Podcast: The Ride - Happy Meal Toys with Justin Michael

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Delicious food. Beautiful architecture. That would be enough—but no. McDonald's upped the ante even more by putting toys in its kids' meals. TaleSpin, Batman Returns, Star Trek: The Motion Picture! All the kids' favorites!Justin Michael (Among Us) returns to sort through decades of amazing Happy Meal toys."Defunct McDonaldland Gang with Emily St. James" 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.

Forever Podcast the Rides-Midth is the place for fun A fun month of discussion centered on McDonald's The characters, the playplaces, the happy-meal toys Podcast The Rides-Maclunth will make you annoying It will make you want to tell your friends' facts About the grimmest they don't care about Podcast the Rites McMuff

Podcast The Rites McMuff Podcast The Rites MacMunkmunt Podcast the rights make month Podcast the rights make month Pop-a-pa-pa-papa podcast the ride. What you want is what you get on McMount today, a month-long celebration of the themed entertainment of McDonald's. I'm Scott Gartner.

This is Mike Carlson. Hello, I'm here. Shearitan. I'm here too. Efficient. We're not here, but we're here. It's like a drive-thru. That's true.

It's as efficient as McDonald's. We're moving people along as fast as we can. I'm going to be lightly non-efficient, though, because we're about at the halfway mark on the main feed. And I realize we should say something we haven't said up until this point, which is some thank yous, which is I love you to all of each other in the eye, including our guests. But, well, let's say, that's an end note, I think. No, I want to say, well, somebody I do say, I love you to, my wife, Aaron, Gertner, who did the art for McMount.

Thank you for that. Yes, great. And I have not acknowledged that yet. And, of course, the theme song for McMount, created as all of our theme month theme songs are by Mike Carlson. Thank you very much. I love you for that. Thank you. I love you, everyone. Great, great. Love you. God bless us everyone. I love you.

And mainly we say, we'll all say I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. At the end. No, great job on that, which we should acknowledge is people have picked up on a little bit. Oh, yeah. Or would you like to say what that is a tribute to? It's a tribute to Wesley Willis's rock and roll McDonald's song, which Wesley Willis, if you don't know, was a guy from Chicago who made some a lot of music I should say there's a lot of it out there yes kind of an

outsider artist you might say a guy who like I don't remember what his situation was but a guy who like faced a lot of challenges a lot of you would have to say and yet he was able to like channel all of this great energy into this like wonderfully crazy music yes album after album most of which was in this like Yamaha preset yes it all followed a similar format let's just say yes Extremely regiment. Yes. Verse chorus, verse chorus,

instrumental break that just had a bunch of sounds and stuff. Yes. Vers chorus, Rock over London, rock on Chicago and an ad for something.

An ad for something at the end. It would change it up. Which gave you a reason to listen through the minute and a half instrumental break,

which did not really feature anything too substantial. That, yeah. Here, when my, I forget, my friends played it for me.

I guess, I forget which friend, when I was like 20, maybe 19 or something and it was one of those times where we were like I can't believe this weird thing exists one of those were like strange things sure but a little bit different because it was fun like it's funny like this music is funny and like I think so you're probably not being moved by the music yeah Willis but moved right moves to dance and foil around perhaps and and perhaps to make little tributes to him as you did and I I caught into him in high school in a lot of

my early video, or like, friends and I all made little stupid music videos for. Oh, wow, really? And I feel like there was a rock and roll McDonald's in there somewhere. I was trying to remember what else, like, where is other songs? And did I ever, and I believe, I was at least part of a music video for a song called Al Capone. So you ever heard Al Capone? I think I, I think I have, but I haven't, I haven't re-listen to it in maybe 20 years. It's a song that is very inexplicably angry at Al Capone in real time, as if he is currently around. Uh-huh. That has a brilliant line that I forgot about for decades until I was thinking about him this morning, which is in the last verse, he says, at the age of 46, he was a stupid asshole.

Arbitrary age. That isn't when he died. I looked it up, just kind of like random, fun fact. Anyway, check out Wesley Welles and check out Rock and Ronald. He also, I think his, like, art, he, like, was an artist as well. The cover is the album cards. Yeah. And I think it's that stuff, like, he's passed away.

but I think that stuff started like selling well after he passed away. That's nice. I'm immediately on board his number three song on Spotify is called Suck a Caraboos. Oh, I've heard Suck a Caribou's ass, yeah. And its second one is I whipped Batman's ass. Yep, yep, yep. These are the ones we heard. There's a lot of whipping and whooping.

A lot of sometimes he is the one getting whipped and whipped. And definitely a lot of sucking of animal dicks or commanding to suck one is also in the body of work. Consistent themes. I was going to say the whipping and the whooping, you know, and the ass kicking was the Chicago way. But I will not presuppose that the dick-sucking of animals is the Chicago way. Oh, well, I don't know.

No, I don't know anything about that. Not your side of Chicago. No, not my side. As far as you know. Northwest suburbs, no way. Also, uh, wips the llama's ass is the win. Like that, that thing would play on Winnamp. If you ever used a win amp back in the day, really whip.

the llama's ass. And that's from Wesley Willis. You've ever heard that phrase. Wow. Wow. I don't think I knew that Winnamp Association. These are all nice memories. Good stuff of Napster era.

Let's get our guest's opinions. I mean, if there are any about animals and body parts. But primarily, that wasn't part of the agreement in you being here. So that's up to you if you want to. But mainly here to talk about happy meals and happy meal toys. It's something we could not close McMount without doing. He's been here to talk about Halloween, like haunts and stuff lately. But here we're going now from tricks firmly to treats.

Thanks for doing it with us. It's Justin Michael. Hello, I'm here. I love you. I love you. I love you. Feels good. Yeah, I love you to be here, you.

Love you. I should do it to all the various faces on people's shirts, such as the Chuckie cheese faces on Mike's shirt and the Muppet Vision faces on. I love you to Kermit. Kermin and Fawzzi. A pie. That's easy thing to do. On license shirt, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's not a real license. No, no. They wouldn't possibly put money into the thing as it was closing and make money off the people. Right, right, right. They did not. Which is crazy.

They didn't on the way other other attractions. I would have bought it. I would have spent like $100 on a stupid thing. It wouldn't have looked that good either. No. It would have been a badly designed shirt, I think. Yes, the actual thing would have been worse than what you were wearing. Right, right.

Is that a single rider? It is a single rider. They just dropped a bunch of stuff, I feel like. Yeah, I got two Muppavision. A lot of cosmic rays, sunny eclipse stuff. Yeah, I was tempted, but I, you know, I'm a California boy, so I can't get a Florida shirt unless it's really special. And they had it at California Adventure.

They did, yeah. So that's, do you actually have a line in the sand? No. I just feel like, I didn't grow up on Sunny Eclipse. Like, when I visited it, I was like, whoa, this is cool. This is like an old Chuckie cheese amatronic, but it. at Disney World, but I feel like I'd be reping something that I didn't authentically love or grow up on.

Okay. So that's the line. Yeah. That's your line. You don't want to like cosplay as a fan. I want to cause Ray. Cause Ray as a fan. Yes.

You finish the joke. Oh, okay. That's what I'm here to do. Oh, yeah. I'll figure it out. Love is a collaborative. Yeah. I'll figure it out.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That'll be our save and throughout this episode. but it's been a coldest sec. A Muppet Vision you do love, you were saying you made it in before it closed. I did. I took a trip in 2025,

was that when it was? I think when. And I hadn't been to Disney World in a while and went with my buddy Ben Green and we traveled to make a pilgrimage to say goodbye. We went on it, I think like 10 times. Wow.

Which is a good portion of a trip. I would say, you know, like trip anywhere. We didn't go on Mickey Minis. We didn't go on Rise of the Resistance. We're like we had that. here. We have those. And yeah, loved it.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Are you, what do you think about this rock and roller coaster? Suspicious, anticipating it. Do you think it'll satisfy the Muppets that you were missing? I don't think it'll satisfy the Muppets I'm missing, but I think I'm like a Muppet snob where I'm like, I kind of only like Henson Muppets. Like, I do like Christmas Carol. I like the Cabin Fever song from Treasure Island, but when it doesn't have Jim Henson, there's a little bit of the juice that like doesn't work for me. No disrespect to anybody else

who likes the other stuff, but... That is a good way to frame it to just make it that as your opinion. Yeah, that's just like my version of it. I grew up on the original... The original trilogy. Before Lucas went in there and CG'd Kermit. But, yeah, I don't know.

I think I had worse expectations of the ride and then I saw it. I was like, oh, they tried. With the money they got, I don't know. You guys. have talked about it on the podcast, but they tried, yeah. I like the animatronic. I like the scooter looks cool.

The penguins look cool. It's better than nothing. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of how it would have been nothing there, but there's a thing there now. I don't know if it's the ride. That sounds like I'm insulting it, but I actually didn't really,

it's bad. Is it better than what was there before in the opinion of some people in this room? Well, again, intellectually you can argue, yes, it's better, I suppose. But from like an emotional standpoint, is Aerosmith better? 90s Aerosmiths.

Specifically better than what's going on now. Late 90s. Late 90s, yes. Past post having hit Sarasmith. Yeah. Well, I think they had Armageddon coming up. No, it was before. Is it?

What year is open again? I mean, but now, yeah, for sake of argument, you know, they're hot on the heels of that. They shouldn't be. Is it the same year? Right after. Okay. I'm just saying, I don't think there's, I don't think their biggest hits are ahead of them, unless you consider.

That's true. You're right about that. Boys of Summer. Which, again, emotionally, I do consider it a hit. Intellectually, I know it's not a hit. It's emotionally a hit, though. Look, you're at a school dance in an ill-fitting dress shirt, and, you know, I don't want to miss a thing comes on,

and it's like, am I going to dance with someone, or am I going to slink to the wall? I told the story, I think on the podcast, so I'm probably repeating myself, but it was eight years ago, so I'll retell it. I was at a high school dance with a girl that I had taken there, and that song came on, And she goes, ugh.

And I go, what? What's wrong? She goes, ah, this sucks or whatever. And I was like, wait, what? And you said those magic words, fuck you asshole. Yeah, yeah, I ran away. I started crying and I ran away. That's unfortunate because that's ultimately then what the Disney Corporation would do as well.

They said a big, ugh. Yeah. And you said, what? What? What's wrong? Are you okay? Are you choking on, like, something? Did you get on the Armageddon ride before it closed?

No, I did not, unfortunately. Oh, man, I did it, I did it. Okay, you know. It's like backdraft, but worse. Yeah, yeah. It's just like being, you're just like trapped in an unpleasant room that feels genuinely dangerous. But this is key, also not exciting. Yeah.

Because if it was danger in the service of being exciting, you would put up with the danger. Yeah, like the heat of a backdraft or like even Twister has like a little bit of like, Oh, these effects shouldn't be this close to me. Yeah. But Armageddon was just kind of like a boring version of the pre-show to Rise of the Resistance. Yes. It has that, I mean, like a Rise of the Resistance hater might say that like, oh, it's rooms with stuff in it. Like, you're mad if it doesn't have animatronics in certain parts or whatever.

But that's, but you're always moving. It's moving all the time. That Armageddon thing was like if you were just stuck in one of the Rise of Resistance rooms and there weren't screens even. and it wasn't music that reminded you of a movie you like. I don't think there was music. I think some pipes broke. I think it was loud. Yeah, mostly.

Wow, really. You got to think if you're, okay, so it's a ride that takes you to space. Okay, well, realistically, what are people going to want out of the space experience? They're going to want pipes to break. That would happen if there was a space problem. First thing is going to happen is pipes break. Yeah. They, you know, France, they understand space and break breaking pipes differently.

It's like Phantom Manor. They don't get funny ghosts. Yeah, yeah. They had to tailor it to the French audience. Yeah. I mean, it is like New Wave Cinema, you know? Like, it's the New Wave Cinema version of a background. A true phone would have done with Armageddon.

Cool vibe. Kind of boring. Yeah. You watch the whole thing. But I'm sad it doesn't exist. I know. I like these bad rides. This is funny.

This is a syndrome I completely agree with, which is hate it. We'll never go on it again. There's still, I want to know that it's there. Look, we have, this is too much theme park talk for McMount. But hold on one second. Like, Space Mountain, I'm good with this Florida. The rumor that's going away, but I was like, I wish something bad would be left. I wish something old and bad would be left and they're getting rid.

They're sprucing everything up. Tracks going to wait. Yeah, yeah. There's a rumor. They're going to make a new track and it might be a two-seater car and it's going to actually be smooth and not hurt your back and neck. But like part of me, I'm fine with it. It should happen.

It has to happen. but with carousel and bears and everything, it's like, just leave some shitty thing up, please. What does this leave is the similar feeling? What would that leave is the shittiest old thing at Disney. I mean, my knee jerk is an off complaint about the back half of spaceship earth. Yeah, I guess that's true. The chib jib jib. The clanky ride back to the bottom mixed with a jib jib jib.

Another thing that should be fixed. Another thing that needs a renovation. Yes. But that one I'm not going to miss. because I think the first half is a masterpiece and then it's just this awful punishment. But they're not going in there just to fix the end. They're going to go in there and monkey around with the first part.

Yeah, it'll be about AI or something. Yeah, it might be. Yeah, it'll be kind of a message from whoever is their AI partner. We want to meet this spirit of storytelling. No, Affleck sold to Netflix. Oh, okay, okay, my apologies. Yes, it is massive AI deal. Yeah, so I really, yeah, there's stuff that like I just wish was just stick, stick around because I like knowing a bad, like something old or bad is still around.

