Podcast: The Ride - Hersheypark with Evan Susser

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

Join all your friends: Mike, Scott, Jason, Reese, Kisses, Twizzler and special guest Evan Susser (Fist Fight, Doughboys) for a delicious discussion about Hersheypark. Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/ FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warning, today's episode may include mild lust over an anthropomorphized Hershey's Kiss, pregnancy-threatening chocolate spa treatments, and talking toilets begging for a meal. If you're a Twizzler or higher, you may join special guest Evan Susser for a trip to Hershey Park on Podcast The Ride, the theme park podcast hosted by three men who are very used to a gym teacher yelling, come on, hustle at them. My name is Mike Carlson, and I'm joined, as always, by Scott Gairdner. That's right. And Jason Sheridan. A familiar refrain, if I've ever heard one.

Yeah. Yeah, I think we all have nightmares about that. And today, we have a very special guest. He's a screenwriter of the movie Fist Fight, and he's the rabble-rousing commissioner on the podcast Doughboys. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Evan Susser. Guys, great to be here. And no rabble-rousing here. It's a different kind of podcast here. I'm just here to have fun and talk about amusement. Thank you.

You didn't insert yourself. You're here politely. We asked. I didn't barge in. You didn't play yourself. You're here politely. I didn't barge in. You didn't play walk-in music. I didn't play walk-out music. I can add that in post. No. The Vince McMahon music. No, no, no.

No walk-in music. We're doing great, guys. I do actually even have a gift. Whoa, what? This is a first. Very on theme. I've got a bunch of Hershey's milk chocolate bars. And I thought that very fittingly, you know, David Letterman, a broadcaster, if ever there was one.

To this day on Netflix. Do you know what I'm going to say? Before he would do his shows, he would have, I think it changed throughout the years. I think it used to be multiple, but he would just scarf down some hershey's really are is to get like the adrenaline going so if anybody wants to eat some of a hershey bar to kind of okay their adrenaline going and i thought i would bring that element of dough boys the chewing on microphone yes please i that is thank you first of all thank you very much we're today we're talking hershey park i will say there's a good chance jason's already eaten a couple of these before we started entirely possible you know my usual routine on a film or tv set is to uh drink a few coffees and eat peanut

m&ms for hours before doing anything thank you you spent a lot of time just sitting around on those sets and so uh may as well make the most of them. Do I have to eat it fast? Is that the Letterman way? I think the Letterman way is like right before, and I should have looked up this story, and so there'll be more complaints about the research on this podcast. But I think he would,

originally I think he would shove a bunch into his mouth right before he would run on stage. Then I think in the later years it became snacking on them and pineapple slices kind of in the green room before. But I thought that there's something. If Letterman

does it. If David Letterman does it, the king of late night. I also thought that when we're going to be talking about Hershey and we'll be talking about the amusement park element of it, maybe it'll be talking about the amusement park element of it, maybe it'll be easy to forget about the candy itself. And I do not want to forget about the candy. Well, when you're at Hershey Park, which I went to God knows how many times growing up,

they do not let you forget about the candy. And you are given a taste and then offered the option to buy giant versions of the candy. Uh-huh. And you're offered the option to buy giant versions of the candy uh-huh and you're offered the opportunity to meet giant versions of the candy walking around there's all your favorite characters mr hershey reese uh jolly rancher oh yeah yeah i'm a big jolly we'll get into that and we yeah yeah there's so much very excited about that i don't know where to begin exactly i mean we can uh we can begin with you you grew up i. I don't know where to begin exactly. I mean, we can begin with you. You grew up, I guess, I think I don't know where, but near Hershey Park, presumably. Yep.

I ate a lot of the chocolate. You did. It is a thick chocolate. I'm realizing also everyone wrestling with these rappers probably sounds horrible. Also annoying, and you told us not to fumble with the mic cords, and so those are getting fumbled with. I grew up in a suburb of washington dc uh rockville maryland so yeah uh hershey pennsylvania not too far uh well like three hours so uh not very far and we would go on family trips i think i was talking with my mother

i think we went two times which is not a ton but you know um and the first time we stayed at one of my dad's friends from college uh at his apartment building in hershey and that like felt like a real thing to do um wait at what age it was about like five whoa or four when that happened and then i went again later when i was like 10 okay um anything anything shady about this apartment is it no i think that uh i think that just the idea of i don't know if we had stayed at too many people's like places that they lived besides family members right um and also like apartment like you know i think that just like the whole thing about him like oh this is interesting like there was just something

interesting about the whole situation was he a single man i think he had a wife but no kids that's still weird to think to having a yeah when you're a family you have a family like your dad like why don't these people have kids right Something's weird. You can't articulate it. You live in a chocolate town? Yes. Well, that was also, in my memory, Jason or Scott. So Jason and Scott, you guys have both been. Mike, you've not been? I've never been.

Okay. My memory is that the whole town smells like chocolate. That maybe is wrong. That's my memory, too. It's funny. I grew up much closer. I grew up about an hour and 45 minutes from Philadelphia. My mom has since moved like uh outside of lancaster so even uh closer or sorry i grew up

an hour and 45 minutes from hershey my mom now lives outside of lancaster pennsylvania now an hour from hershey which has made me realize like oh i should go back one of the times that i go to visit we would go the other direction we would go go down to Washington, D.C. for, like, long weekend, like, trips. So, we were going the opposite. But, yeah, we went to Hershey a lot growing up. There's a famous story within my family where we were going to Hershey for, like, a long holiday weekend. And my parents forgot the bag that all my clothes were in

like at like 5 so we had to go to Kmart and buy me a few outfits for the weekend I was horrible I was hoping that that was that you bought all the clothes at the Hershey Park so you were wearing like Milk Dud shirts and Reese's pants that would have been more fun

just a Hershey Kiss Halloween costume. Yeah. Which they kept wearing at school the next year. A peppermint patty hat. And then I think that both times that we went to Hershey, my family wrapped in going to Amish country. Oh, yes. So it was like a two-in-one trip, which is a fun juxtaposition.

It's a thrilling experience that children hate yeah does amish country have anything like any not rides but well they have i guess pony rides but is there stuff for like us uh technology users to do it is there like do they have stuff set up i guess is what i'm saying you can like turn butter okay it's like worse than colonial williamsburg if you've ever been there never been there all right um yeah it's uh there are um smorgasbords which is like a large buffet of buttered noodles and other unseasoned foods uh is seasoning against i not i I don't think it's against, but spice is not traditionally associated with it. A lot of pickling, a lot of German kind of inspired. And without the internet,

they haven't gotten to look up and learn about salt and pepper. Salute at them. No one's brought them salt and pepper yet. There's a number of pretzel and potato chip factories yeah in pennsylvania uh specifically in amish country hers and i also i also went to hers potato chip factory which is also you know hershey is also the fact i mean you know we should get into that but hershey is hershey pennsylvania there's the factory element of it too where they make the chocolate right um yes it really is and and uh where the factory where they make the chocolate and it looks very much uh turn of

the century it looks very 1900s the big smokestacks and it feels very factory town and when i went when i was 12 or so uh we stayed at the big beautiful beautiful Hotel Hershey, which I think was built in the 30s. Well, weren't you fancy? Yeah, yeah. No dad's college roommate apartment for you. No, no. Preppy Preppington. Lobby boy at the Hotel Hershey.

Oh, look at these faucets. Look at these fixtures, daddy. They're candy. I have some. I was looking through the the hotel and they have a chocolate spa there they sure do yeah and you know yeah from the website uh you can there's yeah chocolate spa and the specific stuff they offer there's they have a spa treatment called the chocolate bean polish uh which is sort of suggestive to me somehow and and they know it on the website whipped cocoa bath and chocolate fondue wrap are not recommended for guests who are pregnant yeah oh weird why say why the uh yeah there's the hershey hotel and the

hershey lodge are both sort of associated with the parks and the company. The hotel is classy and the lodge is trash. Yeah, the lodge is a water park inside of it with Hershey Kisses people and stuff. How gauche. Yeah. Sorry, Scott. Sorry it's not up to your taste. Don't bedevil my ears with this peasant talk.

Jason, did you ever, you didn't stay there ever i think we stayed at the hotel once once or twice maybe um we did a lot of day trips up to hershey because we were so close uh we would go around christmas time because there's there's a park and right at the entrance of the park technically a separate entity is hershey's chocolate world which is it's separate but it's really the crown jewel of the park like it is it's the money part of the park most of my information is about yes yeah and and and we would also i would go on school field trips to or like the band and the chorus would go up and do like competitions up there and you would sing like two songs and then be released onto the park for six or seven hours uh yeah i spoke to uh my wife uh jamie was also from uh the east coast and she

used to go every summer with her summer camp and she said there were all sorts of like summer camp shenanigans that they would get into oh yeah uh including they would in the world of chocolate i guess the counselors would like flash the camera at the end like taking the picture like the splash mountain thing and they all got in trouble the counselor yes um and then uh and then i guess the whole competition was trying to get people to give the name tags the people who worked at the park that that was like a pride to be able to have someone give you their name tag so an employee that you would try to like coerce them into giving the name tag to you right and that was just like a that was like a lion's head at the end of the day so you're

trying to get a low-level employee in trouble yeah exactly and kids are mean yeah um my shenanigans i remember specifically going one year with uh uh some friends when we were in school and none of them liked heights none of them wanted to ride the roller coasters and i was really pissed because we just like rode the monorail and the bumper cars a bunch and the next year i remember going into the park with them and going well guys see ya and just went off on my own so I could ride the Comet and eat a big chili dog. Was not supposed to be separate from groups.

Was not supposed to be, you were not supposed to be walking around the park alone and I was like, no, fuck that. I'm riding some rides. How old were you? I would have been like 12. Wow.

I mean, this is a ballsier move than I would have ever made. I think you were really probably the coolest of the three hosts of the show. I don't know that that's accurate. Not maybe now, but when you were young. Oh, okay. Now we've leveled off to on the scale of one to ten, ten being the coolest.

We're all hovering around 1.5, if I'll be a little generous. But it was just to feed the disease we talk about right it was to feed that like no i'm here i want to ride some coasters and i want to go ride chocolate the chocolate tour a bunch chocolate or should we just get into the chocolate yeah let's yeah let's just let's roll right into the park yeah now there was a time until like 1973 where you used to actually tour the factory. There were public tours to the factory. My mother told me that she went on one of these public tours because she's also, she's from New York.

