Podcast: The Ride - Muppet*Vision 3D with Griffin Newman

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

Griffin Newman (The Tick, Blank Check podcast) joins us to talk about a beloved 3D spectacular, a less beloved TV show, and the devious Constantine. Note: listeners of this episode are required to buy a second set of headphones for Kermit The Frog. Knott's Bear-y Tales episode now on the Second Gate feed! 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

Hello, Forever Dog listeners. Before we get to today's episode, we have to tell you about a new must-listen podcast from Forever Dog called the American Arts and Culture Review. Since they were little kids, host Whitmer Thomas and Clay Tatum have shared one dream in common, to host an NPR style podcast reviewing the best in film, television, art, fashion, and jazz music. And now, at long last, with the help of a Casio keyboard and a one-man studio audience, Witt and Clay have finally achieved their goal. Sort of. The American Arts and Culture Review is like NPR for the end of the world,

a twisted and surreal journey through the week's most important works of art. If you're a fan of Hollywood Handbook, the podcast for laundry, or A Woman's Smile, you'll love the American Arts and Culture Review. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts new episodes every thursday forever dog warning the following podcast may contain a robot with a musket harrowing info about scott's childhood optometrist's office, and hopefully not an interruption from that devious star of many gifs, Constantine. Griffin Newman discusses foolishness we would like to see as we talk Muppet Vision 3D on Podcast The Ride, the podcast about theme parks hosted by three guys who

refer to getting laid as capturing the all spark i'm skype you're joined by jason sheridan and mike carlson i mean we're always talking about getting laid for one thing that's for sure i mean obviously we'd love to use that phrase in and of itself but yeah i well i refer to myself during intercourse as evac so yeah of course i'm gonna want the all spark i want to get the all spark if you know what i mean it makes total sense yeah mike carlson here life's all about getting that all spark um uh anyway and we and and today we are really happy to have i think a pretty stellar uh guest and topic combo uh let's introduce the guest part of that equation

uh you know him from the tick and from his podcast blank check it's griffin newman hello everybody hey hi thanks so much for being here guested guest yeah true when we've thrown out who would you like to hear and who's somebody in podcast world you think might be into this stuff your name has come up with a lot of likes uh well i dropped the line to you like many months ago yeah just being like i would love to do this whenever i'm in uh town next uh but i felt like i was getting a lot of requests from people to go on this we're not kidding and i was like i don't know what the interest is on their end but i certainly am gonna try yeah geez well thanks for making a point because you're out here

for uh for a little bit from the east coast and uh yeah thanks for making a point which was coupled into a disneyland trip so i'm like fresh off of yes a trip in the park off the takes hot piping hot takes what a chance how many people are forced to take a trip without having like an after show to go over their opinions on the trip and i don't like doing anything without an after show i think if chris hardwick has taught me anything and i model most things in life off of chris hardwick as we should we're all soldiers in the hardwicks army when it comes to capturing the allspark yeah you need advice yeah uh yeah yeah it feels like it's a good outlet because i was just like loading up on on things and even like we i got a walk off oh i was so excited where i was like it's a good outlet because i was just like loading up on on things and even like we i

got a walk off oh i was so excited where i was like i have a place where i can say this and it will mean something yeah oh yes explain your walk off got a walk off on astro blasters wow it was raining a lot okay so there was a lot of erratic behavior on a lot of the rides and especially like the rides that are more outdoor kept on shutting down because i was like constantly checking the app trying to see the lines on things so many things were temporarily closed didn't get to do radiator springs racers oh no because it would be like closed during the rain it would start up again there'd be like a three hour wait right like i'm gonna wait for it to die down and then it would start raining again and it never okay and a lot of like little uh because i ended up there were you there yesterday too then i was there no two days ago okay i was

there tuesday wednesday um yeah i did a little like rain trip with so crowds would be low which was great i had not done that that's a boy that's a tip If you can endure rain, because it wasn't that bad. It's not super windy or super cold, so it ended up being great. But I noticed a lot of the anything that's outdoor and that whips you around, like Gadget's Go Coaster or the Goofy Sky School. So you miss that kind of stuff. But those are acceptable losses. All of those I thought were skippable.

Radiator Springs, I had not done before right so i was kind of looking forward to and i was sort of trying to couch it with my girlfriend because i was like i complained enough about the cars franchise to her she's had to speak and listen to me speak too often about how much i don't think cars is great. Not even that I hate it, but I'm like, it's just so marginal. Divisive opinion. Exactly. That I just think it was like, I couldn't be like, and we really have to go on the cars ride. But I kept on being like, you know, people say it's pretty good.

So I guess we should go on it just for the sake of like thrownness. Oh, you had to like ease. You were like prepared for a hypocrisy argument or something. If you were too enthusiastic. Right, exactly. So I was just like waiting for the wait to be short enough and that that never happened but astro blaster seemed like one that wouldn't be affected by the weather we go on it we're halfway through and uh and then it and then it just stops abruptly wow and then they announced like please wait for employees to come, for cast members to come aid you. And the lights went up, and we were there for probably 12 or 15 minutes.

Did you rack up points while you were waiting? No. Oh. They wouldn't let you. Because that was my first thing. Really? I was like, I could be hitting the charts right now. Yeah, because then you get the photo at the end at least.

Right. At least I want to go off, you know, 9, 9, 9, 9, whatever. Yeah, yeah. But, no, it was like 15 minutes where want to go off, you know, 99999 or whatever. But no, it was like 15 minutes where all the lights were on. It was crazy when all the lights were on how much it just looks like a local carnival spook house or something. Yeah. There's so much like, you know, that's not like a super complex ride in terms of the actual structures itself.

It feels like most of the effort was put into like the game system so then when the lights go up you're like this is just like a bunch of like plywood cutouts and we stopped right in the room right after zerg so i was like we stopped in the zerg room i'd be like really studying zerg and i'd have something to look at the most like probably one of the more impressive components of it in a sort of a chintzy ride otherwise it was just a bunch of like non-moving uh cutouts and then they had to like it felt like a uh like a school um sort of fire drill where they waited and they let everyone out one by one they made us all line up against the wall and they had to march us out single file line and they were like everyone stay please and one guy and his i guess significant other was

trying to get a photo with all the robots so he kept on moving around in the line back and forth to be like excuse me i just need i'm all about these robots and was taking photos of him with the cutouts which aren't great photos right yeah the lighting must be terrible and the lighting is terrible and you're just like oh weird, weird. Those are like vents. Those are like lighting grids. Like all the things that are hidden by the black lighting. Yeah. It's just kind of a nondescript warehouse now.

Right. And also, if you never like, we're all so, we're all busy when we're going on that ride. If you like stop, if you weren't shooting and you just stopped, I'm just going to watch this time. Yeah. You'd be like, this is the lamest ride yeah ever made because if you go like between the game ones it's like i think men in black is probably more interesting as a ride as a space it's certainly toy story mania is doing a different thing uh but but is more visually engaging astro blasters really like got the advantage of being the first like shoot them up kind of one right yeah yeah

yeah so it didn't have to try as hard exactly right sure sure yeah yeah well it sounds like this walk-off is not like a this is not a thrilling one it was a sort of functional because i was like they might let us through like a weird back area we might see like an employee break room and instead they just marched us through the ride back through the main entrance it's something but when you said walk off my mind raced with all the possibilities i started like really like shaking with excitement yeah we got one free fast pass okay they like gave us a fast pass that we could use on anything else but not on radiator springs no because that's what we tried to do we were like tomorrow we'll go to californ California Adventure and we'll use it on either Radiator Springs or Guardians of the Galaxy.

And they were limited to the park. Just to go back to Disneyland. Oh, bummer. And Disneyland with rain was pretty fine and nothing had a crazy long wait. California Adventure has so few big ticket things that especially when one or two of them are shut down because of the rain, if Incredicoaster and Radiator Springs are are down then everything else goes so up i was yeah we did

not have as much luck nearly as much as in main disneyland yeah disneyland really like the rain it felt like a life hack like we had really figured something out and i was like i can't even imagine how much it's going to help us a California Adventure. And it didn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we ended up, there was a big stretch of just like, I split a corn dog with my friend in terrible, terrible storm. Hold on. That was the moment.

Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm describing this as a bad story. How does that work? Are you just passing it back and forth in bites? Are you dissecting it down the middle? That'd be one way of doing it. By length or by width?

Where were you splitting this? Wait, now I'm confused. Every other bite? No, no, no. Like kind of at the stick. So one of us took the sticked half and the other one took the non-sticked half. Okay. So you weren't sharing it like lovers just handing it back and

forth no no no taking a bite or lady in the camp style if you took it off the stick and each started on one end yes without the stick that's but with the stick somebody is choking somebody's small one stick sure um no uh yeah we just both agreed uh we only each wanted half of a corn dog we made it work but it was a weird sad like going to a restaurant that was barely open and getting hard silverware and then just leaving it out on a rainy trash can just did you mobile order to get it or did you wait uh we waited in a lack of weight okay yes we got it uh um yeah uh so it wouldn't have impacted us either way i suppose but uh um i'll i'll you'll get me on this mobile ordering train i will you mobile order at starbucks i've

seen you do it i know and i i did it and then i heard you murmuring to jason behind oh well now yeah like see he likes mobile ordering once again i'm not against doing it i was against doing it in the one scenario where we were 10 feet away from the actual place i was just didn't want to like figure i was walking i didn't want to uh uh no i know i just like i like the early adopt i like to be an early adopter as you know yeah i like to it's fun for me do you do you like mobile stuff did you do any of that at disney we did i i just did it to check the lines and everything. You didn't do MaxPass? We didn't, which I feel like maybe might have helped.

At California Adventure, it felt like it really would have been worth it. There may be, but not main Disneyland. But Disneyland, we had a pretty good run of it. The mobile ordering thing, I was a little scared to do. I mean, it also is that thing, sorry. That's okay. Where it's like, it never felt like ordering by mobile would have saved me time. This was my argument in the one case that I've been scolded for many times over. We were 10 feet away from the restaurant.

