Podcast: The Ride - Mickey and Friends Parking Structure with Nick Wiger

Episode Date: February 2, 2018

Fasten your seat belts as we head to the most magical parking garage on Earth. Are the parking spaces good? Are the escalators bad? Listen and find out! W/ special guest Nick Wiger (Doughboys, @Midnight). 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 podcast clocks in at more than two hours and it's about a parking garage. It's the Mickey and Friends parking structure with Nick Weiger on podcast The Ride. Welcome to Podcast to Ride, a theme park podcast hosted by three members of an unsuccessful barbershop quartet. Joining me as always, Jason Sheridan. Hi. And Scott Gairdner. Hey, that's right. And that real mean diss was written by our guest today. You know him as a writer from Comedy Bang Bang and At Midnight

and from the podcast Doughboys. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Nick Weiger. Friends, that's why I'm known as the successor to the Roastmaster General. When Jeff Ross hangs it up, I'll be assuming his mantle, wearing his Generalissimo outfit, whatever getup he's got. Spangly costume. Right, yeah.

Yeah, you'll eventually grow to be able to fit into it perfectly. Off to the race. Off to the war. A real thrill to be here, guys. Really enjoying the show. Happy you're here. Thrilled to have you.

Thanks so much. I don't know why we had you on second. We've had Mitch on already, and I don't know why we didn't have the informed person with a lot of theme park opinions. I don't know why you weren't first. Yeah. Well, I think you really, though,

I understood that you wanted to hear from Mitch on the episode he was on discussing Disney World in Florida versus Disneyland out here in California. I understand you want to get his trenchant insights like Disneyland's bad. Disney World's so much better. So he pointed out that Disneyland is small. Right. That's good to think about. It's bigger. There's more of it. We've also, like, we've all talked about theme park issues with you guys.

And you bring up theme park stuff on the show sometimes. And I feel like your opinions kind of, I don't know they they fall in line with how you guys are on the show where mitch is this like a kind of populist distrusting immediately like he hates ip it falls in with him hating the new star wars but the ip if the ip was when he was a kid it's fine that's what yeah it has to fall within that sweet spot of like have it come having come out between like 1980 and like 1997. And if like it's in that range, if it's in those two, the final two decades of the 20th century, it's good. Outside of that, it's bad.

Yeah, I don't know. And I don't want to just turn this into a proxy, you know, sort of doughboys spat without my co-host here. No, that's fine. Now we have the chance. boys spat without my co-host here but no that's fine i do think that i do think that uh it's it's interesting the resistance i get it but but some i noticed there's some sort of some resistance towards you know the big one i feel like recently is tower of terror retrofitting that tower of terror out here in la retrofitting that as the Guardians of the Galaxy ride.

And, you know, I get some hostility towards that because you have, like, this version that exists that you're familiar with. And then it gets replaced by this thing that was just, like, basically because it was a popular movie that came out in the past 10 years. But, I mean, I think, like, if you actually take it on its merits, the Guardians of the Galaxy ride is good, right? It's really fun. It's a good ride. Really well received. That animatronic is one of the best animatronics in a long time. It's really good.

And then Mitch just hates it without ever having been on it. He says it's bad. And then if someone else has written it and says it's bad, he's like, they're right. And if someone's like, that's actually pretty good, he's like, what are you talking about like it's it's maddening to have a discussion with them and that's a weird one because like uh tony longtime uh imagineer tony baxter who like helped uh build both tower of terrors is like yeah the the california adventure one was okay but he was like totally fine with them redoing it because

it's missing the main... Well, I was going to say, and funny enough, we're pretty sure we met him right after he rode the Guardians of the Galaxy ride for the first time. Yeah. Wow. All three of us together. All three of us. This is before the podcast.

This is early last year. We were walking between California Adventure, and we saw Tony Baxter. And I was looking at my phone, and Scott goes, oh, my God, it's Tony Baxter. The most mild-mannered you can be. It was kind of our code when we all met. Like, oh, we're all theme park fans, apparently. And you start talking about Tony Baxter right away.

He's one of the code. That's one of your ways in if you really are into this stuff. He did Star Tours. He did Indiana Jones. He did Figment in Florida. He's done Disneyland Paris. Big Thunder Mountain. Big Thunder Mountain.

This is a major heavyweight in the Imagineering. Akin to maybe, this probably isn't perfect, but akin to like a Steven Spielberg. It's kind of like, oh, this guy's had this degree of influence on his field yeah I mean I think that tracks yeah and the timing hits similar to that that Mike that you would like recognize a deep comic book artist on site which a lot of people who've even read his work wouldn't like know what he yes like we know the iconic right only Baxter mustache yeah so he had just ridden the ride uh and we were walking like oh excuse me we're big fans of you and he like he's like well did you did you ride

it and he pointed at the point of it and i was like yeah yeah and he's like give it a big thumbs up oh there you go and like not and obviously he wasn't gonna be like oh fucking ip man like right in rocket raccoon right but still he thing with it was was my opinion too because the version in florida is a little taller but also there's a sequence in florida that they never replicated anywhere else where the uh elevator leaves the elevator shaft and pushes forward down the hallway it's unbelievable through a giant recreation of the twilight zone opening credits oh my god it's so cool yeah and such a letdown when you go on this one and it doesn't have that yeah oh i didn't even know about that yeah it was taller

it's not is it taller maybe a little bit the whole queue and the whole line is you walk up and there's a like there's all this like green like shrubs and like it really sets the mood very well and then like at the end too like there's a there's a show scene at the end when you come down and there's like the puppet from twilight zone at the end too like there's a there's a show scene at the end when you come down and there's like the puppet from twilight zone at the end and like there's a whole little room as you're like pulling back that's not in this version this one just like pops you in gets you up and down and it sucks compared comparatively it's still a good fun ride that i liked but it's when you're like comparing it to that jesus this is the thing this is the hill that Mitch is dying on.

It's this lesser, did he even like the Twilight Zone, the Tower of Terror to begin with? Or is it just the idea, the awful notion that the new Guardians, because they are new, that they're in the theme park. I think that's what it is.

There's also a notion like, no one cares about these characters. And then like some people say that on message boards too, when it's like that, the numbers really tell you otherwise. Yeah, it's not true at all movies are very popular kids like these movies a lot well in florida they're you know yeah they're taking these characters and nobody cares about and uh you know get kicking out uh you know ellen and bill nye how dare that

like another thing you need to fight for. Yeah, I don't know. It's an odd. Yeah, I'm awful. There's a lot of, I don't even like Marvel movies. I'm not even sure where I land on the new Star Wars movies. But like in the parks, all bets are off. Yeah. Let's get it all in there.

It's fine theming. Yeah, we're all pretty progressive when it comes to like changes. Right. At the park, I feel like. You know, we're not conservative. We're not stodgy conservatives. Well, for me, it's like, and i appreciate that perspective because you guys very easily could be you know cranks and it would still sort of i mean there's a world where you guys are theme

park cranks and you don't want anything to change but i i think like for me the big the big factor in towards what scott was saying because i'm not someone who sees every marvel movie and the ones i see are generally like like you know you know, check out Ant-Man. I'm like, all right. You know, yeah, that got the job done. Like, I don't I don't have like I'm not having this ecstatic reaction to seeing Thanos or whatever. Like, I don't care that much. But I understand these movies are, you know, important to some people and i also for me the big proof of concept for this sort of theming

can result in a great uh park attraction is cars land one of my favorites and the cars movies are not great like they're fine i think i don't think i'd go any higher than fine um would you go all the way into like bad terrible are you mad adam uh no they don't suck they're just like they're but you know i'm not gonna go full lights camera jackson and say that's pixar at its best you know that's they're they're fine they're probably towards the the the low end of pixar's output they're like they're not that great right they're not the good dinosaur but they're not great oh man don't get me started i could do an hour on the good dinosaur yikes not till they open the land yeah the good dinosaur land could be fine yeah yeah yeah yeah so so yeah i mean like it put more marvel uh shit in the park i don't care

if that's what triggers great new attractions and i agree i think i think you'd be really hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't like cars land that's right it's an incredible addition and uh yes just some of the most the best like immersive theming and rock work and gives you that route 66 vibe and uh yeah you can like a vibe from a movie without liking the sure yeah absolutely yeah the aesthetic is great for a theme park it just really really works well for something that you're going to inhabit. I had one thing on Tower of Terror real quick, because I've only been on the LA version.

Now I'm very excited to try the Florida version to see this extra leg that Jason mentioned. But so do they still, in its most recent, because I can't remember the last time I wrote it before it got converted, do they still have a moment where like a bellhop would give a little orientation in the lobby they'd sort of like a lobby or there was a point where a bellhop would sort of give a little speech of like you know like welcome to the tower of

terror this is a this is a tower of mystery and grandeur where any like there was like a little live action huh i don't i don't recall. This, so maybe this was something because I, this, this would have been an early, a visit in the very early 2000s when I observed this. But I think they, they later took it out because it was a moment

I remember that really took me out of the Disney experience because the performer was so awful. Like it was this woman who was who had been cast as a bellhop and she was supposed to talk about this spooky corridor where, you know, whatever,

where the rules of science do not apply and where you might meet an untimely end. But she's delivering it like, this is the Tower of Terror. That's really tipping a lot of what's about to happen and she was really like it was just it was just the worst like most stilted delivery to the point where i was like how did you get this job like why are you here why aren't you a cashier over at the like next to the a bug's life like stage show like why is why is this your job in disney parks yeah yeah that's very odd because the cast member interaction i associate with tower

of terror is like once they make sure you're buckled in and the door is closing yeah like the uh i think they kind of give them the freedom to have some fun with it of like sometimes they'll go like your room's already sleep well or like some people some people will get really into character other people will just be like enjoy your stay you know like uh uh and and not really do a big thing about it but the ones who are really into it like really would go into it like haunted mansion it's a good area yeah fun and get somebody with a lot of personality but yeah how do you end up with this flat person but you do get a lot of duds yeah you do get a lot of duds fun and get somebody with a lot of personality. But yeah, how do you end up with this flat person? But you do get a lot of duds. Yeah.

Oh, for sure. You do get a lot of duds on Haunted Mansion. You get a lot of duds at Tower of Terror where people just kind of brush. I mean, this sounds like it's just like she was reaching and didn't get it. Yeah. Yeah. She was trying, but she didn't have the chops to pull it off. Yeah.

Yeah. The other thing, speaking of the bellhop who has a little bit of creative liberty, the last time I rode the actual Tower of Terror, I was with my wife. So you finish the ride, and the doors open at the end, and our bellhop attendant was crouched down. And so when the doors opened, he jumped up and went, ah, and gave us an extra scare scare and everyone loved it that's great yeah that's fantastic i've had that happen i think once and yes it's delightful it's great when you get because i do think at these parks you get like there's an extra you can get an extra bit of magic by the cast member doing something fun and like that there was a time when the stormtrooper i'll never forget it was a guy dressed as a stormtrooper i felt like a guy grabbed my arm aggressively i turned around it was a stormtrooper in line of star tours wow and then

like there was a kid there and he was trying to cut the line and he like booted the kid like softly with his foot to get him out of like out of the line i it's we all like we're delighted we're delighted it's crazy how that does that is is such a big deal. Right. Having like a college student try a little bit. Right. Right. That sort of like that's that is a big, big deal. And yeah, you can really it can really bring it down when they're not doing it. There's this great thing I recommend to anybody going to Las Vegas where there's a there's in the M&M's store on the strip, there is a 3D movie that was made only for that specific location with the 90s CGI red and yellow.

I don't know. I never met the guy. Oh, right. He does exist from the Christmas ads. But there's a little adventure of them them in las vegas in a 3d movie and the the in to get into it is like a you're in an m&m's laboratory and at the beginning a really non-plussed high school student in an ill-fitting lab coat says like welcome to the m&m's laboratory i am the professor. I've been twice now. Is that extra or is that free?

That's just free. Anybody on the strip, especially, oh man, get a couple drinks and wander into the M&M's 3D movie. It's like packed every time, but I still feel like I was shocked when I ran into it. What do you mean there's a 3D movie up here? And then like, you know, bad stilted interaction with like, Red, what are you doing?

Red, get out of there, Red. It's something else. So he's acting against the pre-recorded film. For a little bit. There's some like machine that they get sucked into and then you move into their adventure. Like, oh, I think one of them loses their M and that's the

plot of it and then but then the solution at the end ends up being all the minis who all like form giant objects together all the fish and finding nemo like they all work as nanobots in tandem and rescue the m from some scary factory check it out wow i gotta see that yeah yeah yeah like three years we're just gonna dissect the m&m store when we're really we are cranks we are unpleasant cranks yeah yeah uh uh well let's well we should talk a little more about your your theme park history you're a cal your southern california native what'd you what'd you like uh growing up yeah so uh from uh lakewood california which is a suburb of Long Beach, California, a little better known,

and that's the city in which I went to middle school and high school, and we had the orchestras and bands I played in at school, Charles Evans Hughes Middle School in Long Beach and Long Beach Polytechnic High School, would sometimes make trips to to disneyland to play in the what is what is that uh the the um carnation plaza is that what it's called maybe it's not called carnation uh gardens little bandstand yeah right street although has that now become part of this like little fantasy land uh yeah is that fantasy like fair

is that what they call that now? Yeah, yeah. Okay. But kind of outside the castle. Yeah, it used to be associated with the Carnation Company, and you would go. It would be near where they sell the ice cream, and we'd do a little orchestra show.