Wow. And she said, now when I went, we actually went on the tour of the actual factory. Yeah. Wow. And I thought that was amazing. Anything interesting beyond that? No. Probably more boring than what they

have now yeah i think that uh it's like there's wasn't a child like that fell on the chocolate river no it was not i think it was just like a factory there was no magic no psychedelic musical yeah just vats a lot of vats and stirring um okay but so they because the demand was was so high uh to tour this magical chocolate factory probably especially in the wake of the film willy wonka the chocolate yeah isn't that around 1973 maybe that's why it adds up maybe the movie blew it out so hard people pounding down the doors uh wanting to get drunk or turned into into blueberries well this this is also like when you grow up in this area it is a popular activity for families is tour factory junk food factory get free ben and jerry's is a big one ben and jerry's because your other

option is tour battlefields like walk on the like i have seen gettysburg i've seen valley forge uh uh uh you know uh just where the right brothers took off you ever been there you've been to kitty hawk wow no that's further is that north carolina i guess that's out of there that's kind of out of the zone all right uh i don't know my geography uh yeah further further south uh so yeah popular popular thing that everyone can kind of agree on you know and especially for hershey's chocolate world the hershey's visitor center is free oh yeah and still to this day i think i forgot that now i guess elements within chocolate world cost money such as the build your own chocolate bar exhibit but the main attraction i'm really

surprised is still free and so this to replace having to have the mechanism in the factory to do an actual tour now there is a a dark ride that simulates a magical chocolate factory experience so what is it called do we uh is it just called The World of Chocolate? It's... I believe it's just called the Chocolate Factory Tour. Mm-hmm. Her chocolate...

Hershey's Chocolate Tour. I have a note somewhere, but it's going to take me a second to... Well, in the meantime, the main thing that I know about it and that has echoed

in my head since I was 12, I didn't have to look this up on YouTube. It is so deeply in my head is that song yeah much more of a near worm may perhaps even than it's a small world the the hershey's chocolate hershey's chocolate it's a hershey's chocolate world okay wait all right you're probably correct i i have

the lyrics here you guys are getting the old acapella group back together. See? Yeah, the harmony is perfect. Wherever you go, no matter how far, you're always near a Hershey bar. Blue bar, I know it. Hershey's chocolate, chocolate. Hershey's, the great American chocolate bar. Ooh, good. Deeply, deeply in my head ever since. Just for the listener, that this that was actually scott and jason singing not a recording not a professional we didn't pipe in a uh yeah but this is amazing

this uh ride because it is like a dark ride but then there are also incorporated like you go over seeing what seems to be parts of the actual factory because there are these big vats of chocolate yeah and i think that this is also with hershey park what i kind of one of the reasons why i was excited to talk about it is i think you guys have touched on this like when you're a little kid and you're like figuring out what's real and not real amusement parks throw a wrench in that and then even more so so i think i was listening which when you guys are talking about et and like you know steven spielberg telling you you have to do this to save et you believe it's real yeah and then you kind of come to realize okay wait that's not exactly true but

then you go to hershey park and it's being explained to you that this is a real factory and it seems like it is real because you're seeing these big vats and it's very practical but then there are also singing cows and then you kind of are like well wait do the cows are the singing cows real, too? All right. I got to talk about the singing cows. The singing cows are new, like, in the last five years. Okay. And I hate the singing cows. The singing cows are dead to me.

The singing cows are not canon. There's a real little one named Cupcake. Fuck you, Cupcake. My version of this ride is i found there's a really good quality uh ride through from 1991 someone digitized like a family vhs tape of the 91 1991 ride through and once again another case of one of us preferring the older drier version of the ride uh it's mostly that song and then a man like telling you like no we go through the beans are roasted and chocolate liqueur is extracted yeah whereas now it is the uh animated

there's kind of uh 3d holograms of the uh of of hershey and reese and kiss yeah the three primary the big three of the hershey and there's also alex you're you're i'm fine with alex you're you're factory employee oh he's the guy uh uh she she oh and and and so and there's also a lot more like vox kind of infographics along the walls. I did see that. They've added a lot of infographs. Yeah. But it used to be, they kept a lot.

Yeah, they kept a lot of the vats. They kept a lot of the. Well, the vats are very important. The vats are important. The vats are important. There's a roasting. You go through like a heat tunnel. This is a very vivid memory I have as a kid.

You're talking about like the blurring of reality and fiction you go through like uh the beans are then roasted and you go through like a tunnel that's probably all of like five degrees warmer than the rest of the building i was scared to death the ride would break down in this tunnel and i would be cooked alive because it's it's they're blasting hot air at you and i did hear what's like oh yeah someone yeah it's the ride stops on us before and i'm like what if we're gonna really sweat if we break down in that tunnel and it's like yeah it's not it's a few degrees warmer like it's a trick yeah i'm gonna be roasted and sold yeah Yeah. I'm going to be sold. Mini Jason's, Jason Toes. And you had so much chocolate on you, it would have seasoned you.

But I will say, my big feeling is, why are there not more of these kind of rides everywhere in the world? That's like when I went to it as a kid, I was like, oh, this is great. And then I would go to like the hers potato chip factory or the ben and jerry's factory i'm like well i can't even do a little yeah something like it doesn't seem that hard like and i guess it's my and also it's not really animatronics weren't as much of a part of it but in general like all this stuff i'm like why is there not more theme park and animatronic and all that kind of stuff just running around in the world yes like there seems like there's less than there should be i think it's part of the magic of chucky cheese yes that in random strip malls that you know that there's animatronics clanking around

in there although increasingly less so um but yeah i totally agree we're actually very near mike's apartment where we record this. There is the Burbank Mall. Do you know that there was, I forget if we've talked about this really, but the Burbank Mall was going to be a thing that Disney built, like a shopping dining district that had the Great Movie Ride in it. What? Yeah. Yeah, sorry.

He blew the levels out. Level poppingly exciting. Oh, man, that would be great. Yeah, we need to do a whole episode about it. We weren't able to talk about it on the Great Movie Ride episode because our podcast got hijacked. Oh, no, that's horrible. Yeah, it was a real mess.

But anyway, but yeah, that to me, we would have been able to walk to the Great Movie Ride from here. That would be incredible. Although it also would have shot up the property values all around this area so much, we wouldn't have been able to remotely afford to live probably anywhere in the 10-mile radius of this surely beloved ride. It wouldn't have been replaced by apartments like two years later. It would have been like a weird hodgepodge, too, of like the great movie ride,

and then essentially downtown Disney meets Pleasure pleasure island like a really weird there was going to be a restaurant that was a it's it looked it was going to be a ship teetering out over the five freeway over like a fake ocean and you would go into the ship but it would not be a seafood restaurant it would be like a steak restaurant what a what a theme huh surf and turf when i was a kid the local mall had like a clock that like you know on the hour the whole little show of characters would come out even that kind of stuff sure there should be more of it a little bit of magic were you near that like were you near the uh again my geography is up but the king of prussia mall um which is like a i think a more spectacular than usual mall in pennsylvania but i forget what uh i went a lot okay it's actually two malls next to each other and uh uh is the second largest it's got some

weird qualifier it's it's the mall of america is the biggest in america this might be like the second biggest shopping complex when you take all the both malls into account okay but they were married at some point it's any magic in there though any robots anything that elevated it uh it did have it was one of the malls that had a warner brothers store okay pretty good uh the one mall was literally like as a kid i was like oh this is the fancy mall because it had a Warner Brothers store. Okay, pretty good. The one mall was literally, as a kid, I was like, oh, this is the fancy mall because it had Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus.

And then the other mall was like, that's the one I like. It's got the comic book store and the Walden's books in it. Okay, okay, sure. More cash. Guys, I've taken us off the rails, which on this podcast

is even more inappropriate. We don't like our tangents honestly we want to discuss our years and facts yeah i was sitting here steaming as we were off the rails and now i'm calming down you know before we get back on though can i check in about how the how the candy's affecting everybody everybody anybody getting that sugar high i'm getting a little riled i was already a little logie because i had a big buttermilk donut right before coming here. Logie? More of your cool slang words.

Huh? From where? Oh, Holly's Donuts in beautiful Studio City, California, corner of Moore Park and Tujunga. Great donuts. Wonderful service. Oh, no. He's giving it a plug. How many forks?

Four forks for Holly's. All right. Four forks. We're going to move on butter did the buttermilk donut go along with your morning glass of buttermilk uh no i need to have that right before i wake up or i just go to pieces all right good a little warmed up five degrees like the chocolate tunnel um yeah what else about this about this ride you're right the original, the 90s version, seems much drier and more like more Epcot-y. The music is more like Muzack-y.

I think the music is kind of, as is characteristic of 2010s music, the current music is just sort of nothing. It is no genre. You know what I mean? Like music in commercials, I think, was much more dynamic in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Now, what is it? much more dynamic in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Now, what is it?

Do they still play the song? They play a little of the song. Yeah, they've scaled back. I mean, a lot of the vats are still there. I remember there's like a big tray of like endless Hershey Kisses at one point. There's like a conveyor belt of those. The roasting tunnel. But yeah, there's a lot more screens, like a conveyor belt of those um the roasting tunnel but yeah there's a lot more screens like a lot of rides screen on there's a screen on the ride uh yeah and and uh yeah a lot

more projections stuff at the end there's a bit it's kind of a confusing montage of just like people eating chocolate and being at the factory like like pictures are flying by you in a video tunnel it's sort of they i think if i remember correctly in the ride through they say goodbye and then you go through that you just look at photos for a minute and a half yeah you shouldn't say bye in the ride and then it continues for that long yeah there's also like a weird line i can't find where i put this now there there's a weird line in it like where they go like all right friends let's go share some of that goodness like they're talking about shivar says that at the very end and uh it's unnerving

hey friends keep buying would you so uh what else about this ride? Yeah, I mean, both versions very much products of their time. Apparently, in 1982, they had a version, and I found a clip of this online, just of the parts that he's in. They tried to put in a bumbling robot, like an annoying bumbling robot, and everyone hated it, so they switched it back. And it's just a robot who's like,

oh, is that chocolate i want more chocolate and what it was not chocolate you like could wandered into like a bathroom or something no i think he literally poochie style at the end wanders back goes back to his home planet with chocolate and they're like oh he was actually an alien like it looks like it sucked a twist huh so he's the jar jar of the yeah hershey's chocolate world franchise um susser do you remember when you exit this ride what happens but you get the hershey yeah you get a little free hershey you get a little fun size of course i remember no matter how many times you ride it in a row you get that amazing yeah how what do you how many times would you ride it to

get it i think i probably read it like two or three times in a row well also i'm like you guys i i do not like the roller coasters oh i didn't know that so uh you know it's one of uh it was one of the attractions to really do yeah uh because it's nice and easy low speeds free chocolate at the end and then it also like any you know good theme park ride it lets out into a gift shop right into a gift shop where they're selling uh candy as you'd imagine and this is though of a different era where certain things are just not available everywhere yeah so the giant king size hershey bars which now you could probably get at a lot of candy stores or online certainly but as a kid this was the only place to right you know where you could buy a huge

giant hershey bar um and even some varieties like that was the first time i saw the cookies and cream uh hershey bar for sure which i love that yeah i thought was great like that moment uh was a little bit of that willy wonka feeling it really was well because when you see like a a two foot by three foot kit kat package you're like oh i should get that yeah no it's it's just gonna fucking start to congeal like there are a million problems also the unsatisfying thing you open it up and it's like oh it's just a to fucking start to congeal. There are a million problems. Also the unsatisfying thing, you open it up and it's like, oh, it's just a bunch of little ones. It's just one package. It's a real trick.