We ended up, we tied. We literally tied in the amount of time but then i said of course in the most smug way possible i didn't have to wait in line though like here's where i saw oh this is how this could be an advantage let's say the dole whip stand line is really long sure and you go okay cool i'm gonna place a mobile order while i'm in enchanted tiki room yes and when i come out it it's just there waiting for me. Certainly. I save time.

But otherwise, it was just like there's one person or no people there. Sure, yeah. I don't know if I'm going to time out correctly getting to the place. Maybe it'll be cold by the time I get there. If I'm standing six feet away, then it's just like me wrestling with the Wi-Fi. Mm-hmm. So the rain was spotty. You hear that argument for sanity?

He's saying one person in line, which I would say, yes, I would probably wait in line if there was one person in line. You're saying there's a hot ticket item. That's what I'm just saying. Sure. And I'm just saying it's fun. I'm just saying I like it and it's fun. That's all I'm saying.

Sometimes, too, you want to see the sample item. Like if you don't know what it's like, oh, what is that sample? Like what does that look like i yes that's true but they have like those weird they're like rubber versions of the food sometimes or sometimes they just prepare one and leave it out for eight hours well i'll tell you my biggest complaint i have with the food thing is i i get the app i'm saying oh this online you can order in advance, place a reservation, whatever. My girlfriend, the whole trip was Jones Inn for cheese fries.

And I was like, there has to be a place here where you can get cheese fries. But they don't let you search by item. Oh, yeah, I know. Which I think would be very valuable. If you could search, because so many of the little stands are like specialized to one or two things. Yeah, that's a good idea. And you're like, I want a hot dog, but like Golden Horseshoe might not have it. Let me search for that.

Then I would have 100% did it. And I was just there going like restaurant by restaurant, clicking on the menu. Yeah. Would this, and they seem to have chili cheese fries. And I guess I could probably ask for that. But it's unclear if you see that it's a burger place or a chicken finger place that still doesn't clue you in yes that still doesn't tell you is this the kind of place that would have cheese fries right did you find cheese fries we didn't and that's why i i come to you

guys and ask you can you think off the top of your head is there a place with cheese fries on the menu as soon as you said cheese fries my mind started racing and i said huh i don't think it seems so obvious and i was like is there enough like like burger spots and hot dog spots and i looked at some menus and it was like she was like look i don't know if this exists ideal i would love cheese waffle fries and the one in california venture the the bear what's the bear restaurant there or it's the other one that's like the aviation themed restaurant that's near smoke jumpers right so like they had waffle fries and then they had chili cheese fries but they were regular fries could you have i mean i think you could have asked

i think yeah like and that always feels like a little like you know i don't i don't know if like do you think it is a an okay thing to like go up to the stand at Disneyland and be like, hey, like off the menu is this like? Yeah, they do. They have gone into a little like secret menu items every now and then. And they are willing to customize, especially because there's so many allergen worries nowadays. So we're vegetarian or vegans. There are secret menu. There are mozzarella sticks

Secretly at Stage Door Cafe Right next to the Golden Horseshoe But that's not on the menu So there are a list of A few secret menu items Not cheese fries I don't think at least I've seen So I do think it's possible you could have gotten it At a different

I think you could have ordered the chili cheese fries And asked for it without the chili Yes The question was could we do like the double ninja move of being like i see you have regular chili cheese fries and plain waffle fries can we get your cheese on waffle fries but the gambit we took was at that point we pretty much done everything in california adventure we wanted to try to do another thing or two at disneyland proper it was our last night we were going to drive back to la that night and she was like let's abandon ship let's go to disneyland i don't want to be around here anymore radio springs is like too long and i was like i believe i can find us cheese fries at

disneyland and went to stage door and it was like the same thing where it was like not there. Yeah. And I kept on going to places where I thought like this might have it looking for similar menu items. I think the menus are more flexible than we realize. Because if you look like a lot of things are trick, like a kind of tricks, like they're tricking you into a value meal. But you can get everything on a cart. It just doesn't say that on the menu So there's a lot of

I think you might have taught that I didn't have to have Apple slices with the corn dog There was a lot of like Oh this place has burger and fries But it doesn't have fries as a side Right but I bet the side is a la carte It's not on the menu I think there's a lot of tricks to make you try to spend

Three or four4 more. Yeah. And if you just ask, I think we'll try next time. If you add a lot of cart fries, they would probably charge you a buck or two to add cheese to that. To add the cheese. But I'm sure you could do it. Let's try it. Let's figure it out. We're going to go soon.

I mean, this is you guys having the hometown advantage. Right. You're more confident in doing things like that. And I was like, this is not my place. I don't want to overstep. I'm a visitor. You don't know the culture here. I mean were you were not just a guest of the parks you were staying on site so they want to keep you happy for your vacation experience i don't want to order the incorrect thing and then

when i walk away they immediately call up disneyland hotel and go like this guy's a problem red alert like you're on watch yeah i, I know. That would have been bad. I think you'd have to do a lot. I do have to thank you. In operating on John Gotti rules, this was a great sign of respect that you tweeted at me and asked, what is the best ice cream option at California Adventure? And we kind of marginally fucked it up. No, I think you did all right.

Like you ordered. Because I said. Ice cream Gotti over here. Oh oh i don't want that nickname i don't want that let me take some greatest ice cream in the world all of the ice cream locations clara bells jeer delhi's uh gibson girl uh i said either a sunday from jeer delhiardelli or the ice cream bars that you can customize. Yeah. And you guys got the- We got a sundae at Claire Bell's.

You got the Oswald sundae. Yeah, I'm sure that's good. But that's fun because they use the frozen banana, chocolate bananas as ears. Yeah, you get that weird little sculptural sink that also looks like the pants of either Mickey or Minnie. Yes, they have matched up the concept of the kitchen, like everything in the kitchen sink with Mickey's pants. Yeah.

Or Minnie's skirt. Yeah. You took the pants home, right? Oh. Oh, Chris. So. Uh-oh. You could have at least brought them here.

I know. Jason would love to eat his ice cream out of pants every night. We were like looking. We were like, this is such a fun thing. I could put this in my bathroom. A little soap dish. I'm sure. What if this was your like jewelry

like like all the applications so then i went and i was like would you mind washing those out so we could take it home and the woman said we are not allowed to wash them but you can bring it to the bathroom and wash it yourself and the closest bathroom was a little bit of a walk so i was like walking with this thing that was covered with like chocolate syrup and residue like holding it out like this well that's weird sometimes they will there will be a disposable like bowl or container within that so you just throw that out and you were left they were not doing that and i also feel like a lot of restaurants because i'm a big guy we're like if for five extra dollars i can get the collectible glass i will get the collectible glass and i feel like a lot of these places like rainforest cafe or whatever they will say i'm gonna when you're ready to go

home give you a new one i'll give you a clean yes right yes you paid for the glass i'm not gonna make you take home this one that's got sprite lining on the inside although mike brought home a a bubblegum shrimp glass that was covered in sprite lining and crystal sugar yeah and you still haven't washed it to this day i think it's been washed and that's when you were in the car because i drove you back here and you were licking the glass in the car and that's before we realized it was non-alcoholic well i sort of realized it but i didn't want to say until we were on the show i sort of realized it when i then double checked when we were here we were like fairly early in our Day I went through the trouble of carrying

It through foot traffic to get to the Bathroom to wash it out which probably took a full Five minutes like I was taking paper Towels the one at the entrance Or the one over by the what's the It was that one Further down the street I guess Hollywood area yes oh it's by the

What's the not mural but it was Fake movie posters right It was near what we called the baby rave which that disney junior dance party there the bathroom's near there love that name so i was like standing there like wiping like i looked like a dad who was like trying to deal with a dirty diaper and i had like there was an imaginary baby in the pants yeah and i looked really like irritated i was trying to get like the syrup out of the cracks and i came out and i was like i did it and then we walked for another minute and i was like i don't want to carry this around we have another six hours i don't want to carry this around i think it's becoming abundantly clear why people suggest that you come on this podcast we're we're all on the same level i was saying um to to them before you

got here that i i had recently listened to your speed racer episode okay that is a movie i'm very fond of masterpiece yeah and and i was i i looked this up today because uh so the episode length on on your show is an hour and 58 minutes the movie itself itself is 2.15. So just 17 minutes shy of the runtime of the movie. We now, unfortunately, have gotten to the point where most episodes are longer than the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're well past that. Yeah, which will be no problem with this thing, because the movie is very short. Yeah, of course.

We've already surpassed it. Right, and this is a very brisk podcast. It's extremely, yeah, very box-running. talking about it will easily have already surpassed it but right and this is a very brisk podcast i asked if we could push this up and you were like well you know if it's a concern we could always keep it tight and it's like i'm not going on podcast the ride to do a 62 minute episode if i'm coming here i'm coming here to play like we're doing full-fledged i don't want to be in any sort of rush hey you know the dude hey also tell i know you gotta get out of your tongue but you you uh steer the ship if you need to leave but because obviously we and it's a good topic too we'll talk for as long as my luggage here and i'm leaving for the airport from this apartment tomorrow morning i'm here to record until all right um what was the thing i was going to say

about carrying around the thing uh oh well you i mean just you saying it's clear why why uh people wanted you to be on this podcast my my two uh friends ben and david who i do the podcast with i invoke like theme park stuff a lot and they just don't fucking get it yeah and i was trying to convince them because we've covered avatar and we're similarly kind of like similar to you mike like into like the weird world building of Avatar that no one actually loves. Right. Unless you get the sort of Stockholm syndrome that folks like you and I are susceptible to. Yeah.

Where like your ironic investigation into the marginalia makes you just love it. Yeah. Which is, I've answered this question before. A friend of ours was like, I've listened to a lot of this podcast. Do they like Avatar or not? And I was like, I've listened to a lot of this podcast. Do they like Avatar or not? And I was like, I don't know. I don't think we're clear anymore. Wait, have I gone on the record about this?