Or when I was in marching band, and boy, you know what? I guess I don't remember ever actually marching, but we must have. Why else would we be there? So we must have been involved else would we be there? So we must have been involved in a parade in some capacity. But so like, yeah, I made a lot of, outside of just going a lot with my family because we were close by and it was like a 25-minute drive and it was probably about an annual thing. I'd go an additional time most years just for some band trip.

And we'd also go to Six Flags Magic Mountain, but that was usually just like a fun thing, a fun activity for the band. Not a gig. Yeah, right. But pretty early on, you know, like at age 12, I was in the backstage and I was seeing, you know,

I remember seeing Merlin smoking a cigarette. And I was just like, wow, this is really, this is crazy to see behind the scenes at Disneyland at an age where I'm young enough where I understand that this is a show, but I'm also not quite an adult where I fully grasp until I see it that, oh, these are just people kind of doing a job. Yeah, yeah, sure. And yeah, I mean, so a lot of trips there. I was very, very, like you guys, I was very scared of thrill rides. Unlike you guys, I grew out of it. I want to set the record straight,

because I, yeah, I also grew out of it at some point, and I will pretty much ride anything. All right, tough guy. Okay. As long as it's not a standing up thing. Cause I've ridden some standing up roller coasters and they are not made for men of a five, one height. They either hurt my shoulders or my dick.

But it's a, yeah, I do remember I went to Disney world when I was a kid, kind of all over the place here. But when I was like, even though we went to Disneyland a lot, we did take a family trip to Disney World when I was eight, where I remember crying on their Big Thunder Mountain equivalent. They have a Big Thunder Mountain there, right? It's Big Thunder, yeah. Yeah, they were crying on their Big Thunder, and that kind of scared me off of thrill rides for a bit. And then I got back on that horse eventually,

I think due to peer pressure at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Some classmates cajoling me got me to ride Colossus, a wooden coaster there at age 11 or 12. And from that point on, I've enjoyed the coasters. And then a lot of time spent at probably the amusement park I've been to the most it might honestly be disneyland at this point but but at some point in my life i just racked up so many trips to wild rivers which is a now closed theme park um raging waters is the other big southern california

water park and that was the one that's in bill and ted's excellent adventure they go down the slide with napoleon um that's the one in san dimas california and uh but wild rivers was like the one in irvine and i went did you ever go there scott no i i did not i'm trying to pick i think that's where is that where the uh irvine meadows is yeah yeah and there was also like a safari park yeah there was yeah that that there was there weren't i don't know if they were of the same ownership, but it was the same general area. And so I went there a lot for just day camps, like Cub Scout day camp or just like, you know, whatever those camps are that parents drop off their kids during the summer

just so they don't have to take care of them. I was in those like constantly. Like school would end and then it was like in a day camp for the entire summer just to get out of my parents' way. I guess actually they were probably working is what it was. They had jobs to go to, and this was a functional daycare. But not always at Wild Rivers. Not always at Wild Rivers, but it was like a very frequent trip. Like, oh, we're taking this.

This is a cheap, you know, whatever. Like it costs $8 per kid to get them in. And I remember we'd pack lunches to go there. We'd have a sack lunch that we'd eat, and then we'd just go on water slides all day. So you didn't, there wasn't some educational onus. No. You could just run around. No, yeah, pretty

much. I mean, I remember being herded a little bit, but beyond that, it was just a way to keep kids occupied for six to eight hours. Everybody in the unified shirts, were you all some like uh some particular monkey were you uh we must have been yeah we must have been we must have had whatever that camp shirt what what the hell i can't even remember the name of the camp now um but yeah we we must have we must have had something like that yeah um and uh yeah honestly

like i don't remember that this is a this is a little bit of a tangent, but it's something of a doughy kid, but I don't remember there being a big shirt-on swimming contingent at that point. There was still like – because I do remember being shirtless there and feeling a little embarrassed. Yeah, that's tough. Right. You said like, wait, or like middle school?

This was younger than that. This was as a preteen. This is when we went to Wild Rivers. But I had a weird... This is a thing I'm just remembering. For whatever reason, I guess I thought it would be a funny story to tell my parents. But I made up a baseless lie about this kid, Matt. There's this ride at Wild Rivers called the Python,

which is this kind of crazy water slide. I think the craziest one was a cobra and the python was like the cobra junior. And so I told my parents that this kid, Matt, he loved the python and he wouldn't stop riding the python and all day he'd ride the python and then just run back up the stairs and

ride it again on a continuous loop and they they thought it was so funny i think they told matt's parents about it and then i thought back and i was like why did i come up with that and why did that why would that resonate as like a good story i have no idea when this began i was worried you were going to say that matt was a lifeguard or something who touched you inappropriately yeah no no no no it wasn't even that was the thing it was like a total white lie it was just like why like this is a harmless thing but also completely untrue like why did i say maybe there was an element of truth maybe he said it was his favorite ride at some point and exaggerated. I don't even remember it. But yeah, it was weird. My actual childhood was just doing that for real, for rides.

Like that was the reality my parents lived. There was some, I can't remember what it was now, but I just remember there was one night, if it was a water slide connected to like a big themed hotel pool or if it was something in it would have had to have been something in florida where my brother and i would just get off and our parents were just like you know on a bench close by or something because they didn't really want to ride it or they had ridden it enough and we would just do the like we're

going again and just go again uh because every now and then, the Florida parks, if you stay at the Disney hotels, hotel guests get an extra either hour or so in the morning or hour and so at night. That's amazing. So every now and then, it's really empty,

the whole park. Right. And I'm sure it was something like that. And I can't remember what it was now. I stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and they have this really cool water slide that kind of looks like the old school monorail set up, but with a water slide inside it. And I did it over and over. You could not get me out of there. But then I had to go because my wife said we had to go because the wedding we were going to was in 20 minutes

this was five years ago and i was at the wedding with very wet hair i don't know why i didn't then use a hair dryer to fix this but she's still mad about that one apologies to david love for uh being such a slob at your wedding i did that same thing two years ago did not have a wedding to go to did not just row that slide a bunch because no one else was there lucky you didn't have adults the three of us all have i have a still my there was it was very late at the park and i was there with my mom and sister and they were going to let us ride star tours because no one was in line and they were going to just let us do it my And my sister got sick like on the second time. And I was so mad at her because we had to get off.

Like, so, like, I think there's something common here that we would all ride these things for infinity. Like, we would all. We were worried. So, your story about the Python, we would all. We were all guys that would ride the Python forever. Yeah. It's plausible. It's like it didn't even need to be made up

because there probably just was another kid I could have just said that about. I don't know. I don't know where it came from. Also, in talking to people who've been listening to this podcast a little bit, a big common thing seems to be trying to break the record on these rides.

I did this 18 times. Yeah, my friend Perry was touting his Dudley Do-Right Ripsaw Falls record. I can tell you the accuracy. They probably tell kids every day, you just broke the record because the records are not being kept.

Right. And if it's next to water, it's impossible to keep the records. Well, I mean, my favorite family story of redoing stuff a bunch and i may have told i can't remember if i told this before on the show i i do want to make my dad call in and tell it because he tells it uh a very long a longer version a very funny way uh there used to be like this immersive comedy club in pleasure island in florida which was

like a district of nightclubs Disney had in the early to mid 90s. And there was a place called the Adventurers Club, which was like themed to a early 20th century like explorers club. And there was loosely scripted, but mostly improvised, like should there be a different show in the library and then in the study and then in the bar and there was a giant animatronic uh like totem that would talk to people and there was a night where i made my dad get up and do the bit with the totem because they gave you a pin they gave you an adventure club pin that you couldn't buy and i'm like you gotta get me that pin but then we came out like as it was closing and it

wasn't a place i could go to alone like because it because it was, like, at a certain point, they're like, you have to have a parent with you here. It is a nightclub district. And we came out, and there was, like, an electrical storm going on. And the bus stop back to the hotel was, like, two and a half blocks away. Oh, yeah. So, we're running through, like, thunderstorms. It's, like, terrifying lightning is going above us. And just, just like walking,

walk back into the hotel and they're just laughing at us in the lobby. Like the people working the front desk. And that pin is a potential conductor of lightning. Yes, it sure is. Yeah. You have it still? Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah. Oh yeah. Wonderful. Bring it on the show. Yeah. We'll refer to it. We'll refer to it.

We'll try to clink it around on the mic. The, the summer that reminds me the summer we went to Disney world. My, my, our family went to it. We'll refer to it. We'll try to clink it around on the mic. The summer, that reminds me, the summer we went to Disney World, our family went to Disney World, and it was just like, I had never really, I mean, it rains out at Disneyland, but it's not like, I guess, as common as it is in Florida. And so there was like a torrential downpour. And so we basically were in a situation where we had to get ponchos.

And I remember I was very excited to get a, a Dick Tracy rain slicker. All right. It is famous. There was one, the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie was in theaters and it was like a, you know, like,

like his, like his famous yellow rain coat, except it was in poncho form. And then it had Dick Tracy written on the back and his silhouette. And I was so excited to wear it and i wore it like you know the for for the all the rain that was going on and then when it was back to school time i still had this dick tracy poncho but it was like dick tracy wasn't cool anymore and so i remember wearing this dick tracy poncho while it was raining but just leaning

against a tree so no one would see the dick tracy logo on the back and they just thought i was wearing a plain yellow poncho it's like it's like a giant logo with him looking at the watch yeah yeah yeah there would have been there would have been a pretty tiny window when dick tracy was cool yeah yeah no because i remember when the mcdonald's promotion was going on that was was fun. That was fun. Yeah. But that was it. Once the McDonald's promotion was over, I feel like no one cared anymore. That was either the first or second movie I saw in theaters. Wow.

With Dick Tracy. Really? Which is kind of horrific. There's some weird stuff in that movie. Lips Manless getting the bath. Oh, yeah. So this guy, and they've all got grotesque makeup, which is horrifying in and of itself, but uh lips manless is killed very early on and the way they kill him

is he's like he's very scared he's like not the bath big boy not the bat like he's like very afraid of dying and then they just cover him with cement this is what's called the bath like they put him in a crate and they cover him with cement alive, and then they throw them into a river. And it's just very early on in the movie, and it's super grim. It's like something that would be in Donnie Brosco. It's very brutal. I'm pretty sure I then made my action figures take the bath. I incorporated that into my childlike fun play.

With Play-Doh? With Play-Doh or sand or something so so nick uh yes we're doing theme parks right we're we're three guys who when we were kids we were like dreaming of them did you have like kind of an obsession with them or was it just some fun thing you did once in a while i would say more towards the latter it wasn't a thing i was thinking about all the time i certainly had had some great memories and some great days spent there. But maybe because I went with some frequency that I kind of got numb to the magic a little bit. And so it wasn't a thing I was constantly daydreaming about.

Right. So just a regular type of attachment. A regular kid i i think i was more i was more interested in video games and sure then then then theme parks that's by the way the normal reaction that's a normal human reaction to be like oh that's fun to go to once in a while uh as opposed to me or uh you guys who would see the stock report come in and there was a picture of all the balloons on main street and i used to just sit there dreaming about owning a bunch of balloons like those did the mickey year balloons like it's so vivid in my mind of like wow they're all the different colors wow will i get to see disney

afternoon avenue a second time while it's open uh yeah yeah god pretty uh pretty fixed that what do you what's your what's your deal these days do you do it often yeah i mean i went to disneyland last year with some co-workers after a job that it ended and that was kind of just like a fun work thing but you know i i definitely like the adult theme park experience i think the adult theme park experience has gotten better especially i think with there's more there are more grown-up beverages you know like there's more like nice places to get a drink um not just like cheap beer if you if you're into alcohol and and also i feel like um i don't know i feel like this is just because the attractions

have gotten better it's like you can still you like like the you know you can you still have the nostalgic appreciation for the these old ones that you went to as a kid uh your pirates of the caribbeans and your matterhorns and what have you but like the like the new attractions coming in and being sleeker it's like it's something that you can go and still be kind of impressed by you know you don't have to just be a kid to be wowed by something you still can kind of like we're talking about the guardians of the galaxy you still see this these uh the new tech that's being shown off there and be like oh this is pretty cool that's a lot of it for me and why i don't really care what the by p or characters like it like no matter what it's a display of some insane often like military grade technology

that when would like why would you get to experience this yeah as a civilian that's that's kind of like that's sort of true throughout, right? Like, I mean, certainly, like, flight simulators comes from the, that came out of military technology. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like simulator. It's like on Area 51. Star Tours, probably out of simulator technology. It's just, like, the same.