I mean, they still have that. There's all these different things that are giant. Supposedly candy bars are like giant packages and nerds. And it's just like the nerds aren't giant. No, they're just regular nerds. The quantity is large. Yeah, and there's multiple packages inside. So it's just like their nerds aren't giants no they're just regular quantity is large yeah there's and there's multiple packages inside so it's just a trick but this is part of the fun of being a kid where your parents won't let you get that because either it's just they think it's just

a waste of money or they know it's like a scam but then the idea of it is like the not having it is almost better than being able to have it. Yeah. Imagining it. Oh, man. My life if I had that huge Hershey bar. One of the times I went to Hershey Park was during Operation Desert Storm. And the free candy bar they were giving out was called Desert Bar. And it was a kind of chocolate manufactured to withstand. Here, I have it here. Withstand heat in excess of 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

So it's essentially a ration. It's essentially military surplus ration. The Operation Desert Storm apparently ended before they could ship most of them. So they wrapped it in camouflage wrapping and sold them very briefly as desert bars. And gave them out. What a name for a food uh do you remember liking or i do remember like i didn't remember like noticing a difference i i thought like wow so this won't melt that's crazy but you asked to be enlisted as soon as you need

yeah i signed up in 1990 i signed up asyear-old. Mom, I want to serve. You know, that's a little, this is a little bit jumping around in the order of things, but it's related to the- What is the order? Well, it's not exactly- We go chronologically through the park.

Well, clearly we're covering Chocolate World first, and what I'm about to say is more centered around the stadium. Okay. But it's topic-wise related to odd evacuations and emergencies. I read in a Hershey history book, part of which was online, that there was kind of a drop in tourism in the early 80s.

And actually, I was just talking to John Daly, who was here talking about Kennywood. And he recalls being at Hershey Park at that time and thinking, oh, this is like a worse Kennywood. This is like Kennywood they don't keep up. Oh, yeah. Which feels like, I think that might have been the era he was there, because it seems like it's okay now. But in the early 80s, I think they were struggling because they had a giant tourism drop in the wake of three mile island oh yeah yeah only i don't think

i three mile island yeah i don't think i knew where three mile island was and it is half an hour away from hershey pennsylvania and tourists were like people passing through commuters were discouraged from going through lancaster county if they didn't have to so hershey took a big dive and in the one of hershey candy took a dive for oh if people were worried that it was there was radiation is there any bar you bought well then finally you're getting your willy wonka stuff like this could turn you into could turn you into a giant chocolate Jason yeah what was Three Mile Island the inspiration for making the candy bars giant or maybe that

maybe they just ended up giant and I was gonna say John also told me he did get a giant chocolate bar around that time it was not a scam and it was good wow yeah yeah and he kept it around for a couple years and slowly ate and it stayed a couple years uh yeah he said like he said like two years later he and his brothers are still trying to gnaw at it and it's turning white but they don't want to like admit defeat cookies and cream one um no no no regular uh yeah it is then it would have had it and it wasn't a transforming bar either just a regular chocolate bar um yeah hmm maybe uh maybe a little bit of nuclear fallout it's the it's like the godzilla effect three mile island fact uh one of my college roommates grew up uh close to three mile island and he learned either right at the end of high school or like after he graduated

the teachers uh at the school and administration had a code where they if someone came into the classroom and said hey have you seen mr harvey's red pen uh that was code for there has been an accident at the plant uh and the color of the pen meant the severity of the nuclear accident so it's like green pen blue pen red pen so like if someone came in and said like have you seen the green pen that means like okay we need to start getting people out of here uh uh or we need to shelter in place god that is so terrible man imagine like having to hear that fret the one horrible phrase that yeah certain death and having to stay calm in front of a bunch of children and imagine all those kids being like mr harvey hold on to your pen hold on your fucking pen what's wrong man you're an adult we're yeah we're kids

we can hold on to our time this year mr harvey uh uh the the immediate aftermath also of three mile island was that the like like people who were being evacuated women and children were moved to Hershey Park Stadium like all law moved going to the Astrodome in the wake of Katrina so like and again you got to wonder like were people concerned about that stadium do people think like all the seats were gonna turn nuclear uh um yeah isn't that weird like i yeah i had no idea this like dark side of hershey park history uh and perhaps the darkest part of all is that dark or in some ways that's almost like that's nice because hershey

was able to rescue yes that they had a big enough space to save people evacuees enough chocolate the dopamine levels just go through the way you save them. And they called it nuclear chocolate. That would withstand a blast. Yeah. They make a point of updating the names of the chocolate for every disaster that's been a hurricane chocolate.

But, well, let me say the dark side of the tale, though, which is that because of this disaster and moving all the refugees to the stadium, billy joel concert was canceled so don't go making light of it until you hear the full story yeah it could have uh allentown could have been called hershey park the song he went to another another pennsylvania town instead we have ended up with giant heads. From the nuclear blast.

All right. Well, now that I've bummed everyone out, that Billy Joel story. Wait, let's go back to, wait, we were talking about Chocolate World. Let's get back to the order. Yeah, talk about Chocolate World. Well, there's other stuff going on. Hey, the opposite of a refugee situation. Something much more fun than that i saw a great video of a parade happening within an indoor parade in chocolate world

with all the characters marching around with a with a marching band following them who have collars that look like chocolate splats like chocolate has melted on top of them and they are all playing a marching band version of tayo cruz's dynamite and it's the most delightful video you could ever see yeah the characters it's tough because yeah mixed feelings of the characters i don't have mixed feelings i love it's not uh i mean look for me i think think maybe people disagree, but Hershey, big rival Mars in the candy world. Yeah. I think maybe people disagree, but Mars is the better candy, I would say.

What does Mars have? Knickers, M&M's. Yeah, but Hershey has Reese's. Whose? Peanut butter M&M's. Peanut butter M&M's are very good. Yeah. I want to say Mars is a twizzler twizzler

oh really yeah walks around there's a twizzler character mars bars mars bars wait wait i didn't i meant twix oh yeah that's hard yeah that's hard sorry in terms of stuff i don't know why as a kid i convinced myself like, oh, yeah, I got to get a bunch of Whatchamacallits when I go there because I can't, you can't find those regularly. Of course you can find Whatchamacallits in stores. Hershey has- They are really good.

Hershey has Nutrageous. Nutrageous. Take five. Take five. Possibly the best candy bar. Take five is good. Hard to find. Rolos.

Rolos is good. Okay, so maybe there's some disagreement. I would say I prefer Mars. Yeah, Mars is way at the edge. five is good hard to find roll those rolls okay so maybe maybe there's some disagreement i would say i prefer mars also mars has more iconic characters the m&ms i guess or characters that anyone knows outside of they go to the park but hershey you just show up and it's like yeah like the candy bars are characters it's like oh oh fuck Like, what are their characteristics? They're all the same. Cool, nice, happy. They all are like, it's not like.

Well, they didn't. Mars put the M&Ms in advertising. Yeah. And they successfully made them kind of lovable characters. Yeah. And if you see the pictures of the Hershey Park characters, most of them are terrifying. Yes. There's a real sinister aspect. And they're just called like Kiss.

The Hershey Kiss is just called Kiss. Yeah. So there's her. I wrote these down. Hershey. There's Reese's Pieces. And they're just called like Kiss. The Hershey Kiss is just called Kiss. Yeah, so I wrote these down. Hershey, there's Reese's Pieces is called Reese. His name is just Reese. There's Jolly Rancher. The Hershey Kiss is just called Kisses. Right. And then there's your Milk Duds.

Nutrageous. Nutrageous looks like some dad. I saw him referred to his name being Nut. Oh, okay. Let's get that on the record. Sorry. And then there's a couple different variations of the Jolly Rancher character.

There's one where the Jolly Rancher here, I'm showing a photo, is like the whole body is the Jolly Rancher. But then there's some where Jolly Rancher is just the head is the Jolly Rancher. Which I have. I wanted to save him on my computer. Oh, yeah, there he is. I think that's worse. What? Oh, I love him. You like just the head? a jolly rancher which i have i wanted to save him oh yeah i think that's worse what oh

i love him i don't know that's the head he looks similar to he looks like mac tonight a little bit maybe that's why i like it which is your favorite character of all time yeah yeah yeah exactly but i think you know i love again because i'm a scaredy cat like you guys uh the characters were a big part of what i liked about theme parks but i think a big part of it is having any sort of awareness of the character before you go in and meet them and then it's like this is why you have autograph books because it's like you're meeting a celebrity this is a kind of treading on well you've had the candy so yeah you're meeting a candy yeah and there's no yeah there are no ads it is only

within hershey park yeah that you meet these characters yeah i love to look the source of my childhood chubbiness directly in the eye but directly in the face you did this to me you did this you piece of shit reese all that said if the option is get rid of the characters or keep these underdeveloped characters i I would say keep them. I would say keep the characters. Would you plus them up? I would plus them up. I wish, well, my big thing is

I think they could be designed a little better. But I also think, too, just incorporate them in some advertising or just a little bit. Get to know these characters a little bit better. Big signs as you're driving into town. They're waving at you. We're seeing you soon. They're waving at you.