I have never seen Avatar from start to finish. I don't know if you're on the record. I have never seen it. That's like very mighty of you, Jason. No, it's not. You must Sivaco rise to the challenge. God damn it. I think that's what that means. it means i see you i can't remember it it's on demand a lot oh when i fly it's on i see it as an option on planes sometimes like if i'm watching movies on my ipad on like american airlines and i'm like this would be very funny to see avatar for the first time yeah on my like uh seven year old ipad screen it does

feel like every airline was like whatever they're asking for it's worth the money to get a 10-year licensing deal for avatar on every flight people are not gonna stop re-watching this thing because it is no matter what airline no matter matter what technology they have, Avatar is always an option. Avatar. And when I flew for Christmas, all the Mission Impossibles. And I'm like, well, I'm not opening the book I brought to read on the plane. Nice. Yeah.

Yeah. But I, well, what do you, where do you land? If you had to chart the Avatar appreciation. I mean, I like, I think I love it. But I also don't know that I would stand here and argue that it's great, but I also fight people who say that it's bad. Like, I feel like sometimes now people are like, you know, world's biggest avatar fan, like pointing over to me and I'm like, because I think it's like a pretty respectable, like

seven, you know? That makes you a go to the mat die hard. Right. Just because nobody is that right i'll admit like i don't know like the navi phrases like you do there are other things i've gone deeper into but i do feel this deep appreciation for i think just the functionality of the thing uh-huh i think it's a very functional movie which sounds sounds like a backhanded compliment. But it's like, that's just like Cameron showing you what he can do. I never watched the movie and go like, man, I really want to learn about this world.

But then when I went to the theme park, I was like, I get this. Like, this kind of works better as a sub land in a theme park than it does as a movie franchise. I mean, I think Cars is that way, too. Like, it's fun to walk around radiator springs more than it is to maybe sit down and watch a cars movie right and my my girlfriend has not seen any of the cars movies because of my searing hot they're okay takes but we were walking around radiator springs and she was like this is incredible and i was like yeah what you don't even understand is they're basing it off of very specific like the spatial relations between the buildings is exactly what it is in the movie and she was like

i don't care about any of that this just looks nice yeah and she just interpreted all as like this is like fun theming this is just a cool disneyland idea gotcha yeah yeah so it's almost like we're in this weird world where the movie is just part of the bits, one building block of a general universe that's been created. Maybe that's where Avatar has landed. We're like, yeah, do you like Avatar? Yeah, I like the theme park. I kind of like the movie Avatar. It's like not even the primary.

The theme park is good. And then the promise of the next five movies are what I really like. Yeah, I mean, I'm in love with that. I just I love how it feels like. park is good and then the promise of the next five movies are what i really like yeah i mean i'm i'm in love with that i just i love how it feels like someone made this joke on twitter but like cameron with the avatar sequels was just like uh the principal in breakfast club where he's challenging bender to how much detention he wants and like he announces i'm making two and three and everyone's like i don't know if we really want to see him he's like okay four like he just kept on doubling down the more people were like no one cares about this franchise anymore he just increased the threat and they're going to be giant

hits and i like i you can't bet against this maniac you can't and everyone's gonna like them when they come out five years later everyone's gonna go that sucked and 10. And everyone's going to like them when they come out. Five years later, everyone's going to go, that sucked. And 10 years after, everyone's going to go, it kind of rules, right? I mean, I feel like we're back in the period where everyone agrees that Titanic's the best. And I feel like there was that arc of just like, well, Titanic. And then everyone's like, Titanic's stupid. Like, why did we all fall for that? And now everyone's like, come back around to like, I guess it's like a modern classic. What a bizarre he makes these things that are these living organisms yeah their their appreciation

changes throughout time and their perceptions yeah right right yeah he i don't know what it is what magic that man has he's sounds from all the stories i've ever heard a maniac a crazy person yeah but like he always But he always wins. He always wins. He always wins. He always wins. Mike's going to be coming in. We're going to come in one day in a couple of years, and Mike's going to be wearing the Seed Bearer t-shirt.

Right? That's one of the movies. One of them is called the Seed Bearer. I mean, I'd rather wear a Navi Shaman of Songs shirt from the Orlando ride, because it's ride specific. But if the Seed Bearer ends up being on the ride somehow, yes, I will have a lot of Seed Bearer merch. I'd rather wear a Navi Shaman of Songs shirt from the Orlando ride because it's ride specific. But if the Seed Bearer ends up being on the ride somehow, yes, I will have a lot of Seed Bearer merch. Some of the Avatar merch from World of Pandora in Orlando looks very much like the wildlife t-shirts that kids would sell as fundraisers in school. Did anyone else ever encounter this?

You mean just like A shirt with a creepy panther on it. With a panda or dolphins. A dramatic oil painting of nature run amok. You would bring a thing home and show it to your parents and then they'd go, I guess you can get one of these.

And then you'd mark down what you want and bring in a check for $25 and it's just a scam it's just some book club where it was like oh but they have like rugrats bookmarks this month yeah and it's just to fleece your parents out of more money right it's nothing other than that or the um did you guys sell pizza kits these kit you would get up but like you would order okay it was like. These kits you would get a like you would order okay it was like a box you would place an order and then a month later you would have

to come and pick up or the kid you bought it from their family would have to bring this to you it was like a box and you open it up and it had like the crust and the sauce and the cheese and the pepperoni so you could make pizzas or garlic bread wow at home so but you were paying an insane yeah we they were big hits like yeah people would

sell them would you just sell them to like family local economy ran solely on pizza kits i don't even remember what we were fundraising for now that i'm saying this but i family or would you like be on the street corner my dad would take the orders to work oh yeah church uh we'd sell them to other people like other families like neighbors and stuff was it like a branded like it was like prego making these pizza kits or was this like a company that just sold those this is just the pizza kit company their one product is all the ingredients for pizza in one box because eventually because people would um in southeast pennsylvania a lot of fundraising is selling hershey bars it's selling like boxes like the candy out here there's that candy company um toblerone or i don't

know but i feel like that was a thing where it's like you're gonna buy a bulk box of candy bars and you sell them to raise money for the school or whatever but every so often someone be like i'm sick of doing the candy fundraisers let's up the ante with the pizza kits how big and heavy were these boxes incredibly big that's the thing because each one would make three pizzas work. Right. Because it feels like the whole idea is like, well, like one kid can very easily carry 50 Hershey bars.

Yes. Right. But like you could carry what, two pizza kits at a time? Yeah. They were the size of like those candy bar suitcase. Jeez. Each one was the size of one entire suitcase you wouldn't you wouldn't go around selling those you would just have an order form said they'd have to return to you and

then but then it would be like come up and pick pick up your boxes of pizza kits to then deliver to your customers if you had to take them around from place to place yeah but you know when you're like 11 or 12 you don't have a car, so your parents are just delivering pizza kits. It would be both easier and less cumbersome to deliver actual pizzas. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And more

tastier. Yeah. You make more money off of it. Better margins. Just go to a local branch, because that's another option. You go to like Little french because that's another option you go to like little caesars or dominoes or pizza hot and ready to load them up in the car but like you can arrange that like they can write that off on their tax and like the business and it's like okay did everyone go go order pizza friday night at this dominoes and we get like five percent of that night's orders i just want to circle back around 5% of that night's orders or something.

I just want to circle back around to the fact that we got into this topic with you saying, or you know, those pizza kits you sell as a kid. Well, the t-shirts. I've never heard that. I know 10 years worth of weird childhood stories from you and I've never heard that. So here's the thing. I was testing the water. The wildlife t-shirts, people got that.

People understood that. I was like, well, maybe I'll push my luck with the pizza kit. Yeah. Well, you're just more familiar because you have three pizza kit pizzas every week. Sure, yeah. And when you go into the office in the morning, you carry all your papers in a pizza kit. And not an out-of-shake case. Yeah.

How big was it compared to like a white castle crave case because a white castle crave case kind of like this size much better margins much better margins rankings snack briefcases what do you think this size was um okay like you know when you buy a poker kit like you buy the suitcase with the chips and cards and the chip holder yeah that's sort of that i'd say about that size and like the fold out like felt lined playing service sort of yeah yeah sort of i this is a side i'm we i don't have children we don't have children but when i think about having children i do think i'm gonna get so annoyed when it's like the kid brings home a form and it's like we have to sell 20 pizza kits and i'm like what the fuck like i don't want it what

you did because you you're an adult and you know they do not it's a made-up need it's not it's fake at a certain point my family did go like all all right, dad's going to sell half of these at work and then we're going to buy the rest. Like we're going to. Will you stockpile pizza kits? Yes. Stockpile pizza kits. And then we don't have to.

For the year. That's Friday night pizza night for a couple months. Wow. Wow. We got to get a picture of that. I got to find out what this looks like. I'm sure it's still in business here. I will say.

This grift that people were running on your Philadelphia area schools. We never thankfully sold popcorn tins. Well, that makes more sense to me than a pizza kit. Popcorn tins. That was a big, with the Boy Scouts, would sell popcorn tins. But we always just defaulted to the candy bars. Yeah. But in the wake of following the success of Avatars 2, 3, 4, and 5,

people will go around selling kits of Navi food. Do you know a name offhand? I can't remember. Yeah, I don't, because the Sole Canteen, I'm trying to think of, they don't really have

fun Avatar names. What's the name of that drink they have that's like the slushy boba tea drink with the little fruit burst bubbles? I should know that too. I so sorry because when i went to to world of pandora i i was like this is the best thing i've ever tasted went back for a second immediately the next day we went again to world of pandora wow got two of them so i had like four within the span of 24 hours and after the fourth one i felt so bad that I went and took a nap

in my friend's car in the parking lot. Oh, man. Jason. In like a tired dad. 80 degree weather. But I like had the sweats. I thought I was gonna vomit. Yeah, like I flew too close to the sun.