Well, this is where you got to be happy that that Italy park that we're obsessed with. Yes. Like that, yeah, that's like hallowed ground. There's this awful park in Italy that rips off everything Universal Studios has ever made. And that kind of, I feel like that like does it in a way. Yeah. Like they take Jaws stuff there. Is it like a stunt ride or is there like a movie?

Something like, yeah, there's kind of, yeah, it's all kind of. mish-mash. All the rides kind of like rip off two things. Like a fake back to the future? Yes. Well, that's the big one. We are back. Kids from the future.

Yeah. We are back kids from the future. Great. Great. Not a dinosaur story. Very confusingly. Yeah. I started following on YouTube recently.

It's an account who mostly post stories or shorts or whatever YouTube calls them of going on bad, like carnival-level haunted houses, mostly in Germany. Like, I was like, I didn't know you had this many. I sent the one to the chain of, it's called like Thriller the Ride or Michael Jackson the ride. That's, I think, hopped around Europe for a long time. Okay, yeah. And it's just chaos. It's like hardly any Michael Jackson.

You come to the end of the ride and when you get off the ride, there's just like a shining poster. Like, there's just horror movie posters. And there's just general cheap ghouls and spookies throughout the ride. Marissa, Marissa Strickland, I can say maybe friend of the show. Sure. She's my wife. I love you. Marissa.

We're saying it to our wives. Yeah, it was actually easier to say it to you guys than her. She's not in the room right now. And I don't say I love you to her face. You know. But we went to two of these. We went to October Fest together. years ago. And of course, it's like, oh, wait, there's like a semi-permanent carnival with dark rides,

traveling dark rides. And they had two gigantic, like, kind of, you know, old kind of pretzel-style dark ride haunted houses. And then there was one that I regretted not going on because they had an alien encounter knockoff. And I didn't realize it was that until after the fact. And then I looked at a video online and I was like, oh, they did alien encounter after it was gone. Wow. But, you know, budget. just some guy shaking you and licking your neck fine yeah a real tongue hitting you in the back of your neck or whatever

do you like boo it's scary I am like oh that one looks kind of good though if it has a second level and it goes outside for no reason that I'm the sucker that gets you in yeah that feels that's production value

also like fun houses where you just run through and the ground's moving and there's punching bags and like ear gones. Sure, sure. You know what you called it, like your pocket or whatever. Yeah. I was looking at some videos of this.

There's this one weird, shitty place with all of these awful rides. What is it? Oh, Universal Kids Resort. First go, Texas. I haven't checked. They painted some of the walls. They painted a few of the walls yellow, okay?

It's a little different than when we trashed it. I don't know if I like that. I think I like this. Today it was a good month for the Frisco Home Depot and Lowe's. The sawdust providers. We're out of minion yellow paint. All right. Well, let's transition to today's topic, which is a joyous thing to talk about.

And I said, I think something that has to be a discussion in McMount, which is Happy Meal Toys. I don't know. Are we calling this Happy Meals? Are we calling it Happy Meal Toys? I guess the full meal, I guess, the whole meal, I guess, I guess, the whole meal, I guess has to be on the table to some extent because something I was remembering is how much my focus was all toys and then I started to remember of the boxes were part of it too boxes were some of what fueled the entire thing to happen that said I don't remember a lot of what was going on

with these boxes do we have fun memories of the boxes yeah I do but I like you I don't have such a clear memory of like a puzzle that was on one of the boxes or some like punch out that tickled you on the box yeah and then I didn't save it. any that we'd never saved a box i don't have a single happy meal toy box you can buy them flat on ebay oh i'm aware i haven't i've looked at it but i haven't thought about it brother you know you can get three boxes for under twenty dollars i i have bookmarked the um pizza hut x-men like menus and placemat on ebay that are are flat and i'm like oh that's got a grease oh that's got a full well you and jane like pretend you're at pizza hut if you get them all what's

Like, will you and Jane pretend you're at Pizza Hut? Oh, we do have some of the plastic red cups. You could do a full pizza at night and, like, you sit down and you have the cups, and she gives you the menu and you pretend it's 1997. I did buy a set of the free comics, the comics they would give you with Gets Me a while back. Sounds like you're on your way. I think so. Yeah. You got to get the Tiffany lamp.

Oh, yeah. Well, that one's valued these days. That's not, not like these placements. I don't know, how much are you paying for a greasy place? placemate. See, I want it clean because it's early. That's weird. Do you want it clean?

I want it clean because it's, it's, or, who drew X-Men for one of your guys, battle chasers? Joe Maderrera? Yeah, Joe Maderara art on it. There's an oral history of the Pizza Hut, X-Men promotion of like, everyone made so much money on it

because it fell under a marketing budget, not the comic book budget. You mean the people that were working on the campaign? The people that were working on the illustrators. Oh, wow. To the point where, like, the editors had to go downstairs to the marketing people and go, like, you have to stop poaching our artists. Because they would make so much more money doing the promotional stuff than the monthly comic books.

So you don't want it to be greasy because you want to see the nice pictures clearly? Is that what you're saying? I wanted to frame it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. There's like, it's the box art for like action figures. Like there's like a Kenner Batman the animated series art. I know like Carmine and Fantino did a lot of the art for that.

Oh, right, right, right. Which is just like what? Yeah, like really great artists. They got the just doing best of the best, really for, wow, for the tie ends. That's interesting. Uh-huh. Well, anyway, look, I feel like I've done this in an odd order. We had an odd discussion about boxes.

I guess we should talk about kind of like the broader joy. of this topic in general. And Justin to your head, because you've joined us to talk about this, I don't know, strongest associations with Happy Meal Toys. What do you go to immediately? Like what are the toys that come to mind? Yeah, yeah. I think the first ones, they're all like IP things.

So like I think, you know, being the age that I am, the things that I liked, there were like, a lot of them were like Batman, Fraggle Rock, Spider-Man, where it would be a mix of little figures and then cars. that you would drive and they would have little action features or like the ones that you could like twist and they're almost like what is it like those books where like you can turn the head you can turn the torso you can turn the pages of just the feet

and it was kind of like a car where you could twist it and mix and match pieces oh really um so like there were I think that was a tiny tune yeah I was going to say that's a tiny tunes oh the flip car see yeah those are big for me oh could you okay wait yes I've got art of that in my pile of pictures and those were like you could mix and match with you had a bunch you could change the pieces on the

Or maybe I'm mixing it up where it was just You flipped them over I think the tiny tunes you would just flip I don't think they had mix and match pieces That might have been a different thing You would flip and it would become a different character It would be dizzy on one and plucky on the other side I don't think that's actually what it was

But it would like you would flip it over Oh I can picture that yeah Yes yes yes You had a couple of those Right right okay Which is a different variety They had, I think, multiple varieties of Tiny Tune cars. Yeah, because I'm looking at it.

These were, those were very excited. Those are one of my top 50 happy meal toys of all time. I think it's out of the $1,000. The number? And maybe, maybe 25. I'll say 25. Wow, wow. Well, I mean, that is a way to structure this, by the way.

Yeah, I should have died. Honestly, I just said that off the top of my head. I know I should have made a list. We don't do a lot of lists. That might have been a good decent. People love lists. Yeah. They love to get mad at them.

I love to get mad at them. Sure. Yeah. So, yeah. declare a number one if you can i think i have the one i think i have number one you've got number one yeah well let's let's talk about like the broader uh you know the the genre how it came a little bit of history there's not a ton of history of this of this stuff out there other than like how it i mean you know it like it grew from a franchisee and then yolanda cofino yes in guatemala

Guatemala. Yeah, it's funny, if you look it up, there's people, there's two people who like to be widely known as the father of the happy meal, even though it was clearly thought of by one specific woman. Yes. Now, and by that, I mean, she created the menu Ronald, a combo meal of hamburger, small fries, and a small sunday for kids. And I think there would be little treats and trinkets as part of this, perhaps just like bought from. random places where you get such things, like where teachers fill up their treat boxes for kindergarten or whatever it is.

Yeah, like, a little like slap hands and like, yeah, you know, rings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, it feels like, I feel like in early days of all this stuff, um, like notebooks or little pencils or crayons, more a part of it. And I can even, I think we all maybe looked at some broader history.

Like here's all the toys going back to the 70. And did you feel the same? thing, which is gross to feel this way, but where you're like, pencils, boo, boring, something for learning? No, stuff it. Toys. I care about toys. It's all I want to talk about on my podcast.

It's all I wanted when I was a kid. Yeah. Well, you're asking Justin probably, but any, like, fun. The only way I would like it is if it was a fun pencil. Yes. Or it had like a pan that had like 10 colors. You could like select on the pan, a big thick pen. Oh, sure.

You know, like if there was a fun or a toyetic thing about the pencil or the pen, then I was on boat. But, yes, a bunch of pencils who gives a shit. Oh, I love the Dixon, Taekondroga, number two. He's a big pencil. Or you need a variety of points. I could see Jason being that guy, by the way. Oh, you don't like a number two pencil? Yeah, sure.

If it was a souvenir from a trip. Sure. I could look at the logo. Yeah. But then I didn't want, I was always losing stuff in backpacks or, like, school desks and stuff. So it's like, well, that's a pen that just sits in my bedroom because it's special. So you wouldn't take a special pen to school? No, I lost a space pen once.

What a fucking nightmare. Yeah, right? Did you ever keep a pencil behind your ear? Behind that year, I feel like friends and I would keep them in our, like, jeans pocket. Like, point up. What? I don't know why when we were walking around the high school. Point up.

Well, because if it's point down, you're going to. stab yourself. But don't you on the way into the pocket? That feels like a more... No, no. But you know, you know it's there, so you work around it. I like that you said friends. Did you all decide together to put the pencil in your pocket?

I don't know. Me and my friend, I feel like always had pencils in our pockets. The pencils up boys. Yeah. Pencils up boys. And then eventually I just switched to all pen. I really liked what I would use to get for souvenirs, there were these kind of lead pencils that had little cartridge it, like you would take them out of the back of the pen

and put them on the top when they would get dull. And I have no idea what this is called. Mechanical pencil? No, well, it's sort of, but it was like... I mean, it seems like a similar principle. It is a similar principle. But it's not a mechanical pencil. I love...

You know what? I thought mechanical pencils were cool because they were like robotic. I thought like, oh, there's machinery involved. Sure. I did think that was cool. So if you gave me like a mechanical pencil, I might be, oh, that's pretty good. Did you ever do the thing?

I feel like it was like the old like Halloween prop trick where it like was kind of like a needle. You had it go all the way out and then you held it down and like stabbed in the room. Kind of disappeared. I've seen that. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I think I was more likely watching it and not doing it myself feeling that I would do it wrong and hurt myself. I do have lead poison to this day. But we're at the for the laughs you got.

Yeah. For the screams you got. Yeah, depending on the audience. A little bit of a Halloween episode. But anyway, here's what Bob Bernstein, one of the fathers of the Appie Mill, brought to the process, which was, well, he ripped off a different thing. He saw his son looking at cereal packaging and being lost in cereal packaging and, you know, whatever, puzzles, mazes, all the stuff on there and thought, why is McDonald's not doing this as well? could this not, you know, make eating in our restaurants more exciting for little kids. Sure.

And thus, so I think, so it seems like once they kick this thing off in the late 70s, it was maybe more about like a fun box than the stuff inside being fun. Yeah, that was his, that was his addition to the idea. It was also interesting they were talking about like there was no kids menu at all in McDonald's. So, like, that lady in Guatemala, her thing was like, kids are eating the same portions as the adults. That doesn't make sense. So I find that interesting as well. So that wasn't even like something a restaurant necessarily would just immediately do. Oh, yeah.

I guess, yeah, I don't know how widespread kids meal was in general. Children, they don't need to eat. They had a meal in the beginning of the day and they can go to sleep. It's all milk. Milk. Milk. For every meal, milk. Milk and when they hit that magical age of 10, milk can't.

cigarettes. Get a job for yourself, a tent. So yeah, it makes sense that somebody was like, all right, what do kids eat? All right, we're marketing the kids. And it's like cereal boxes, yeah. Because at the time, those toys were shit. I mean, cereal box toys, I'm assuming were bad.

Maybe I'm wrong, actually, but I think they were bad. I know cracker jack pieces were at least made out of metal, which made them better. But I cereal box stuff, I don't know. Has anyone fond of a cereal toy? Yeah. When they, when we, when we, pencils, they gave a game,

When it was just like little plastic doodads and it was in the cereal so you would open a new box and just all right how do we do this? Like do we take the bag out or do you stick your nasty hand in? I was sticking my nasty hand. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like trying to find it. But yeah, any, I don't, I can't think of a really good cereal box prize that I have memories of. I liked the Disney afternoon toys. I just have fond memories of like,

I think who's the kid from tailspin? Kid Cloud Kicker. Kit Cloud Kicker. You know, I was like him on the flying croissant that he's on or whatever. Now that, you know what? That might be good.

That might be good. I don't think I had those. But yeah, I do remember that now that you're bringing it up. It was late enough that they actually were like painting the toys. Yeah. They were like little mini figures. Like they had the bad guy in like a plane that wasn't scaled.

But it was just kind of like a cheapy version of it or kind of like the proportions were crazy. I was excited about it. I just don't think those hung around for whatever. Like, I don't think I haven't. I still have some, like a decent amount of happy milk ones.

This was all methadone to get to the heroin of action figures. Yes. Like, I don't get an action figure every week. Maybe not even every month if it's close to Christmas. But you got to eat.