Kisses does not hold a torch to that green M&M. You know what I'm saying? You guys know. Fellas, you know what I'm talking about, fellas. Uh-oh. I'll give you some palm on that one, brother. All right. There's a lot of pictures of Hershey, the Hershey character,

wearing that backwards George Wallace hat The Kangol hat Yeah And I don't know if it's like him at the Baseball stadium or he's actually in the park That should be pointed out So Chocolate World and the park And there's a huge state

Are all in one complex They're all like sort of on top of each other The Hershey syrup also is just called syrup That's the name No why not state are all in one complex they're all like sort of on top of each other related the hershey syrup also is just called syrup that's the name no why not there's also you can see a cuter name there somewhere you can see a um hey syrup how are you sir sir um the i the also there's a symphony bar marching around and i'm not sure I know what a symphony bar is. Symphony? I remember because we always used to give it to my parents as stocking stuffer.

Like, oh, this is the fancy one for mom and dad. I had those too. That's like a fancy bar. It's just slightly better. It's just slightly better than regular Hershey, where it might have had a little toffee in it, not like full Heath Bar toffee. I think it is toffee.

It's all that they had at the Hotel Hershey. None of this trash, regular bar. That's what they rub on you in the spa. You and your pregnant wife's belly. It'll kill a fetus. So don't, if you're pregnant, don't. March for Life organizers out against symphony bars, burning a pile of symphony bars.

Famously toffee, terrible for the womb. I think that's just sheer marketing. That's just sheer, like, this is Hershey's adult candy bar. Like the Arch Deluxe. The Arch Deluxe was the one for adults that failed almost instantly this this kind of brings up hershey uh the hershey hotel it like you're saying a nice hotel i feel like this was like if your parents went out of town and you lived an hour or so away from maybe they stayed at the hershey they didn't necessarily go to the park but maybe they went up

there for the weekend and there's a ton of outlets up there and other tours and nice restaurants i have like like like plug outlets uh outlet malls i so i see yeah not just places to plug in here no not just places that's nice i had a question actually yes uh if world of chocolate was the extent of hershey park would you guys have still covered it on the podcast? And then extending that, would things like the M&M store or Chuck E. Cheese or the Coke Museum, would you consider those inbounds for this podcast? Or are those something else? I think so. I think they're attractions and they're silly.

They're oddities in the world but a museum just some art museum fuck no yeah yeah that's garbage get the hell out of here if a statue isn't alive i don't want to see it yeah but if there's a store if there's just an m&m store and they have one like like not moving m&m in the middle of it we'll consider that a robot yeah and we'll talk about we'll do two hours on it all right yeah the uh yeah the m&m store in vegas has like scheduled sessions with like okay we got blue coming out so uh blue fans that over ran brown coming up next it's sort of like a like the next stripper kind of fashion yellow once again green hello yeah i was uh with uh mike mitchell and vegas for a bachelor party and he blew 300 bucks get in a

private room with blue it's five grand to eat me entirely i'm glad to ensue my consume my entire body uh what there is a ride and there's like a 3d show in chocolate world right now which i did not it's called like the mystery oh yeah i didn't really. It is called Hershey's Great Chocolate Factory Mystery in 4D. And it seems to be similar to the Turtle Talk with Crush concept at Epcot and other parks where there is a 3D character who is being live puppeted somewhere in the back. I watched a video about the special skills that are required to be one of the operators of Reese or Kiss because you not only have to be able to improvise and talk

to kids, but also puppeteer this live 3D character. It looks pretty impressive. It's genuinely good animation that renders instantly. I didn't see this video. What is Reese's character? Do you guys have an impression? What does he sound like? What's his toad Do you guys have an impression?

What does he sound like? What's his toot? Does he have an attitude? Well, according to... I think he's a little more extreme, possibly, if I am extrapolating from the Reese's Extreme Cup Challenge ride, which is a little skater thing. I think he's maybe only extreme on the Extreme Cup Challenge ride. Okay.

I don't know i mean this is again my problem with clear it's not clear he's also not really present in the extreme cup challenge ride from what i know so there's there's no characterization and also both of these i think all of the characters wear brown slacks they they like it isn't oh do you want them to be naked well no but i anatomically correct candy genitals well but they don't look they're there they are a bar right so their their genital region is already covered by the bar part right so it could be like mickey where it's just kind of like black legs like it but and so it is like their pants feel chocolatey but they also just seem to be just slacks they're like if you look at it if anybody looks at a picture i find it a little

confusing what they're what they are anatomically it's hard because everyone all the candies are different but like for instance reese reese's head is one of the cups so the cup is pushing out of the package so that's's where Reese's head is. But there's another cup in there. Yeah. And is it another head? No. It's not.

Yeah. You think it's just that's where his all Now you're knitting picks. Knitting knits. It's snowman logic. Only the top ball can talk. Thank you.

And the torso and the leg balls cannot. I like to think though that it's a separate head that he has in there that if you were to rip the leg balls cannot i like to think though that it's a separate head he has in there that if you were to rip the package open he has like it's like a another twin in the womb or something or like when the muppets all um stand on top of each other to be a person yeah to early when kids act when the little rascals act like an adult do you think like those other the other reeses Reese's are squished

in there under a big coat? I think that's right. I think that's what I'm thinking. It is unclear the biology of the characters. Other than not understanding the biology, the autonomy, or the personalities, I love the Hershey characters. I love them too.

I haven't seen them in person, but I love them. I think they're great. I like them as silent walk-around characters, but the weird ones in the ride who talk to you, I'm not feeling that as well. Beyond just existing, what do you like about them? I like the candies. I like seeing the candies with eyes.

I like that there's so many different. I was impressed that there's a little Milk like like i was impressed that they go to milk there's a little milk dud boy running around they're your friends they're your friends friends you like to see your friends it's odd it's so odd i like that so i i haven't really i think most of that falls into the category of existing yes that's fair i mean that's fair but i they i like i like the way they look um i will say, yes, you could definitely imagine them just saying, you know what, a Hershey bar and a Reese's, that's enough. Yes.

We don't need to do any more than that. And we'll have like seven guys in Hershey costumes, seven guys in Reese's, and you know what, for the fellas, a few kisses. Kisses is for dad. They could have just cut it off there and I do think there is something admirable to the commitment to oh we're oh it's all of the characters covering every brand and I love this Jolly Rancher you talk about plus it up I don't know how you plus up this guy he's already got sunglasses he's got headphones he's got gloves he's got a really long scarf uh cool cool kicks i mean what way do you plus up this jolly rancher like a

costume that like a high school theater department could make sure yes it's a budget beast like there's charm to it i'm a bottomless pit for just characters like this i mean i love the burger king kids club i like those guys yeah but but do they have what do you remember wheels his personality or kid vid like who cares it's just like i like that they existed i like when a corporation markets to me i like them like just pandering with like here you like some cute shit don't you kid and i did i liked it yeah well susser you will learn all of their personalities when you are asked to read the deck to write the film of every single thing we've talked about i look forward to the burger king kids club movie uh being you being strung along with that for seven years and then it getting canceled is that

how most uh big budget screenplays are started nowadays someone gives you a powerpoint deck as your inspiration you can tell us that when the podcast is over i'll show you a bunch tantalizing hollywood inside scoops you're not getting them out of susser um i also i was i was like one of that why you're stumping for mars so hard you're writing the mars bar movie conspicuously silent yeah um i think that i also was like i'm gonna take the bet that one of these characters is in some regard jason-esque and i might vote for milk duds oh i yes if you you should have most of all pulled us and i would have said milk duds in a heartbeat what if i were to tell you that a young jason loved his milk bars i would believe milk bars milk duds uh uh what is the i just saw it what's the toffee

candy bar that hershey makes um is it hancor oh god this is gonna drive me us i have a chart with all the hershey uh brands on here um almond joys i like those a lot hershey's i believe owns cadbury or owns a part of cadbury now people have people have been asking when will jason read a list of candy he likes and here we are god damn it but yeah just a weird little kid a score score bars bars. That's Hershey's chocolate bar or chocolate toffee bar. And it's just like this weird little kid who's like, I want toffee. They have, in addition to these characters, they have other, they have like holiday characters. Yes. They do dress the characters up too, like for Halloween.

And there's some pictures of like all the characters wearing like kind of creepy like Zorro masks and stuff but there's still like but I'm getting to Christmas time there's a gingerbread character that's an original character named Gingy that I really like as well it's funny because ginger is a name yes and it makes more sense yeah to just call the gingerbread but it's no it's Gingy Gingy so Christmas at Hershey Park was a bit my that's when my family would go a lot that was a common christmas week off trip for a day is you go up you spend most of your time at chocolate world and then the park is free to get into and you

would just buy individual tickets for rides because there was only about five rides open you're really not supposed to run a lot of rides in 30 degree weather well that's what's interesting and maybe this is just all east coast parks you guys would know this but if we wanted to hop on a plane right now and go to hershey park guess what we couldn't do it yeah it's closed it's closed and it's closed a lot actually because my wife and i have talked about like hey you know it might be fun one time or on the east coast maybe drive up to hershey and very seldomly seldomly open most opens in april until like the fall and then it's kind of but even like in april yeah it's just weekends at some point it's not uh it's not always open that is a normal thing i think for a lot of places like

disneyland used to be closed on mondays right it was a two monday or tuesday like it was maybe both i think it was a two days? Early on. That used to be common for, you know, people don't need this open 24-7. Even Six Flags Magic Mountain, right up the highway from here, just started advertising open

365 days a year. Just this year. The Six Flags in Chicago was not open year-round. Great Adventure was not. And then also the other thing that they use the characters for, I don't know if any of you guys had this in the note, is for determining your height. Yes, this is very fun.

This is fun. Well, Jason, go ahead and talk about it. No, no, please. So yeah, there are not, so at a lot of amusement parks, if you're not above this height, you can't ride this ride. But rather than having that certain thing at different rides, they just – when you get to the park, you got to measure and you got to see which candy you are. There are six categories. That's miniatures.

This is the newest high category created in 2005. And that is zero to 36 inches. That's three feet and below. Then you got your kisses. That's between three feet and three foot six. Reese's.