All right, it's called Joe Corby's. Since 1981, Joe Corby's Pizza Kit Fundraising. But the main results are Little Caesars Pizza Kit fundraising. So Little Caesars has gotten in on this racket. Wow. So a character who's eluded us up until now, Joe Corby. Joe Corby will appear on the Patreon as a character episode, I think. We will look into this Joe Corby character.

And the thing people love, it's like, oh, well, I'm going to order some of the cheese bread. Like the garlic cheese bread, which my mom hates garlic. But we were like, we really like that cheese bread. But then the whole house smelled like garlic for days because it's just so potent and greasy. Yeah. And you're just storing the raw ingredients. Yeah. Can we start a fundraiser on the podcast using Joe Corby's Pizza Kids?

I don't know who we raise money for. It's the fans getting pizzas to Jason. I'm going to run this by UCB to help with their financials. Oh, yeah, they need some money. It sounds like a better business strategy than whatever they've been doing for the last six years. Having your students sell

pizzas to the audience. It's now the UCB 5. Joe Corby. You're joining the good. Polar and Besser and Joe Corby. Joe Corby doing ASCAP. You're less of a ucb person yeah not so much yeah do you jason like find that you're in that position now where like

friends and family members who like know you do it but don't understand the structure are like hitting you up to be like can you please explain to me how this place is losing money like i think i keep getting that question that's like i don't understand this isn't that the place where you pay to perform i think my mother is so unclear to what was happening yeah she saw a herald once and she's oh yeah very nice like i don't think she i don't think it was like registered what we were doing or she because she was like oh so you like kind of talked about that stuff before and then i was like no what we were doing Yeah Cause she was like oh so you like kinda talked about that stuff before And then I was like no it's all improvised And she was like okay like skeptical still

Still doesn't know about Paying versus not paying I do like one thing at UCB a year maybe Maybe two and I'll end up Talking to my parents And then say oh yeah it was good you know I did this bit at the at the UCB theater.

And it's as if for those couple words, I started speaking Swedish or something. They cannot in like how long? Twelve, thirteen years. They cannot retain the words UCB theater. They will not stick in my parents brains. Which isn't a complaint. That's fine. I don't need them to know those words.

I guess like in New York, there was nothing like it before it happened like you didn't have sort of other comparable like you know io or groundlings or any of that so like ucb is like is like what band-aids are to adhesive strips oh it's like oh you're like doing comedy you know oh okay yeah it's that much like fundamentally now i feel like everyone's asking me like how is that possible don't they own comedy well i think new york is a much more theater centric town right maybe um i mean out out here and out here it's just everyone's just talking industry bullshit all the time so like i don't even know how much because there's glasses seem to be doing just fine but i think i mentioned it to my dad because like something came up in like

a flip or whatever news aggregator he was reading it came up or i was like or i did it preventatively i was like by the way if you if because every because he every now and then you know a news story will come up yeah and he's like oh it's all you guys you know where i'll send an article where we got written up or he saw like oh it's all wild horses gotta write up or something and um he i i think i was like by the way, if you see any articles about UCB. If you see anything written about that place where I've invested a decade of my life. Assuring you was a good strategy. This is going to pay out in some way.

Yeah. The actual doing shows, like, really doesn't affect any of this nonsense. Like, Brad, a past guest of the show brad evans and i were talking about like yeah this is we have shows to do this week like doesn't really have any crossover with like a poor questionable financial no it's the doors might not be open when we get there but that's it as long as they're open we'll do a show i'll say this not not trying to like take the steering wheel but i was saying to a friend like i was trying to explain to friends friend, I was at a comedy, but I'd seen a bunch of my shows over the years and knows when I was going through classes and everything about how crazy it

is, what's going on with the UCB. And she said, you know what needs to happen? Muppets need to put on a fundraiser. She was like, that's the clear answer. It's like, that's the model. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Muppets have to save the theater. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking On the topic of theaters that have a lot of trouble It's a little less exciting of trouble Than cannons And explosions But yeah you want to get into it Muppet Vision 3D

Probably one of my 10 favorite movies I don't doubt that that's true. I have that with theme park movies. It's a great film. It's a truly top to bottom

great film. Well, it's a great director. It is personally directed by Jim Henson and it's one of his final products on this earth.

Right, I mean, it's this and the Disney World special. I feel like they're the last two things he oversaw. He died 10 days after the Muppets Go to Walt Disney World aired. Wow. Geez.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, yeah, to that end, this thing, it truly, and we'll get into all of it, but it does feel to me like it's very important in Muppet history because it's maybe like the kind of the last hurrah, like the last great thing made by the original group. There's been good Muppet things since, but like the actual Henson's alive and everybody, all the original guys are around. It's very special for that reason. You know, he dies and Kermit's voice immediately changes along with other characters.

But it comes to such a clear demarcation point. i like steve whitmire's kermit i grew up with you know like that being the the voice that was making new shows and movies constantly so it wasn't as alien to me even though i was also obsessed with the muppet show i was watching all of it together right um but i feel like people are like oh it's the point where like he dies, Kermit starts sounding weird. And then the other thing is, it becomes an emphasis on, I think because now it's like his kids taking over

and they're like, I don't know, what do we do? Like put him in other people's stories? You know? Yeah. Well, I am a big fan. Every Christmas Eve, I watch Muppet Christmas Carol. It's a great movie. But Kermit is supporting cast at that.

Yeah. Like Bob Cratchit is supporting like cast. And the model changes. And it's like you have that in Treasure Island. And then even a lot of the stuff like they did, there was a VHS I used to watch. It was like a straight to video Disney movie called like Muppet Fairytale Theater or something. That was them doing like Three Little Pigs and all that sort of stuff. Okay, okay.

And then you have like Muppets Tonight, which is like, I don't know what what if like arsenio hosted the muppet show that would have been hip in 92 right and they do it in like 97 yeah yeah but there's a prince episode on that one which is really good that's great yeah and insane that it exists there's such little prince dude he never like hosted snl or was in a sketch on SNL, but he's in sketches with the Muppets. And that episode is so much about the symbol and the whole artist. Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. Known as Prince Bruja, which I didn't know who Prince was before watching that when it aired.

And when my father explained to me Prince, I was like, oh, and this is like the funny Muppet bit is that he can't use his own name. Right. Yeah. Because it sounded like a crazy Jim Henson concept yeah that a man's name becomes a symbol like in the world it was like the intricacies of like IP lawsuits yeah yeah and all it was all too yes you see son he's avoiding a Warner Brothers contract that he didn't want to sign I watched Muppets tonight every week when it was on i i watched it and i was so happy there was a regular muppets thing i think at that point um nickelodeon and nick at night it was one of those weird crossovers where they would show the muppet show in syndication on both because that's what i would

watch it every night on that so i'm so excited that like, oh, and now there's new Muppet stuff. And the host of Muppets Tonight, is it Clifford? It's Clifford. Clifford, yeah. Clifford, right. And he apparently in story, as I was reading about this, I didn't realize the joke is that he is the host because no one else wanted to host. Correct.

And Kermit's title of Muppets Tonight is producer. So Kermit takes the Lorne role. Right. On Muppets Tonight. It's a shot not situation. We're in the first episode of Muppets tonight. I forget who the guest is on the first one, but they realize, oh, the show's about to start and we don't have a host. And everyone starts leaving so that they don't get stuck with the job.

And Clifford's on the cell phone with his girlfriend. He's like putting in the time with his girlfriend to be like, no, baby, I still love you. And then he looks around, everyone's gone. He's like, well the time with his girlfriend to be like no baby i still love you and then he like looks around everyone's gone he's like well i guess i'm hosting yeah and clifford's whole kind of premise is that he's just sort of cool like he's he's sort of like a ryan seacrest where it's like this guy's appeal is that he doesn't really have a personality that he's just kind of genial and slick and and came out was not an original character for that came out of the jim henson hour right which is also where waldo yes was introduced i always thought waldo was an original character from muppet vision 3d he was not he was

around right and and bean bunny comes out of they did a special that was like a bunny themed thing. It was like an Easter special or something, but then they used Tim and Jim Henson hour as well. I mean, that's the other weird thing about Muppet Vision is it's like, it's the last pure Muppet thing, but it also features all these sort of like what Jim Henson was trying to make happen if he had stayed alive another 15 years. Sure. And maybe he could have more thoroughly

you felt like he was trying to push bean bunny up to like top tier yeah because bean bunny is is a big like uh uh emotional core of a muppet christmas carol too like he is a street urchin he is he is the uh what day is today boy right and he. And he's the protagonist of Muppet Vision, which is like a bold move. And apparently I found some interview with a behind the scenes person who said the initial Jim Henson pitch was almost entirely Bean Bunny. He was clearly going all in on Bean Bunny. Do you sense you don't like Bean maybe? Well, you know, I always loved Bean. Okay.

And I feel like I'm a small person. You know, and I was always the smallest kid in my class. Jason, I don't know if you can relate to this. Oh, for sure. But so I always was into the sort of scrappiness of Bean Bunny. You know, more so than Robin where it felt like the thing was like he's a kid. It was like Bean Bunny is trying to fight to sit at the adults' table. And A, they don't view him as an adult, and B, he can't reach the table.

