proper, have we? Or did we? We did. Shit. All right, I'm leaving. I'm going to edit that out so I don't look like an idiot. But it really just opened up all the different, like, all the different stuff that's closed. I mean, we've said this about Main Street, but like, there's so much stuff that you're like,

I didn't know it was called contemporary man or contemporary woman. And there's just so much stuff that's like barely documented that still excites me to this day. Again, we've talked about how we like feel like archaeologists sometimes. But there's still so many great little treats to learn like the names of the gift shops. There's a lot of very odd holdovers in the center of the Condepra. Some very 90s like family restaurant touches at the buffet. But then like a cool 90s bar called the outer rim off to the side. Yeah.

But I think really we all agree that we're very specific types of weirdos that want just the most immersive themed as far as like decorations gift shop with highly specific merchandise. But I also think that everyone benefits from that. And so, yeah, I think people want that and couldn't even tell you that that's what they want. Right. I think people like themed gift shops more. And if you ask them why afterwards, they would just be like, because it was fancy.

But I think it made them feel like they were transported. And they sometimes you don't necessarily even articulate something. Yeah. About how it improved your time. But it is doing something. I do want to say also just like the simple pleasures of a boring hotel gift shop. Like you go in there, I bought a fanny pack that said Florida on it a couple months ago when I went to the whatever hotel I was staying.

you see generally they'll be like a rack of tie plush beanie baby type plush great i loved just any time there was a rack of tie the company tie uh based plush i will i will go through literally any gift shop from an establishment that i meant oh yeah so um huntington gardens has an incredible gift shop great grit oh yeah yeah there's so many things we didn't even mention that like are just great little things and yes of go of course it's they're trying to get some more money but especially if it's like the zoo or something. You're like, well, God, I love a zoo.

Zoo gift shops. You're going to find some fun plush. Oh, yeah, you might find dinosaurs or cool big magnets or something. Yeah. So there's,

there's, but you're right. We like immersion. Yeah, like specificity. We like high, we like high quality goods. I like high quality goods.

Like you said, the intangibles add up in people's mind and then might not be able to vocalize them, but it does feel fancier. It feels like they got their money as worse. The food at the Rainforest Cafe could be literally anything. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Kind of is. And kind of is. And it's been a while since I've been there because they all mostly closed. There's one in Ontario, California. I think there's one in Florida. Yeah, there's one in Texas still. But when I want to go, and I'm like, this is the Tiki Bar person in me. That's why I like Tiki bars, less of the catchy side and more.

the like immersive side like I want a place to transport me because I go into a billion restaurants that look like restaurants yeah sure have you would you make something in your home that looked like that yeah we've talked about turning our garage into like an office and if you ever do it will be heavily themed yes I think that is the dream and for me the dream space is somewhere in between fantasy and tropical which I do think sort of lands pretty solidly and like pirate. Okay. So it would be like...

It'd be like a pirate tavern. Okay. Do you know about the place to beak in the barrel? No. It's a new Pirates of the Caribbean themed bar in Florida in Disney World. I just missed it. And people are going crazy for it. People love it.

Well, Zacharino, I can say you've survived podcast the ride. And now you get to exit through the gift shop. Ooh! Finally, you've been waiting. We've been talking to gift shops. You've been salivating. imagining exiting. Here you go.

Let me in there. Yeah, off book The Improvised Musical Podcast. We don't do it in studio anymore, but we release our touring shows every other week, so you can check that out. Also, Jessica and I

and have been collaborating with director, writer, actor David Wayne for the last five years to write a full new musical. And that musical is going up in Los Angeles in February. So if you want to see the journey of that or if you want to like follow

it's accounts that's three months later musical can people go to that or no yeah if you're in l.a we're doing four shows do they get what do you know where tickets are available tickets are available through the link at the three months later musical instagram nice as for us if you want three bonus episodes or four bonus episodes go to patreon.com slash podcast to ride uh you can you know there's fun stuff over there what do we just do we just did a spectra blast this weird universal Hollywood show that we had never heard of until a couple months ago. I was wrong. Maybe you guys have plenty of stuff to talk about.

No, honestly, there's plenty of stuff. It's just not stuff I've heard of. Stuff we haven't heard of either. I gotta get to Pocate Park Canto and then we can circle up. We can certainly circle up. We just did Ikama Sanjo Park with Ronnie Adrian, which is another Japanese park we had never heard of. Hell yeah.

That had a weird white house that like it was like a fun house maze. That was very strange. Believe it or not. On top of them. But yeah, there's all sorts of fun stuff at Patreon. On com slash podcast The Ride. We're on all the social media at Podcast the Ride. Follow us there if you're not already doing it.

And look, I just want everyone to know that the name of that gift shop is BVG in the contemporary. And I haven't told this to the audience in a while. But say there's a loved one next to you right now. I just want you to give them a little tap and say, hey, honey, the name of the gift shop is BVG in the contemporary in Orlando, Florida. They'll say, what are you talking about? And then... Then you tell them everything you know.

Everything you just learn on this podcast. All right? All right. Forever. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gerdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Sillio, 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

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