It's just, like, simulating. And then, of course, Mission Space in Epcot, which is literally simulating going into space, which is why it killed a couple people. Because going into space is very hard on your body. That's not a thing you should be doing. You should not eat a cinnamon roll underneath Spaceship Earth, drink a big sugary coffee drink, and then experience a few G-forces.

Not Spaceship Earth, Mission Space. No, no, no. No, I said you're eating underneath. Oh, I see, I see. Beforehand, you get the cinnamon roll first. Go to the entryway. I thought you were saying that your experience on Spaceship Earth was so intense that it was too much for you. On the slow-moving ride.

On the slow-moving ride. I had a pre and post. I had one beforehand to ready myself and then one to reward myself for doing it. Quick side note, you can take food and drink on Spaceship Earth because I did it last time I was there. That's crazy. I had a bag of something like nuts and water

and no one stopped me. You could throw a big beer onto the Steve Jobs-esque figure who built dreaming of computers in his garage. Yeah, you could ruin the Sistine Chapel. You could throw it. Pelt it with ice cream. It'd be really crazy.

Well, so of everything in the theme park world, you sent us a list of stuff to talk about. A few options, yeah. We went through it and considered it, and of all the things, for some reason, we landed on, we really wanted to talk about and few options yeah we went through it and considered it and of all the things for some reason we landed on we really wanted to talk about the mickey and friends parking structure i love it at the very least because it's a very funny episode like i can only like i'm just imagining people's reactions of looking at their phone on a friday morning i, oh, there's a new ep. What the hell? This boring man wants to discuss a boring topic. I guess that's on brand.

The Ball Road carpool lane. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty elemental. Sure. When I've been thinking about it in the last couple of days, was it kind of a dare? Or do you have a lot of stuff to say about the Mickey Mouse version? Honestly, I'm not sure

how much I have to say. I mean, I think we could probably discuss anything at length. This podcast is all about minutiae. Stringing that thread as far as you can. So, you know,

but honestly, this is a thing my wife natalie and i when we go to disneyland together and you know sometimes you'll get the mickey and friends parking structure and other times you'll get some other lot like the woody lot or something some just like adjunct lot but we're always like there's always like a little extra thrill when we get that mickey and friends parking structure and it's the thing we've talked about because she you know design is something that she is uh very conscious of and it's a thing that i i'm i'm aware of and i i used to ostensibly be a designer working working in the video game industry so it's just such a a great functional i'm using the word design again but design is a great functional design

and and it's just so efficient and i feel like it's like the beginning of in the same way that i mentioned raging waters earlier and like when you park at raging waters is my memory of it it's like a dirt lot it's like so janky it's like yeah it's like the sloppiest beginning of what's supposed to be a day of suspension of belief or just like a day of fun. And really like windy and sharp hills and weird turns. Exactly. One time I went up there. Yeah. It struck me too.

And then you get on like an un-air-conditioned bus, like just like a decommissioned school bus, and that's what's taking you to the park proper. Like that's their tram system. Like it's really, really janky. And then that's your end of day too. Like after you've had a day of fun, that's how you're going home. So you're beginning and end, it's being bookended by this kind of like

a clumsy experience. And I think the opposite is true with the Mickey and Friends parking structure because you're going in there, it's a breeze. You're being guided like basically directly to a space because of the cone system and the, you know, they've got an abundance of attendants. They've got so many attendants working there showing you exactly. It feels like you're getting valeted while you're driving

yourself. It's like they're guiding you to exactly where you're supposed to park. It's a perfect use of every space is occupied. It's not like there's a, you're going to drive by a bunch of empty spaces and, you know, it's all being used and then there's the escalators that go this to me is what puts it over the top there's escalators that go directly from your level to the ground yeah you don't have to go like down a few flights to some other levels of the parking structure that you'd have no reason like if you parked on level four there's no reason you'd ever have to go to level two you've gotten there's nothing for you there you want to go from four to the ground they have a direct path and and to me that's very elegant in terms of getting in and out at the end of the day

damn yeah i'm like really impressed by your rundown by the level we're blown away what you have observed about this yeah and i i absolutely agree it's uh um yeah you know you know you don't really find uh and by the way just to totally uh uh in case you don't know this is the major parking structure at the we're talking about a parking garage this is a parking garage but not just any parking garage for a time and it may still be this was the biggest parking garage in america like this parking garage built in 2000 do you have 2000. I will tell you that it is no longer. It is no longer. Just to look at these notes.

The largest parking garage in the United States now is at the SeaTac Airport in Seattle. 13,000 spaces. Outranking the Mickey and Friends parking structure. I want to say that full name every time. Like Guardians of the Galaxy, Mission Breakout.

Mickey and Friends parking structure has 10,000 spaces. The biggest in the world is the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, 20,000 spaces. Imagine a structure double the Mickey and Friends. That's crazy. Yeah, so it requires such imagination, not even the Imagineers could dream it up.

But at the time it opened, though, the biggest sparking garage. Yeah, right. And an interesting jumping off point to just talk about how Disney handles transportation in general. Sure. Let's go. Jason and I, we were talking about this. Jason and I are not from Southern California, so we never got to experience the original Disneyland parking lot, which is famously just a parking lot.

It's where California Adventure is now. It was just a parking lot in front of the theme park, and you would park and walk up. Let's ask you guys, Scott and Nick. Southern California boys. You got to tell us, what was it like? I remember it being, and Scott, I'm interested in your thoughts, but I remember it being a gigantic surface lot,

just like a huge, just basically parking as far as the eye could see. I remember it being similar to what would occur if you- Mike's angry about that. I didn't get to see the lot. How could they do that to their guests? But what you would encounter outside, for me, I remember going to Angels games and Dodgers games, the same sort of thing, just like a giant like ballpark surface lot.

And then certainly like the characters, which is an element they've retained it at, you know, I basically I think at every theme park parking structure. And then it's certainly a thing in the Mickey and Friends parking structure. But there it's actually color coded and then tied directly to the escalators. So it's like even more clear. It's even harder to mess up. But, yeah, just giant service lot. And then, you know, you'd be parked next to Dopey or whatever. And that would be your guide.

You'd have to remember that to find your car at the end of the day. I remember it being easy to get, like, lost. Like, it was just, like, a little too big and sprawling. I don't know. What's your memory, Scott? You're right that those characters were very small. You'd have to squint probably to be able to tell which dwarf it was or whatever. Is that Pongo or is that...

So did they have... I have so many questions about what it was like. So was it like... Because in the new Mickey and Friends parking structure, they'll have a whole level that's Daisy, and then they'll have a number and letter that corresponds with it. So it'd be like Daisy 2D, and that's like a section of the parking lot, and you'll remember there. Did they have these numbers and letters that correspond,

or was it just like that joke on The Simpsons where we're in the itchy lot? It's just the character, and you have to remember, that could be one of a thousand spaces. I don't remember specifically enough, but I don't think it was as crystal clear as it is with the Mickey and Friends parking structure. I remember it just being the character, and there'd be Goofy, and then you'd just kind of know

you were generally in the periphery of Goofy. You're kind of in his territory. But yeah, the Mickey and Friends structure. So they even go to the level where on the receipt, they have like a guide printed on it. And if you like, if you have a writing implement in your car, you can circle the G and you can circle the seven. And so you know exactly where you are on whichever character's level you're at it's pretty great it's a fun little game of bingo yeah i found a picture too i had never realized because i i like those escalators and i always use the escalators but the elevator buttons in the garage

elevator have the characters on yeah so if you just remember if you don't remember what level number you're on you just go like oh right we're at Goofy. I'll shout it out real quick, too. Six Minnie, five Donald, four Goofy, three Mickey, two Daisy, one I think nothing. One is just your rival. No, one is Chip and Dale. Oh, am I wrong? According to the elevator.

One is Chip and Dale. Oh, God. I took the time to make a list, and I screwed up the list. According to the elevator buttons. Is this Daisy's highest profile attraction in the park i does she get any any anything bigger than this house in toontown it's sort of a facade though you can't go into it i don't think it's like minnie's house where there's a little like area actually to go in it's just sort of a painted flat maybe right it's daisy's house does Does she just live, or is it like a floor in Donald's boat?

She's like under the, she's on the starboard. As you're saying that, I'm not even sure if Daisy is fleshed out in like the classic Carl Banks, or Carl Banks, Carl Barks? What was the name? The cartoonist. There's a series of Donald and Uncle Scrooge comics

that are like worldwide beloved. And it's like, I don't know. Now I'm, I can't remember those. Daisy is very poorly fleshed out in general, much more so.

And looking real bad these days next to Minnie, who this week received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Oh, congrats, Minnie. Congratulations to Minnie. Katy Perry was there in Minnie-esque garb

saluting her and welcoming her. Probably got paid a million dollars by the Disney Corporation to wear Minnie's dress and show up with Bob Iger. That's a little fun for dad though, right? Oh yeah. The two sexiest women he knows. Minnie and Katy Perry.

I just saw her live two, three days ago. I went to Vegas to see her specifically. And instead of talking about something sexy that happened, I'm going to say how she played basketball against a dad in the audience, like a giant arcade-style basketball game with a big inflatable ball. And the dad won. Must have been a thrill for the family.

Oh, it's got to be. And it really gave me the taste too. I went straight into the New York, New York casino, passed all of the casino games straight to the arcade. Had to play some hoops myself. Wow. It was great though. I don't know if this Katy Perry tour is still going

or if she's done her LA dates or whatever. Katy Perry, a lot of fun. Yeah, great. We enter not in the mini dress. But anyways. It was Karl Barks. I looked it up. Don't get mad at me.

You're correct that Daisy is pretty, that's a pretty big representation for a pretty underrepresented character. It's pretty underutilized. It should be like Stitch instead of Daisy or something. It should be. Right. But I think they're i have to think just because the the psychology of this is is so thoroughly thought out that i think they they must be a reason why they i think they want to justify the color pink i think they're like oh we want this to be the

pink level so make this the daisy level right the color coding is very very clear it might even be to the degree where it accommodates the color blind. Like, it might just fall into that red-green spectrum. There's also, like... Yeah, maybe not. Wasn't there a thing in the 80s? Like, there's a very specific set of rules of, like, the central six or the main... Oh, the core six characters, you mean?

Yeah, like Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald, Daisy. Like, there were, and I think it loosened up, and now I'm sure it's starting to get... But then Chip and Dale are on this, too, so... Yeah, that's true. They got enough floors. They've become primary, because as of the 40s and 50s, they were just like pests bothering Donald, and suddenly they're among the primary best of friends with the whole game. I would think Pooh Bear you would go with over Chip and Dale.

Right, yeah. That's true. He's much more prominent in the park. Is there a Pooh lot somewhere? There's no... Is there a Pooh... There's Toy Story lot. I think there is or there was.

And there's a Pinocchio. Now, why is Pinocchio one of the primary ones? Yeah. I think the iteration... Oh, there you go. There probably is something to all this. I'm sure if you looked into it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they were iteration. Oh, there you go. There probably is something to all that. I'm sure if you looked into it. Yeah. Yeah. I think in the old, in the original lot, uh, they were, I think they chose characters. They tried to have all 26

letters of the alphabet, but there are, I think are no characters of X, Y, and Z. Although I thought of Zorro right away, but other than that, uh, uh, it's, I think, I think they tried to represent a through through w and they were sort of organized alphabetically so there's some info for you salivate over that old school old parking lot information uh one of my favorite anecdotes about the original parking lot at disneyland is is and i forget who the two this is credited to but like um when california adventure first opened and they were doing cast member previews and Imagineering previews

and stuff for family, two longtime Imagineers were walking out afterwards and the one goes, so what did you think? And the other goes, well, I liked it better when it was a parking lot, which is such a devastating own on a brand new park. Right. Yeah. Well so that's the whole history of it is that up until the mid 90s you could park in the parking lot that was right next to Disneyland

you're essentially at the ticket booths and at the train station right away and you could see that from your car that was taken out to build California Adventure so that there was like just a short walk between the two parks. Right. Disney has bought up odd areas of land all over that Anaheim campus,

but it made the most sense to have the two parks next to each other. And even now, it's a question if they ever did a third, where would that go? And how would you connect? Would there be a monorail? Right. Yeah. Everyone says it's the Toy Story parking lot, which is a little ways away.

It's the one that's zoned for a new park. Oh, wow. Yeah, because that's like a little bus ride. That's a little bus ride. It's right by the Anaheim Convention Center. This is a question that they're running into at the Universal Orlando Resort because that resort was designed

very much like disneyland where it's like the original universal studios park uh had a second park built like right next to it like essentially like a block and a half walk and now that and they gradually built hotels and a city walk there and now they keep adding hotels and they have a huge plot of land down the road but like at the time when they're like we're gonna buy this florida property and try to compete with walt disney world they're like they didn't want to build and sustain a massive transportation infrastructure like disney world did so they made a design closer actually to disneyland where it's

like the two parks are next to each other and people can walk there or they have a handful of boats and you can take a boat from the hotel to the two parks but now that they want to expand and build a third park it's like farther away so they're going to have to start having I don't know buses I guess

what do you do? Or is there a creative way to do it like it's pretty cool that Universal now has the Harry Potter in Islands of Adventure and Diagon Alley in Universal, and the train can take you to both. Right. So maybe there's some ride that maybe somewhere in the Marvel universe, potentially, there's some ride that transforms you. There's a rainbow bridge you could walk on, or there's a, you know, what else?