It was both a maturity and a size thing. Bean Bunny 2 reminds me a lot of, we just had the Cranium Command episode with Buzzy, the protagonist of that. And Bean Bunny and Bzy both just trying their best like trying to which i always like i always like this sort of underdog thing now i feel like now reading stuff and even what i was like getting at the time when i was very young people were like bean bunny is like maybe the first tip-off sign of what's going to happen when disney has the muppets like bean bunny feels a little more disney than henson even though he was a henson character and it's because the the special account i forget what it's called but it's called like the the

bunny picnic or something is like very earnest and it's just like these adorable bunnies and everyone's like okay this is like you know it's like an emmet ot is like, you know, it's like an Emmett Otter. It's its own lane. It's not Muppets canon. Then they transfer Bean Bunny over. And the bit with Bean Bunny, aside from the fact that he's like the underdog and trying to be taken seriously, is that he's kind of like annoyingly cute. Yeah. Yeah. That's a component that doesn't really register with me at the end when he says, what a cute ending. Yeah. Like, okay, I guess if I was around other Muppets media at the time

where I guess his thing was that he called things cute, but that one you watch today many years later and like, I'm a little hazy on why this is happening or what the point of Bean Bunny was. Well, Bean Bunny feels both like a sort of Ewok-y, like let's make the cutest character we can that appeals to small children in the mainline muppets continuity but also henson trying to comment on those types of shoehorned in like cousin oliver scrappy do yeah oh and like cousin oliver he they like he like causes problems and get out of here and right right which all of those characters i always

loved like i was excited when a cousin oliver episode came on i didn't get why people shit on scrappy do like i always liked the little sort of like rambunctious troublemaker characters i see now why people don't like bean bunny and probably were more anti-bean bunny because they were like this is starting to look like they're priming him to be the guy you Huh. You know? Huh. People were upset, I feel like, when Elmo joined Sesame Street. Which I was always an Elmo guy. Was a phenomenon. Yes.

As opposed to Bean, which I feel like Bean did sputter. Was Bean in any of these new Muppet movies? I don't even remember. No, but I think Bean is more endearing than Walter. Well, Jason, of course. Let's have the Walter conversation. We're going to conversation uh walter but i guess we'll do it now is there any yeah is there any fondness for walter in this room i like walter but i also think it's

tough because walter's appeal is that he's a cypher you know and doesn't know yeah what am i what's the point of me like whistling is the point. We found out it was whistling. Right. And even I was like, you know, I like Walter's arc, but like, how are they going to fit him into Muppets Most Wanted? And I was like,

I still think he's like an enjoyable presence. I think he's a nice guy. I like his enthusiasm. I don't think they really did fit him into Muppets Most Wanted. He's in it, and they don't totally have like a plot function for him.

And there's a little bit of a weird status thing where you're like, well, he's like a fan. Like even if they let him into the group, he's not an equal stature with fozzy like he's not gonna feel comfortable when they there's the shot in in muppet vision 3d where they're they're standing in the black and it's it's fozzy kermit and gonzo and that may as well to me be like captain america iron man thor like Thor. Like these are the core guys. These are the guys.

Right. And that's the thing that keeps, not to jump around too much, but that is my thought. We're revisiting Muppet Vision 3D is how odd it is that through the 70s and 80s, it is, it's the main, I don't know if it's, you'd say three or four, I guess four with this biggie. I would argue it's like the Disney thing with like, here are the big five, here are like the main five. And Roger Rabbit comes and goes, but the primaries stay.

The four who are locked are like Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Piggy. And then I feel like usually the fifth default is Animal. Sure. Even though he's kind of- Though he's from the band, he's technically part of that group he exists more outside of the band because he's like the most popular but he's not part of the main unit and he's a small doses character but he's a muppet baby too right right animal over rolf well so rolf obviously popularity yeah i think rolf starts out. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think Rolf starts out as, like, clearly, because he was the original Muppet, and it

was, like, you know, Kermit, Fozzie. I would argue it was, like, Kermit, Fozzie, Piggy, Rolf, Scooter. And then, like, Gonzo starts to develop into being more of a guy. Gonzo knocks out Scooter. Scooter comes a little more functional, you know, than, like like a big five Kind of guy, and then I think Rolf sort of falls by the wayside Especially after Hansen dies, no one really knows What to do with Rolf

It's similar to the relegated role Of Grover in The Rise of Elmo, a little bit, but he's still around He's not not around, but Less prominent Rolf is a real casualty, I feel like I think so too Such a good character

and kind of almost like Kermit's early confidant, whereas Fozzie's sort of his confidant later. You get the sense that Rolf's kind of like... The fact that Rolf started out as Jimmy Dean commercials, that was the character he brought on late night shows. Once he establishes the whole Muppet family, Rolf still feels like the old timer. He feels like a guy who's one generation ahead of them yeah yeah and he's like investing less in it while

everyone else is freaking out backstage about the show rolf just kind of does his thing because he's been around you win some you lose some and like you know his role in the muppet movie is him explained to kermit like you know relationships they're a son of a bitch you know you're gonna go around the block a couple times but he's the music guy he's the he's the g.e smith right you know there's different stress with the cast members but he's just got a guitar to play right my job is the same week after hey i got i got a gig baby the show doesn't go on because it's ray show goes on because it's 11th and he just goes always happily except any reference to that line but that's the thing he's so much of a vibe character that i think he's it's so tied to the henson performance that when he's gone like no one else playing rolf pops i think there's one

really great rolf gag in the first seagull bobin movie where he's like why don't you say how including the montage how you you met up with me and it's him taking a nap in a hammock oh that's right that's so funny you want to come with us and he's like yeah sure and like I was like that's a good they identify what Rolf's vibe is right don't worry

nothing that's he'll never raise a stink he's mellow but I think Grover's a similar thing where it's like it's so tied to to Frank Oz that when frank oz stops doing sesame street fake grover doesn't click as much yeah yeah well that i was saying there's a bigger thing where in this like you said the odd stress of of bean and of waldo c graphic the spirit of 3d and thenizzo, who was around a lot in the 80s, but is less so now. I think Rizzo was dancing around

that five spot for a while. I think for a while, especially when he and Gonzo were like a comedy duo. I loved that. Rizzo's in the five. I found Bean Bunny endearing, but very early on in childhood,

I was like, Gonzo's my guy. Because he's weird and i'm a little weird yeah he's funny yeah he's funny i now as an adult i have no idea what uh gonzo's game is like i think it's just that he's weird and he wants he fucks the chick like it wasn't until i was older that's like that is the joke i mean that is the joke yeah he's got several games and they're all very complicated yeah yeah but he's a character and i have to say in this one i forgot like he he really he really pulls off that sweater

vest like he looks good in that sweater vest shirt combo and that's a hard look to pull off there's a mickey toy behind you that mike has here it's like suburban mickey and it's similar to that a guy we know a little more casual casual, or just seeing a guy in his work clothes, I kind of like. Yeah, he looks sharp. I have a plush of that also. Oh, really? From when I was 18 and went to M. Jim's, Hollywood Studios. Yeah, with the sweater vest.

So I got mixed feelings about sweater vest Gonzo. Okay. Because it's part of a phenomenon that was them trying to sort of gentrify Gonzo a little bit. You know, I think they tried to gonzo a little bit you know i think they tried to make him a little more like quirky than like thoroughly weird and so that was like part of the like we're gonna put him in like a checkered suit or we're gonna put him in a sweater vest and now he's kind of just like your wacky uncle right and he becomes a little more professional because the thing i always liked about classic gonzo was like he's on a totally

different wavelength than everyone else and everyone's like god be with you go out there fuck that chicken eat that tire like whatever it is and even like his formal wear when he isn't in his like daredevil sort of performing jumpsuit it's like this really shitty sad sack crumpled purple suit you know like he's a guy who like doesn't even know how to function in polite society they like domesticated they did domesticate the word that's true yeah he was like kind of craggier and more like crumpled up too yes yeah he does it does feel like an like an awkward like adolescent like prepubescent gonzo and then he like grew up and got a little handsome one of his early games too was that he was very sad likecent gonzo and then he like grew up and got a little handsome one of

one of his early games too was that he was very sad like early gonzo on the show he's a sad sad it's the saddest muppet song that he sings in the muppet movie yes i'm going to go back there someday it's just insanely sad and paul williams is like that's maybe the most personal song i've ever written like i get that guy there's a version i think of paul williams singing it with gonzo yeah it rules and it's awesome yeah really but he's high status in this very like guns all of gonzo stuff hits i mean a thing that i i recognize now but i really liked as a kid there's a lot of funny lines in muppet vision 3d and i think that's a thing that when when henson died they look like they're so in the pre-show when sam sam eagle yells like would you stop this foolishness god that says

what foolishness would you like to see and i just nails that that's sort of borscht belt vaudeville thing the muppets were always very tied to that they were very like old school entertainers i i feel like slips away a little bit post henson death and i think especially like you know they sort of pull out of the disney deal but they keep doing disney adjacent stuff without fully selling and i think everyone was trying to like domesticate the muppets in general like just play up the sort of like cuddliness and the sort of like they're they got great spirits over the sort of you know whereas they they grow out of like that you know they were they were weird and there was that other group that was on the first season of snl right and that was super weird like nobody really connects to that but then like the the muppet show

is a very strange comedy show. It's not like, I love Kermit and you hug him. It's just immersive hippies that are doing, like, a traditional show and movie. But, like, you can feel the, like, weirdness. You can feel their, like, counterculture stuff. And they're, like, broken out cast. Like, they're all sort of represent different kind of types archetypes and entertainment and showbiz history and they all don't fully succeed at what they're trying to be and so

all they got's each other and the stage and like that's it and then it becomes like you're gonna see them play the roles like you know it's it's they're doing treasure island or muppets tonight is like kind of a slicker show you know which i don't like as much it's a pretty good show within the world of the show it's just like cool music video here where let's all rap with coolio right and then nothing goes wrong which is what you want out of the such a difficult thing to do because frank oz is on like recently trashed all the new Muppet stuff again. Yeah. And like he's always like the writers don't understand the heart.

And I was like, I don't know. They probably don't understand like what you would do. But like, what are you supposed to do also? Like he's got a term he uses that I think is really good. And I don't agree with all of his trashings. I think he's right on about some things. i think other things he doesn't give enough credit and and you know he when disney finally bought the muppets uh they went to frank oz and said we want to bring you back and get the old school vibe back and he was starting to develop a movie that i don't think was like fast

track but they were working on it when siegel came in for a general meeting and was like I want the Muppets and they pushed Frank Oz out whoa he was gonna do the last like unmade Henson movie idea which was the cheapest Muppet movie ever right right and the premise is that they let Gonzo take control of a movie oh my god 10 minutes are the most expensive movie ever made. And the movie stops and they tell Gonzo they've run out of funding. And it's the Muppets having to improvise a movie for the rest of the runtime. That's so neat. And they recycle sets. Characters playing multiple parts. Trying to just get to the end of the script.