They got to feed you. They got stuff shit in your mouth. It's not a lot of time between, you know, uh, school getting out, and then you got to go. to the Boy Scouts and you got to eat

the Cubs Couts, you got to go dinner in between. I would watch, if there was a great record of you just in your Cub Scout days of just like the machinations of you trying to manipulate your parents to like go to McDonald's to get the cereal to like trying to figure, you were talking about how the comic book store would be between

was it the scout practice and how like you were always sort of triangulating. It just feels like you were in what's nearby. What can I source? I would always try to angle anything. time my mom's like, oh, and just kind of run to the mall and return some stuff at Sears. And I'm like, well, I'd love to come along at the comic stores at the mall, right next to Sears. And we don't have to spend much time in there.

And as an adult, I'm like, oh, you wanted to get away from fucking every, you wanted a little bit of agency, a little bit. I just need my Sears time. Mom gets her Sears time. That's part of raising kids. I mean, the biggest maneuver in high school when we would go to my dad's every Wednesdays. Well, the mall with the comic store is smack dab in between mom's house and dad's house. And it's like, I'll just pop in and get my subscription, my books. They pulled my books.

So I won't be long if you guys just want to sit in the car. I don't know if this is all the same city and it may not be. and in which case it might require, these might be separate assignments. But I would like to see just like, really, doesn't have to be detailed. Basic drawings of landmarks where you had to be. Here's school. Here's Cub Scouts. What is in between that you're trying to get to?

Here's school. Here's dad's house. Where's comic book? I assure you, the furthest thing was half an hour away. It would seem like an inconvenience. I've reverted back to that now. Like, that's how I, as a human, adult man who collects action figures

operates where it's like, what targets are in between my destination and where I'm going and can I just pop in to look at the toy section? And it's where it's where you know basics are. You need food. You need laundry detergent and the like and I might

pass by another aisle that might have things that I don't need day to day but I have to walk from one past the other. Yeah, yeah. No, it's yeah, that is true. I'm doing that now. I'm little Jason now. Yeah. Basically.

But who are you fooling? Yeah. My parents? I think I'm just tricking myself. Yeah. I'm trying to seem cooler to myself than I am. Yeah. No, I guess I could announce I'm going out to look for toys, but it doesn't feel so classy

sometimes, you know? No. You can't say it. Sometimes it does seem very classy. If it's important, it's classy. If it's important, it's a classy thing. You know, this is a very important thing. I'm looking for.

Here's why. But sometimes you're not even really looking for something you want that badly, but you did see from the Facebook groups that you follow that it is available. Maybe we take a look. We're out of bread, milk, and eggs and Sunspot in his X-Men 97 season two.

Can you think of something that you have coveted recently where you could describe it to somebody and they would say back, hmm, classy. Well, I can tell you something I'm looking for. And you can't say thy neighbor's wife. You can't Mike, you're not allowed to.

I have been coveting my neighbor's wife, so you're right. We're waiting for it to come out. Because that's the obvious answer. We all cover the neighbors' wives. We're just trying to stay busy. We're just trying to talk about toys and look at toys, do you pocket. So we don't think about how badly we cover all of our neighbors' wives.

After the mics go off, we do like a little support group because we're all coveting neighbors' wives at the moment. So we're trying to help each other not covet. Oh, you know, what's funny is I'm, going way out of my way, not even close to my destination, just to see, she lives so far away,

her husband barely even counts as a neighbor. Yeah, just zip code. Neighbor, if you count just generally the Los Angeles area. Yeah, she's in a long beach and watch this woman, um, garden. She lives on the queen,

Mary. It's the ship. I want the ship. Uh, Mary, my queen. What, so what would you say?

Well, would you consider this Leonardo in a tuxedo classy that I'm looking for at the moment? Because I do. I guess he is dressed classy. He's dressed classy, yeah. He's, uh, yeah, and he comes with one of those big weird rubber heads they used to put on in the cartoon. This one that looked really strange. To disguise himself as a person? That's right, yeah.

Oh, I see. Yeah, no, that's scarier than a Ninja Turtle. He does look like the guy in Toronto. I don't think this is classy, but I do covet, like, Efteling souvenirs. because it's one of the things you still can't buy easily from abroad. Oh, really? And they had a season pass holder. They had like a wooden base with a statue of the ghost from their new ride,

dance macabre under like a thing of glass. And I was, you know, like it looks like an old like jewel case. And I think I could trick somebody. Somebody could fall for that being classy. But I think most people would be like, this is a weird ghost man under glass. Yeah, but it's clear. It's probably a classier collectible. If you have any of the information, if you're aware of Efteling,

and if you're impressed by Europe in general. Yeah, it looks more worldly. You have some of the information. I could see somebody saying class. It's just a glorified Halloween decoration. That's classier than my choice, I guess. I'll dress them up in a suit. Oh, okay.

He is a ghost conductor, so. Oh, that's true. But these aren't. So basically, you know, an idea is stolen from Guatemala. They put it on the market. Yeah, yeah. And the early one, like, brands are not in the picture yet. The first one is, like, the circus.

And, like, all right, so generally, I don't know, there's lions or shit on the box. But then it's, it is some of this early. It's a McDoodler stencil and a snazzy McRist wallet. McRist. Hang on, why is a wallet called McRist? Do you? You have to use your wrist to pull it out at some point.

Did it have a little thing on your wrist? Is it like a change? I feel like I had like change purses with like a Velker strap on it when I was younger. I don't know. McDoodle. I like McDoodler. McDudler doesn't, yeah. I don't know if we'd go for that now.

I'm seeing an eBay item, McRist wallet watch. So I think maybe it's a, because it doesn't actually tell the time, which opens up the possibility of what can be in your watch that isn't little clock gears. Yeah. So you could keep little things, perhaps a coin. use your imagination in the... So I think that this article was missing some of the context. It's a wrist wallet watch.

Interesting. And these are just solid plastic, right? Like, it's just like single color. Yeah. This feels like a serial toy. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, very much serial crossover in the origins of Abby Mill.

Yeah. And they had like McDonald's toys that were just, they were not like painted at all. It was just one single color. And it was all the characters. But like, yeah, that feels more serial. The McGrist's, the McGrist wallet watches. I think I'm looking at one where I can kind of make out a hamburger or a lone jogger, as he may have been known at the time. And I think a Mayor McChese, but it's...

I think there were multiple versions of the characters on different cheap little toys. Yes. Anyway, so look, when it started, did it suck a little bit? Yes, perhaps it did. But everything sucked toy-wise back that, to some degree. Yeah, yeah. When you'd have to say that the growth of the half. Happy Meal in the 80s helped, you know, toys not to suck general.

We started attracting, you know, the tie-ins with the Hollywood and big business and the like. Well, the first tie-in, the first IP tie-in is very interesting. It's very interesting. It's very not what you'd expect. I never knew this. I didn't either. Yeah.

Star Trek, the motion picture. The first one. It was the first one. Wow. The first movie. Was the first official movie tie-in. With McDonald's of any kind. Yes. Star Trek themed meals were sold in packaging that featured images and puzzles related to the film.

There were ads that were weird that were it's like... Oh, the Klingon ad? Yeah, yes. You saw that? Yeah. What's the language call? Is it just Klingon ease? Well, it's Klingon. That's the name of the language.

But in the commercial, they go, if you don't speak Klingon ease. That's what confused me. Yes. I was like, I don't know much about Star Trek, but I think I know it's not Klingon. E's. Right. Do you speak Klingon? But it made me think that for as it tricked me. I wasn't fooled for a moment.

I know. That's deep in your head. So, yeah, some ad man didn't know what the language is called. It is a good ad, though. It is a good. And then he gets interrupted. It's really, yes, it is a really good ad. Translate.

These are interesting because this is where I, I don't think I realized that there were, like, like, jokes. Like, what had jokes, Cracker Jacks or, I mean, I guess, like, Popsicle. Joe. I don't think I knew that there were those, or I didn't remember that there was that on Happy Meal boxes. And Star Trek kind of a weird property to have to do jokes about. There are a few. I don't know if you saw these. But see if we can guess the punchline.

They're weird, though. What's most important when transporting bones? There's no way. Um, respect. Bones, of course, is the doctor on the ship. Saying I love you. Oh, bones. Bones is the doctor on the ship, of course.

I meant remit. I thought it was like, I thought it was just a pile of bones. Because I know in one of the movies someone dies and is shot in space. Oh, sure. Well, yeah, Spock does. Spock dies. Yes, you're not looking at what I'm looking at that has a capital letter and quotes.

So yes, in your mind, uh, no, that the character, Bones, the answer is to get the real McCoy. Oh, okay. Because his name is Leonard McCoy, the character's name. Sucks. A.K. Bones. Yeah, bad joke. Not a joke. How would the aliens attach themselves to the Starship Enterprise? They would cling on.

You got it. All right. You know what I mean? That was a little easier. I was with Jason. I thought it was just regular bones. The first one. I thought it was like a respectful alien burial or end of life ceremony. Like, I don't know.

keeping the bones in the shape that they were in when they were on a person? I don't know what happened. I don't know if all of their skin got zapped off, but I'd say not putting them in a pile. That would be important. I don't know. What do you say the answer is? You're not turning them into a puppet.

Not trying to create a new life out of those bones. Giving them to a dog. Did they ever do like an Emily D. Chanel bones and a boy bones? Like, when you say they? Yeah, all writers and creators. Yeah, like old for, like, I don't know, mad TV or funnier to die. Did David Boreanus play a character named Bones? What was Bones about?

Bones was about a medical examiner and played by who? Emily D. Cheney. Yeah. She was the star of Bones? She was star of Bones. David Borellanois. Because I associate him with it more. I didn't know that she was even in it.

And eventually, I believe they fall. He was like an investigator and agent of some kind. How much bones have you watched? Watch a little bit. I watched an entire Bones Comic-Con panel so I could watch the next panel. We've all been there. We've all been there. We don't even like, this has been sitting right in front of it.

This is how Justin and I met. We were, we were working on Bones Meets Bones, the Funnier Die video. Oh, wow. We shoved that so deep into our memory, which was all, which was all, uh, uh, product placement for Chevron. Yeah, and you know, they paid a lot more money than anything I've ever wanted to make with my heart. Say, it's like the Pizza Hut for Mose.

Yeah, exactly. They made more money. I'm like those marble artists. Yeah, we cashed in. Forgettable videos. Anyway, so, yeah, they kind of, now, I think it all lives in this weird zone from 70s to 80s where there is, or to late 80s, I should say, where, uh, Some tie-ins here and there, but also like a lot of toys just featuring kind of

main McDonald-land gang. You know, sometimes it would just be like general. Like this one really, this to me stinks. This is the theme of this one is McDonald's feeling good. And it's just about things you need to be. I mean, healthy, but also like comb. I mean, that's beyond. No, don't try to trick me.

I'm here to eat food that's going to poison my body and taste good. And then I get a toy. Yeah. No, I know. I don't really want to use McDonald's toothbrushes. That's a weird one to me. A little mirror with birdie on the top that I, you know that is not. Like that doesn't reflect right.

You can just tell from the concept. It's not a real mirror. It's like one of those. I did need a comb. Check it out. It's probably eBayable. You could probably buy a Captain Crook comb. Plus I'll still be like.

Oh, well now you're really actually selling me on it. You'd get stuck staring at Bertie in her eyes while you were trying to fix yourself in the mirror. Sure, and the whole day would fly. Birdie staring at your neighbor's birdie as well. Folks, Michael, here, your style icon. I'm here to tell you about a clothing company called Quince. These are clothes that I wear. T-shirts.

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hey, nice shirt, man, and they were right. Go to quince.com slash the ride for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash the ride for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash the ride. So, anyway, they live, actually, this is maybe a good, I'll just talk about like pre it really becoming, like, at some point, you just start associating Happy Meal toys with what's the movie tie-in, and they just cycle through those for the most part. At least that's my current idea of it.

But yeah, for a while, I don't know, I mean, here's some cars that are like the, that are the gang, basically, that's a little nondescript. There is, here's McNugget buddies. We sort of under-disscussed in our episodes about the main game. They're one of the all-timeer toys, I would say, Happy Meal toys, to me. Yeah, they're really good. It's like it's little costumes. In this case, it's like kind of professions like scuba diver and police officer and drum major possibly. Yeah.

Punk rock singer, uh, cowboy or all of these professions. I don't know. They're things you could, their clothes you can wear. Um, but I also feel like there were Halloween. Yes, those are the ones I remember.

I had like a Dracula one that I really liked. Yeah. And they've brought those back. And a nice thing about those is those feel more like a complete toy line in a lot ways and especially because the outfits are like modular basically like you can put the cowboy hat on a different one of the characters like

accessories you know Justin I know this very well the accessories with the action figure is very important and we like I like I should speak for myself I shouldn't speak for you I like being able to take hats I like to take Leonardo's mask and put it on a different character so when you have accessories that can fit

all the same type of figure in the same universe and the same scale that to me just feels like more of a complete little figure universe and that's what those McNugget buddies did. Yeah, no, I love you and I like that too. Thank you. And, and classy. And it's classy, classy, classy.

And classy, don't forget. Very classy. It is classy. Some of them are classy. They dress up nice. That's right. Here's one that's like, I like the idea of it. I question how these, like, toys actually were and how well they worked, but I like

the idea of it. Kind of a Ronald by way of Indiana Jones, mystery of the lost arches. And by kind of, I mean, extremely. Yeah, same exactly. The font. But it's like tools to explore. It's a camera and a phone. You need a phone.