That's three six to four feet. Hershey's four to four six. Twizzler four six to four feet hershey's four to four six twizzler four six to five feet and jolly ranchers five feet and above so then so rather it'll just say like oh this ride is for reeses and up and that kind of i see that's how they do it but isn't that isn't it a little more complicated to have to remember your height class yeah beginning of the day yeah yeah yeah way more complicated i think that oh i don't know how it works exactly do you do you remember but there's something uh well there's there's i think they there's kind of a chart like at every ride so they do have you still do still you could do it again at every ride but you know it's kind

of just you can see the sign right i mean it's that seems fun i was hoping there'd be more categories more like every three inches it would be a new one yeah and there's so many different bars there's so many different things you may as well use them all and what a great way to reward somebody who's over seven foot six who comes to the park yeah there there is a swingers club in downtown urshey and that's only for symphonies baby it's only for symphony bars that's just for mom and dad it's like cut loose how does Disney do it is it just like they ride to have a height thing and you have to do it yeah just as a height they don't give you like a character or something like are you a goofy are you uh maybe hershey adonald are you a chippendale

yeah are you two inches this or are you a groot are you big and tall are you baby groot yeah i think it is fun use like this be like the mickey and friends parking structure we talk so much about uh so yeah it is a little way to bring some color and fun to a dry theme park area. And I think it's more fun to be like, oh, I'm a Reese's, not a Hershey, rather than I'm just short. I think it's more fun to have a different identity. I feel like, though, kids would get upset, because if you like Reese's better, and say your brother is older, and he's Reese's, it would be kind of like, oh, he's Reese's,

and then there would be kind of a fight, because that would be something my sister and I would fight about when we were little. You know, you saw that. Just buy him a bunch of fucking Reese's, and then there'll be kind of a fight, because that would be something my sister and I would fight about when we were little. You know, you saw that. Just buy him a bunch of fucking Reese's and shove it in the round, and then they're satisfied. They forgot all about the fight because they were crashing. Jason's parenting 101.

Parenting 101. Just shove some candy in your kid's mouth. Of all the places to fill your kids with candy, I mean, you can't do much better than Hershey Park. It's just everywhere you walk. Also, do you guys did you end up uh looking into the king-sized shakes this is i think maybe since uh all of us have been there um i wish i wish i had a photo of it is this about bubbles uh um uh no it's just like they just have like at a store called Simply Chocolate, they have giant mugs, 32 ounces, that are just exploding. It's pure milkshake, 32 ounces, and then it's exploding with other materials at the top.

I like that. That sounds great. It looks completely insane. We'll post a photo. But the description I found, on top of the shake, you'll find this is the Reese's one. You'll find two generous sized pieces of peanut butter pie, as well as two chocolate covered pretzel rods, which my wife didn't recognize when we were looking at these photos. Like, are these hot dogs? Are they like plus size Slim Jims? They're so crazy looking, but they're pretzel rods and then around the rim of the cup is like caked on chocolate frosting when his shit

is like jammed into the sock like stuck in sprinkles reese's pieces and mini reese's cups all uh it is a really insane sight um oh man yeah there you go we're looking at one now very popular yeah i was gonna say this is a trend yeah This is a trend. Any tourist area place has one thing that if you want to go in and have a shake that's 5,000 calories, no joke, that you can do it. Yes. Like it'll have a piece of cheesecake sticking out and then there's a full birthday cake sticking out of the piece of cheesecake. And it's just, it's insane. An alive gingerbread man. He can speak.

He has feelings. But you have to kill him before you eat him. Please. Let's talk about this. Also, in the park has a s'mores stand where they will make you traditional s'mores, and you can walk around and eat it, or you can design your own s'mores

where it's like, hey, what if instead of graham crackers, it was chocolate chip cookies? And what if instead of a Hershey bar, it's a Reese's cup? So they'll just cram. They'll just fill you with stuff. Yeah, and I think that's good. Now, I was also looking into the rest of the dining,

and it seems like these days, at least, it's just like chains. It's like, what's that Italian? Famiglia. Pizza Famiglia. Pizza Famiglia. And normally, I think I would not like that, but I like that at Hershey, they're like, look, just like you need the calories to just get some change for your food.

But dessert, that's where we shine. Well, there is a Dunkin' Donuts as soon as you walk into the park. I don't love it. Well, you need your coffee. You got to fuel up. Yeah, well, they should not be allowed to sell donuts. That is true. They should only have bagels, coffee, breakfast sandwiches.

No donuts should be allowed. Did you guys have a treat that you would get regularly when you would go? Like, is there something you would go like, I'm going to go to Hershey Park, I'm going to get this specific thing.

Like at Disneyland, you know, you do a Dole Whip or everyone has their own treat. I either like a chocolate milkshake or just pure Hershey's chocolate milk. Like, Hershey's chocolate milk is very sweet. But would you get like a little carton?

Or would you get like a gallon? Just like cart a gallon of chocolate milk around. I think they may have been making it there. Or just like, yeah, a carton. Or a chocolate milkshake or something like that. I was a big chocolate boy. Still am. Sure.

I'm a chocolate man now. This is funny because like I as a kid, I don't know about you guys, I was not a chocolate boy. Whoa. I was more of a Wonka type candy. I like sprees. I like sweet tarts. I like nerds.

I like the quickly canceled dweebs. I like tart and tinies. Tart and tinies, they were like nerds. It's the cracked to mad magazine of nerds. It's a slightly different name. Tart and tinies, which were discontinued. But when I would go to Disney, I would always get a character head full of tart and tinies which are uh which were discontinued but i when i would go to disney i would always get a character head full of tart and tinies like i would get goofy a plastic

goofy head and it was full of tart and tinies and i would eat it it's like my favorite thing in the world i realized recently some other company bought the right to tart and tinies and they're making them again and i need to order but the only option is to order like a 10 pound bag of tart and tinies so i like chocolate fine but it was not my go-to ever you have a halo as you're talking about this you have a literal glow i am i am lifted off the couch ages of streaming from your face you're younger we went to the movies the other night mike and you got a bag of bulk candy or like a and it was all gummy yes i well yes i still i like chocolate more now but yes before when we go to universal city walk uh i always go

into the it's sugar candy store which is you know it's a candy store that's got a lot of those fun big candy bars but it's also a little sexy let's be honest you know there's there's these weird there's like a lot of edible underwear a lot of edible underwear. A lot of edible underwear. A lot of like bikini top, like it's candy necklace, like candy necklace candy, but it's a bikini top. And you're like, what practical use does this have? And then there's like pictures of like a school girl with a lollipop. It's not as aggressive as some of these Vegas candy stores that are like trying to be like,

you know what? Candy makes you horny or whatever. So yeah. Put candy in your asshole. Vegas established. I thought we got in trouble with the person. Never mind. Oh, no.

I was just going to say that, yeah, for a while, my wife and I, our go-to gift was actually getting stupid stuff from that. The It's Sugar candy store? The It's Sugar store, like the giant thing of nerds that we talked about or other things and then we did uh give someone a gift from there and they just hated

it so much and so then we we've stopped okay just like literally physically literally or did it make them sick no they were like why would you get this this is stupid yeah oh geez pretty bad manners honestly uh mike were you saying that you do you just like buy edible underwear and then eat it during a movie yeah during a movie i had a film at the city walk just stadium seating i put it on and i eat it off my body much higher markup than just buying bulk smarties i don't know why you're doing this but there's no challenge in that yeah that's that it's fun it's a fun thing to do. Yeah, so my point was, just Jason's point,

was that I still favor the colorful, sugary, fruit-ish, fruit-ish candies over the chocolate candy. So then, if there was going to be

a theme park of that, is there a brand that you trust the most in that world? Would it be Sweet Tart Land? It's been, most of these candies have been bought by the Wonka candy which is a nestle i know it's crazy yeah that's all nestle nestle owns wonka now so there should be a i mean there's been talk i think of

universal studios before is that what you're saying are you just pointing at me to point no i'm not pointing at you at all your finger was pointing at me like that oh i was just kind of adjusting my grip mike's sugar high the hershey kicked in seeing things i'm crazed uh so yeah there's been a rumor universal studios will make uh wonka ride but i mean you could do a full part you want to do a full park of course universal's toothsome chocolate factory which mike and i have both been to, is very clearly a non-licensed Willy Wonka factory. Yeah, it's another place where you can get that crazy shake. And I'll show you the photo of it,

but it's clearly, I think they were sued by whoever owns Willy Wonka. They might have been sued by the doll estate. Yeah. So yeah, I would want that. If that park existed, though, I don't want that Wonka candy Wonka. I don't like him. He feels off-brand to me. Oh, yeah, I would want that. If that park existed, though, I don't want that Wonka candy Wonka. I don't like him.

He feels off-brand to me. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's a crazy ripoff. A ripoff. Yeah. I see. Yeah, that's a question, is who would the character be? You want Gene Wilder.

You don't want to. You certainly don't want Johnny Depp. But whoever is the next Wonka, maybe's gonna be like gerletto wonka i'm assuming that's who it'll be oh god it has to be there's only one quirky actor today and it's a do you remember the weird like i think we i think a couple of us passed around this bizarre trailer of uh tom and jerry in willie wonka yes that was just the original movie. It seemed like all the scenes and songs from the original movie. They've also made a Wizard of Oz

one of the same genre where the whole movie happens but Tom and Jerry are just there in the background, kind of a Rosencrantz and Gilded story. They've made multiple of their just commenting on, yeah, it's a nice song she's singing about being over the rainbow. Did that munchkin hang himself? Yeah, they're just commenting on yeah it's a nice song she's singing about being over the rainbow did that munchkin hang himself yeah they're getting into trouble um and i don't quite

get why someone explained to me why they were like it was cheaper to make that or something but it didn't really make sense to me yeah like why why warner brothers had to jam these properties together and it's tom and jerry even well i understand why the jam them together because that's just like you know that's what all entertainment is now yes but um but but it's still weirder and shadier yeah but this is just like the movie is happening and they're not even interacting with the movie yeah it's not like they're like hey like i'm dorothy who are you i'm tom i'm jerry it's almost you. It's not like they're like, hey, like, I'm Dorothy. Who are you? I'm Tom. I'm Jerry. It's almost, you know,

it's almost like mystery science theater except they're there. Right. They're just like almost commenting. It's very weird. Are they fighting

during the movie or are they just literally watching? No, I think they're fighting sometimes. But silently. It's like they're ghosts. It's like they are ghosts

who cannot interact with the story. They're in limbo. They're in limbo. It's Tom and Jerry in limbo witnessing these events with all the unbaptized babies. Yeah, we should have mentioned that. Yeah. Millions and millions of deceased.