God, that's the kind of movie that if it came out when I was nine. Would have blown your mind. Yeah, I'd be talking about it every day. Right. Wow. Yeah, it's great because they tried with that Muppets show and it's basically like the office. That shows a nightmare. Okay.

Few things make me angrier than that show. We've got to talk about that because I never realized this. Muppet Vision is written by Bill Prady. Uh-huh. Who would go on to be the co-creator of that bad Muppet show and Big Bang Theory. Right, that's the thing. So when they announced that he was doing the ABC Muppet show,

everyone was like, they got some Big Bang Theory guy. And he came out and started pounding his chest. And he was like, I got the bonafides. I worked with Jim. I was a big Muppet guy. Trust me, I get it. And then you watch that show, and I don't know whether it was his intentions got muddled,

if the network came in with things, if he was trying to update it in the way he thought. But it was so maddening because they had just done two movies that fully reintroduced the iconography and the format of The Muppet Show. And it was like, it's on a plate for you. Just they got the theater back. It's in the narrative. Do a weekly show that's a variety show.

And it's the exact same thing with the exact same theater. Instead, it's Kermit is corny for a different pig. Like that was a storyline, Kermit. It's bad Larry Sanders is what it is. And the joke is that they're all kind of depressed in the office and fozzie's like the mono joke writer yeah or he's the sidekick gonzo is writing mono jokes and kermit's just sort of like the ripped torn character and he's broken up with piggy and you're like this show is just like their hearts not in it anymore like it's a show about the muppets not

enjoying putting on a show and there's a lot of like too sad like the stuff in the muppet movie is sad but it's sort of like deep heart sadness that we all experience whereas like the sadness in the seagull muppet movie yeah and then this show is all just like depressed, like just a vague depression, sadness for like, that's not enjoyable. And it doesn't like say anything and it doesn't speak to you. I think the sequel ones, they maybe try a little too hard to hit the Pixar right in the feels buttons. But I do think the area in which they're exploring the sadness is the same sort of like existential loneliness of these Muppets. And the idea of like, they got nowhere else to go if they don't got a show whereas like the abc show is just like now they've sort of just become cynical and jaded they're in showbiz and they're

forced harder than they are i just remember watching the first episode and there's a scene where it's like mockumentary fozzie turning to the camera and complaining about the traffic in la and i was like no one wants to see this this is for nobody this is for podcasters right to talk about yeah weird you know i can i talk a little bit about about steve whitmire because i uncovered a big treasure trove of stuff with him or not not a treasure trove it's a it's a trove of mud it's very upsetting fill into like what he did what his muppet yes so steve whitmire is is really an all-star of muppet vision 3d because there's such big performances such major performances from

rizzo especially in the pre-show. Bean Bunny is really the heart of it, as we said, and he's the 3D character, Walt Disney graphic. Really good in Muppet Vision 3D. Jim Henson dies after making Muppet Vision 3D. He takes over as Kermit. He's been Kermit ever since, up until a couple years ago. I didn't know it changed, but he got fired a few years ago,

and it is just a terrible situation between him and the Henson's. And they see some of what you're talking about, about how that show is so weird and depressive. Yeah. They seem to put some of that on him. First of all, they say Steve Whitmire. That he pushed Kermit to more of a sad sack vibe. Yeah. The quote is Steve's performance of Kermit has strayed far away from my father this is one of the henson's talking um from my father's good-hearted compassionate leader of

the muppets steve performed kermit as a bitter angry depressed victim worst of all in the last few years he had not been funny or fun recasting kermit is long overdue really harsh but then it keeps then he keeps going and he's talking about what his dad did and how what he had, there was a wry intelligence and a little bit of a naughtiness, but Kermit always loved everyone around and also loved a good prank. Did he?

No. I don't think that was ever a character element. I don't think so. But then also it seems like Whitmire did not like the ABC show, as we do not like it and He was in there going Kermit wouldn't do this I've been playing Kermit like he Was there was something where he lied to Robin

About who he was seeing Or something and that this Fight was apparently enough to be The catalyst for getting Whitmire out of there Well that's one of Frank's whole Big things is that he they're not list they Don't listen to the performers that was one Of whole big thing is that they don't listen to the performers. That was one of his big complaints is that the performers know better than a lot of the writers and they don't listen to them.

That's what he says. But it's also tough because you have like the performers are still inheriting other people's characters. Of course. And those characters become so rich because it's like they're doing them over years in different projects and they built up the sense of it. Now, I think most of those performers have really like grown up with these things studied these things live these things i like most of whitmire's kermit stuff i will say not setting my sources here but i've heard from from close people in proximity to this situation uh whitmire's wife was his manager and apparently at some point post disney still started saying like you're the mickey mouse like

anything you ask for they have to give you and so anytime there was any kermit thing he would demand two first class seats one for him and one for the puppet then he would go to the airport downgrade to business and pocket the cash no that's a great hack though by the way it's really good that's like you hear about the the bands who asked for like really nice red wine or something and then axl rose has like a full wine cellar yeah so they would give him a seat for the puppet correct this is a costanza move wow his wife was kind of like a lady mcbeth figure and that she was like you cannot ask for enough and then eventually they said right well this ties into another quote that i found so then i like uh now the site is offline but there was kind of like a

sub blog spot like you know whitmire's truth report essentially and uh and but and he says some stuff that does sound i don't know like this is interesting hearing all this because you see reading both sides of it i felt more on whitmire's side especially with stuff like this creatively i'm pretty down with whitmire's side of the story sure and then when i start hearing about the the business demands of things yeah yeah which is what they said they accused him of unacceptable business conduct and what you just said does seem to line up with that but uh so here's what he said about uh jim which is so there was apparently i mean it seems like to get muppet vision 3d going with disney uh and the deal in general that it was like a very strenuous difficult deal that was weighing on jim and the family and not really fully sewn up by the time they started filming the thing.

A lot of people kind of theorized that... The deal killed him. Yeah. Really? That's why I read that. Oh, God. I have not. The obvious thing is Jim Henson was a Christian scientist. When he got sick, he refused to see anybody. By the time he saw a doctor, it was too

late. He kind of made his own grave in that sense, but people say that the year or two that he was doing all the dizzy negotiations that he was thinking about selling that he was working on muppet vision all of that he like physically changed that he got so worn down by the thing and i think he kind of psychosomatically started dying well and think about what he was doing before that all All these oddball, like, labyrinth Jim Henson storyteller, the Jim Henson hour. Like, all these weird experimental. He served thoroughly following his own muse. Exactly.

Dog City. And he owned the thing. You know, I mean, it was kind of incredible that it was like he was able to carry these properties, this group of characters over different mediums. Yeah, really. Different bosses. But he always had control. He pointedly muppets take

manhattan was supposed to be the last thing he ever did with the muppets he was like i've said what i need to say that's why it ends with them getting married oh and that's when he starts doing like labyrinth dark crystal start building up the workshop i want to do stuff for other movies you know ninja turtles right yes so then like jim Henson hour is him kind of conceding and being like I guess I gotta give him a little bit of Kermit to do what I want oh we'll do a storyteller segment but it's also going to be hosted by Kermit and Fozzie and Gonzo that's what I was not really familiar with the Jim Henson hour too much and I was reminding myself because Waldo's in it and stuff and they he is pretty clear about like so half of the show will be in kermit world correct and the other half will be

this totally original thing so he's still trying to write that line jim henson presents it's a it's a platform it's a a space for me to experiment with whatever i want gotcha and even the muppet half of it's very like cold like it's like them running like a uhf station so there's one limited digital environment that's not nearly as expansive or creative as the storyteller world and the band is called cold foam is that right i think that's correct it's not the electric mayhem it's got clifford in it and it's got that's where he came from as a band member yeah so i think he's sort of in this zone where he's like, I guess the people want Muppets. Like, I can't be selfish.

I got to keep them going. Let's sell them to Disney. They know how to maintain characters. I'll remain involved creatively. This is like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. It is. It's very much like that.

He thought he had walked away, but the public is like, please, we love them. The Viewers universe is not closed. It's closed, and we say it's closed. But anyway, from this blog spot or whatever, from Whitmire, he says that he and another one

of the primary Muppet performers were having a lot of difficulty closing their contracts, and Jim was very much on their side. For Muppet Vision. For Muppet Vision, yeah. And he was really talking. lot of difficulty closing their contracts and jim was very much on their side for muppet vision for muppet vision yeah yeah and uh and he was really talking he jim is defending them and saying you know like these are my guys i picked them for a reason and disney said that's not somebody to his face whitmire says he saw this somebody says that's not how we do business if mickey one won't

do it for what we offer then we move on to mickey two right and we keep going down the line until somebody will do it for our price so day one of shooting muppet vision uh uh it's whitmire and one of the other guys deals have not closed several lawyers three attorney studio attorneys march onto the soundstage interrupt production and demand that those two sign their contracts immediately. And then Whitmire goes on to compare this to how the Henson family's treating him now. He says, did they tell me my business? Did Jim say your business conduct is unacceptable?

Did he accuse him of brinksmanship? Wow. A word that the Hensons used on him? No, Jim said, with everybody in view, looked at the attorneys square in the eye and slowly quietly said get off my set and never come back then he turned back to steve and and steve said i'm really sorry to have caused a problem especially on this big day for you the first day of disney and he said jim said i would never want you to sign a deal that you're not comfortable and then he died and then he died no but it does feel like that was like he was living in this sort of business world you know a very structured sort of franchise

driven business world that he had avoided yeah like mucho famously no network would pick it up and he went to like lord lou grade who put up all the money and it was sold in syndication has anyone ever seen footage of Lord Lou grade? Looks incredible. Oh my God. Yeah. He's like a crazy, like prosthetic character.