If you're Indiana Jones, you definitely need a phone. Micro cassette and magnifier. I can't even quite picture what item that is, but then a big flashlight telescope. I bet these were cruddy, but the art is so great. Explorer mode, Ronald. Oh, wait. Does that phone become a periscope?

Yep. Yeah, you got it. Yep, I had it. Yep, I had it. Oh, I didn't even realize what I was looking at. You see it as a phone in this art. You pull it out and then you see Ronald and his eyes on the bottom part. Wow.

Who is Ronald spying on in this photo? He's coveting birdie. Is he coveting? I guess it would be that neighbor, so maybe it's like a BK character. One of the BK. He's looking at a lot. No, no, no, no. No, no, no.

No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no. The freaking is the king. Fine, all right. All right. All right. Maybe it's the dog.

Okay, fine. Here's a weird bunch from the early 80s. The Dukes of Hazard. That was about to get them. Including, so I don't remember much about the Dukes of Hazard besides the police car and the General Lee, but then there's other cars. The General Lee is orange, and yeah, it has that Confederate flag on it. Sure does.

You had to kind of put stickers on yourself. Okay. So it was up to you to customize your vehicles. And so you wanted that Confederate flag on there. That's on you. Or you could just save that and put it on other things, like your backpack or just wear it on the front of your forehead. Really show everybody your personality, wherever you are.

Maybe your favorite part of the original Muppet movie is the Confederate flag in the background of one there at the fair. Oh, I forgot. Just a little fun thing in a 70s movie that you love that you now see. And it's just the backdrop of America. Did they have the boss hog was the character, right? They had his car? His car was probably in here.

Yeah, did he have this white kind of Cadillac one? Yeah, that, I never watched an episode. I didn't. I've never seen a few minutes and even as a kid, I was like, oh, this sucks. Yeah, if you gave me all in the family toys, I could tell you those characters. Well, sure. If there was an Edith Happy Meal Toe. Well, they should have been.

Barely predated. They could have done it. but then just in the world of what I would imagine is not pretty I don't know weird this is a regional one

books telling you the story of Texas presumably you can only get him in Texas the regional ones funny or if not interesting I'm sure very cool depictions of the beginning

and independence the Alamo the Alamo story is very well told looks at it from all angles That is interesting they had regional toys. Yes. I think maybe it'll exist like internationally now, I imagine.

It's like international versus the United States. I think so. Yes. And there's the Japan Happy Meal Toys these days. There's like an email that's cool. They put those to shame. Like there's some really like they will probably get there and I forget what the name of them are like where hamburger would transform into like a changeable. It was like a changeable.

There's a couple over there. But there's like some nice like bigger changeable. that they had in Japan. Really, really. And there's, it's not always happy meal stuff. It's stuff you actually just have to pay separately for. But they have like, it seems like they have sometimes have better collectibles. People respect toys there.

They sure do. They sure do. Yeah, changeables. I don't think I knew that was the name. But when, when in vaguely thinking about a happy meal episode, the thing the most burning in my brain was, oh my God, the burgers and the fries. Yeah. And the styrofoam containers. The kind of container that they stopped using.

but surely thereafter, like what pancakes would come in. The rip-offs of transformers that were little food packaging and food. I love these. This is a portal straight back to being three years old. Some of these were like in the main rotation of toys. Yeah, these were good enough to be with the regular toys. I agree. That transforming phone or some of the changeables, they were just good.

And some of them, I wouldn't even get them. I'd get them at garage sales or like the church, you know, junk sale. And sometimes you would encounter just loose toys. Oh, the kid went to high school or college and we don't want this crap anymore. And they don't want it either. And then sometimes you get the people. Toy Story 3, sick fucks. I know, I know.

And then some people had them still in the bags and were a little more intense about like, well, that's a little older. Well, you'd go to a convention or a comic convention or something. You'd see that a lot of stuff still in the plastic. I was surprised that, I mean, I guess they had such big runs that, like, when I went on eBay, I was like, oh, I could get like all the Batman McDonald's toys for under $30 right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing they aren't more rare that you could sort of, I mean, I guess they were so.

To make so many of them. Jane gave me a baby Sinclair a couple years ago for my birthday. The puppy? Still in the bag. Like, well, no. you squeezed like a little thing? Yes, the air tube. The air tube and he would move a little.

They all had, yes, I get this. They all, they all had tubes. They were all hooked up to tubes as if dying. And they all had one motion and you'd click a little thing. Yeah, I mean, he, baby would hit with a pan and Robbie would play guitar. He was cool, if you recall. I do recall. And Suzanne, what's her net?

Not Suzanne Summers. What's the voice of the, wait, all in the family. Oh. It all ties together. What's that actress's name? Sally Struthers, there it is. Thank you. Yes, she's on the, she's gabbing on the phone.

Wow. Yeah, I was just gifted two of these coincidentally two days ago. I was given the grandma and I think it was Earl. You just got these. I just got these. It was given to me in a plastic bag before an improv show by Betsy Sidero. Wow. And she was like, you.

would like these. You would like these is something that happens to me a decent amount. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was a sweet compliment of, yeah. Sure, yeah. But you would enjoy these. I think I have also been given items related to the TV show dinosaurs in a way of you would like these. I have two toys for you in the car and I forgot to bring them in.

Hopefully they're not melted by now. Well, it is. That'll be a real good set up for you. They're not happy meal toys though. They're Sesame Street Super 7 toys. Whoa, fun. That you told me to get like six months ago and I haven't given them to you. Yeah, yeah.

This is what Mike and I text. about all the time. Yeah. Well, it is perfect that you're here then. Here's what I, I wonder how the fresh from Betsy toys are, quality-wise,

because I, and you might, maybe everyone has this association. Like, so many of these toys I'm looking at and going, oh my God, I've seen this in a box at my parents' house, or maybe I took one with me.

Like, I've seen these just rifling through, just like what's in here, just to know what's in here. And a lot of them going, oh, that was Happy Meal, as opposed to just like regular action figure. Okay, so this, prepping for the episode helped me, like,

straight it all out in my head. But it also flashed me to, like, oh, yeah, I picked one of these up six years ago. It was so sticky. Like, these tubes were disgusting. That's a big problem with these old toys. Well, it was still sealed. Okay.

No, that helps. Okay. But it was good when you, when you opened it up? Yeah, it was okay. You rubbed it on your face, no stickiness or anything? Well, my face was sticky. Oh, okay.

Like, you can tell. Well, I eat a bunch of milk doughs. And I made a big mess. Sure. All my Ninja, not all my Ninja Turtles, but a lot of them have that light stickiness. Yeah. Which is just like, it's probably fine, but it's clearly they're decomposing. Yeah, and they're like off gassing something.

There's something bad, yeah, is happening to them. Oh, right. I got to keep these away from my kids. I don't make any or near them, but I'll make sure. Because I bought my daughter a bunch of like reissue turtle. Like the new word, like they've made new versions. New versions of the old mold, basically. And I was like, oh, and then I'll take all my old toys.

And she can play with those too. And then I got in there and I'm like, sticky toys. Held onto it. Couldn't shake one of them off of your palm. Try wiping it down. We're the first generation where like the family heirlooms could be covered in deadly chem. Or I guess not. There was radium glass back in the 50s.

Yeah, there was some hardcore stuff. They're all sticky and they do no. financial good to or they are stigily and you are passing down mostly lead

and cadmeal like whatever you cannot drink on the glassware yeah luckily these dinosaurs weren't sticky but they were

pre-opened but I didn't understand they were happy meal toys until I was researching oh really yeah I was just like what is this

weird air pump uh yeah yeah like this is an odd way to do an action figure yeah I had that so many times you know I'm sure

we'll start going through kind of the the 90s ones, but like here's, just to jump ahead, here's a Chippendale Rescue Rangers set where they all have, like you kind of build a weird little, like gadget-based vehicle, like maybe a flying machine.

And so here's like a weird pipe and like, I don't know, like a ruler or something small, a spatula is attached. And I just went to, oh my God, I have all of these parts and none of them are connected to anything. And I couldn't have told you what world it went with or what characters it went with.

But I've been looking at like Dale's stupid green pipe and purple towel. I don't know what he's got, but that's like, that's been kicking around. I've passed that up in a box of crap so many times for the last 15 years. I was going to declare a different thing, number one, but perhaps that Monterey Jack is my number one. I could just like just seeing these images of these are so thrilling to me still.

I can feel it. I can feel being that young again and getting so excited by these. So maybe that's my number one. Wow. I just remember playing with that so much. Wow. That specific one. I have a couple.

I think I had a couple of the other ones. And I don't know that I even have it. Oh, this one was good. Sorry, I interrupted. Yes. Yeah, it is weird.

It's like a perfect age to have the visceral reaction. Yes. I guess of a kid in a toy story movie. Like where you're like, these were my friends. Yeah, yeah. There's,

you can really, I can really summon it. It's still very real. Yeah. It's still very, that feeling is still. It's nice that you could. That's gotta be a nice thing day to day to be able to access.

Yeah, I think that's a big, you could maybe a lot of different things for me. I can still access as far as my old stuff. Pointing to one of the most famous songs in the world. That's a joy that not everyone has. I'm a simple man. Very, very simple man. And that's good, I think.

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It gives you joy. Tell me it's good. It's good. I love you. It's good.

I love you. It's good. I love you. You didn't collect cars or something. more expensive and dangerous But you'd be friends with Leno If I had money I would Collect no I would

Well I'd collect like the Babmobile I have all the Babmobiles if I was Leno Yeah you gotta get a Burton one Gotta get a 66 one Even the ones I don't like as much This is this series has been very funny Because every now and then I think Oh this is the most we've ever been like

Yeah 90s kid Extremely yeah I'm a freaking 90s guy Yeah yeah not even be, yeah, we're not even being like anti-parody versions. Yeah, we're all just lit up, which is a nice thing. Yeah, it is nice.

And I think probably the context of McDonald's has their history, and there's the advertising and cultural impact history. And then once you hit the toys, it's like, oh, well, there, it's a lot of memory. It's just nice memories. There really are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Oh God, I forgot what I was going to say.

Someone else got to. So the, I think what I was building to, narrative-wise, is that, you know, yeah, there's cool. You know, I was building a case in my head of like, they, the toy sucked for a long time. Then I got the changeables and, like, argument out. Changibles might be to this day. I mean, the cheeseburger, I think, might be a top toy. That's top three, I think, for me, yeah. Three or four.

Maybe there were multiples, but was yours, is it the one that has like kind of like turquoise, kind of like you pull out two sides? Pull out two sides. Like it was a big Mac? Or maybe there was a cheeseburger and a Big Mac? There may, maybe it was a quarter pounder I'm thinking of. I don't know. I had the Big Mac one.

I, when they reissued them like a year or two ago, or maybe it was this year even, they did them as blind boxes because that's fun nowadays. and we got a hamburger. Well, Happy Meals were blind boxes. Yeah, they kind of, yeah. They kind of, yeah. They sort of did it, yeah. We got a hamburger, and then we got one that we thought was a trash can, and we realized

it was the deep fry. It was like a giant deep friar. Oh, interesting. Because I'm like, oh, wait, there's, it's not just a, there's handles on top. That wasn't, you didn't get tricked by it. You knew it was a robot inside. Yeah, it's a trash can for hours. I knew it was a robot.

I just, I love when that's, word of stuff to get the most mundane thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, on the mundane end, I like that one of these was an egg McMuffin. Yes. Like, you're a robot from space or something, but you came to Earth disguised as an egg McMuffin as having Canadian bacon on you. They'll never discover me.

There was a Big Mac and like a cheeseburger or hamburger. This is the one right. It's still like a, uh, I want to say, Oh, that's a different series then, I think. It's a little, oh, a little green guy. They must have. This is the original. This is the original.

I didn't remember that fry. The fry was really cool. Is he not a robot? Is he a different species of changeable? And that he's like, I think I might add one of them. An alien? He's a dinosaur. The fries are like dinosaurs.

Whoa. I think this is a whole other type of changeable. Yeah, I don't know what here that's from. Some genres, subcultures of changeables. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah, because the styrofoam looks like a taradacto. So I think these were all dinosaur ones.

I think there were multiple ways of change. Changeable. I think I had chicken McNugget dinosaur or crocodile or something. I guess they're all crocodiles. And a happy meal box that is a Yeah.

The noise you made is the feeling I think we've had over and over in this episode. Yeah, I know. Oh. Rising O's. Yeah. It's a nice. It's like a noise you might make on a roller coaster

or something. It's nice to do it just sitting and talking. It's appropriate for the podcast. Right. You wouldn't know it from looking at my toy wall right now, but I do like with changeables, like that's a completely new concept. There's really not, there's not a TV show about it. But as a kid, you see it and you just go, like, you invent the whole thing in your head.

I don't know what I invented at the time, but like it lights up your imagination enough. It lets you figure it out. That like you like kind of figure it out or whatever. So I do miss. I want to they still do toys like that, but like having the toy be, toy line is just the story. Yeah, the non-IP version of things. Or like Lego when it was just like...

Yeah, so it was pure when it was pure. That's it. Yeah. Right. In the newer line, I really like. They did one that's a Halloween bucket that becomes a robot. Oh, yeah, that is good. Pumpkin Halloween bucket.

And then another one that is... It might be the display of Happy Mail toys, but I don't know if they have those much. It might be the touchscreen ordering machine. I like this. I'm like getting into the nitty-mail toys, but I don't know if they have those much. gritty, the details of McDonald's ephemera. That's what we want. I bet at this point they are working on a changeable's IP show, an hour-long drama.