Tony Stark has some new shuttle. Yeah, Tony Stark or Reed Richards' laboratory or something. You hop onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. super carrier. That takes you over. What's the thing called? The helicarrier. The helicarrier, yeah. Or it's just like not closed, just the Hulk's bridge.

It's green. It's very bridge. It's green. It's very green. It is green. They did something. I will say that speaking of the two points that I thought of while you were talking, Jason, and one about Universal. So I had fairly close, a couple years ago, fairly proximal Disneyland trip followed by a Universal Studios Hollywood trip. And the difference between the Mickey and Friends parking structure, the elegance of that, and the Jurassic parking that they have there, it's like it's night and day.

Even though it's functionally a little parking structure, the Jurassic parking has all the pitfalls that exist in a poorly designed mall parking structure, ballpark parking structure, where you've got all these different levels. You got to cycle through endlessly. You got to hunt for a space a little bit. Where you park, the iconography is not super clear in terms of which area. Was I in J6? Was I in L1? You know, you can't quite parse it perfectly. And even if you write it down or take a picture of the pillar you parked by, it's still a little bit of an ordeal to find your space. And then walking through it, you've got to walk through a lot of other cars. Like, if you've got a family, if you're pushing a stroller, like, that's a little bit of a hazard.

You've got other people looking for parking and maybe making abrupt turns trying to snag a space. And you've got a family in tow. other people looking for parking and maybe making abrupt turns trying to snag a space and you got a you got a family in tow you don't necessarily have those same sort of black marks that you're dealing with if you're in the mickey and friends and also too so you know universal is different because you're walking right into the park it's like it's like right butted up against universal uh city walk basically so you're basically just in the same way that you would walk into downtown Disney and then be in the Disneyland proper. Like you're right, you're right,

butted up against it. There's a tram ride from the Mickey and Friends structure, but it's a nice tram ride. It's very pleasant. It's very pleasant. And it's kind of like a gentle sort of, I feel like when the kids that are on there,

they're building anticipation a little bit. They're like getting excited because they're like, oh my God, this is like the ride that's taking us to Disneyland. This is akin to the helicopter that's taking us into Jurassic Park. This is like a little small thrill that tells of bigger thrills to be had in the future. Sure. You get a ride right away.

Right. And, yeah, that is a thing to talk about. I think that tram is very pleasant i like the look of that thing they get that's a that's a that's a neat shiny classic car vibe the white with the red stripes and yes absolutely that tram is very appealing i'm gonna i don't want to i don't want this to turn into a fight oh boy here we go but i'm gonna say i like the universal parking garage you're right about everything but what's interesting about universal parking garage is like you don't know where you're parking and on occasion you just

walk out and you're right where you wanted to be and on occasion it's a 10 to 15 minute walk right so like on occasion i park and i go where are we and i go down an escalator and i'm like oh we're right here at the margaritaville at city walk or something like we're right here and sometimes so like there's sort of a fun chaos that i find is like sometimes you have to get an elevator that's themed to curious george there that's the whole level or that's the whole parking structure but then you get to kind of walk have a nice city walk walk which i honestly and this is the controversy this is where the controversy will come in i kind of like walking through city walk better than i like riding on that tram to disneyland which maybe this i should save this for later when we were going to say controversial

things but the tram i find i don't think is it's the the what happens what happens you leave the tram from the parking structure and it's like what five minutes to get to downtown disney basically right in front of their world of disney which is a giant store uh i don't think it's themed well enough i don't i can see through the fence i can see the buildings the show buildings for pirates of the caribbean or indiana jones that's fair i can see right through it and honestly it starts the trip off by going oh yeah pirates of caribbean is in that big on like but how many regular people are having that? But I'm saying for me, Jason. I'm saying for me.

Okay? All right. I agree that dad on the trip to California isn't going, oh, that show building's really ruining the magic. But you do get magic built up when you walk past the sock market? A little bit. A little bit. That giant gaudy King Kong sign.

That all feels like i'm already in this nonsense i'll say this cosmetics yeah when i was first out here in la and i had an internship on the universal backlot and uh uh i used to uh go up and eat at city where they were there was like dollar taco night at uh uh what is that rubio there used to be a rubio fish tacos that a dollar fish tacos on tuesday nights uh tuesday night city walk in the fall looks like the world ended and someone left the lights on and that was like to just eat a giant plate of fish tacos and like watch weird watch music videos on the giant city walk screen and every now and then there would be an interstitial ad for just like city walk and it's just a logo and someone whispering city walk it's just like yeah this feels real like end of the

world this feels real apocalyptic people hate on city walk we're going to do at least one episode on city walk eventually oh yeah not a couple parts because there's so many different places there uh i do love city walk so that's that's sort of, I'm biased toward it. And especially because the Hollywood City Walk and the Orlando City Walk may as well be different planets. Oh, interesting. They're entirely different, because the one is catering to locals going out for the night, and the other is catering to people in town for vacation. Tourists who got tricked. Yeah, tourists who got tricked.

If you're a local who goes to city walk a lot you're a weirdo like us yeah uh but one definitely feels more like a mall and the other feels more like people who are hammered right um i i would say and and i i like city walk and i also like downtown disney which i think is maybe not as it doesn't feel even though it is it doesn't feel as crassly commercial as as as universal city walk it doesn't feel... Even though it is, it doesn't feel as crassly commercial as Universal CityWalk. It doesn't feel like there's as much stores just selling dog shit,

just trying to... Just selling whatever. There's a sock store or something. A sock market. Is that still there? Yes. I believe. I guess so.

As of a couple months ago. There's a popcorn store. There's just so many stores. All wind-up toys. Right garbage just chintzy garbage and and i feel like at the at downtown disney's there's not that same effect here here's what i would say just to just return to what you're talking about with the tram earlier carlson i think you make a very valid point in terms of entering the park however the thing i would say is it's very nice at the end of the day and and it's sort of at the end of the day.

And it's sort of like, especially I feel like if you're parents and you got some kids who are maybe wound up all day and now they're crashing, it just gives you a moment to decompress. That tram ride, it's like that tram ride back is like, okay, this is, the day is over. The day is done. And I feel like if you're tugging your kids through Universal CityWalk, trying to make your way to trying to figure out what level you parked at at Jurassic Parking. And, you know, you still got that chaos basically until you got them in the car and you're like, shut up, you know. And it's like that's the energy that's carrying you out at the end of this day versus like, oh, this is our – this is like the end of Lord of the Rings where Frodo is getting on to the little boat and he's going to like sail off into the distance.

Like that's the equivalent of the, the tram ride towards the Mickey and friends parking structure. Except like Frodo's competing for space with like 700 other. Yes, that was going to be, I agree with you. That ride can be very pleasant, but a ride itself,

right? The ride itself, but the lead up is kind of a nightmare because there's a million people there to queue up a little bit and i mean as most people know i don't have kids uh we don't have kids none of us have kids none of us have kids uh they're not even coming soon like why you're not even allowed within a block the short of it is these are four men whose bloodlines are going to end. So long, Liger, Gergen, Carlson, Sheridan. It was a fun ride while it lasted.

Not as fun as a theme park, right? But oftentimes, we'll just walk from Disneyland to the mickey and friends parking structure i didn't know you 've done this uh like i've done this at least 10 times because sometimes even though you're you're dead tired you go well 15 minutes or i stand in front of i don't even know maybe it's 15 minutes for this tram let's just walk so you walk through downtown disney you walk all the way and then you see this glorious parking structure in the distance and you're going on these i almost find that that's even maybe a more visually interesting walk sometimes than it is to go on the tram but you have to uh pop the disney bubble to do it you have to essentially go into anaheim streets a little bit yes but there's some disney but there's

also disney streets like it's all disney kind of. It's all technically Disney properties. Disney owns the streets, I think. Disney kind of owns. Because they're the Disney, I don't think they're Disney, like, street signs. Yeah, I guess so. But it is, like, you're crossing streets. And I wonder now, because they have moved security

to, like, right next to the Mickey and Friends parking, which is better. Yes, it is better. They've moved the metal detectors, like, right at the bottom of the escalators. And where you, yeah, where you look through people's purses and what have you. Yeah, yeah. And it used to be by, like, the bottom of the escalators and where you yeah where you look yeah people's purses right yeah yeah and i it used to be by like the world of disney uh uh it used to

be by like the ticket booths and everything which was was very jarring would lead to traffic jams and honestly i think it's better having it at there or on the other side of the property right the esplanade like just yeah just knock it out if it's unpleasant and it sucks but it's part of the world we live in now so like yeah just bang it out and just get through it yes i also don't i'm now i'm being real negative and this is not i did not go into this no no it's fair same thing i'm gonna like take you to task or anything it just these are my feelings uh i new rule mickey and france blows uh i do here i'll say some good nice things about mickey and france there is a an exit on the five which is the freeway you're on you generally take to go to disneyland it's the specific disneyland

exit so you go in the left lane especially you have to think you have to be a carpool to to be in it uh and you go off on a kind of a left exit on the freeway and you go sort of on this like specifically made for disneyland bridge kind of thing and then they redirect you like it's an express lane to get to mickey and friends yeah and i love it and that feels like a ride to me that feels like my first ride zooming over. Zooming over the side streets. Skipping all of that traffic. At the end of the day, they flip it. Yes, and it goes the other way. So you leave Mickey and Friends.

You again feel like you're going on one last ride. And then you go right onto the five. And you're back to the real world. One of the last times I went, I was riding out of there with my roof down. And the fireworks are going off. There's nothing better in the car. Beautiful. There's nothing better.

That's your Frodo ending. Sometimes you can catch the fireworks from the tram, too. I mean, I like the tram just because I like the modes of transit. At Disney, Mike always makes fun of it because, like, anytime we've been at the park together and we're trying to figure out what to ride or stuff that's long wait, I'm always i'm always the first to go like well maybe we should amble on over to the mark twain riverboat or maybe we should just ride the train for the rest of our lives but you not only does do you like the train you like the casey junior train which oh i do like the casey junior train and i've ridden all i think i have only ridden that ride with you multiple times. Yes, I made you get in.

I made you ride the Casey Jr. train. And once or twice, we were in like the cage car. The lion cage. Mike is a very tall man. And I'm crouched into this thing. Scratched down and I'm sitting on the caboose part just happy as a clam. And the employees are like, there's plenty of room in there on the other side for kids and a family. But they're like, no, no, no.

Let the adults have the cage to themselves. There's no way they must always be a little concerned when adults without children get on casey jr oh yeah no it's gotta be a flag they flag us they gotta flag us and it's like it's like going on a little spaceship outside a market or something it's uh it's not meant for you it's so small it's tiny yeah we shouldn't go on it uh No, it's great. The storybook boats are great too. I do like those.

Yeah. Speaking of transportation, I do remember going on trips to Disneyland. I mentioned this earlier when we were doing this for orchestrated kids. And I remember my buddy John Savie had found out, I think through a previous family trip,

that there was a... So the arcades and the Starcade, I think through a previous family trip, that there was a – So the arcades in – the Starcade, I think, is the big one. But the arcades that are at Disneyland, this was when Mortal Kombat was first in arcades. And they had turned the blood off at the Disneyland ones. But he had found out that there was an arcade in the Disneyland hotel that had Mortal Kombat with the blood on. So on this school trip, we took the monorail over to the Disneyland Hotel that had Mortal Kombat with the blood on. So on this school trip, we took the monorail over to the Disneyland Hotel. This was before Downtown Disney

I think even existed. It just went to the hotel and not being guests there, we went into the lobby, had a little lunch at whatever the monorail cafe was and then we went over. The monorail cafe was good. It was pretty good, yeah. It was a specifically good spot. That was the first place I had a vanilla Coke.

Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Spamming your palate. Right, right, right. And then we went and we played full blood, full fatality Mortal Kombat for most of this trip. There's a hack for any time travelers. Yeah.

Oh, sorry, Jason. Oh, no, I was going to say Yeah. I, oh, sorry. Oh, no, I was going to say, I mean, I did that last time I was there. Not to there, but I love eating at the hotel. Like, it's such an easy, pleasant experience eating at the hotels, usually, especially at the quick service, like, restaurants, like, in off hours or like lunchtime because people don't unless you're staying there like a lot of people don't know like yeah there's a really nice like one uh the whitewater snacks at the grand california and it's like in the very back surrounded by trees yeah it's just so quiet and they pump in the sound effect like it's it's up against cal uh california adventure so they're pumping in like very pleasant folk music

and sound effects. What do they have? Is that like a hot dog and burger stand? What do they get there? It's like nachos and flatbread pizzas and burgers. Yeah. They rotate it, I think, a lot. We've talked about so few restaurants in general

on this podcast. Same with Tangaroa Terrace at the Disneyland Hotel. Also very good. Sure. Yeah, unusually empty. The park lunch spots, usually very crowded. The hotel lunch spots,

much less so. Yeah, I love them. Even those downtown Disney spots are often very, very crowded, but that's good to know that the hotel itself has some. The Grand Californian too or just the Disneyland Hotel?