He's like, if you like, Hey, can you do like a Orson Welles impression? And then somebody did too far. Orson Welles in the Muppet movie. I believe his character's name is Lou Lord. And he's the studio exec who gives them oh my god the rich and famous contract

oh right that's and that's why it's similar character right because he's like this is the orson wells of my life like this man has that sort of weight i mean this is a wild luke and he's just very british really he's like hitchcock is what he is oh yeah yeah but he yeah i think you know henson had always found these very generous sort of benefactors who believed in him and then from that point on he could sort of write his own checks or just go to a place and go here are the terms you know i want to do a movie you just give me the money and you get a muppet movie okay and and i think having to deal with to use the lingo like a place like disney where they uh he views the muppets as face characters they are very tied to these performers right yeah and to them they're like doesn't matter who's doing the hand doesn't

matter who's doing the voice can't we dub it in later you know that sort of thing i said it before it is like what george lucas is going through right now yes like george lucas going nuts because he thought he was selling to disney and they're going to kind of do his ideas and he'll be around and help out a little bit and it's like they were like get get the fuck out of here george we don't give a shit about what you think and he's like obviously cranky about it and he's had to be scolded by them you kind of have to imagine i mean if he had closed the disney deal they would have done a similar thing to henson and it probably would have been tragic you know yeah he would have had the

same he would have what did lucas called disney white slavers on charlie rose which is inappropriate of course but yes and charlie rose laughed yeah yeah that's what happened oh my god so clever yeah is anyone else like oddly uh sad upset forlorn ever since you dropped the news that you think it's the deal that killed him yeah i feel like this is like the most like vulnerable i've felt on the show this is so upsetting i mean realizing that is what's happening with did you say forlne? For Lorne. Oh, for Lorne. I thought you said for Lorne. Michael's the great man. Let's make sure this is good for Lorne. In case Lorne listens to this podcast.

When I say my prayers at night before bedtime, it's like, please just give Lorne strength. And when I go up to the plate with my bat ready to hit a homer, I point to the bleachers and I say, this is for Lorne. You know wherever 30 rock is yeah no i i've heard that before so i my sadness about it is already no it's really striking me

and just realizing and not only not just to say it's like it's the star wars syndrome but this is the syndrome in a lot of things and it's the sad side of IP and things and everybody going, no, Harrison Ford is not what's important about Indiana Jones. Get out of here. And I'm like, no, I don't think that's right.

I disagree. And nobody, and it's like, like, no, you're just a nerd complainer. Well, content,

but I don't think I am. I think I just like the stuff. I like the way it is. Yeah. It all depends on, cause this is is so tough because there's versions of characters like new versions like adam's family movies new versions of those characters totally different actors yeah good pretty good movies true and and that people like and there's other like the new whether some people like star trek jj whatever but you but you also go i mean there's the weird thing of like with the adam's family it's like it was a comic first like it was the strip so everyone is just doing their

take on the drawings it's like the muppets though especially because they're they this i take on it they look exactly the same yes so it's like as if any like as if leonard nemo it looked like leonard nemo but the voice was different and he acted a little different it's like hard to do that like you can't reinvent that as easy I also think the other thing with the Muppets is it's like when you see people playing the three stooges

you know or like the Marx Brothers or something it's like yes these were characters you can dress people up like them they can do the voices they weren't playing themselves. But also it's like a thing that was developed in multiple mediums for years and years and years where it was just in the bones for these guys. Sure. And you go like Kermit was on like local TV before he became like a commercial star to then being like a guest on like Ed Sullivan.

Yeah. a guest on like ed sullivan like there was so much evolution with like henson working that out and the way that all these guys did like the vaudeville circuit before they got movies or even just letterman and carson's career trajectory where they're like going on to bigger and bigger hosting yeah right but it's like you spend a lifetime just honing this sort of thing what what the energy is and what the rhythm is and all of that. It is like somebody taking over Johnny Carson's skin versus taking over Mr. Spock.

It's like if Leno did Carson. If he took off for the Tonight Show and was like and of course I will wear the Carson wig and say weird and wild stuff. It's different but they're both fictional characters but it's different it's different Spock is an easier just put the ears on somebody and he can do his own take on it yeah but for whatever

reason Kermit is so developed as a human as a character as a person also the fact that it is like it's like if George Lucas also played Luke Skywalker you know yeah right right yeah that's an extra thing, too. I know that Walt voiced Mickey Mouse, but I never felt like he was very territorial about that. He probably did it because he didn't want to pay another person $10. Yeah, you're right. And he very quickly let other people voice Mickey Mouse.

And I think Kermit really became Henson. And I think it's just like you lose the voice and the guy who's writing everything and the heart of the thing and the technician. Like, you can't do. OK, I don't mean to be like there can't be a new. And like I said, I've liked Steve Whitmire.

There's there's been good Muppet stuff in the last couple of decades. But you can't say, no, not the cast. And we don't want their ideas and we don't and frank oz get out of here and even a new person who has the recognizes what the spirit of the old ones was no we don't want that either and like you can't say no to all of it and this i i think that it's i'm starting to realize like why is the why have the muppets been so messy ever since muppet vision 3d and it's it's everything And it's everything we're talking about. I don't know what is the source.

Clearly, Disney is a problem. Which is ironic because Muppet Vision 3D, which has eluded us mostly so far, is really good. It's so good. It's good. And I think there's a moment in this that I think, like, epitomizes what I like about the Muppets. And it's that moment when they're standing in all black. Also, side note, the band in Jim Henson Hour was called Solid Foam. Not Cold Foam.

Solid Foam. Which I think is a joke, but we'll come back to that. It's a conundrum. So it's Fozzie and Kermit and gonzo standing in the black and kermit yells hey sam and sam eagle like sticks his head or he opens a door in the black this is the black void door a black void door and he said he asked him like is the finale ready and he goes like yes it's a glorious three-hour finale and kermit goes you got a minute and a half and sam like goes and like slams the door his gasp is so funny his gas is so funny a minute and a half and sam like goes and like slams the door his gasp is

so funny his gas is so funny the minute and a half is so funny the other thing is i and i watched this a few times this one sequence like i think the puppeteer didn't quite get the door open with sam i think he gets it open halfway and then gets it all the way but they use that take yeah oh interesting i don't know messy yeah so it looks a little messy and it could have been a conscious choice it could have just been like well no one's gonna notice that in the long run but i think he was one of those guys where it was like about the feeling above all else if the performance is good you want to keep that like as much as he tried to advance stuff technically that wasn't the end game like he never went up his own lucas

butt you know yeah right yeah but you talk about the messiness post henson and it is a thing where like they never had someone who was so clearly steering the ship after he died like there's no kevin feige there's no kathleen kennedy like brian henson sore takes over as default but it wasn't like he was the head writer you know I want to keep up my dad's legacy then they sell this weird German company and then even at Disney it's not like there's someone protecting the Muppet brand they sort of go

like anyone got anything they want to do with the Muppets and they hand it over to whoever like any idiot in a meeting like that you could just and we do have the Muppets remember like weird weird why how why is it so just like whatever would no one has any ideas well all of the franchises are running into this of like like well who's like kevin feige is like a one in a million he's like

kind of got a clear thing but like he's like louis b mayor like there literally hasn't been a guy like exactly but like star wars seems a little on rocky ground right now certainly the universal dark universe like was dead it's over i don't know where i think that thing's going pretty well one movie and it's over maybe maybe it's gonna come back and then like you just read i'm sorry to side tangent did you guys read that piece on how like Universal had given up on the Dark Universe and how which one? Kurtzman had like asked Universal to build like all these offices that were like decorated with giant sculptures of the monsters and artwork and murals.

And now they're just empty. And they have like a whole floor of offices that are all monster themed with like the memorabilia and creative artwork and all this stuff. And they're just like no one's in there. It's just an empty floor. Well, that's a friend of the show and rabble rouser Jack Allison is pointing out like so many companies that are having financial, funny or die or UCV. They just keep buying bigger buildings or running just don't do don't do that the regular office or like a fucking we work is fine well it's also the universal monster thing drives me crazy i'm just gonna say this very quickly because i say it

any chance i get it is such a slam dunk that universal who pretty much has jason blum in-house just goes jason blum here's 40 million dollars make five monster movies yeah make them at the same budget level you do get interesting talent make them actually scary right instead they opened with like an annie lebowitz shoot like a photo shoot of like here's the stars here's all it's so much before the horse because everyone's just pan everyone's just panicking like the marvel there's 20 marvel movies and they're all make money okay we got 20 movies here we go uh johnny depp uh what is the javier bardem right angelina jolie these are the movies and then the first one eats shit yeah it's so and it was also tom cruise one yeah it's the one it's the guy we all like but but like he kept on doing these interviews where he was like

you know the tricky thing is they're horror movies but if you're gonna make temples they can't be horror films so we have to figure out how to adapt them to adventure films it's not fucking true because like fucking get out outgrossed yeah the mummy you know so like make them actually scary. And let them be like, I like your thought about them being a little lower budget because all those original movies that still, you could show a kid now, old Frankenstein or Dracula,

and it would affect them. And they're weird and slow. The story of the thing has to be the monster. Hire a good atmospheric director. Get good actors to be the monster like hire a good atmospheric director you know get good actors to play the humans sure like the thing is just give me like a good monster design you know and an interesting vibe and all of that i'll say this too i mean i i it's just me bring back fraser bring back brendan fraser let's get let's reboot that mummy i thought you were suggesting that you bring fraser but like i watched i watched like the first 20 30 minutes of the the tom cruise mummy movie yeah

and i was a little stoned and normally i like everything when i'm stoned and i was just like what the fuck like they found a bunch of sarcophaguses under London. It's like, it's the mummy. Start in Egypt. Are you insane? What's wrong with you? I haven't seen it. Does he become a mummy? That's the ending. He's the mummy, right? It takes a movie to get there. He dies.