We'll call it Transchangers. It's very slow and joyless, and there is no changing until very end of episode 10. Well, yeah, yeah, you got to set it up. People would be so confused. The thing if the title just started. The McDonald's Corporation is. brainwashing your kids. Now these changeables are trans.

Well. I mean, it would happen. They've gotten less out of things. The Odyssey is going to bomb. $200 million immediately. So what I was building to, though, is that the game changer becomes the end of 1987, where the Disney partnership is established. that is not exclusively what they do from then on out, but it is such a massive hit out of the gate

that it's, it does become, all right, it's a lot more tie-ins, a lot of Disney for sure. And I think a lot of vying between all of the companies to get even like a month of placement in a happy meal and in the toy box. The initial one doesn't seem like the most spectacular thing you've ever seen, but it does acknowledge, it's like all the classics. And these were activity books. So suck, right? but I assume.

But, you know, it's Lady in the Tramp and Cinderella and Sword in the Stone and Dumbo. And just that, it's the beginning of that marriage, which is a marriage made in heaven. A rocky. Yes, though, a rocky, yes, you're right. Rocky. Good for a little while. Then early 90s it falls apart. Weirdly, Happy Meals do not incorporate the golden age, the movies that bring the company.

back in a big way. Like, they're off with Burger King for all of those. But they start making their way back together. I think Beauty and the Beast was at McDonald's. Was it really? But Burger King went hard on the Lion King.

Okay, sure. I think they just kind of underestimate it. They overestimated Dick Tracy. Yes. And underestimated some of the golden age of Disney animation. I think I had. I thought there were Little Mermaid McDonald's toys.

I think there's a little mermaid. slounder and a tiny Prince Eric in a boat. That was a bath toy that I used. Still use it to this day. Yeah, I'm trying to remember what was up with Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, by Aladdin, they're separated. I'm not sure.

But basically it gets you to where the 90s, you know, most of the ones, and most of the ones were probably fond of our tie-ins. And a lot of them are probably during the divorce, right? because that's when you get the Batman stuff. Let's talk about the Batman stuff a little bit. Little vehicles. This might be, Batman Returns might be a rare one where I had every single one of them.

I think I did collect them all, which I did not frequently do. But it doesn't, I mean, you've got to be getting the visceral. Yeah. It's a little, the little penguin car, these yellow, and it has the umbrella that's just spinning, doing the hip-knock kind of thing as it rides. And it expands the universe, too.

Like Catwoman drives this little cat-moviel. Yeah. Something that is not in the... Not in the movie. In the very dark. Actually, is the penguin in a duck or is it just a yellow car? What's... It's hard to say what's on the back of that car.

It's reminiscent of big rubber ducky. Okay. But I am not sure. Kind of funny that it's not the thing that actually exists in the movie. But kind of what I love about Happy Meal Toys also is that they're just slightly off. Yeah. Always on. Like, they might have had to get cooking on it before the details of the movie were locked in.

Yeah. Locked in. Yes, you end up with things. But I love, again, now everybody's so careful about this stuff. I love when it was a little bit off or a little bit weird. It created a little extra of the universe for me. I really like their concept art comes out either from the artist or it's sold at an auction where it's like, this was going to be a line of toys or this was going to be the second or third run of Tiny Tunes flip cars and they never got made. and so it's always interesting to see those.

Like, why did that not happen? Sure, sure. I know, look, it's a wave two of the regular Darkwing Duck figures didn't happen. I look at those longingly, like, at least once every six months. I'm like, wow, that liquidator toy looks really cool. I know. They never got a liquidator. I just like the clear-plastics.

Yeah, but they were pretty big. They just like the, they did one wave of Darkwing Duck toys and then that was it. In the early non-exam. 90s or recent? He was a dog. He was a water dog. Oh, yeah. Do you mean like when the show was airing?

Yeah, the 90s, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, the original. And they did the two vehicles and stuff for dark. But then there was just a wave two that they never did. No happy meal for Darkwind, Dark? I don't believe so. Okay.

Unless it was a different restaurant. A high quality NES game from what I read. Really good. Yeah, Capcom. Really held up. Justin and I are about to hit San Diego Comic Con this week when we're recording this. So I guess when this comes out. will be there.

But I am really hoping there's a chance. Say I love you. Yeah, say I love to Justin and I if you see us. But maybe there'll be a new Darkwing Duck there. This is totally a guy. I don't know any. A new show or a new figure? Maybe a new figure.

I'm just hoping there's, that's what I'm all. They're doing duck tails. Yeah. Let's see. I would love that's my fingers crossed. It'll be a new one. Is there a bad guy version of Darkwing Duck?

Negged Duck. Negaduck. Negatuck. You, you fool. We're russed. I hope Jason finishes the sense fast so I can. You all said it so loud. He was wearing yellow.

He wasn't purple. He's wearing yellow. He's wearing yellow. Okay. You knew the answer. He's like the Batman of Zerrador. He's like the Batman of Zeruner. Yeah. You know, to make it even more obscure.

Yeah. I don't know if that's confusing. He's a yellow flash. We didn't get to that. Yeah, because they had rescue or excuse me, they did rescuers, but rescue rangers, tailspin. I don't think, do they have duck tails, toys? Not that.

I don't think so. but I might not be so exhausted. I just grabbed a pop my eye, but I didn't get all of them. When I started reading about this stuff, I was like, there's probably not a full list of these online. Immediately found a multiple comprehensive list. And I was like, what was I? And then videos, there's like a two-hour video of like every happy meal toy

from the 70s to 2019. Yeah, a lot of my grab. From that, I think I just watched that I'm mute and clicked through it like it was a slideshow. Until I found ones that I'd never seen before. Which I'll just keep up kind of like, hey, react to this. Let me keep it in the Batman mode. Well, first of all, Justin, I'm sure you're aware of the Batman the animated series. Oh, I did love these.

These are pretty fantastic. That two-face one, that two-face one is really great. I had most of these, if not all. Yeah, strong memories, feelings about it. I don't know that I might have only had Two-Face. I sure like Poison Ivy's car that has a big Venus flytrap that probably snap whilst she drove. So good. Yeah.

I had Two-Face and Poison Ivy. And I think I was excited about it. And I had Ridler and Backgirl. And Back-Girl, I think at the time, didn't have an action figure. So she was the stand-in, even though it was like a different scale. And I think she's like, what, two and a half or three inches? And I was like, this is the Back-Girl action figure I will use with my like Kenner Batman the animated series toys.

Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah, you'd have to do. The animated series back girl was awesome. Yeah. Is there a bad back girl, though? We don't, we'll never know about the one. That's what didn't get released, right?

Oh, the movie back girl. Yeah. Oh, we'll never be able to determine good or bad. Yeah, that's true. But she was a cool back girl. I, you know, Griffin Newman has accused me on this program of being what he deems a scale queen, somebody who's obsessed with displaying toys. Well, you've made some accusations that him as well.

Well, right, but I... That are presented more as facts. Yeah, they're fat. I mean, those are more facts than sort of accusations, I think. I think we've proved that with science and math. Yeah, he kind of admitted it, yeah. Yeah, so I do think a thing that would bother me is that four of those were in vehicles and then four of those were standing up and then their scale would be a little different in the vehicle. Because if the vehicle has to be bigger.

So it did bother me a little bit that it wasn't just eight characters in vehicles or eight characters standing up. I was a scale queen as a kid. I was a scale princess, I guess. Sure, yeah, yeah. I was with you. I was with you. Yeah, exactly. So when you were saying that, like, I know if you had to use back girl and she was

a different scale, fine. You have to do it. But it doesn't feel good, though. But it doesn't feel good. It bothers you. No, I think I liked the cars more and prioritize the cars. Sure. Because that Joker mobile with the big Joker head on the front of the car, I mean,

that's, it's great. It doesn't get much better than that. You want his car to be. Yeah. So you would play with them, but you'd have kind of, you'd be a neurotic play. Well, it just, it would just didn't quite,

yeah, it would be not neurotic, I think. It would just, you try to keep things maybe separate or like it would just be. Invent a story in your head,

why. Yeah. There's a shrink ray. Yeah, yeah. I don't know which villain would be the most likely to have a shrink ray. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Does it go on your shelf in the bedroom? Does it go in the playroom? Does it go in a box? Does it go in the nightstand? Oh, only the special ones go there.

Which ones do I sleep with? Which ones do I sleep with? Do I pet? Which do I covet? Ten years old growing up got the nightstand and the alarm clock. Got the clock radio. Yeah. So I have, I'm trying to think, I think I do have all the animated series ones in a box

somewhere in the garage. Probably melting right now. Elsewhere, close to Batman, but I'd say generally in the DC realm, the Looney Tunes, which are. which you could dress up with snap on a postage. Oh, that's the stuff. I put it in my veins. I think I definitely add that because, yeah,

it was two halves of the uniform. Yeah, yeah, that was awesome. My memory, I think this unlocked maybe like six years of my life because it's not years, months. Like, whenever these came out, I think I nervously habitually popped these on and off and on and off at all times. That was probably what I did for seven hours a day, not exclusively, but just while, you know, being nervous about something or sitting in a car.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. They were the fidget spinner, I guess, of our era. Yeah. Very satisfying to, yeah, to that. Until you got to seventh grade Spanish and learned about Mexican worry dolls and worry stones. And that started religiously grasping those. This is new mythology. Wurice, Worry stones.

Oh, whoa, shut everything else down. Oh, okay. Let me Jason Lord just drop. The drop. Would they help you to worry more? So worry stones, and I bought these. I got one in class and then also in the Mexico Pavilion at Epcot. And it's like a smooth polished stone with a divot and you would, yeah, fidget spinner kind of rub them.

And then worry dolls were these beautiful woven little pouches that you can wear around your neck. But inside were little dolls and you whisper your worry into each one and then put them under your pillow and when you wake up, your worries would be gone. They were in the Zay guys for me too. Like, I remember we had little worry dolls and worry stones. They were almost like Moncala. Yeah, they were very similar to Moncala. Yeah, I'm pretty habitually play with those too. Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, it was a very, at least maybe it was just then that it feels like it was like being sold in a very like, I don't know if it was like a problematic sort of like exoticized. thing. You mean there was probably like a more pure version of like people would like hand make them or something and sell them whatever like their own little store or whatever. But then like Hasbro moved in and was like let's just market this. Yes. As opposed to the catalog made for Spanish teachers for you to order nicknacks. Did you both have worry dolls? I think my mom bought some. Yeah. I think we and there was a Batman the animated series episode called the Worrymen and the Mad Hatter tricks a bunch of rich people into buying I think worry. dolls and put them under their pillow. Spoiler, it's the Mad Hatter. Sorry. But, you know, and then it brainwashes them, like, to give their money or do something, you know. But he's, like, basically taking advantage of

people who would, you know, buy into that. Inception. Planning. Planning. Planning. The Madhatter, Jervistetch, the original Christopher Nolan. Big, I need a Mad Hatter movie. This is my lifelong. Got Clayface coming soon. I know. And maybe

it's good, but, like, it's not going to be, like, fun, Clayface. It's going to be like scary clay face. It's going to be like a horror movie. I'm saying it like I'm mad. It's like fine. It might be good. I don't know. It's just like I wanted fun.

The Harley Quint Clayface is pretty fun. The animated series. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. That clay face, that's, I forget who knows that voice. Adomian is Bain. Right, yes. Apparently there was, there is a script for an Adomian Bain spin wolf.

One of the writers was posting about it. I don't know. Harley Quinn on HBO Max. Check it out. A recommendation. Reliable. Six years late. James had a million of a thousand voices.

What else we got in here? Different Tiny Tunes cars. These ones have like there's like little guys in some of it. It's like the Dodo. What's the Dodo guy? What's his name? In Tiny Tunes. Oh, like the Wacky Land.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right. I don't know his name. I don't either. I don't know. There's stuff in all their wheels. Whatever. That's a really vague thing to say.

Sorry. I know all the McDonald's. characters but I don't know. Anybody know this? What the hell is this one? Pigsburg Pigs. I also have flagged Pigsburg Borg Pigs. I don't know what it is.

Was there a show? I don't know. There's a couple, there was a thing, there was another show called Kissy Fur that I had never heard of. It was Kissy Fur as I was like, what the hell is this? And it's a Heim Sabon show. Yeah. And it was like two seasons.

And it's like a little bear and his dad who run away from the circus. And I watch a clip of this on. like I've never seen this in my life. And Pigsburg, I can't even say it. Pigsburg Pigs. Pigsburg, pigs. What's the other one like reworked anime? Oh, I don't know.

Maybe it was a similar Power Rangers thing where they just took some existing footage and like cheaply put some American voices on it. You can collect them all, all the Pigsburg Pigsburg. Pigsberg. Pigs was a show. Yeah. 1990. They look nasty.

I don't like their feet. I don't like that they have. They have shoes. This might have been like shaped like their feet. Fish police kind of like. Pigsburg Pigs. Jason,

you ever know about this? It's not a prime time. I don't know. It was a, and it was a more Sunday or Saturday morning show, I think. Yeah, it looks like the chipmunks. It's not like a capital critters.

No. Not a, not a, look, the Simpsons is working. Let's compete with the Simpsons with the worst ideas you've ever heard. It's no, this is just straight up Saturday morning. Pigsberg. Some of these I have never seen a minute of.

And I'm like, kind of what a lot, like a different genre, but like that MTV cart animation, animated show downtown with like the cool like New York characters, you know. I don't know what we're talking about. Oh, this is created by Chris P., a brilliant person who runs Tipmouse animation. Oh, wow, really? Kingsburg Pigs? No, no, downtown.