Do Tom and Jerry talk like in the 90s movie? Yeah, they do, right? Oh, okay. Or maybe they don't. I don't know. We got to look into this. We got to research. No three stars, okay?

We'll look. We know what we're doing. We'll research our Tom and Jerry direct to streaming. It's not fair to complain about not being researched. That was a tangent. Yes, that's true. Some of the other basic facts about the theme park. We should know.

The theme park itself is pretty. Once you, outside of the Hershey characters walking around and like some of the chocolate based treat stands pretty standard uh amusement park very coaster heavy yes nowadays uh the coasters are good yeah i've ridden a few uh has some historical stuff the super duper looper uh very uh fun name uh in halloween it comes the super boo per looper uh one of the first full looping coasters on the east coast uh the comet uh a great wooden coaster uh here's something i was reading though that it's pretty uncomfortable to ride it is pretty oh rough ride um they have a skyway still sort of like disneyland used to they they have like but it's like just a bench almost this is a terrifying it's like a bench you sit in and you see an aerial view of some of the park and a lap bar i'm amazed they

keep it around uh right right in the lawless lands outside disney you can still do this yeah uh there is a monorail that just does a round trip sort of around part of the park that has giant blue cross. The insurance company is the current sponsor, so there's giant blue cross locos. That's pretty ballsy that Hershey is bringing in outside sponsors to the already sponsored, heavily sponsored out. Yeah. The big ride, the big dark ride along our interest lines

is the Reese's Extreme extreme cup challenge i'm gonna i'm gonna jut in here you say reese's that drives me it's reese's right what does everyone say does everyone say reese's i'm reese's but that's not right yeah i just say it though well wait i grew up in a place where, what would you call a small body of water that might be behind your house? A pond. A puddle. No, that's like, it's like. A creek.

Huh? A creek. Yeah, we grew up calling that a crick. What? But that's wrong too. Well, we also say wooder in Pennsylvania. But that's just, that's just the dialect. Yeah, crick is a dialect thing too.

But Reese's is not a dialect. It's pronouncing the word. It's is not a dialect it's it's pronouncing the word it's like fudgical or it's like uh sherbert sherbert is wrong sherbert sherbert is the right way to say it i say sherbert sure there's no r and sherbet i'm outnumbered here i guess pieces is fun though it is fun yeah to say it's like nails on a chalkboard to me i'm more on your side mike yeah it's i find it a little cutesy a little cloying this appears to be the last episode of the podcast this is the maddest we've been at each other um dispute over the pronunciation um you know you guys again uh we talked about the et uh you know what you guys did do you think now

that they're getting rid of it at some universals hershey could steal it because just move it over oh wow that's very good that's a good idea yeah this is why you get paid the big bucks this is yeah this is a very good idea i don't know if you guys know that story but uh spielberg wanted m&ms and m&ms would not sign off on that what a bunch of fucking idiots yeah i mean they really they blew it and so that's why it was reese's and kind of put reese's pcs on the map uh so it's very it was Reese's and kind of put Reese's Pieces on the map. So it's very important to the Hershey Company and Reese's in general, E.T. I think it's a good idea.

I think it's a good idea. It will certainly be the best ride at the park immediately. Instantly upon our D.A. I think that you can certainly fit a couple of the characters on the ride. Like Reese maybe shows up on the Green Planet when E.T. goes home. Oh yeah. You start putting it. Because you know you guys were complaining that the Green Planet characters were not that good.

So yeah you put some of these better characters like Reese. And honestly answering questions of the movie why did he love those Reese's so much? That's right. Because. His buddy. Wow. Glad I could help out E.T. And very much like Rogue One, you know,

solved some kind of ploppable questions in Star Wars. Now the E.T. ride will solve some... Reese, it's you. I ate something that was like you. Yeah, look, that's great. Do they have a Reese's Pieces walk-around character? I don't think they do. No, they have.

It's just the cups. It's just the cup. It's just the cup. Because he's too busy on the green planet. He's too busy on the green planet. Reese, I hate your droppings on Earth. On the green planet, those are what he poops. Wait, is that canon? Does Reese the cup poop?

I'm Reese's Pieces. Again, anything you think of about any of these characters is canon because they don't have one. We are the first ever to think or talk about any of this. Well, they have the Reese's Extreme Cup Challenge, a ride sort of like Buzz Lightyear, except it's themed to extreme sports and you are not shooting at people or creatures.

You're shooting around human beings doing extreme sports doing kickflips doing calf pipes yeah it's confused i when i watched the ride through i didn't really there are targets but i only all you can see are like skateboarders and x games people jump around but you're not supposed to shoot them they are not enemies them uh they're sending you out to shoot past they chose a extreme sports event to have a shooting match concurrent with enduring yes there's also animatronic commentators like sports commentators who look like mannequins they don't look like mannequins yeah the the sports people are more like wooden cutouts, but then there's like fleshed out, dressed up,

sort of Ron Burgundy-ish announcers who at the end, when you get to the end, they say like, well, and at the end here, I guess we figured out there's no wrong way to play Reese's Extreme Cup Challenge. Yeah, that's a little tenuous. Modify the slogan. Yeah, it's ironic that Hershey, a company very much in the food preparation business, has such a half-baked ride. Goddamn.

Should we dig in on how to make this ride better like what do you think it's a good idea we could we could slide this one a little bit well why don't

the targets look like I mean I get why they don't look like Reese's cups I get why they don't look like that because it's probably too dark

to pop because you're not shooting Reese's cups no you're not right so why not just make it look like the rectangular wrappers and then have the target like in the center of the wrap,

I guess, then you're shooting a thing you buy. How about this? How about it's the wrappers, it's like a Reese's candy in the wrapper. You shoot it, the wrapper falls off. That's fine.

That's better. Yeah, that's good. So like you're trying to expose the delicious candy and then like maybe you have like a swarm of kids go and eat it after that or something. Yeah. Now, yeah. So, like, you're trying to expose the delicious candy, and then, like, maybe you have, like, a swarm of kids go and eat it after that or something. Yeah. Now, yeah. So, are we getting rid of the extreme sports?

Yeah, let's get rid of that. I don't think yes. I don't think that's held up well. I don't think that tracks. That was probably from the X Games. Well, they put it in in 2006, which is a little late to catch on to extreme sports. Also, were the X Games ever popular?

There was a year, I think. I'm trying to figure out what was Games ever popular? There was a year, I think. What was the time period? There was a year, I think. You're shooting it so that the kids can have the candy? Yeah, I think so. So maybe it's like someone has stolen all of the Reese's and you're like liberating the candy? But also there's a competitive element.

Yeah, that's true. Maybe it's very thinly veiled evil M&Ms. What if... Like... Oh, that's interesting. And shooting at them. Or what if they're slightly off? What if they're evil vegetables?

Yeah. That I feel like is going to come for them. Yeah. Like Michelle Obama will be after them. But no, Melania would love it. Melania hates vegetables. I hate them. We should bully them.

They're the only things We should bully Reese's is the greatest meal For a child I don't know if we solved it It's a tough one What if you shoot off The clothing of the characters

You mean the rappers? Yeah Wait are the rappers Or their clothes Or their skin? Oh that's Well Fuck

If it's their clothes This is okay But if it's their skin It's certainly not It's certainly problematic But is okay but if it's their skin it's certainly not it's certainly problematic but like reese is naked and he covers his lower head his lower cup because you shoot you shot his you don't end up looking at any any chocolate genitals no no out of embarrassment right away yes it's just you're seeing the lower ball why are we sure if why are we shaming these characters and all right it's not a good idea we're brainstorming here are we sure about no like i because i think maybe blasting apart

heads of broccoli and cauliflower and relieving only the sweet chocolate in trump's america that is a good idea and pennsylvania is a uh is often a red state i do, I do think Hershey Park, you know, I think that just like the cigarette industry kind of had a reckoning of advertising this unhealthy lifestyle for kids. I do feel like Hershey Park maybe... Doesn't want that. ...for a reckoning of if they're

too much promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. Oh, well, why not then? You just said it. Let's unite against the common enemy, and there's a bunch of cigarettes around yeah that's good you're shooting cigarettes and only chocolates remain yeah that's good all right well we solved it i think just tobacco like loosely like hand wrapped tobacco cigarettes blasting apart into embers cool hey that's a good message to that ride yeah yeah um can we talk a little about milton s hershey absolutely yeah i learned a great fact about him the founder uh i'm going to assume

are you coming out with something dark do you have some dark all i got a couple dark things we could start with a lighter of industry uh of that time period had some sort of darkness his middle name is Snavely. I'd like to point that out. I mean, that couldn't be a more evil name. He stands for Snavely?

But is there evil stuff with him? Because I feel like I, I mean, I'm probably watching a lot of salt company produced stuff. I had to dig for like five minutes to find it.

It didn't take a long time, but most of it is just like, what a great philanthropist, always giving to charity and the charity still exists. A lot of charities with his name on it but i mean he owned the town essentially like he was a built the park for his employees to have a recreational space product of his time you know company down yes you know yeah kohler wisconsin you know which my parents have been to and have returned to.

Several trips to Kohler. Where? Kohler, Wisconsin. Me as well. Wow. Really? You've been to Kohler? Yep.

What'd you do in Kohler? My dad went to a conference there, and he brought my whole family along for a family vacation, and you know what? We had a great time, and we went back. Wow. And you returned to Kohler. Who built Kohler? The Kohler toilets.

Oh, Kohler. Oh, okay. I'm a huge fan of their props. They make a fine. And I honestly was very loyal to Kohler toilets for years. Ride or die for Kohler. Which now, there's a good example of a place that should have a factory tour that's a little more fun they do have a museum of toilets uh in kohler which is kind of fun but yes i'm gonna

book some plane tickets right now it could definitely be plussed up there could be a talking toilet there should be like a yeah like a 25 year old behind a wall that makes the toilet talk and talks to kids that come in and you've got got a built-in... Put your waist in my mouth. Yeah, he just says, put your waist in my mouth over and over again. It's food to me. I love it. Nothing wrong with that. And you've got a built-in

female character with Miss Bidet. Sure. Serves up, seats down. We're saying Milton's name is Hershey. Here's a, yeah. What is like, founded the American Nazi Party? He was almost on the Titanic. Whoa.