All three of the hotels. Oh, wow. I've never been inside Paradise Pier now that I say that. But they all have restaurants of different like levels. It's a little junkier, but that's where the good character breakfast is for kids. You can find like there's like the steakhouse in the Disneyland Hotel. If you go to the bar, especially later, you can get a lot of the menu there. It's not usually that crowded.

Napa Rose, probably one of the best restaurants at Disneyland period. You can get the full menu at the bar. Natalie and I went to Napa Rose and got the chef's tasting. We got the chef's tasting menu once. Whatever you have, reserve it. You sit at

the counter and then they prepare all the courses for you, and you can watch them kind of make it, and they have wine pairings and everything. It was a delightful anniversary dinner. Yeah. That's wonderful. That's great. Wow.

Great. Also, you did a Club 33 once. I've been to Club 33 one time. Yeah. So I used to write for this TV show called At Midnight that was hosted by Chris Hardwick. Chris is a very,

was a very generous boss and as part of his, like as part of his gratitude towards the writing staff, he used his leverage as I think whatever membership he has as Club 33

to get us all in to Club 33 for a meal. And so I had a lunch there and it was uh have you guys ever been inside i've never been no i did one time yeah shout out to david love thanks for getting us in yeah it was it was uh it was it was picturesque in there it's very very like just an amazing exactly what you expect to to be like it felt like this real secret society and and you know a cabinet with this ultra expensive top shelf liquor that you could buy by the bottle. But the thing, and this

might be more for us than for your listeners unless they happen to know him, but this was like a random day in the summer and we were going to Club 33 for lunch and just randomly I ran into our friend Doug Jones was just there. He was just hanging out at Club 33, and I was just like, oh, this is perfectly appropriate. This is this guy who loves theme parks so much. Of course he'd just be here.

But it felt like such a random confluence to just run into a guy I know at this exclusive club within this theme park you thought it would only be like arch dukes right right yeah yeah ceo of pepsi or something it is like a thing you would expect like like kind of the uh and maybe this was kind of the lunchtime crowd but you expect people to be wearing you know sharp suits and and uh you know cocktail dresses but then it's just like a dad wearing birkenstocks and cargo shorts, you know? Oh, sure. Yeah.

How was the food? I don't really remember the food. I remember it being like, this is my thing also with Carthay Circle. I really like the food at Carthay Circle, but I don't like, there's nothing like, it's just a very nice restaurant. There's not a lot in terms of like some story about the food. Sure. Am I wrong?

Like, it's great, obviously. Very good. I would say not mind-blowing. Yeah. Not like, I had like fried chicken, and it's not like, oh, this is the best fried chicken I've ever had. But I was like, this is very good. Sure.

And, you know, certainly there's a gigantic markup on it. This costs like $30 or something. Yeah. It's absurd, but it's, you're paying for the atmosphere and the exclusivity and the fact that you can get alcohol inside Disneyland. And those weird toilets. There's like weird old... Pulled chain?

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. I think they also had mouthwash in the bathroom, which was nice. Oh, that's very fancy. I was just reading a story about one of the first female Imagineers,

and she looked at the plans for Club 33, and she had to tell Walt, she goes, this bathroom for the women is too small. And he said, you're right right and they doubled it yeah they got like literally like a one woman could not fit in yes i think yeah she yeah i think she was also saying female beauty was so right yes i think that's what she was she would know literally she i think she she said something in an un-pc way about women of size uh would not be able to get in the bathroom.

So they took apart a way of the kitchen. Right. Walt is like 85 pounds or over. You go outside. Whatever weight he made Lillian stay at, that's the weight women should be. Isn't there a story about a woman who was an astronaut? Sally Ride. Sally Ride. And they were sending her into space,

and they were like, will 100 tampons be enough? Right, they just had no sense. They just did it worth thinking. That feels like that's a few years from now when they've run out of Saving Mr. Banks stories. It feels like they're going to make a Hidden Figures style movie about this first female Imagineer. That has to be in the pike, right? Yeah.

I mean, I was reading. It was very interesting because she was talking about how it was like no one listened to her. Right. She had to just go straight to Walt. She said Walt was very nice. A lot of the Imagineers were just dicks who would ignore things she said. She designed a lot of the Haunted Mansion. Whoa.

I'm forgetting her name. Her last name is Norris. I really should look that up. walt wants to talk to a woman he'll draw one uh yeah no draw very interesting we still love drawing all the time i'll look up her name i do think right now though while people are listening to this they're gonna go when are they gonna go back to the parking garage yeah yeah guys stop talking about we didn't imagine ears and we didn't want a tangent anywhere in this thing let's get back on track so uh uh well now this is actually the opposite of the parking garage but i think this parking garage is is especially indicative of

of southern california car culture because like i mean, all of the Disney parks have some sort of parking option. uh, in Florida, if you're going to the magic kingdom, you have to park across the lake from it and take the boat or monorail over to the magic kingdom. Uh, the other resort of parks in Florida,

all have parking lots in front of, or next to it at the international parks. There's a much bigger emphasis on like public transit yeah i do i do wish there was because i'm someone who i love you know like when i'll go i'm an nba fan and we'll go i'll go to see the lakers play in downtown and staples center from where we live in santa monica i'll take the train and and it's it's great it's great to not have to worry about parking i would love it this this was this was a few years ago i think when obama's infrastructure plan was being floated and they used it as like a talking point to be like like you know he wants to build a high-speed rail between uh la and disneyland and it's like it's like well that

would that makes a ton of sense that would be amazing because it's a huge tourist destination people fly into la they would 100 make use of and locals would 100 make use of like that makes a lot of sense but as a talking point it's something that you can uh bat down but yeah i wish there was a better i wish there was a train option i wish you could take you you didn't have to drive there but because you have to drive i i think the the mickey and friends parking structure is is you know as as good as it can be basically yeah in disney paris i was reading in disneyland paris there is a major like regional hub like a two-minute walk from the park for the train uh tokyo disney train station i've been and it's uh and it's like not the weird thing not

too disneyified it's like just barely off the property, just like a couple steps away. And so there's just like train station weirdos. It's like it's not a magical Disney train station. And that being like, I think it's like 20 minutes outside of Paris. And that you're like in the magic of Paris. And then you're just in some weird European suburban dirty train station. It's really, I mean, we haven't talked about Disneyland Paris a ton on here, but I like, I found it sort of

odd and janky and sketchy and that train station arrival was part of it because you're thinking Disney and train, oh, it's going to be a magic,

it's going to be like an old Victorian train station and then it's just like lockers and people sleeping on the ground and it sucked. It was bad. What you would like

sounds like what the Tokyo experience is where like, they have a monorail there that goes around the whole property, but you have to buy a pass for it. And it's, I believe, technically part of the transit system in Tokyo. So you can buy a monthly pass or use a subway ticket to ride the monorail, even though it's on private property and operated by the Oriental Land Company, who runs Tokyo Disney.

That's awesome but it takes you right like what you need to get around tokyo already what takes you i i think you can use that pass or at least buy like a monthly disney pass if you work there and it's got stops at all the hotels and like the partner hotels and then there's like the the entrance to the property right by the way oriental land company sounds like ominous that sounds like a a relic of uh colonialism like it was established by the netherlands in like the 1500s and had its own navy it does but i believe it was established by the japanese government oh okay uh co-run the disney park so they have oh there you go autonomy in the way they put it

tokyo disneyland yeah they dumped a ton of money is which is why i suppose like which we have not been yet tokyo disney sea which is like the supposedly the greatest theme park in the world i've heard there's so much money from that oriental land company yeah wow it hearing it in english in america it is a weird it's got a lot of weird connotations to it it's hearing like my grandparents say that word. Where it's like, oh, I know you don't mean this maliciously, but we don't really say that anymore. Sure.

But it sounds like the Third Reich Development Corporation or something. But they picked it. Okay, I'm going to tie a couple things together here. You mentioned Tokyo DisneySea. I'm going to talk a couple things together here. You mentioned Tokyo DisneySea. I'm going to talk a little bit about the history and why the Mickey and Friends parking structure exists. Do you guys know anything about the weird bidding wars between Long Beach and Anaheim that took place?

Oh, no. No, I don't think I do. Okay. So, all right. Interrupt me with jokes or something if this is getting too dry but no deal gairdner you're on your own straight back get swimming i'm shutting our mics off except for yours a podcast with interruptions i've never heard of such a thing i demand it uh okay so uh mid-1980s michael eisner takes over the Disney company. He wants Disneyland to be more like Disney World, where there's multiple parks and multiple hotels.

But he immediately gets acquainted with there is not a lot of land in Anaheim. And they don't own any hotels at that point. In the mid-80s, Disney did not own the Disneyland Hotel. It was built by a friend of Walt's named Jack Rather. And Walt was just so desperate to get a hotel open there that he said, like, whatever you want, we'll cut you a great deal. And Walt's leased the land to the guy for 99 years. It's yours. And you can use the name Disneyland.

And no other hotels in this area can use the word Disney. So this guy, Jack Rather, has this cake deal. They've made the monorail go right up to that hotel, but Disney was not pocketing any of that hotel room money. So major lack of income for Disney for many, many years. Eisner's like, done, break it, get them out of here. They did

basically a hostile takeover of the Rather Corporation. They just bought up the entire thing. Wow. Similar to the way that they just bought Fox, where it's like, well, if you won't give us X-Men, then we'll just buy the whole thing. So they took over Rather. So now they own the Disneyland Hotel, but Rather Corporation also owns the Queen Mary.

So that gives them ownership of this big plot of land on the Long Beach Harbor. And now they've got this bargaining chip. They say to the city of Anaheim, we would love to build a second park here, but what we really need is a parking structure and we want you to build it. And Anaheim's like, that's bullshit. That's really stupid. Well, if you don't want to do it, we could always just go

over to Long Beach. We already own the Queen Mary. And they've developed plans at this point for something called Port Disney, which is very similar to Disney Sea. We already own the Queen Mary. Right. And they've developed plans at this point for something called Port Disney, which is very similar to DisneySea. It's got a big volcano like DisneySea. I remember this was a thing growing up in the Long Beach area. I remember reading about the ongoing Port Disney,

you know, what ended up being a debacle and never happening in the local paper, the Press-Telegram. There's a lot of updates about this ongoing thing. And I remember there was a point where it was like, it looked like we were going to get a new Disney park, like right, like, you know, very, very close by. Yeah, how close would that have been for you?

I mean, it would have been like a 15-minute drive for us for my child at home. It would have been right there, right by my high school. I mean, it could have gone anytime I wanted. Wow, wow, that's amazing. Yeah, and like right, yeah, if you've been to Long Beach, yeah, it would have connected all of this stuff together. There's a big mall there called The Pike,

and there's all these hotels and stuff, and like it all would have been this massive Disney campus. And they were also going to build like over the harbor. They were going to reclaim land and build it on the ocean. Wow. And the Sierra Club protested it and had a big like, yeah, really tried to get it to not happen. And somebody, a guy from the Sierra Club

issued a really lofty statement about, like, the hubris of man to build above the sea. That's funny, because the joke I make is when Eisner opens the Grand Californian and California Adventure is he did it with the hubris of a mad god. Like, Californians, come to this park themed to California. Made a miniature cow.

There's no need to do the rest of California. So anyway, they've got options now in Anaheim and Long Beach. And Eisner issues this odd statement about, well, it's just we'll go with whatever city wants us more. And that caused Anaheim to cave. And they said, yeah, all right, we'll go with whatever city wants us more and that caused anaheim to cave and they said yeah all right we'll build you at the time the idea was three different parking structures the uh the city of anaheim would build them uh give disney like just this tiny lease and that is what happened so so mickey and friends was built by the city of anaheim uh the city of anaheim

gets no money for that i think they get it they get it like a dollar a year right? It's like some token amount. Oh yeah something like that like legal minimum. Right. Disney has had Anaheim by the balls forever and there recently has been a big fight about like a non-Disney what mayor was installed

sort of an anti-Disney. Or city council new city council members. Within the Anaheim city council there are people who are councilmen who are kind of bought by Disney and ones who are not. It's a very like Congress NRA situation. Disney hasn't had, there hasn't been any tax on tickets for years and years

and years. And then some people finally were like, that's fucked up. When you see, there are parts of Anaheim that are in terrible shape. This is like blocks away from Anaheim. There are, like, really low rent areas, and the city could use that money. And what they were talking about was, like, a single dollar of entertainment tax on every Disneyland ticket. And Disney freaked out.