Okay. I was like, I dig it back. Downtown was, I mean, MTV used to put on animated stuff at all. I mean, clone high, I think was the cult hit. But like, just weird stuff. Darya, I love Dario. Oh, yeah, downtown looks cool. Yeah.

I'm looking here, Zoo face. Do you remember Zoo face? That's a show? No, it's a thing you would get, which was just animal noses in the Happy Meal. And they called them Zoo Face. And you could become like a little, like, a little, like, like, I don't know, parakeet, a monkey, a tiger. Feels offensive to me.

Do we want to encourage kids to be doing zoo face? Yeah, it was a different time, though. No one knew what they were doing. An odd amount of zoo face in the early night. Yeah, alligator nose. And this, I mean, I think we had one of these, but I wasn't that thrilled that month. Yeah. Yeah, I think I recall the feeling of, oh, okay, okay.

It'd be sort of like, you don't know, stocking stuff for like the present that kind of Fleshes out Christmas, but you're like, you know, you're looking forward to the main. Let's get back to the big still. Let's get back to Pittsburgh Pigs. Yeah, yeah. Let's give me the blockbusters. Stuff we really want. Yeah.

I don't remember if I, I sure remember these being around. Maybe I had one. Hook. Oh, right, right. Hook. Yeah. There's, look, in the ad, it's Rufio blasting a big hook with, that's confusing because Captain Hook is behind it.

Mm-hmm. But he is spraying a giant. Hook is everywhere. He manifests in many ways. I'm not sure. What's the kind of like psychedelic jellyfish lady? Like I recognize, I kind of recognize Peter. He doesn't look like Rodden Williams.

I'll tell you that. Or one of the mermaids? Mermaid, mermaid. Yeah, okay. All right, it's bath toys. So, yeah, that's not, I feel like not what they looked like in the movie. But you should know. I avoid the movie hook as best as I can.

Oh, so I wouldn't know. I was all in on it, 91. Happy males, toys. The movie. The toys for Christmas, including the puff, Robin Williams. Is he buff? He's, like, jacked. It's just a guy.

Whoa, Robin Williams, who played Jack as Jacked? A jacked Jack. I think it was a Jack didn't have the license, so he just looks like a guy. Although the Cat and Hook did kind of look like Dustin Hoff. He had extending legs, I remember. At least one of them, you could pull him. his legs to be taller, but it was just kind of awkward to stand him up. Captain Hook had the hook, but then he also, you could slide out a blade.

Uh-huh. That was a little novelty went a long way. Yeah, the toys, better than the movie. You're an anti-hook guy. Because I went back to re-watching Hook recently. I won't litigate it, I guess, too. But I, it was, I think there are moments that work, but it is a bit of a slog for me. And I want a big crocodile in it and not a statue.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. Yeah, there's a moment. I would watch moments. Like, I think his performance is very fun in moments. I think like the dinner scene, I think super cut of the kid rolling around, you know. I guess I just want, like, somebody to cut it down to two and a half minutes and I'll watch it. I like the music that plays when Peter is like doing, when Peter Banning is doing, like, he's like,

shooting his cell phones like guns and then he's late for the for the little league game yep it's extremely like Dave Gruceny like smooth jazz like like um uh uh John Williams never went so like adult contemporary as the music for that sequel I've seen articles refer to it as the worst piece of music he ever made for a movie but to me I love the it makes me want to be late for my kids baseball games run up a hill and see everybody that freaked me out as a good that's a bad childhood feeling is the feeling like the feeling of the running up the hill and the game is over oh yeah made me like if that happened if my dad did that to me if i did it to my son yeah god just not thank you with a knife before my dad just didn't he wasn't around so he could not miss it it didn't have to just wasn't

on the table don't even worry about late it's just not he's not there and it's easier and better that way Oh, I have a different memory of running up a hill at the Little League field because the snack bar was at the top of it. And every player got a free Pepsi. What a treat. A free fountain Pepsi. And then it was a matter of, are you getting hamburger or are you getting a hot dog or sliced pizza? Wow. So in that couple hours, the only stretch of time in which you would run.

I am thinking about the end of the game, win, lose. and I am praying balls don't get to the outfield. That's the soccer story I have. My parents said I would run faster and the game was over to get to the hot dogs and soda. And I knew that they didn't have enough orange or grape soda in the box. So I knew I had to get there fast to get orange or grape because that was going to go fast. Also, looking back, there was a gas station down the block. Any soda was at our disposal.

That's fast. You're going to get to that faster, though. Yeah, as long as you're willing to run. That is true. Yeah, Mike and I just trying to get to the end of the games. I remember in school when they would teach us soccer and they're like, and you can bop it with your head. And I was like, no, absolutely not. That's going to hurt. That's going to hurt. That's going to hurt and I'm wearing glasses. It did hurt. I used to do it. I don't know how people keep, like they do it in professional games.

Yeah. Well, some of them were Dick Tracy villains or something, you know. Like flathead or spring head. Metal head. Yeah, yeah. But no, yeah. Because I'm thinking of Hammerhead. What else do you guys have as far as like kind of golden era? That's most of what I have.

Because as it gets into the 2000s, what lit me up was the oddities. The ones where were like, there were heavy metal toys of that? There were, I guess it's maybe 93 or 94. There were snow white toys. And the dock had a big diamond. We were really into like jewels and diamonds in the house. and it would like spin around when you like the wheels would move down and then this diamond would just spin around or this gem would spin around in his cart and that really looms large in my brain is it the one where he pops is he popping out of it no no it's on the right it's like the jewel would spin while he was he was pushing the cart sorry and all of these I really liked but that one in particular transloose I feel like that was a strong suit for the toy industry in the 90s you get a transverse translucent blue plastic and some glitter in there.

And you're like, ah, a precious gem. Yes. A diamond. Yeah. I love translucent more, even though it's like the cheapest choice for them. It's like, we don't even have to do much to the plastic. But I was like, I loved the mucous tick action figure. It was just, oh yeah.

But it was like that kind of, yeah, I loved that one. I think the same snow white toys, but the one where it's like one of the dwarves is popping out of like the cart. And it's just like a bed of gems. I think there's a lot of, I mean, look. The gems in Snow White in general, on the ride, especially the one and now in Florida, that's a big, like, kid brain of like, look at those. Like, you know they're like worth money, too, that's part of it, but also it just looks cool because there's so many different colors. Yeah. When I was going through the list, something caught my eye, which was 94-95 Epcot Center toys.

Yes. And I thought it was going to be like, oh, cool, like future East Bay stuff. No, it's World Showcase. It's the characters in the World Showcase. So we'll start with Mickey as USA. And he kind of looks like an old-timey flim-flam man. He looks like a snake oil salesman or a teenager in a community theater production of Oliver, and he is the Artful Dodger.

He looks like that. But then Chip and Dale, Chip is in China and Dale is in Morocco. A little uncomfortable with both of these. Yeah, a little of God, I don't know. Something weird? You're allowed to be doing that. Zoo face? So, yeah, it's a little zoo face.

So, yeah, but there has been parkstions over the years. There were a ton of Disneyland Paris ones that I saw. They were regional that I had never, you know, seen before. But it looked like they had like five waves. I feel like when Euro Disney opened, I think they were like McDonald's stuff. McDonald's, McDonald's, McDonald's, let's get word out with McDonald's. Oh, so, I see.

I was not aware of these. Are they actually like, there's not like the Phantom or any, like Phantom Manor or anything? Not that I saw. I mean, it's, I feel like they're always just like Disney, like characters.

Maybe they'll be in a ride vehicle or something. Right, right. If there was Phantom Manor toys from McDonald's, I'd be all over that. Yeah, you'd own them already. It's an ad that is still, it is still called Euro Disney, which I, that's one of it is,

I like to find. like this old Euro Disney logo. Oh, yeah. I like the colors. It's of its era, but I dig it. And then it's, this is like characters in vehicles. It's like main train and main train, as they call it. And teacups and like, like, pongo, is that the Dalmatian in the fire in like main street fire truck?

Oh, every kid's favorite thing. And then the fire truck. Yeah, all the most classic vehicles. It's an odd assortment, isn't it? And then Peter Pan's flight, Captain Hook in, because it's his ship, I guess. He has a right to be, he has more of a right to be driving that. I have the, somewhere I had the, like, just a stocking stuff for gift is the Brayer Bear Bear in the Splash Mountain log. That is also like, you look into it and you see, like, the picture of the ride.

Yes. Because the defunct land about the relationship between Disney, at Disney and McDonald's is very interesting. Ray Crock, Walt Disney, and Ernest Hemingway, all ambulance drivers in the First World War. Weird. Kind of weird, yeah. Ernest Hemingway toys were not very popular.

Featuring a soldier with dead wife or Paris expat whose dick don't work from the Sun also rises. That was my favorite one. It came with that tube from the dinosaurs. You tried to get it. It didn't work. They did have a lot of those like almost view findry style toys. I remember there were rescuers down under ones.

Oh, yeah. These like clear kind of see-through like movie cameras? They honestly, I think I didn't like them as a kid, but looking at them now, like them more. Sure. I like them. They had the ornaments. They had Christmas tree ornaments, rescuers as well. And they were decked out in like Christmas outfits.

Bernard, a little scarf and a sweater. We had both of those, I remember. Rescuers down under, not a movie you hear much about nowadays. No. But early, I think, CG for like a few shots. Yeah. Pixar even helping out, question mark. Oh, interesting.

Maybe. I feel like maybe they were advising. When they were more a technology-focused company almost? I think so. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm seeing. Okay, all right. Yeah. my brain works.

The fact senator right sometimes. What else? I mean, if we've covered the 90s. I do have one from the 90s. I'll bring up my favorite one. Yeah, we got a favorite. Still coming. I mean, like my favorite.

Maybe they're all my favorite. Sonic 3 happy meals. I had all four of these robotic tales, Nuckles, and Sonic. This was just so exciting. And especially because at the time, they didn't really have Sonic figures. So sometimes, yeah, like this would be the only chance you got to play with characters you liked.

And this was, except for tails being like flat and you would, you would shoot his tail was like a little spinner and you would make him fly. I had to do that. That was a little bit of a bummer though because I wanted him in three dimensions. But other than that, these might have been my favorite. I am a dimension queen. This or. That one you'll admit. This, yeah, I will admit that.

Cues away. You admitted it. I will say kick cloud kicker though from these tail spin toys. I had two of them. I had Ballou and Kit. Man, I miss these. These were metal. Whoa.

These were not plastic. So you felt they felt like substantial playing with them, which did give it like some sort of weight. I don't know why. I'm literal weight and also weight playing with it. It just felt like a cooler, more impressive toy. That was a thing. Like when we go to like historical sites on vacation and you're like, oh, they don't really have toys. But they have these little pewter figures.

And I would get those unpainted. By the way, I was not paid. They were clearly meant for like people, building model trains or battles. Yeah. It's the best you'll get if you're not a trained person. You're like, well, these are kind of toys. Yeah. These are adjacent to toys.

I had a little wizard with a dragon wrapped around it and I had a gem. And it just says, not so fast underneath. Yeah. What's a weird one? What's your number one having gone down memory? Like, fresh in your head, what do you call it number one? Well, I was going to call kit number one. one, I think.

For me, personally. The weight makes it classy. The weight is what I always remember about playing with it, for whatever reason. Kit on his little flying board and Martin McFly back to the future, too. I used to, the whole house was corporate and I used to put down like an action figure. They're called cards. Is that correct? Like the back of an action.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would just slide around standing on one of those pretending. I was, and by the way, never tried skateboarded. Like, when I stepped on a skateboard once in high school, I'm like, I can't do that. I feel out of control. I'm going to hurt myself. Unless, but you would skateboard real fast up a hill to get a burger. Well, if it's the only way.

Sure. Well, yeah, if I heard, somebody, he's doing it. If I heard, blah, blah, blah, blah, I would rally. Answer the siren song. So, but, yeah, for years, they were, I knew them just as backers, like the back of an action figure packaging. And eventually my parents were like, you got to get rid of some of these backers.

Yeah, I kept them in a big loose bag. I kept all of them in a trash bag in the attic, and then the attic had water damage, and my mom one day told me, she was like, I threw away all those cardbacks that you had. And I was like, I didn't know you still had those. Oh, wow. They were just waterlogged and disgusting.

But they were similar to video game boxes, where it's like, well, with a shitty eight-bit game, the art on the box was half of the thrill. Doing a lot of the words. Yes, I did buy, you know, it was like a pandemic purchase, just kind of locked alone

looking at nostalgic things, yearning. There was a Mr. Freeze Batman the animated series figure, but it was, I don't have the carded one. I got like a secondhand garage sale figure as a kid, but I bought it carded,

but it was from Italy, and it made me laugh because in Italy, it was called Mr. Fredo. And that's the one I own. to this day? Wow, wow. You got, that's special.

Anybody can get a Mr. Freeze, but only you, Mr. Fraydo. Yeah, Mr. Freedo. I know it was you, Mr. Freedo.

This isn't my number one, but I do want to just call it out because it's where and when else will I ever talk about this? Unless you launch an entire other podcast, only about this. That's true. On the table.

So there was a 95, it was like mid-90s. There was a Halloween set of McDonald's that used the same kind of snap-on armor mechanic that they had with like the bugs bunny as Superman kind of stuff. But I just remember we were on a road trip to Lake Arrowhead and we got a happy meal. And it was, I got Grimmis. He's dressed as a ghost.

Looks a little weird. And he came with a cassette. And there was a whole song. And it's one of those things that like, I don't know, who else. It was called I like to scare myself. And the course was, I like to scare. myself. Yes.