Not bad. Not bad. So yeah, so there's a business, something business came up and they had to cancel their tickets. So they did not. And they- Seth MacFarlane. Seth MacFarlane. So, yeah. So, there was something business came up and they had to cancel their tickets. So, they did not. Seth MacFarlane. Seth MacFarlane. It was time.

Oh, God. What would have happened if Seth MacFarlane had been on one of those planes and Milton Hershey had been on the Titanic? Butterfly effect, man. They might not have made Hershey's with almonds. That's true. The mutual, the combined list. Milton S. Hershey,

though, did crush the workers, the union hopes. Yeah. He brought a lot. I mean, but that,

I guess it's dark, but you're right. It's a product of the time. Disney also famously hated unions and thought his workers were communists. There goes our Hershey Park comps.

They were writing our names on them right now. Let's get to this. I sent an email to Hershey. I said, hey, we're a podcast. We talk theme parks. We would love to come cover something. No response. Did you say that Evan Susser was going to be the guest?

I didn't say Evan Susser. This is weeks ago before we even had booked Evan Susser as the guest. But there's no response. Did you say that Evan Susser was going to be the guest? I didn't say Evan Susser. This is weeks ago before we even had booked Evan Susser as the guest. But there's no response. So you know what? Let's rip it up. Let's rip him up. Fuck him. Yeah, yeah.

Is there anything else about it? So originally it was just sort of a park. It wasn't a full theme park or anything. But this is like in 1908 or something. There was one merry-go-round they had a baseball team uh and they had a hershey the hershey baseball team like this was at the opening of the park beat the crescent club team 13 to 1 which i'm suspicious that this wasn't a setup like a washington general situation where milton s herchie was like and then we'll have the team win in a resounding victory.

Or like a black socks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wasn't it- The toothpaste company? No, Crescent. Crescent Club. I don't know actually what that- From Harrisburg, I think, right?

The competing team from Harrisburg. Yeah, I think that's right. They probably, people are very, Harrisburg sucks so much ass. Like no one has good fun. Everyone's just tired. So you think they just lost for fair and square? think they probably lost you're defending harrisburg is our state capital and it's such a nothing like many state capitals it's a nothing town sorry harrisburg it's not roasting your ass so yeah it's it's not nothing too crazy but uh a lot of charities

there's some like the charity is is right now i think embroiled in some sort of like scandal where they're giving money to the Republican Party. But I think that's about it as far as. The Republican Party, I believe famously has like a year long retreat or not a year long, like a retreat once a year, most recently in the news, because a bunch of them were on a train and there was a train accident. Oh, that was going there? Going to like this congressional retreat i think i believe in the past a number of times that retreat has been at the hershey hotel but this year's this recent train accident

was going to like west virginia or virginia or something gotcha okay okay huh so there's yeah some darkness right hersheyhey has convention and meeting facilities in abundance if you're looking for that sort of thing. A great concert venue. That's kind of the main... Did you guys see concerts there? No. No, a little too far, but for that part of the state

it is a very popular venue for big acts. Where the Warped Tour goes. You guys didn't catch the Warped Tour? Jimmy Buffett. I would say overall it sounds like as far as these titans of industry of his time go yeah not particularly not something extra evil just the normal evil of the evil of the day mostly the evil you needed to be competitive yeah um if we are starting to pick uh at this place and have some problems with it, this isn't a huge deal.

It's just maybe something I want to put on their radar as a potential problem down the road. In addition to the theme park, there is a small zoo called Zoo America. And I was watching a video of Zoo America. And for being pretty tiny on the map, there's a lot of, like, there's a cool array of animals in there there's bobcats there's uh there's mountain lions and you know some like kind of uh wild dangerous uh animals and i'm watching videos of these animals at the park and then in the background are just houses like clearly people's houses within like easy distance of wolves and such and i and i and i looked at i did some google street view i wound my way through the area and i i have a little diagram that i want to show you guys and

we'll tweet this you can follow along but uh here is uh on the left we have uh part of the zoo and here are the houses that are uh in the adjacent area um this this part that is the very closest to the houses is the wolf pen and for the gray two gray wolves at least and i looked on the street view on trinidad avenue here and it is just it's not like a fortified fence it's just a regular uh chain link fence with a little bit of barbed wire at the top it's not like a fortified fence it's just a regular uh chain link fence with a little bit of barbed wire at the top it's like the barbed wire you'd put on you know like to thwart a burglar who forgot to bring gloves it's just like a mild amount and it's and i did i also using uh using google maps technology i counted out i think you've you've got you've got active alive wolves like a hundred

feet away from the front porch of this house uh so and you know not that it's a problem i mean the wolves are probably fairly docile it would probably take you know like they probably wouldn't freak out unless there was a big loud noise you know like a monorail going by directly so i have some concerns about what's going on about the proximity of the neighborhood i also was curious yeah also like and this is more the animal safety uh like chocolate is horrible for all of these animals right especially if they're pregnant yeah so you know all these people in the, they've got all these chocolate bars, wrappers with, like, kind of the shiny, the glint on the side.

Maybe they're eating them. Maybe it's a choking hazard. It should also be noted that a hurricane hit Hershey Park at one point and destroyed some rides and damaged some buildings. I'm sure it could easily take out a chain link wolf fence. I believe, I think I read that something happened to the bison, that like maybe the bison died. Maybe they like were drowned or like went off

in a flood or something into the neighborhood. I don't, I feel like the zoo is a newer thing, which is weird. Cause there's also like the boardwalk at Hershey, which is what they call, like they have a small water park i guess included in your admission now which uh water parks in most of the country those are very seasonal like there's three months out of the year you're lucky if you can operate those um yeah i'm not sure the dealer. One of these wolves is going to eat me. One of these wolves, yes. Take it down. He started at his middle face and worked his way up to the top sentient face.

I also want to say that I went on realtor.com and I looked up the price of the houses that are in such proximity to the wolves. The one sold just a month ago. I don't want to go calling out addresses, but a house in this area just sold for $165,000. And I know probably a lot of people listening are frustrated with the high price of rent, maybe can't afford a house, and know that there's a fairly affordable house in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

You just have to deal with the fact that a wolf could easily hop a fence and be in your kitchen at a moment's notice. And it does smell like chocolate. Even the parts that aren't meant to, at a certain point, it just becomes psychosomatic. And you think you smell chocolate all the time. So you go mad. Although, according to Wikipedia, beginning with the 2012 season renovations,

the famous chocolate smell in parts of the park was dampened. The park once used chocolate- chocolate smelling chemical in building material but discontinued what wow concerns about safety that's wild that also seems like such a lie because it seems like they tell you that the reason it smells like chocolate is because like they're making so much. But it's in the building. Well, probably in the building. But is there a Disney-fied thing? Because Disney famously pumps in smells of fried chicken. There's no fried chicken in Tomorrowland, but all of a sudden, if you go by Space Mountain,

there's this strong fried chicken smell. And it's just like, naturally, your brain starts, oh, man, I really should have some fried chicken. But it's not around. It's just the smell. So are they doing stuff like that, too? Probably because the plaza in Kitchen is not too

far. I'm talking about all the way over by Star Traders and like the Captain EO Theater. I'm not talking about over by Plaza Jason. That's still like backstage. No, there's no way that the restaurant... The smoke is... No, I'm talking about the exit to Space Mountain at Disneyland. Space Mountain is built out of Hardin's

chicken batter. We were there a couple a month or two ago. Remember we were standing outside. We had all gone to the bathroom and I said, hey, it smells like fried chicken here, but if you think about it, there's no chicken anywhere. I think it's backstage kitchens. I think you're right. And then we all went. Are you doubting

that they're pumping in those fake smells? You know that's real. No, I know they're pumping in the fake smells. I think just I can point to a place that has fried chicken pretty close this is also this is uh riling me up but there's no way that that fried chicken smell is floating from the restaurant maybe they pump it in because you go oh i know there's fried chicken around the corner so maybe i'm maybe i'm wrong i'll see you guys both say chicken. It's chick-een. What is this regional pronunciation of chick-een? Anyway, so Hershey Park is maybe doing this? We don't know.

We don't know if they're also like artificially chocolate smelling. I had a stuffed Hershey Kiss growing up. I had to think maybe it smelled like chocolate or maybe it's just like the industrial plastic smell. We need to fortify fences and we need to check the, we need to reevaluate the building codes and make sure that everything's made out of safe materials and not aging chocolate. Because as we learned, even those giant chocolate bars go white eventually. We didn't talk about the log flume.

Is that a big thing or is it just a big thing in my memory? The coal cracker? Is that what it's called or something? It's like the big log flume is that a big thing or is it just a big thing in my memory is the cold cracker is that what it's called or something like the big log flume ride i think that maybe just in my mind it was a big deal because i had not seen one before and i also uh it's like the classic log flume and there's a bridge that you can observe and you can get wet on the bridge and the opening credits for step by step uh there's a log flume and people get wet. And I just was, when I went to Hershey Park, I thought that that must be the park where that was shot. Even though, of course, why would it have been?

No, famously, the opening of Step by Step was at Magic Mountain, which at the end of the credits is superimposed to look like it is on the Great Lakes. Well, that makes much more sense. There's this bizarre shot at the end of the sequence where there's a poorly tracked, like, darting around lake for some reason on the shores of Valencia. It's one of the strangest things. I'm sure we'll talk about this for longer at some point.

But, like, why... The show is set in Green Bay, Wisconsin, but who in the world is going to be going going like there should be a lake in there. Odd. And I don't think they had the graphics to pull it off. Let's go into step by step on vacation. Yeah, absolutely. I know that's a lot of family.

There's like six, seven kids. That's kind of a hassle. But you can. Yes. Hey, good point. You can trust that guy, too. He, but you can. Yes. Hey, good point. You can trust that guy, too. He's not up to no good. Getting his van, dude.

I said it so confidently. It's Cody, yeah. Yeah, it's the Codemeister, man. What have we not covered? We've covered a lot. The only one thing I have written down is the laugh track. Oh, that's the indoor roller coaster. Yeah, and there's a character on the, this is, I don't know if you guys know more about this than I do.