This cannot happen. And also, so there was an L.A. Times article kind of revealing a lot of this information and sort of the odd relationship between Anaheim and Disneyland. And Disney was so displeased with this article that they told the L.A. Times, fine, you can't review our movies anymore. I remember this. That little controversy happened a few months ago. That was all essentially related to like the parking situation right yeah at disneyland and also on this now we're really getting into the driest of dry territory there was another parking garage they wanted to build yeah the eastern gateway project yes which is a whole thing and they had a whole design for it and there was a bridge that was going to take you over

like you know those like captain cooks is like a restaurant there's like a is there a denny's right there yeah on harbor boulevard it was going to be a bridge that was going to take you over like you know those like captain cooks is like a restaurant there's like a is there a denny's right there yeah on harbor boulevard it was going to be a bridge that was going to take you from the the the new parking garage right into disney and they were like well you can't do this because this is going to block off all the businesses yeah those businesses would have been i mean they're but those businesses are kind of leeches like let's be oh yeah yeah why they're there to begin with. Yeah, the Mimi's Cafe right there is just leeching off of Disney's, you know. I would be sad to see Mimi's go. Yeah, I like the Mimi's.

But the rest of it, yeah, yeah. That's a good option. But Captain Kid's Buffet, though, which you mentioned, that place is like regularly reviewed as the worst restaurant in Orange County. And they're leeching off the logo of Red Robin. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. in Orange County. And they're leeching off the logo of Red Robin. It's like a whip off the road. That's true. Yeah.

Yeah, they were going to build essentially a second Mickey and Friends parking structure. And so people coming from the north would park at Mickey and Friends. People coming from the south would park at this other one. And they could not get through Anaheim City Council. They would not get it through. So now... Part of the situation being, as opposed to in the mid-90s

when they could say, we're going to bail and go to Long Beach instead, they can't do that now. They can't exactly say, we're going to go to Star Wars land somewhere else. Right. So Disney sort of doesn't have the bargaining chip like they had in the 90s.

At this point, people listening to the podcast are like, talk about the restaurants again, please. Jesus Christ. Talk about that lady whose name you tanya tanya tanya uh norris hey tanya norris but they have needed more parking spots for years and they certainly need them before star wars opens we got a disaster brewing i would love to break this story to nick if he doesn't know. They are building a new parking structure. Wow.

Right by Mickey and Friends. About the same size. Am I correct? They're essentially duplicating it. They're duplicating Mickey and Friends. That's a lot. 6,000 is about 10,000. Okay.

Okay. So it's a little smaller. It'll work for now and maybe one day they'll get that Eastern Gateway parking garage. So that's a little present for you. That there'll be another well-designed parking structure coming soon efficient yeah so they're building the parking structure because star wars land is coming right and what's also going to happen is uh they're

building a giant hotel over downtown disney so you're losing espn zone you're losing rainforest cafe and the movie theater and the earl Sandwich. And this is all just this massive construction project that they're fast-tracking. Yeah, there's a lot of acreage. Those three restaurants and that movie theater. There'll be retail and restaurant space underneath the hotel. So as people are coming in, and I'm sure Earl of Sandwich will be back in there. There could be a small, weird ESPN zone in the hotel. We don't know.

They're talking about stuff like that it's possible like with especially like with a beloved restaurant like the rainforest cafe yeah let's preserve our uh national institutions we've talked about this before the sheridans love the rainforest it's certainly pretty fun like i went with a friend a friend's 21st birthday we went to to that Rainforest Cafe. This was back in college, so that was a real hoot. You spent a 21st birthday there? Yeah. She wanted to go to...

This was my friend's girlfriend, and she was also my friend, and a group of friends, and wanted to go to Disneyland for 21st birthday, and then for dinner went to the Rainforest Cafe. It worked out nicely. Oh, yeah. I got in high school, I got way too high in there. Oh, boy. And I just sat silently, freaked out by animatronic monkeys and didn't say a word to my dinner guest and friend. And that kind of informs my marijuana experience experience to this day i think that was the last time i went to a rainforest cafe i'm thinking back and i this was that that 21st birthday and i i remember that the i got a caesar salad because i just like eating garbage all day at

disneyland and my stomach hurt so i got something very and it was like a very weak like not good salad yeah their food's not great right no it's terrible no they had like fun fruity fun fruity drinks and like fun appetizers that's about it yeah it's like eating the blue bayou it's like yeah it's the experience i drove down alone a couple years ago to see dick van dyke in a parade and that's a true story no one would go with me uh it was his bird 90th birthday and i was like well when am i gonna get the fucking chance to see this old man again and he was in a parade like waving it was like two seconds uh and then i parked at downtown disney and get validation yeah i was like well i'll get a to-go order at the rainforest cafe and i went up to the bar i

ordered like a cheeseburger and then got it parking validated because i wasn't going to be i wasn't going to be a bad boy and get uh the part like lie and say oh i just came from the restaurant validate i've been a bad boy if you you have well in the past they're a lot more strict nowadays although i've been out i've been a bad i've been a bad boy in regards to using the movie theater to park for free, which is the cheat I said earlier, where you buy a ticket, you get it validated, then you cancel the ticket on Fandango. This is no... What would Dick Van Dyke say if he heard of this nefarious behavior?

This isn't the way Burt would behave. It's the way that mean old banker he also plays would behave. That's true. Oh, boy. That's a good point. Be like Burt, not like the banker. banker well look i the movie theater is going away so i won't have the opportunity to be this bad look they're pressed for parking okay yeah this keeps coming so i had the cheeseburger long story short i had the cheeseburger uh and it was just the worst it was so bad like how was it could it be this bad you got it to go yes so you drove it back to la and then ate it in la or no no i ate it while i drove i am very good at driving and

eating yes i have a whole system down i can do it on the freeway if i have to but i think i had eaten most of it by the time i even got to the freeway. And it just, how is it this bad? It shouldn't be this bad. How could it be? So, yeah, it's just terrible. The only reason anyone would ever eat it is to sit next to like a fern that's alive. The theming is the whole point. And you took that away.

Yeah, it's like getting a Chuck E. Cheese pizza delivered. It's like, what? You just want the food all right we can do it was the to-go box like a big clam or something no it was a styrofoam box it was a styrofoam box from islands because they don't do to-go orders they had to go next door to borrow one some weirdo wants to uh i i want to say many of your stories could probably end with long story short. I ate the cheeseburger. Yeah. In the car.

While I drove. Or begin with, I was driving to a parade by myself. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. I just wanted to return to this new, this,

this duplicate Mickey and friends, this Mickey and friends sequel lot real quick, which I'm very excited about this, this new structure. Franchise to expand. Right. I want to make a prediction, which I'm very excited about this new structure. For the franchise to expand. Right. I want to make a prediction, which is I don't think they're going to use

the blank and friends designation for the name of this new lot. Right. Because I think it's going to be too confusing to guess. And I think because they have some other properties under their umbrella now, they're going to make use of that in their parking nomenclature. and this will be the avengers lot oh level one thor level two black

widow level three hulk and so on wow yeah this is it's just writes itself seven levels it's associated with their own avengers member i think that's a very good prediction, and it's very likely. I think there's also a chance that they go with Avatar, and it's Jake, Sully, it's the Banshee, it's Unobtainium for level three. So I think it could be... Each child, each of the 19 Avatar children. You know, I have friends who listen to the podcast regularly, and they took some time to ask me, what is your guys' deal with Avatar?

Do you like it? Do you not like it? You failed to convey. Right, right. Sure, sure. Apparently, we've talked about it in like seven different episodes. I know. I just brought it up again.

The Chronicles of Jake Sully and the Na'vi people? Here's what happened. This should not be a thing we get into at the end of a podcast but i will get into it a little bit what happens with me is i get fascinated by something that i think i don't like and i i obsess on it i make a lot of jokes i'm like very dry with it and then after a while i like it it happened with jimmy buffett yeah it happened with duffy the disney bear sure from tokyo disney sea and it's like i make enough jokes about something and then It happened with Jimmy Buffett. Yeah. It happened with Duffy the Disney Bear. Sure. From Tokyo DisneySea. And it's like I make enough jokes about something,

and then one day I wake up and I like it. So I guess I like Avatar. Yeah. I guess I like it. But it's fun to say the mighty Akron in like a very dry way. I think we're referring to the fact that even though this is the highest grossing movie of all time, or one of them, and there's these mega budget sequels that have been coming for a decade

and there's a whole theme park about it now that these things that nobody could just tell you the mighty Akron we had to like really hold on to that fact to even remember it or that the thing is the hallelujah mountains like quote a line from Avatar it's not there isn't something that comes

to the tip of your tongue even though everyone's seen this movie it's my feeling about the star wars prequels which i know you guys have talked on doughboys a ton about the star wars but it's like the three movies are bad there's so many bad choices but i've seen them now so many times i've made so many jokes i like them yeah i think i like them i like them yeah i like but i don't like them in this weird way that a lot of people are like well they're good they're actually really in this weird way that a lot of people are like, well, they're good. They're actually really good. Right. I mean, that's crazy, but I do like them.

I like Dexter Jexter. I like Watto. I like the Podracers. I know all the names. Sure. Team Topogales is a name I know that most people don't know, but I like him. I don't know much about him, but I like Team Topogales. What is he?

Keep it quick, but what is he he's a pod racer yeah he's one of the pod racers do you know the names of the the two-headed the greg proops and oh i'm yeah yeah what's that character's name i can't think i don't remember i did at one point somebody is shouting at the podcast right i tune in and weiger was on it and nobody knew the one poll i have is watt tambor oh yeah what is an episode two uh senator lot dodd is one of right not to chris dot and trent lott oh god george lucas took two a democrat senate senator and a republican senator two lions of the senate is a case that's one of the Senate. Oh, yeah. Lot Dodd is one of the senators. I think he's like the same race as Newt Gunray. Wall Street shill, Christopher Dodd.

And racist. Racist. Man, Trent Lott. Neo-Confederate Trent Lott. Yep. Commemorated in a Star Wars film. I looked this up a second ago while you were talking, Carlson, about Avatar, because this is a thing that we saw.

Tarouk, the first flight. The Cirque du Soleil show inspired by Avatar, which was pretty entertaining. This is sickening to say how much money we spent on this. It was too much money. It was like $150. It was way too much money. I don't know what we were thinking.

Good seats? They weren't mind-blowing. They were good seats. Did you know on the stage they bring you up and interact with you and bend you around or something? No, they didn't. No, yeah, not really.

I mean, it was a pretty good show. It was just like, it was gibberish. Like trying, the story of the Taruk. Because there's a narrator explaining everything that's happening.

You watch all of it. You're still not quite clear on what's going on. Wait, explain where this lands in the world of Avatar, in the kingdom of Avatar. It's the, it takes place on the Avatar planet, and it's just a purely Na'vi story.

What is the, is Taruk the Avatar planet? No, Taruk is the legendary wyvern that they have to fly. Yeah, but like Taruk is the, I'm trying to remember, because the Banshee is in it, but Taruk is like a bigger version, right? Yeah, he's like a giant dragon who's like a harbinger of death. And by the end of it, spoiler alert, the young Navi, who has yet to prove himself, has taken control of the mighty Taruk and he rides him into battle. And he is the he respects his tribe it's still a spoiler if you like stop paying attention during the spoiler if it erases itself this is reminding me and mike

you may have been with me because this happened at comic-con a few years ago but we came out of the place we were staying and maybe i was with someone else and uh like a van pulled up and parked and um like a passenger van and a bunch of people got out half in Na'vi clothes. Oh, yeah. People who are going to be handing out flyers for the Cirque du Soleil Avatar show. And they just seemed miserable. Like they were all like had coffee cups and like half in their costumes, half in their

street clothes. And they're like, all right, let's get ready for the day. Yeah. in their street clothes. Jesus. And they're like, all right, let's get ready for the day. Yeah, so. I found that the name of the Greg Proops character, I have no idea even how to pronounce this.

Food, Food and Bead? They were called, but collectively they're called Foodies and Bead and a do? That's the name

of the Greg Proops character in the prequels who are the announcers. They're the two guys that are announcing the pod do. That's the name of the Greg proof character in the prequels who are the announcers. They're the two guys that are announcing the pod race. That's considered Canon. Yes. Yeah. This is from.

Okay. Oh, that's another, that's from Wikipedia. The Canon tab of Wikipedia. Not under the legends tab. Okay. These are all where this is like the,

the, these references are like the last remaining cars at the end of the night. And the Mickey and friends, just a few weird strays hanging around. are like the last remaining cars at the end of the night in the Mickey and Friends. Yeah. Just a few weird strays hanging around. And all guys like us. One of the things,

I'll say this about Mickey and Friends real quick, and this sort of contradicts what I was saying before. I do like now that you can sort of see Star Wars land from the parking garage because you can see how big it is, how expansive it is how expansive it is when it let me be clear once it opens i don't want to see it i want it to be somehow covered completely but right now while it's under construction i love and i make my girlfriend do it every time i go let's go to a higher level so we can get a better view of it and we go up

the stairs and i take a look and i just like breathe it in for you know a couple minutes and i and i annoy her probably by saying i go i think that's where the queue is going to be for the millennium falcon ride and i think over there is where the the toy darian toy shop will be like i've done this with you a couple times but sometimes i'll be with my wife and i'll say well mike's not here so we don't have to go look at the Star Wars construction. We could skip the stop this time. But admittedly, it is very, it's been good. That's like the best vantage point to watch. Yes.