I was going through McDonald's gang commercials and I stumbled upon one that had a promo for this. I didn't bring it up in the episode

where it's one of those like maybe you have this where you like I think of like radio station commercials where like I know this placement of this three seconds

of music so well. And yeah I like it was so familiar to me like it goes to the preseason I like to scare myself cut off narration, like the way that it is just over and done at that point.

And I never had the, I never heard the full song. I only know it in that form. Let me tell you, don't remember anything but what you remember. And I did own the cassette. You had a chance to remember all of it. Oh, yeah. No, that was one of those, you know, those weird things, those things that the portals begs childhood. That old clip did it.

The longer we go, the more likely someone's about to unlock, I witness to murder. the killer is still out there. Yes, the dark side will be when trauma is unlocked. There was some, it was a thread on like blue sky or God forbid threads, the darkest corner of the internet. Someone posted like a family story of like, oh, I always had this memory of I woke up as a kid and went to the kitchen. And I thought my mom was making spaghetti. at midnight and I say can I have some and she got so mad at me in reality someone like when she was an adult they're like that is not what happened someone broke tried to break into your house

through the kitchen and your mother shot him you what you saw was brains that's the jetty this was a crazy story somewhere you counted on the internet but is the part correct that she asked for some. Yeah, she said, oh, can I have some spaghetti? And it's like, no, it wasn't spaghetti. What you were saying, your child mind could not comprehend what you were saying. That's so horrifying and also the silliest specific. Yes. Related to a grizzly. Where was this on the internet? I'm saying it was on like a short form text. It was a thread on blue sky or threads or. It was just optioned actually, yeah. Can I have some

Fisco 824's putting it together? It did make me think of the Zola story of like the crazy right that it's like oh this is I can see the three acts of this story you know. Yeah Jason can I unlock a memory for you? You should remember this

Oh God help me What did these little guys mean anything to you? I like those are Madame Alexander Dolls. They're my favorite. Well, right, but do they... Yes, of course I know that.

Do you remember something? Yeah. Do you want to explain it? Sure, yeah. I used to, when I would go to improv practice, I would oftentimes get a happy meal. I would give the toy out to one of my teammates, so I'm sure they would throw them away after practice. But they were doing Madame Alexander dolls, which were, I guess it's like an old doll company that still does... There's a lot of AI if you look at Madam Alexander on Instagram, but they do. It's kind of American girlish,

but not quite as historical or anything. But they're like kind of creepy doll. Whatever. Madam Alexander dolls are creepy. Yeah, from what I'm seeing, yes. I would agree. And they... The way they would dress us in the 80s for pictures,

like little sailor outfits or little frilly dresses. Yeah, but not these. The hats? We were dressed as little elves. Yeah. Mother would put on my elf cap. But, Anthony Gio,

friend of the show, particularly felt like the little boy was creepy because I got this little like green pointy hat little boy with green little German boy, red bowtie,

dead eyes, creepy little stare. Just like Gio, dead eyes. Yeah. And for like, I think six months, I carried around this,

these little dolls and I would take pictures of him with the doll in the foreground without him noticing. This is from New York. I have to find the full compilation.

You wouldn't realize he was in a photo. Yes. And I did this during one of his improv shows in New York. Like I took the dolls with me, the little capy mill toys with me to New York. Wow.

And compiled a huge, I think we have a book of, we have a book of these. I think Gio has them. I believe we print on demand. Gio has this book. And then when we were doing a Halloween Harold's one year.

I guess it's when we made the book. We told him we were going to all be ghosts. So just bring a sheet or whatever to put like a Charlie Brown ghost or whatever. And he came into the dressing room. And all of us were dressed as the little McDonald's Happy Meal Boy. Jesus Christ. We're wearing the outfits. Whoa.

And we had the outfit ready to go for him. And we had his outfit ready to go. He did not know that's what was going to happen. And he came in and he. That's your wife in those scary clothes. That is Justin Michael's wife. Jesus. I love you.

I love you. Yes. And I love you, Gio. All eight of us dressed as this little happy meal boy. Wow. Surprising him. This is a wild tale. And we kind of did it again the next year with a different one.

It wasn't as fun. But the four was good. The show wasn't as good. This show was really good as my recollection. That show was good. So you had another one that was a little Manhattan boy. Yes. And we told him that first.

one was 2011. The next one was 2012. And we told him, okay, this year will actually be she ghosts. Yes. And then he showed up and we were all dressed. That Mad Hatter little boy. We pulled off the sheets and we were all Little Manhattan. Oh, you also did sheets. Wow. Wow. And then the year after we were just like the Jabalaki

like face, the mass. We didn't continue the prank. We said maybe we'll do it. We'll skip a year. But then the theater took us off Harold Knight. Yeah. And then We never had a chance to do it. So the next year we just got different colored javowaliki masks, and I think the audience did not care for it because we both looked unsettling and it was difficult to hear us. Yes, all that.

So yeah, here we are all dressed as the little mad hatter boy the next year. Happy little toy. Oh, geez. Now I know the origins of that picture, because the little green boy, I feel like I got, spillover understanding of I feel like he I he was like kept at my place at one point like it was like passed around I feel like

to trick Gio yeah he was like a lower stakes Robert the whole on it though yeah he's in like let's unnerve him because he won't know who keeps it and where it will appear interesting where is it now do you have it you know what I don't know where it is it is somewhere though but I don't know where it is something are you gonna pop up are you guys gonna make something run in here I don't know Do you have the communal bear costume?

Yeah, I have the bear costume somewhere. But that's you and I, that's not. Yeah. That wasn't a herald team. It was just between Jason and I. That's just a bear costume. I don't know. Is there any listeners concerned?

Don't worry about it. They shared a bear costume. I'm pretty sure I paid for it, though. I don't know how the same bear costume would work for the both of you, but I think legally it's my costume. I think I paid for it. Yeah, you did. You own it.

I own it. It's big on me and small of Mike. That's how it works. I'd watch that show Big on me, small on mic But maybe next time Geo's on the podcast Will mess with him

With the happy meal toys You just told you just gave him Unless he does not listen I mean I'm sure he listened It wasn't a while But he's not going to listen every episode Yeah I don't expect Just text him and say

Definitely don't listen To this one I'll tell him not to Don't ask why This one's so offensive Just make sure you stay away Yeah your virgin ears Couldn't handle it Anthony

Jason was being so offensive You're so offensive. You'd really be bugged by this one. Dude, yeah, you hate Bill Martin. Use a Google voice number or use a burner number and just text him the photo, the little boy. You want me to do it right now? You don't have to. All right, I'll do it.

You didn't see that. You didn't see that. Wouldn't be from a burner. You want me to do a Google Voice? You can do Google Voice with a new number. You can pass with Google Voice. You guys knew? Wait, what is the, how does it, how are you going to do this?

Well, they give you a phone number with your Google. A different phone number if you sign up for Google Voice. Really? text from a totally different. It's really good if you want to sign them for two loyalty rewards accounts because sometimes if you want to be getting more alerts than your phone number can handle. Right. Because sometimes, you know, they'll lock you out.

I feel like it's the first, you know, it's the first time signing up. They'll give you some sort of incentive. We got two phone numbers. What do you expect me to do? Buy four more boneless wings? Jeez, Louise. You're telling Lindsay, okay, I am getting a second phone. But it's not because actually the reasons are you will find very class.

Right. I'm not covening anyone's wife. When you say I'm going out at 10.45, she's not worried because she knows you're going to a big bob store before. The answer is always target. Yeah, it's always target a Walmart toy section. Unless it is a Walmart with a taco belt inside. Could be that. Yeah, outside the box possibility. I'll eat the lettuce. Yeah. Mr. Cycloscar. You can handle it. You can handle it. You've been going more often lately. You're trying to like bring it on. Well, because it's all coming out really quickly. Yeah. Got a refill.

Where did you... You're going to stay full for that long. Yeah. Where did you even find a shirt with launch pad McQuack, like giving a thumbs up to the Taylor Farms logo? The one I'm wearing now is what you're saying? Yeah, you're selling at box lunch. Yeah. Great work, fellas.

I got box lunch cash that I spent on this thing. Box lunch money? Box lunch money is much better. Yeah. Look, you know, you said it. I'm just throwing things out. Sure. All right, I'm going to do a little speed around here of oddities from the 2000s, where to me, things get a little less clean.

I mean, maybe they were never so clean, what with your Pigsburg pigs. But there was, and I will be leaving out ones that are like icon. Of course, they add Incredibles, whatever, you know, like big time. I'm sure, I'm sure cool toys. But I definitely sparked to the odd ones. Maybe none odder to me than the set of Happy Meal toys for the two. 2002 Pinocchio? The Roberto Benini?

Was that everywhere? It doesn't say regional. It was just at the Oscars and he was crawling all over the big star. He was a big star. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. The Life is Beautiful toys were much we're much weirder.

I didn't want to see the little periscope with the frames from that movie. Yeah. had the exclusive for Disney and Benini projects. I want to say that this, because, you know, then you look up like, who the hell is in this? And I think in the dubbed American version, one of these characters were looking at was voiced by one of our faves, Jim Belushi. And I found that a lot of these, when I went looking up, who was a voice in this movie? The answer was often Jim Belushi.

Wow, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it was a unsuccessful animated film from the 2000s, Belouche was there, including possibly this one, the Happy Meal set who could forget from Dougal. There he is. Dougal. There's Dougal. I think of Chevy Chase also in a lot of these.

I want to say Dougal. One of them I'm going to shit. Forgive me. I forget. But I put money on Dougal being the one that has John Stewart in it. Okay. But if it's not that, it's another one that I'm going to show. It's death to smoochee.

You're thinking about death to smoochee. It's the Happy Meal Toysmoochoochee director. Also, just to be clear, Dougal is not Delgo. Not the same. Right, right. I did for a second. Wait, Delgo is the adventurer run.

Dougal is the dog. Delgo is like a thing. He's a, I don't know what Delgo is. He's a thing we can't even conceive of it. Yeah. I feel like it's inevitable that I become like the pretentious asshole

who goes back and rewatches all these horrific-looking 2,000 CGs. You know, there's actually some, hidden gems. But that's the generational thing, right? Like somewhere else concurrently, somebody's recording a podcast and they are of the age

where they love all of those things. And they're yelling about how Dougal was good. Right. They're judging Dougal without watching Dougal. These assholes are talking about plastic. It's rotty. Literally is making them die. It's rotting away.

It's killing them. Children born in the 2000s are in their 20s now. and the stuff were like, oh, God, that fucking dog shit. They're like, Brother Bear was a seminal memory. Kane Parsons fucking loves Dougal. He was, Dougal is one of the main inspirations. I don't kind of see it in back rooms. Yeah, yeah.

They're like, what if you walked in just through, you know, this is an empty store, liminal space, and then you saw it, and then just a Dougal popped up. I don't know why they joke about Nimgalu so often. I had a stuffy that I slept with every night of Nimgalu. All right. You know, hey, let's cut the nonsense. Let's get back on track with the toys from Epic, the movie starring Nimgalu.

Oh, here we go. There was a Nimgalu. He's just on it. It's called Nymns Boggin Flinger. Justin, Nimgalu was voiced by Stephen Tyler of Aerosmith. He's a, yeah, it's this weird. One of these, like, what the hell is it? I think Aziz Ansari is one of these, like, twin guys.

I watched 10 minutes of it on HBO in a hotel room and then got obsessed, because knowing that there was a character of voice by Stephen Tyler who I dressed as an Halloween show. Justin's a voice actor and he's a fellow voice actor with Stephen Tyler. Yeah, me and Steven Tyler. Yeah, we're both, yeah, yeah.

We're the same. We're getting money from the same union. You're both in SAG. Yeah, I love you, Stephen Tyler. I love you. The Brotherhood. And I had to encrypt epic on external hard drives

in a dozen languages. Wow. You have spread the story of Nimgalu around the world. I spread it around. Fox was terrified. of this pristine Portuguese copy being pirated between Burbank and Century City. Somebody's going to run it off the road like the Joker, like going after an armored vehicle.

And then eventually... Nimgalu's in there, get him. And then eventually you're like, oh, wait, internet speeds are fast enough. We can just send it that way. Is it too late in the episode for a few questions about your post-production jobs? No. Griffin's living right now. Griffin got a lot of this.

If there's anything Griffin, then already cover. When you describe your food service job in college, there would be a lot of calamity. Would there be any calamity in the post? Did you accidentally tape over epic or like the first two minutes like you deleted somehow and you'd have to like re-render it or something? No,

because they were literally like they didn't want us doing anything like, in terminal windows, which I don't know how these fucking terminal, besides dragging a file. There's no problem with you using terminal. It was no problem. Like, they literally just wanted us copy and pacing stuff and finder between servers or external. Okay. You were kind of a finder jockey.

Yeah, I was kind of a finder jockey. Kind of a cool way to put it. You know. Kit, a sphinder jockey here. But you never, you never accidentally like uploaded the wrong, like a p. of just like the X-Men to like a server that they were waiting for. Something leaked and they had to do an audit, but it wasn't us. It was either a Walking Dead or I remember watching the pilot for House of Cards well before it came out.

Wow. Why the return of Mr. Kevin Spacey to the popular conscience. Yeah, it would be your favorite YouTube video in the future. This guy, this is, he's starting the arc that's going to lead to three great Christmases in a row. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever spill anything on the keyboard? No.

I was pretty good in only having like sealed travel mugs or sealed water bottles. I did. Oh. When, when the glass water bottles were very big, if you recall, I did like shatter one in a stairway. Stairwell. And no one would help me. So I was just picking up shards of glass. Well, did you?