There's a character supposedly named Laughing Sal. Are you familiar with this character? I have seen Laughing Sal. Laughing Sal is a character that appears on like many different things, like in different. I think there's a video of Laughing Sal on my Instagram. So let me show everyone here do you know are you familiar with laughing okay laughing sal is uh like a creepy kind of it looks like a woman i'm not sure is sal a lady's name laughing sal was like a penny

arcade thing yeah are you there's one this is laughing sal oh and she's terrifying there's one at the museum mechanic incanique in San Francisco. That's where this video is from. It's a scary toothless lady who I feel like is on the outside of fun houses

or in... Yeah. I think, yeah, this may have been a mass produced... Like a Zoltar. Like a movie big Zoltar. That's what entertainment was.

Just a laughing... A laughing... Poppin' back then. Yeah. Laugh Track is an indoor roller coaster sort of themed after fun houses and just everything's in black light and there's a lot of horrifying calliope music playing yeah i i all i really wanted to just talk about was laughing cells yeah so but yeah that's

it's sort of yeah anyways did you guys know did you ride it did you were you scared by laughing cell i think that's a newer ride really they so laughing sal even though she's very old like a hunt like they've been putting her on things like i put in a quarter or a dime into the laughing sal at san francisco sketch fest a few years ago was scared of it then oh okay so you have had a run-in with her yeah the video you played i've seen that one oh wow she laughed in your face. She laughed at me, yeah. Oh, God, terrifying.

Anyway. That does not seem up my alley, so if there was something associated with her, I don't think I would have. No, you would have been too scared. I think I'm too scared today. Or are we too scared to go on a ride with Laughing Sal? Maybe.

Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I mean, was everybody, what else? Well well so just keep laughing sal out of there and let's keep the focus on our beloved fully fleshed out characters and i think hershey park's gonna stretch into the new millennium which we're already in it but it's gonna keep uh stretching into that new millennium keep stretching so do we want to give our final thoughts do we want to plus do we want to talk about what do we do keep as So do we want to give our final thoughts? Do we want to plus? Do we want to talk about what do we do? Keep as is?

Do we want to demolish the park for insurance money or do we want to plus it up? What do we think? Build a wall. Build a wall. Keep those houses safe. This is a wall we can all agree on.

A wolf protection wall. A wolf wall. It is. Before we build that other wall, this one doesn't require, it's only like 50 feet. Let's protect those houses. I'm going to say plus it up, but I haven't been to the park, so I can't give such a great critique of it.

But I'll plus it up in the sense that we need these characters in more media. That's the problem, is that you go there and you don't have the connection to them. So we need TV shows starring reese and jolly rancher and they need to be cool and kids need to like them and they need to know all about them we need a movie obviously written by evan and his writing partner van sure uh we need this is that that simpsons joke like the mars bar choco bot hour like the lesson about commercialism at the end of that simpsons you're like no i want that yes that's that's a show we need right now yeah it's the show we need right now we need to indoctrinate kids with these characters before they head to park so the park is more enjoyable later they

know how hard to hug them yes do i love you a little or a lot we need to make sure kids love these characters a lot yeah uh great yeah um you know i think i i think it's not plus up hersey park but let's keep them on their toes by make it like let's let's get more uh food brands making theme parks as we talked about there's the uh there's the possibility of willy wonka i think i think all of them you know all these places are probably flush with cash and it's time to put it back in the community. I thought of the Heinz factory, which is nearby. It's in Pittsburgh. I think they could siphon some of the business away from Hershey Park.

And there's obviously, I mean, who wouldn't love to go meet relish and mustard? You know, like Worcestershire sauce could be kind of a, you know, sadder, more cantankerous eeyore type character there's a lot of possibilities heinz also owns a bagel bites or ride a tater tots and they have their own competitor to jolly rancher the a cool character what would that purple and neon blue ketchup that they were doing for a little while there wow bad kids the uh uh you know the jasons of the world the bad boys would want to go you know do something do something naughty with the purple ketchup eat a chili dog alone but he should be socializing with people his own age and not just compulsively riding attractions go on a roller coaster a half hour after eating instead of the requisite 45 minutes hell yeah let's get yeah all right let's get bad with purple ketchup at heinz land i was thinking too you were

talking about the other food food parks i think yum brands who own stacco bell yeah kfc and they and uh pizza hut they should have their own park called like yum park and you can have walk around cheesy gritty to Crunches and Stuffed Crust Pizzas and they're going to look just like the Hershey Care. The Chihuahua. The Taco Bell Chihuahua? I guess. He's been gone for a while, but you can bring him back.

He can bring him back. We've got to loosen the rules a little bit. Although I do want to focus on alive foods. I would love to see all the mascots but i agree imagine like imagine being in a fun house designed by doritos locos taco yes yes that's that twisted mind imagine what's gonna happen in there like a gravitron where how about you know the gravitron where it just spins around but it's like a giant stuffed crust pizza inside so there's like toppings

on the wall maybe it gets everyone messy i don't know i just you don't know you have to sign a waiver but you're covered in pizza toppings when you come off oh yeah like like kids getting to jump into like like pizza sauce yes like like like the ball pit that is the ingredients of pizza uh-huh and then rolling around in dough afterwards yeah there's a lot of possibilities yeah I have to agree with both of you guys. I would also like to see more brands get involved in this. But the ones you have mentioned, I feel like people already have affection for Yum brand stuff or Heinz stuff.

I want to see a Unilever park. Now, look at these brands. Unilever. I mean, you can get Ben & Jerry's in there. You can get a Lip Jerry's in there. You can get a Lipton attraction, a Dove attraction, Knorr, those powdered envelopes of different noodle flavors. You could have a whole Knorr tasting area.

An Axe. Axe body spray. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's even more brands in this bigger picture. Country Croc, okay? The Country Croc. Rama. We all, Rama and Ravonna. How about like a teacup style thing where you get in the Country Croc tins or tubs and it spins around.

Slim Fast Racers. That's great, yeah. Slim Go Fast. After you pig out at the Ragu Italianian restaurant you go to the wishbone salad bar to balance it out i mean i think this this makes it right itself and like a fun house mirror sponsored by slim fast hey that makes you look alternatively very skinny and very fat and like some sort of dove attraction that has good intentions and then they immediately get dragged for it because they fucked it up how they went about it

as the history of Dove advertising shows us. Oh, sure. That's great. Yeah, I think we're all on the same page that there are some minor plus-ups to the park itself. Some of the rides could be a little more thought out. The characters could be a little bit better. But I think we're all in favor of just more parks with more brands i also love that hershey is in hershey pennsylvania uh so just

you know like other brands or she can't really control that so i would say open up like a satellite location in like tuscan arizona just like just another like town a little off the beaten path and yeah there's an amusement park here now like how universal studios hollywood open up universal orlando but it's not a real working hollywood it's not a working studio yeah yes but it's sort of it's copying yes they're copying the factory great but i also just like to that you know not in orlando not in los angeles just in maybe the burbank mall maybe the burbank mall it's time yeah right i'm gonna put a theme park right here in keeping with pronunciation issues did you just say tuscan as opposed to tucson i did i thought you were talking about a different place uh i was i was like scrambling to

look up a city that would be the right and i was like tuscan that sounds and i think i have heard people i would normally say tucson uh-huh right but i think i was just like what's the thing in your haste but i don't know if like greasy species is tuscan a more fun way to say tucson no i think that was just an embarrassing mistake i'm having fun talking about it and maybe i have actually heard people other people i'm realizing that this may be a mistake other people have made. Because I have heard people say Tuscan, Arizona, and been like, what the hell is that? Yeah, probably. That's what they may be.

Just another puzzle. We'll figure it out. All straight. You say tomato. I say tomato. Let's call the whole thing off. Evan Susser, you have survived podcast The Ride. Thank you so much for being here uh thanks for taking us on a chocotastic journey guys i had a great time

it was great to be here thank you thanks for coming are we all crashing now we're all a little mellow at this point yeah i know i got rowdy i feel like i was yelling yeah at a certain point the chocolate did i thought it was like a joke that it would have any sort of effect on the podcast. I think it did. I think that, first of all, the sounds of people opening it definitely had an effect. Always helps. I do think it got everyone riled up, and now I'm ready to crash. Yeah.

But I think we clearly delivered a show that was equal to or greater than Letterman circa the mid mid 90s i think that was height of letterman what we just did we're like everyone would agree chris elliott era letterman yeah when really good stuff was happening it was uh innovative it was fresh it wasn't like it wasn't like carson it wasn't like the stodgy old which i guess i'm gonna say is doughboys and this we're the edgier they're the stodgy them having started two years ago they're the uh they're the old carson to our our far hip letterman and you're the link uh to the new generation of i disagree with this well he had uh uh well that in the later show he had uh carson's producer a little bit to start the show oh that's great you're fred de cordova

i think you are the Fred DeCordova of Doughboys. Not the first time I've heard that. Wow. Glad there's agreement on this. Well, anything you'd like to plug beyond your participation as executive producer of Doughboys?

Well, Doughboys Tournament of Champions. Much madness happening now. Listen. Maybe, and you guys this year, maybe you're not allowed to say yet, maybe a future year in the tournament, because you cover a different topic every time,

maybe at some point, candy. Ooh. I said desserts. I tweeted at Doughboy's when they asked, like, what should we do this year? I'm like, got to do fast food desserts. You got to do the treats. Desserts and treats, I think, is a very promising TCBY.

Well, talk to the boys. I'll talk to the boys. I'll see what I can do. Maybe two tournaments of champions this year. Man, this is such a low energy ending. I know. It was so riled up. It's honestly true.

We did crash. All right, the top 10 reasons why you're a G. Pennsylvania. Okay. Chocolate. Real milk chocolate. Why you threw the pens out the window was to keep the energy up. Give your Twitter out.

Tell everyone where to find you on Twitter. Find me at Evan Susser. And that's it. Rent's fist fight on all your digital on demand. And your red boxes. Red boxes. fight on all your digital on demand. At your Redboxes. Redboxes. Yeah. And keep listening to this podcast.

Yeah, listen to us. Hey. Email us at podcasttheride at Gmail and on Twitter at podcasttheride. And we have an Instagram that's the same thing. And then do all that and tell your friends about it and rate us on iTunes and say, oh, we're great. Say we're fine. And say their energy never lapses. It maintains throughout the episode and only crests at the end.

No criticisms, even if constructive. No. We don't want to hear it. No, thank you. No, thanks. We do enough of that to ourselves. Yeah, just keep it only positive. We're perfect.

Goodbye.