The growth of that thing, which has been incredible over the last year. So that's another good thing I like about Mickey and Friends. Right. Great views. Hey, great views of all the new landscaping they did at Frontierland. You know, all the placemaking they did to blend the two areas together. Oh, yeah.

Landscaping, placemaking, city planning. Yeah. The old Star Wars senators. We're hitting all your favorites today. Yeah. What's interesting, also, they do a very good job, especially earlier in the day when you're coming into Disneyland, about having all those people on staff directing you to spaces and telling you where to go I have come in later in the day and that's an interesting thing and a weird thing only annual pass holders do where you go I'm gonna go down at nine o'clock

sure I'm gonna hit the park then and it's a little more lawless and it's a little interesting because at that point you can kind of go a little different routes there's you know you can you can sort of try to park closer and no one's telling you where to go so it's an interesting and it's it's it can be it can be very rewarding or it can be a big pain in the ass because you go all the way around the parking garage trying to find a close spot and there's nothing and then you got to go all the way back so it can there can be big rewards but you also it can be very hard trying to find a spot at the end, especially when it's later in the night.

That's what I like about the, and that's an interesting thing to know about going later in the day, if I ever were to do that. But what I do like about it early on is that they're making those decisions for you. What can be a stressful moment, hunting for parking in a large cavernous structure

ends up being something where you're just being guided directly uh where to go and all you have to do is follow the leader i think it's interesting too like sometimes if you're if they're directing you to the roof of the structure that is a very good thing and sometimes it's very bad like it seems like they load based on like whatever algorithm they had that tells them to load from the bottom up that day or top down that day or skip a level, like whatever system they had for crowd projections or like how they should fill it out.

I'd like to point out also that I agree. I think the flow in the place is great, and you don't really end up in a traffic jam at the end of the day, which is insane for Disneyland. But apparently when it was developed, Michael Eisner really specifically took credit

for the flow of it. He said he made a point of saying, it's this new thing, speed parking, and I actually personally figured out how it would, he did sort of a trompe-l'oeil taking credit, and apparently for the first couple months, it did not work and they had to redraw it. So whatever Eisner

did or did not lay out did not work as well as today. Well, when he's on the podcast, we'll give him a hard questioning about it. It'll be an hour about just his parking contributions. Well, what do we think? Do we do the regular structure?

So what we do, obviously, with the rides is we say, do we want to keep it as is? Do we want to plus it up? Or do we want to burn it down for insurance money? So I'm thinking we do the same scale. Let's do our same choices for this. I have thoughts. I'm sure you guys do, too. I'll make sure that I do by the time your thoughts are up.

Okay, great. Jason, do you want to start or do you want me oh sure no i'll go ahead uh i say uh i do like this parking structure i say plus it up which are obviously doing they're building another parking structure i think go even further because i i put a put a montreal cafe type restaurant at one of these parking structure i would love like if i want a quick bite to eat at the beginning or end of the day that would be a a real treat uh right i would like that a lot what type of food oh i i would think you would want to go broad i think you would want

like either like some some maybe some simple ice cream selection some sandwiches or burgers and like maybe personal pizzas. Personal pizzas are always agreeable. That seems excessive. All of this? Personal pizzas at the parking structure? I think that would be great. I think cheese or pepperoni, sir.

Something simple. Something simple where they don't have to customize it too much. Rainforest Cafe burgers without the cafe. Rainforest Cafe Burgers without the cafe. Yeah. Rainforest Mini. I think maybe you could, you know, I would say maybe like a coffee kiosk

or just even just a guy with some frozen lemonade or some waters could probably clean up there. Yeah, that's a good idea. Especially on a hot day. I honestly am just going to vote for keep it as is.

I think it's very functional. I think it does its job. I think what you're talking about, the exit also speaks to in the same way they have escalators going directly to the levels, they have a direct exit from each level that you can go in your car.

You don't have to circle around and let other cars merge in, which is pretty efficient. I think it works well. I think it's a model for what theme park parking structures should be, and I'm glad they're replicating it with a second one. So, yeah, I vote keep it as is. Okay. Wow. Great answer. That is a good answer.

I have, I would would say plus it up and this is a silly idea but if you can give me a little more disney magic in the actual parking garage like for instance say you're walking down and like maybe every 30th parking space they have like doc hudson from cars parked there oh that would be fun just something like that like just like a little you don't even have to notice it every time maybe there's only one of the disney's cars parked on a level each time and you gotta go find them or something which i guess now that i'm thinking about it means you're like incredibly dangerous kids running around looking for lightning mcqueen right Might not be a good idea, but I think it's fun. I think it's good.

I think, yeah, you do just little things like that. I don't want, I will say this. When I was a kid, I always kind of wanted the characters to be working at the parks. Sure. So once in a while, Goofy's in the ticket booth when you drive up. You hand him your annual pass. He fumbles around with it, maybe hands you back a piece of bread or something from the bread he was eating.

I don't know why he's eating bread in this scenario. But something like, I want a little more. If you give me a little more magic at the start. And then as far as when you're taking the tram, that fence has got to go. That fence has got to be, I don't want to see through it. I don't want to see the big building. I want to be transported to a magical place,

and I would like a lot of theming to happen on that little journey. So plus it up. Okay. I think having the levels named after the characters is good, but I think that the Disney lexicon is so deep at this point especially with all of their recent mergers what if every single parking space has its own character

that it's named after and you start stretching and it's every it's all 101 Dalmatians it's every 999 happy haunts it's you know every like every extra in the Avengers.

Like, you have to, like, zoom into, like, somebody getting blown up. And so you, like, zoom into, like, a little pixelated head. Every pod racer, including Team Topogales. There you go. Every student. Ben Quadraneros is in there. Every Padawan. Every student from Xavier's Institute.

Oh, right, they're getting the X-Men. Yeah, so I think that's great. You can make up specific characters who are the only place that they are in canon is in these spaces. Ludwig von Drake's great nephew, that kind of thing. It can be a great source of future ideas. Characters from shows that were greenlit to pilot by ABC and ultimately not

picked up. The character Dave Chappelle played on the show. It wasn't called Friends. He and Jim Brewer were on a really like vaguely titled show. It may have been called Neighbors or something like that. Get Jim Brewer the neighbor on one of those parking spaces. That's great. It's so deep, and it's a way to honor the vast Disney, ABC, ESPN anchors. That, too.

There you go. Oh, yeah. Who's that? Chris Berman? Is that one of them? Yeah, yeah. Rich Eisen. There's a Rich Eisen space.

This is fun. You would be so bizarre if you got the same one twice. Right. It would make every visit different. So there you go. That's very exciting. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. All right.

So yeah. There's our take on the Mickey and Friends parking stretch. If you want a sequel, start demanding it now, and we're happy to do so. Or maybe we wait until the Avengers lot is open, and we cover that one. I think we've got our sequel already scheduled for us. Yeah, yeah.

Much like Marvel itself. We've got it penciled in for 2019 whenever it opens up. One a year for the next decade. Hey, while we're here, let's do a quick thing at the end. There's a segment that we've only done once before, and I don't remember how we did it before, but I believe it may have involved a scary whisper, which was confession land.

And what this segment is, I was very committed to, wasn't I? What this segment is, is we confess a deeply held theme park world secrets. Things that we believe that we think may be unpopular, that we've been afraid to come out of the closet with, but here

we're in a safe space, and we think we are with you listeners as well. So we're going to share be unpopular that we've been afraid to come out of the closet with but here we're in a safe space and we think you we are with you listeners as well so uh we're going to share some unpopular theme park opinions sure mike would you like to go first sure i'll go first uh i think this would get me tarred and feathered if i set it outside of the place that i'm going to talk about uh sleeping beauty cast or excuse yeah sleeping beauty castle at disneyland uh is too small wow and it's sacrilegious i know to say this because it was the first park it's an icon of disneyland uh but what they're doing now in hong kong disneyland is they're taking a very similar castle and they're plussing it up they're making it bigger they're making it a little more uh uh impressive let's

do it here i don't know let's do it in disneyland i think you know i don't want it i don't want you to demolish it make a totally different looking castle but let's make some towers that are taller let's let's do something fun like let's we don't have to be uh uh frozen in time you know we're taking this idea let's let's make it a little tall it doesn't have to be giant it doesn't have to be like the Cinderella Castle in Florida. I just think let's fuck around with it. Sure. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Oh, do we all? I don't know. Yeah, there's nothing. What's everyone's feeling on that? I think it'd be a bummer to see it closed for a long time. And I don't like it. There's been bad things messing with those castles, like when the Disney World one was a birthday cake.

Well, Jason and I love the birthday cake castle. Yeah, we love the birthday cake. There's the unpopular opinion. Hate the birthday cake. I watch a lot of old Disney specials on YouTube and stuff, and I'm disappointed when it's a birthday cake one. Nick, do you know what that is? I don't want to look at that. I saw it.

No. What is it? It turned the Cinderella castle in Walt Disney World into a big pink birthday cake. What was the occasion? The 25th anniversary of Disney World. Oh, wow. Okay.

So this was, how recent was this? It would have been 1996. Oh, okay. Wow. Disney World is that? Yeah. We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of Disney World. Wow.

Oh, man. That is gaudy and tacky. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, little Jason and little Mike loved it. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a board. Your hearts are melting away like that cake in the rain.

Little Jason was a chubby boy. I don't know little Michael's excuse. Oh, so you were imagining eating the castle. Yeah, I was just floating towards the castle off the ground. Quick, the 25th anniversary is over. We need someone to eat the entire castle cake. A typical Jason dream. Can you do it, little boy?

I will serve. This is a little bit of a tangent, but on the Sleeping Beauty's castle front, a few years ago, I shot this commercial with a guy, with an actor, an older actor, and he was telling me that his previous job, like he just worked a job as the major domo in character at Sleeping Beauty's castle.

But for the occasion, the event it was, was that Lars Ulrich, the drummer for Metallica, he had set it up where he was going to propose to his girlfriend, then fiance, at Sleeping Beauty Castle, but have it be this big in-character thing. And it's just like, the specific that it was a large Ulrich blew my mind because it was like the least metal thing I could imagine.

Yeah. Because his girlfriend must have loved Disney. It must have been like she always wanted to be a princess or something like that. But just the fact that he was going to these lengths to to entertain them this the the guy behind you know uh ride the lightning that that was yeah that was ultimately where his life ended up but there was like a lineup of characters and this guy was one of them yeah he was he was like the uh i don't major i think it's like an attendant like like like they had they were

like in the carriage like they rode the carriage up after hours or something like that and he was like he was like like like like you like you know your highness or whatever just sort of doted on them and then he had a proposal tour at the storybook castle at disneyland it's very very bizarre wow i have been thrown because major domo is a yes that's what i captain eo and i thought he was playing oh you said that and i pointed at scott like oh, my God, what? Captain EO? Yeah, because I was starting to do the math of, wait, is Lars Ulrich a big Captain EO? I mean, that would have been awesome.

Yeah, no, I think this is a character, and I think this has some sort of royal... It's like a royal title of some sort, like a royal attendant. I see. Yeah, we don't know the real title. We just know that's a character in a stupid movie we like from disneyland primary thing uh uh wow okay well um i don't know not a big disagreement there yeah don't make it a cake that's all right yeah don't don't turn it okay i'll be honest wouldn't mind if it was a cake but okay all right uh uh jason i'll go okay uh uh nick i was thinking about you being on the show. You host a very popular food podcast. And this actually came up in conversation, you know, how many bars and places there are to get a drink at Disneyland and California Adventure. But like we're talking about the tram ride

getting you into the park, I think Disney's got to totally revamp how they get people in and out of those bars because some of these places, they run like any bar in LA where you just, if it's too crowded, you just show up and wait until a seat opens up. Or like the Cove Bar at California Adventure, which is currently closed.

It's being redone. It just has like a queue. It just has a line, like a ride. And like a line people wait in until a table opens up. And that's fine if I'm going to Jay's Bar in Silver Lake, California, or Maeve's Residuals on Ventura Boulevard in beautiful Studio City, California. But I expect a little more panache from Disneyland. There are tiny restaurants that will text you when your table is ready. And I think Disney needs to...

Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Buzzers. This is in the world of these magic bands that get you on other rides way in advance. How is there not a better system to get people... Especially in a place like...

Sorry, what were we going to say? I was going to say, this doesn't sound like a confession you're making. This just sounds like a good idea everyone would agree with. I just think it's a hole. It's a source, especially like Trader Sam's. But I'm saying this is not a controversial opinion to have.

It's a mess. This is just a good idea you have. Who would be mad? I don't know. I was having trouble coming up with one. I think they need to make the bars a little better in terms of getting you in there. And I'm surprised they haven't done it so far. This isn't good idea land.

This is confession land. This is confession land. It's confession land. We like your idea. I'm coming in soft because the first time we did this, I said sometimes I miss the original California Adventure and everyone was like you're a monster. That was crazy.