No. It was Friday. It was Friday at 505. Oh, okay. And I just wanted to go home. Did you cut yourself? That was a very cartoony presentation. I didn't cut myself, but I had a handful of broken soaking wet glass at some point.

I had to lick the water off of it. That's the opposite of a happy meal toy. Yeah. What you want a handful of? All of the managers were very tightly wound because the media landscape was changing. And also, one of them used to be a former corrections officer and still used. Oh, they would have gotten on your ass then if you would eat in a hoagie over the keyboard. Still used.

You put a piece of salami in the disc drive again, Jason. That wasn't going to happen. Just because it's round. Doesn't mean that's where that goes. I thought it was a sandwich warmer. It's like a toaster. Show it in the drawer. Nice and pipe or not.

The CDs are so hot when they come out. It spins around very, very fast. Like microwave? Some of the entry level, it was like a mix of people pretty fresh out of college. And people who had just got out of serving time. And they were the nicest. The people that had served time? Yeah.

Sure. Okay. It wasn't hard events or anything. Did they buddy up to you? felt like you were sort of like a tough. We were all friends and terrified of the managers. Wow. Do you just keep in touch with any of them?

Did you even come on the show, talk about your time together? Yeah. Talk about your finder jacky. I don't know. I would love an old employee to come and talk about your days working with them. I don't know. I trying to think of there was, and someone did get in the makeup artist union.

And I think married one of the, it's always sunny guys. one of the people you worked with is married to one of the cast of its own son no no no not the cast oh this is that one of the guys oh this is one of the guys the guy what did you mean by guys like makeup guys no no she was a makeup artist and her partner eventual husband was like the assistant for all the guys and I think eventually made it up to produce her because one of those could be if it was rob Max's wife.

That's a big speaking of, man, it's been McMount. We haven't talked enough about Rob Mac. Right. That's a good point. He owns a soccer team with Ryan Reynolds. You're talking about Matt tonight. He's Mac today.

Rob, Rob Mac hasn't done McDonald's commercial. He's got a, I don't know, a hoodie team. He does a lot of stuff. He does do a lot of stuff. He's really out there. Who do you think,

just of the people you worked with, who do you think would, as far as like, being funny, who'd be riffing with us the best? You can just say a first name. Who'd be the cut up? Yeah, it's only a compliment to say who they are. There was a guy named Steve.

Steve. And Steve was a funny guy, everyone's pal. But, like, I had to eat a lot of crow. I feel like everyone was always giving Steve a hard time. Steve, what did Steve do? Did you give Steve a hard time? No. Steve was great.

Wow. He was, like, super chill dude. So the episode would be, like, terminal with Steve. That would be just one day. It'll be like ride, ride. Right, right. And then suddenly terminal is deep. Never know when it'll drop.

New lore dropped. New Jason lore on this episode. And then this is a good time for a lore to drop. You know what I mean? Like in the episode, like you want this at the end of something. Or maybe it's not the end. Maybe we have three more hours. The last time that your days encoding came up in an episode, it was also very, very deep into an episode.

So I guess that's the rule. It's like, it's what you do when things get kooky. L.A. late at night. No, now we're getting cracked out. You want to do it? You want to do a little encoding talk? I'm losing it a bit. You know, you're an hour and 30, an hour and 40 in,

and sometimes people probably get lollo. That's nice. There's like remembering toys they liked or whatever. And then it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, darling, come in the room. There's Jason coding talk. Jason's old job, don't you remember? We're learning about file name structure. You've got to get people, you got to shake them toward the end because they might have gotten.

It's called camel case, and it helps you name your files and find them easy. I missed camel case. There's camel case. Camel case is fun. It's just where you put the first, it's all one word, it's multiple words, but it's all in one, and the first letter of each word is capitalized. Did you ever get yelled at by a boss? You did, right? I did, yeah.

Because I would just leave for an hour. I would just wander the building for an hour because there was no work to be done. And I was yelled at for the cameras getting me looking at my phone too much. You were being watched? They put cameras in when new owners took over, and I'd be like, I'm looking at my, there's nothing to fucking do. Yelling at the camera. Well, no.

Come at me! I was assured. We were assured by the engineers who put them in. Like, yeah, they want these and all the, like, you know, ruins with multiple people. It's just video. There's no sound. They'd have to get, like, more permission from you to record audio. because it's a I think it's a two-party state.

You have to comply. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know. Can we get a lot of pressure on Steve to consent? And then when he wouldn't, they yelled at him and that's not fair. The company was in the red and then got bought by equivalent company who had more cash on hand. And then they went in the red.

So. If you know how we can get our hands on that security footage, I would pay top dollar for that. That's good. black and white Jason on his phone. Video content. Yeah, yeah. Let's judge for ourselves how often. And we'll edit it with a little ding every time.

Yeah, yeah. Ding. Right. Check. Check. I want to give them a performance report now. I think I was just reading accounts of everyone who would go one to have successful. Like the Chapo Trapp house or your starter.

We'll find out. I was just reading their tweets. We'll find out. We'll find out what you were doing. When you get the footage. When I get the footage. This is Ed. Texting Mike about theme park rumors.

Well, we should certainly were doing that. I was going to say, imagine this for you, Mike, that you have a job in which, imagine if you had a job where cameras are trained on you and people are watching to make sure you are not checking your phone. Oh my God. This is the absens a labyrinthian nightmare. And the pay capped at $70 an hour. So it sucked. Did you hit that cap?

Yeah. Okay. So now we, well, now let's just can calculate what and how many hours a week? Now we can know how much money we're maybe hours a week. Wow, wow, okay. Yeah, run those numbers. Okay. Wow.

What's that? So, I mean, 15 years ago. What was it? 12 years ago? Something like that. Yeah. So you could, yeah, so listeners, you can figure out what tax bracket Jason would have been in in what year.

Yeah, that's exciting if you're a fan of this podcast. Yeah, when are you going to release your taxes? Oh, we've been trying to leave me. We've been trying for a long time. He keeps deflecting. Full transparency. Thank you. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. Well, no, no, no. Look, we should, we should, we should, we should, we should, wrap it up. So I guess just in summation, Justin, what is your favorite of the memories Jason just shared? I think you slide. I know it's not a job-related one, but you sliding on cardbacks on the carpet like a skateboard is personally for me the most joyful memory. Yeah, that sounds fun. I think that's, yeah, that sounds like a blast. They also had toys for the movie, Hotel for Dogs. I guess I saw those. Can I bring up a real quick thing? From the Star Trek meal on the Happy Meal toy box, they have a scene

from the movie where there's a horrible transporter accident that kills two of the men on the ship and it's just there's it's shown on the box that's what's happening on the box you can see the prices for hamburger and cheeseburger well that's the ad that's the ad but if you

look at the actual box there's two men like beaming out but it's depicting them dying in a transporter accident so the very first happy meal literally the first movie tie and appie meal had a horrifying image from an adult film if you knew what it was yeah Yes, which is a very, and I like the movie, but it's a very, very sleepy movie.

Yes, it's a dry movie. A very dry movie. And then they decided to use the image of two guys dying on the box. I don't think they probably knew even what was happening. Can you, now, Mike, as a Star Trek aficionado. Now, I've never seen any of those movies all the way through. Yes. I caught a lot of them on cable.

Do you recommend I just start and go in order if I were to watch them? I guess. Again, perfect, never more perfect time. 15 minutes of encoding talk, and now let's recommend a Star Trek order. I mean, yeah, I guess. If you want to see them all, see them all in order, I suppose.

Well, I do have something. If we're on the way out, I did have something. We're almost to that point, really quick, which of the separate question, which of the Star Trek movies would you recommend that Jason encode for work? Oh, that's a great question. Star Trek Generations.

Well, yeah, the images are flashing by, and you're getting the joy The greatest film ever made, Sartre generations. Okay, okay. Okay, well. He's about a plug is what he's doing. Yeah, if I may exit through the gift shop. Oh, uh-huh.

I co-wrote a chat book. A what? A chat book is, my co-writer describes it as not quite a zine and not quite a full-length book. But a mysterious third thing. It's basically, I co-wrote a short book. Wow. And it's on sale now. Oh my God.

That's so cool. What's the book? It's called, can we be funny? Why start now? Weird pop culture after 9-11. Whoa. And this is...

The quote being Mayor Giuliani and Lord Michaels. Which I learned after it went to the press. Apparently Giuliani improvised that line. No. I don't believe it. No, that was so crafted as a Lauren. No, no, no. It's the end of the thing.

That is the... Lauren, like, gave him notes on how. how to do it right between dress and air. Giuliani is our greatest improviser. I don't know what you're talking. It is so polished. That guy gets cooking. Yeah, life's a herald for him.

No offense to kid grifts backstage in the doll costumes, but Giuliani would have made mincemeat any of you. Maybe you would have. He tricked him to the eye with a little green boy. He's from New York. In UCB, New York, they were so much better than we were. You would have put on those costumes too. That was why he hosted us and I was to play fun dress them.

Yeah, it's true. But yeah, it is, my co-writer, Brianna, Marozek. She is a writer, editor in Canada, and this is coming out from Agatha Press. Oh, my God.

A small press in Canada. You're a published author, Jason. Wow, congrats. So, yeah. Whoa. I've missed this in progress. This is a great surprise. This came together fast, as far as I know.

It came together fast, and I just kind of I wrote, it's just short little essays. hers are longer and well thought out and researched and mine are shorter and meaner you didn't write in the book that Giuliani improvised the line did you no I did not but I was afterwards I was like I wanted to say as we know people who worked on us now some of them for many years I wanted to see like oh wait a minute do do is this a person I know who wrote this and their article saying, and actually the mayor improvised that.

I'm like, fuck you. It is so polished. They went into the opening without an idea of what the last joke would be. Giuliani will rip something. Giuliani'll figure it. Yeah, yeah. The world's watching.

This is the time. He's going to deliver the laugh that will heal America. That was not just the first S&L after 9-11. It was the season premiere. Yes. Rees Witherspoon and Alicia Keys. A very 2001 pairing. It says it's become a now pairing, too.

They're both pretty big to this day. They are, yeah. And Giuliani is all frequently in the news. I delve into that. I watch the... Someone says more popular than ever. Funnyer than ever. I watch the Made for TV Rudy Giuliani biopacques.

With James Woods? Starring fellow right wing cranked James Wood. I jumped on you. I'm sorry. And I, I was, I was about to win writing say, no one has revisited this. And then I learned in 2020 around, I believe, the four-seasoned landscaping debacle. People did revisit it. But no one had brought, I just remembered one shot from this movie.

And then I'm like, is the whole movie on YouTube? Of course it is. Yeah. And it is excruciating. Yeah, it's upsetting and horrible. Yeah. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. That's great.

That's great. So, yeah, check it out. And this is short runs, but the rhizograph printing, which is like a really cool, like object, like a really cool printing style. And yeah, so that is on sale now shipping in August. Congrats. Thank you. When you're encoding and putting salamis in the drives, you never would have dreamed of.

One day. You're going to get out of here and do some, do some race. Mr. Book is on the other side of the typewriter. Are you Mr. Book? We have called him Mr. Book before, yes. Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. I truly did not remember. I was like,

that's for sure. He either called me that or I'm going to declare myself Mr. Boak and sound like an asshole. I'm McDonald's God. You're Mr. Book. I don't know that Scott has a name like that on the show. Not at present. McDonald's God might be what I have to text. Ronnie. Ronnie may have called me a McDonald's God in a text.

No, I looked it up. It was on the show and I said it and repeated it, and yet it did not stay in my memory. That's great. Because I was wondering if I had misremembered. Mike's been calling himself McDonald's God. Yeah, but God actually created it for me. That's one of those. What does that make you who watches the watchman?

That's a good point. The Godmaker. All right. Well, that's all exciting stuff. And I guess now we've got to say, Justin Michael, you survived McMount. Thank you for being here. Thanks for making, causing us to make all of these pleasurable sounds. Yeah, it was all me.

I'm like all memories. Let's exit through the gift shop. Is there anything you like to plug? Oh, you can find me online at Hey Justin on social media and watch, I guess, Among Us. Among Us is a show, an animated adaptation of the video game came out recently and I'm proud of it. It's like Clue Meets the Thing, I would say.

It's a real treat. It's real fun. And where can we find that? Paramount Plus. It's a, you know, everybody loves Paramount these days. Yeah, if you want to support. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I made a show that's there too.

So, yeah, we both need you. We would like you to give your hard-earned money to Paramount and support the animated arts. And a lot of other great stuff. Probably where you can find those Star Trek movies. Oh, yeah. Honestly, yes. I mean, genuinely, please watch it.

If you want to, all right, so yeah, watch Justin's work and then watch those guys die. And I have, yeah, watch them die. I have been invited to the Paramount Lodge opening, the activation at Comic Con where they have Star Trek. You're doxing yourself right now. Yeah, but it's a VIP, so everybody can't get in. If you come looking for Mike, you're going to at least, you're going to have to, you'll have to be a VIP or forge being. I'm also not saying what time it is. But this year it features Dutton Ranch.

So how about that? Wow. Another show you'll never watch. I don't know. Well, you're going to learn, though. That's why you're there. So I'm supporting Paramount too, is what I'm saying. Yeah.

We're all supporting Paramount. And that's all I have to say at the end. For three bonus episodes every month, pull up to podcast the red the second window. Or get one more bonus episode in our VIP tier club club Mickey threes. I'm not even going to say our Patreon because of how much I want to just skip that and go to Paramount Plus instead. I love you, guys. I love you. I love you.

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