Alright. But that was not, see, now that you just walk up to stuff because there were no lines. Right. Sure. I wanted a little of that ease back. No one was queued up to do the tour of the Mission Tortilla Factory.

Yeah, I was the king of that place. That's what I would do, where I would just go and get it again. Like a water slide. Yeah, just loop around with tortillas. Mine's a little more Disney classicist, and I don't know how you guys will feel. I don't like the dole whips.

Oh, come on. Oh, boy. Wow. I had my first dole whip with you and Lindsay, and no, I didn't dig it. And maybe I need to do it again. Maybe I need to remind myself, but I don't know. I found it to be sort of like weird and watery and chintzy.

And after all the buildup, I just didn't. It was not the like grand, perfectly crafted, magical dessert that I might have imagined. I find it like the sort of syrupy, watery thing that the McDonald's soft serve comes in. It feels like what canned peaches comes in. It feels like what canned peaches sit in. It's like just the goo. It feels very canned food. I think if you

crunch the number, they charge like $4.50 for that thing. I think production costs of each Dole Whip have got to be $0.07. No more. Yeah, it's pure profit. You got the float or the regular one? Just the regular one? I think the regular one.

Okay. Yeah. I think that's right. Uh-huh. All right. But you responded sharply to that. Yeah. I mean, I love the Dole Whip.

For me, when I go to Disneyland, that's a sweet treat I've got my eye on. And then I got to try that at some point when I'm over in Adventureland. I'm turning off Twitter notifications the day this comes out scott's about to get his ass ripped out everyone ends up just being mad at sheridan for proposing having a more sensible view at bars like waiting bullshit we like the chaos nick uh you know if you get a dole whip at the disneyland hotel you can pay an extra markup and they'll pour a shot of rum on it for you. Whoa! How about that? I'm into that.

So you can go play Bloody Mortal Kombat and get hammered on rum Dole Whip. Which bar is this in the... It's like the coffee house. Oh, the coffee house. It's like yeah, just a quick little window at the Disneyland Hotel. Yeah, you gotta come down with... You gotta roll with us down there to get some of these

hacks, you know? I 100% – because the idea of making that boozy, I think that's the only way you can improve that thing. Yeah. Give it another shot, Scott. It is. I probably should. You know what else?

I think that the weight is so crazy and the fact that there is such – look, that is a congested area already in Adventureland. Like, to me, when I hit – when I'm heading into Adventureland trying to get an Indiana Jones Fast pass or something and it is just packed to the brim with strollers and then you run into that line that is super long and that bathroom is really crowded, that's the exact zone where I think oh, maybe we shouldn't have come today. The park is really crazy. So I think I'm associating it also with the crowd thing.

And maybe just overhype. I think it was presented as, you know, they have these pineapple things. But I don't know. It's like, I think Disneyland has incredible restaurants at this point. I really like Napa Rose. I really like Carthay Circle. So if you see a list that's like, but the number one is still the soft serve. I just don't, I think it's a little over built up.

Right. That's fair. It's not transcendent, but I think it's a very specific trait. As an adult, I noticed the artificial taste now. But then after a while you go, well, the artificial taste is good. Right. And then it just, whatever takes over. But that's, you're also, you love the sugary bullshit.

Oh yeah. I am a sugary. This is your granada word. Yes. I have, when we were, somebody asked just on twitter what our favorite beer at epcot was and i drank no beer in epcot i just drank colorful drinks that look like those vegas those slushy vegas booze drinks so like it would be like the rising sun in japan and it was just like a red cherry drink that you would get like it's just a slushy with a little booze in it. So yeah, no, I like artificial bullshit.

Yep. Yeah. My turn? Yeah. Okay. All right. I got two. I'll give the first one quick because I don't think it's going to be as controversial,

though some people might be upset. Another food one. Big turkey legs. Take a hike. I don't like no big turkey legs. I think they're gross, and I think they're – I feel like you're going to get sick when you eat them, and I feel like I don't like –

it feels perverse to see these people just walking around in these big hunks of meat, like these kids with these giant hunks of meat that are as big as their thighs, and then as you bite into it, it's like – there's like mid-rare turkey, like just a little bit. They're never thoroughly cooked, and it's just got to be the cheapest meat.

Like what you're talking about with the markup for the Dole Whip, I think it's the same sort of thing. I think they're getting those things for like $0.10 a pound, and they're selling them for a huge markup, and it's pure profit, but I think they're disgusting. You see some weird colors in those things. You really do. Some bizarre pinks and purples that are very unsettling.

Yeah, it's like Subway meat, but it's like on a bone. It's really gross. It's really low-grade meat. Jason's been oddly quiet during this. Look, I've put away some big turkey legs of my time. I think, I mean, some of those colors are part of the- Jason has the diet of a cartoon bear. Castle cake, Giant turkey legs.

I think people forget they're meant to be shared in terms of the size. Wow. How often are you sharing it? I don't get it that much. I think it's not one of my go-to's anymore. But at a certain point

it was. Oh yeah, around 11 or 12. Yeah, I'd put one of those babies away. I think they're for kids but maybe kids shouldn't be eating them. I would pay $100 for a photo of you at 11 with a giant turkey leg. We'll have to go through the archives and see if we can find that. I can't see Jason

behind the turkey legs. I've never had one. Yeah, I don't have one. I haven't either, I don't think. I think a turkey leg can be good if you get the leg at a Thanksgiving dinner that can be, you know, if you get a well cooked turkey, but the theme park

varietal, I would stay away from I was just going to say, I think this is not that controversial here, but I do think that is a big thing with a lot of people, there's a shirt there's a new shirt I just saw it's like turkey, it says turkey leg and you can get it Disney now. So it's so popular that they listed on the,

in the thing where you list like the, all the Jackson five, like Michael and Tito and Jermaine. Yeah. Oh, maybe that too. Yeah. Like churro and turkey leg as well.

Yeah. There might be multiple shirts referencing turkey leg. With like churro and Mickey ice cream bar. And yeah. So, so it's like a thing as much as we don't care i do think that like it pulled well enough in like surveys of like would you wear a shirt that uh proudly talked about eating a giant turkey leg and people like yeah i'm sure there

are people who love it i do remember on a fairly recent visit to disneyland i saw like a like a 30 something dude wearing like a nightmare before christ Christmas hoodie and then a Jack Sparrow like Mickey hat with like the dreadlocks and then carrying a big turkey leg. And he was having more fun than I'd ever had at Disneyland. Yeah, like pagan shit. Right, right. But so that's my one opinion. But my other one that I think will be a lot more controversial

and I think may even make me a pariah to the listeners podcast not into fireworks oh i think they're i think they create a uh they create bottlenecks throughout the park because people are craning their their heads up their necks up to look at at to gawk it at things or maybe if they don't have an ideal angle in addition to all people just just staking out various places to sit and stand and watch it i don't like that there's like they they've created that as a profit center for the park that like you can buy like a good seats to watch like the world of color or you can buy like a little picnic basket to watch it i i to me it's like that's that's not what's fun about a theme park is is finding some place to sit in and look at something i just like i want to like go on attractions and i don't like that it's positioned as this big thing at the end

of the day and i think it it just kind of it to me it disrupts the park way too much the the fact that this that this event exists so just to be clear when you say fireworks world of showcase or world of world of color jesus christ we've been recording for what feels like four hours now talking about the parking garage uh i've supplied you guys with your longest dullest episode uh world yeah so a world of color does not have does it have fireworks like you're saying any sort of show outdoor show a firework sort of thing no no i know i'm just saying so you said you didn't like fireworks I'm just your blanket saying sort of any of the live shows and like

phantasm doesn't really have fireworks but it has like pyro effects I may I may have been conflating them all under the sort of the sort of nighttime nighttime spectacular yeah I think that the whole nighttime

spectacular thing I'm not really into I understand they're for families I understand they're for kids but I just see so much of the park getting roped off when they're going to happen. And I just feel like there's such a disruption. And I

like, I'd like to, I'm fine with stumbling upon them. Like, I'm fine if fireworks are just happening, but I'd like it being a big to-do. I'm just not into it. I'll say... My one, and when we did this before, was like just shows and parades in general. And I forget if I threw fireworks into there, but yeah, I definitely agree.

But you know what? I'm glad they... The bad thing is that they create bottlenecks and bad crowd flow. Good thing is it eats up a lot of people, and that's a good time to hit rides. Right. You can get on Space Mountain. Sure. If you plan accordingly.

Last time we were there, we we were i don't know what i fell asleep at the wheel as far as planning but we kept running into shows and parades and it was very frustrating so i get that concern but i will say if the show or parade is right the disney magic i mean if we saw the main street electrical parade when it came back tremendous i mean it's so great to see that there's a certain i don't forget what the firework show is now um but there is one that there's one that was like during the 60th celebrated like all the movies and that one's like fine but then there's one that like is just about the theme parks so like sitting with everybody watching fireworks but then playing like haunted mansion and pirates of the caribbean and then like having these new projections they have on the castle i mean it's a

it's a magical time come on it's so good selling us in this like an uncle guilting us guys i like phantasmic but then that takes the boats out of commission for the night and riding the march wayne around at night. It is delightful. And that's I think that's a missed opportunity for that giant body of water at California Adventure. They never put any

boats on that. Add some real kinetic energy to that part of the park. That's a good idea. Yeah. And you don't like the Mark Twain repurposed

when all the characters are on it later too because that takes you out of the illusion that it's just from the turn of the century. I think it's a little disrespectful.

I think they're having a little too much fun for my taste we've got streamers down guys we've talked about it i think before on the show but jason has a certificate because he drove the mark twain oh yeah i got to captain the mark twain one time oh that's fun yeah his birthday it was great talking it was my three years ago yeah yeah when you were a child. Yeah. You were just like, you weren't really good at talking. You want to talk about a pig and shit. Turkey leg in one hand. Oh, yeah. I got to sign a guest book.

There's a guest book up there. Oh, man. Yeah. How about that? That's pretty great. The only way to improve it is if the Mark Twain was made of cake. We need you to drive it and eat it when you're drunk. That is 100% his dream tonight.

Oh, yeah. When he falls asleep. I don't think we're at the point where we have listeners who would do fan art yet. I don't think anybody's that committed or has the free time. You're calling for it, right? Calling the shot now. Somebody will draw it. I'm going to ask for this.

I want artwork of Jason driving the cake Mark Twain. This is my first request to the audience, if there is one. Maybe a bit ambitious to start with. I'll say if you want to put in all of the phantasmic characters also on the phone. No, no,

I'm not having that. Oh, wait, yeah, that's against your rights. All right, it'll add time anyway. Have you listened to nothing? Do you understand my whims or not? Yeah, all right. Fan art, it's time. I'm calling for... I like this part of the podcast arc

where it doesn't naturally happen. Oh, somebody did a drawing of me. I'm like, it starts now. Here's what it is. Get to work. I think that's good. I think that's... We haven't been aggressive

about anything else in our lives. And this time, now it's time for that. Now it's time to demand things. Damn it. All right.

Well, on that note, Nick Weiger, you survived Podcast The Ride. Thank you so much for being here. It was a blast. Thanks for three

and a half hours of fun. An Avatar Land weights worth. Anything you'd like to plug or direct people to if they made it? Hey, you know, check out Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We have new episodes every Thursday. I host it with my friend and previous guest of Podcast of the Ride, Mike Mitchell. So give that a listen if you like hearing two men talk

about food. I had a very funny realization earlier, which is if people listen to this but have not listened to Doughboys yet, they will spend a few minutes at the top of the show going, who is this guy Mitch? They're really ragging on him. The assumption that we know all his opinions.

At the same time, I find it... I guess he was on our show. I guess that's true. Yeah, yeah, true. But I also find it... I guess he was on our show. Yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah, yeah, true, yeah. But I also find it... I feel like probably a ton of our audience has to be Doughboy's fans already, and rightfully so. And thanks for...

Yeah, thanks for doing a little merger here. Of course. My pleasure. It was a blast. Hey, you can... Please rate us and subscribe on iTunes and give us comments and reviews. Yeah.

At Podcast The Ride on Twitter and Instagram. Anything else for this? And let's get that fan art going. Let's get the fan art. I mean, if we could have multiple people doing different art from different perspective, like everyone can bring their own art style to it, I think that would be great. Maybe there's a way to split up where somebody does just like the black and white and somebody else fills in the color. There's a way to ease the burden, I think. I'll also throw this in, cotton candy

smoke poofs coming out of the boat. Also, can we have on the dock, waiting for the boat's arrival, Scott Gairdner enjoying a dole whip? No, never. Thought bubble. I was wrong. I'm eating this and my own shit. And meanwhile, there is on, in a canoe,

is Mike Carlson with a thought bubble imagining the old cake castle that he missed so much. This is getting very elaborate. It'll be worth it when someone delivers. We're going to need to pay a commission soon enough. Yeah, we'll talk payment later. No, I don't know. We said all the things. So, yeah, just, hey, thanks for listening.

Hey, it was great. Next time.