He falls out of a plane, dies, wakes up in a body bag. Sorry, spoilers for everyone here. Spoilers for this two year old turd. Unpopular film. Is he a bandaged mummy at the end of it? His eyes turn a weird color. He's handsome

57 year old mummy. He's not a. You want a fucking guy with bandages. You want the bandages. Yeah you want the bandages. And a skeleton face if it was revealed. Can't anything have the thing that's in the title be in the first 10 minutes of the movie look how much people love spider-man spider-verse right and that's the thing i liked about it the most here we go spider-man go i get it you don't need to

which was sort of my thing i don't i'm not a big hater of the of the seagull muppets uh but i do not like them a lot i actually don't like i like that film a lot i think it gets better okay yeah um my feeling was like uh all right the pieces are back together now can we be off to the races and have fun which i guess they did and it's up to the viewer is was that fun or not for me it was not terribly fun i found it murky and i still didn't really want to be in this russian prison like right the t-up was do a new muppet show like that's a perfect for the time we live in a kind of thing like because the most success weirdly disney has had with any muppet stuff since buying them is like when they do like oh it's like the muppets singing bohemian rhapsody yeah and it's like put that in the context of a variety show sure where you have musical sections and and sketches and

things like that you can have excerpt this is a sorry quick little side issue this is a thing i've i i think this overlaps with my opinion about will ferrell at this point like do these things have to live as movies sure because clearly people love will ferrell when he's on a talk show yeah or hosts snl or doing some short form or some oddity like the stuff he does with funnier day uh uh the muppets people if they show up on snl or a talk show in some small or those viral videos yeah those are all still extremely successful do all of do the things that we let do we have to force these giant tentpole situations i don't need the muppets to be like crown jewels in the disney kingdom but i think what you need is one clear creative head yeah

who's like whether it's something in the theme park whether it's having them on a talk show whether we're doing a short form this or that you want like one person who's like a comedy writer yeah who's like keyed into their voices and is like i'm overseeing that all this stuff isn't dumb are you pitching yourself for this job this is like my dream job but i also think like i was gonna say when i sit down and i go like pie in the sky if you could do anything in your career, what would it be? And I'd be like, oh, I'd love to create, like, the new Muppets. Like, I'd love to just, like, create a world and cast characters like that. Shabby Time Murders.

Got it. Right. You know, unfortunately, I was replaced two days into filming. They took the film in a very different direction. Replaced by Brian Henson. That was great. replaced by brian yes no but but i do think it's one of those things where you kind of couldn't do it today in the same way because it would be front loaded it would be like the goal is to make characters that could last for 50 years and bring in this much in merchandising you know per year

and the fact that it was like so homegrown and evolved slowly over time. Organic, I'd say. Yeah. Yeah. The best, real quick, the best, this is another theme park thing. We'll eventually talk about this actual film, I think. But the best thing in the Muppets in the last 10 to 15 years for me is the show in Orlando that they do. The great moments in history. That's what I've heard.

And it's so great. It's like 10 minutes long it's put they come out it's funny it's all the same it's great it's like that's the pure that's the most pure they've felt to me in years do we know who's responsible for that we do that guy we met at knots oh i met him you met him yeah oh cool so it's like it's like a theme park guy wrote that and not like a comedy person i mean i'm not sure how many people work he was just one of the main imagineers on it so i don't know who if he actually wrote that i forget did he write the scripts well we have to go find him and interview him ask um but there's five

different shows they do too so it's like that changes from yeah the show is changing like they they show up different places in Liberty Square So sometimes They're in different windows and sometimes It's a whole different narrative it's it's so Great isn't there like a rumor going Around they might do something like that At the sort of threshold point of

Galaxy's Edge to slow Down foot traffic from a Muppets thing yeah to do a Muppet like elevated window show like that because you because it's right that is right where muppet vision used to be in california adventure uh-huh that weird abandoned now here's uh we're constantly screening trailers for the nutcracker you were saying a show in california venture as well i've heard both because i'm i was thinking you were talking about because there is a I've heard from Jim and Len Jim Hill and Testa

You're familiar I used to read Jim Hill media a lot in high school Of course I can't believe I ever hear that phrase from anyone That I'm talking to today So there were other high schoolers Staying inside and checking Jim Hill media

Thank god Because the rumor I've heard is that they're going to do it to kind of entertain people in line for Galaxy's Edge in Hollywood Studios. The people who are waiting there to try to get through the gates. Right.

And they're waiting there for six, seven, eight hours. At least they'll be entertained. Not Disneyland. That's not on the cards for Disneyland. No, but I think maybe you're saying also

there was a rumor over in California Adventure they were going to do it. Maybe. I did hear something about like a new Muppet thing floated, but I feel like that's, I haven't heard it in so long. I don't think it's going to happen. You died, Muppet Adventure 3D kind of died a slow, painful death in California Adventure. It took so long to get it over there in the first place.

It's so stupid that it kind of like fizzled out. So like 2014, it became like the Frozen sing-along show. And then after that, it was just like either the Pixar shorts or like movie pre... I think it's literally now like Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Like it's a trailer showcase. Permanently Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Permanently Nutcracker and the Four Realms. I mean, we all love the Nutcracker and all his realms.

How would you guys Rank the realms If you had to Power rank the realms It's like choosing A favorite child Yeah good point I like the gumdrop realm The best

Yeah I assume that's all Candy based Spread sounds like a realm Yes But it didn't open On California Adventure Until like 01

Well it was an opening day Attraction Okay But the rumor was always That it was an opening day attraction okay yeah okay yeah but the whole the rumor was always that it this it was a big hit out of the gate at disney mgm studios we got to get it to disneyland and the rumor was always that it would replace great moments with mr lincoln right we've covered some of this here and there i i completely think it should have been done yeah like it wouldn't be gone by now that would be like a weird hole and maybe you could have brought back lincoln by now but for sure in that time like

because then it just you know you wait 10 years put it in the other park with by the way into by the way a shittier looking building yes i think that brick building where you see it in mg and disney it's one of the best things you got going for it. It's such a wonderful place. And quick little side detail. When I was growing up there in Thousand Oaks, California, there was the optometrist's office where I had to go as a kid and get my like eye drops and vision checked and stuff. And the optometrist's office was this big brick building that to me looked like the muppet vision 3d building and it made me want to go get eye drops and go to the eye doctor it was like an otherwise very unpleasant experience i was like oh i get to

go to that building that reminds me of muppet there was nothing fun inside no no no no of course you have to get your eyes dilated it's one of the worst i hate that still to this day oh i find it very satisfying like a hip and a band-aid i was something nice about it i know like and then you get the glasses which are kind of like 3d glasses the eye doctor glasses that's how you worked your way into like enjoying the the eye test yeah yeah this feels adjacent but that's how passionate i am about that i think that muppet vision building is so nice and then anyway my point was it gets out here does it go into the grand beautiful main street opera house no it goes into some junky square building the low the sign is worse yeah it's just kind of slapdash paint everywhere

they probably the justification being uh uh you know it's muppets they just threw it together but it's still it looks cheap and bad it looks like a bad 90s soundstage like it doesn't even have like a classical old-timey hollywood architecture that whole corner of the park like especially in the early versions of of california adventure um was like a very watered down mgm studios right and and even had a lot of the same sort of font and signage and stuff and then it's just kind of like morphed and mutated over the years like they've they've had big plans that have been scrapped or like oh the budget didn't show up and that sort of thing. But like, yeah, now that theater is just kind of,

yeah, like you said, nutcracker in the four realms. It's so depressing. And it really is just like, you can tell it's designed for something. Yes, and that little store, that little stand next to it used to be all Muppet stuff. Yeah, I know.

Like fun Muppet merch. Which even, I went to MGM Studios last fall and i was so excited to buy some muppet merch it's low that store has maybe one wall of like four plushes it sucks it's mostly jack skellington that store yeah it sucks 10 11 years ago filled with muppet stuff yeah like i got a shirt with just beaker's head on it and i always get compliments on it like all i want the problem of course i like i i'd love to i blaming disney's easy but the problem is i'm sure that most tourists go in there and are more likely to buy a jack skellington doll i know the numbers back it up like on quest there's a reason why they do that

but it still feels disrespectful i agree but i wish the thing's still called like muppet stuff or whatever yeah and the fountain i was like the fountain outside and that whole area used to be called the muppets courtyard it is now called grand avenue and they're sort of like a tapas-y microbrewery sort of thing which is one of the ways they'll placate the masses while they wait uh in six hour. And Pizza Rizzo's a fucking disaster. That place is an upfront. Well, not necessarily us. Yeah, this has come up on the show before, and in fact,

I don't know what the timing, but if you're interested in the further dissection of Pizza Rizzo, subscribe to our Patreon. Have you recorded a Pizza Rizzo episode? No, not officially. We will, but it's a subject of debatezo episode? No, not officially. We will. But it's a subject of debate because it was trashed on this show by Mike.

I trashed it. Our friend Doug Jones sat and stewed at home listening and recently came on the show and defended. And he was mad at me because he was there in Florida and he texted me a picture of him in front of Pizza Rizzo and he said, Pizza Rizzo is good. And I said, oh, like, she kind of gave a response or something a couple lines or whatever and i think i disrespected him by that doing that and then he came on the show and you'll hear it yeah that's pizza gatti is not pizza rizzo gatti yeah so so he came on to

take me to task about pizza rizzo and he's very passionate about it so i'm gonna say doug jones come at me the pizza is garbage and the theming is in the front here's what i how do you not do like a pizza down the line the pizza rev or or yes all these places down the line pick what you want make your own pizza how do you not do that pizza like and they yeah although they put that in now in downtown disney out here like the viennapoli where you could just get slices to go now it's like that sort of chipotle like make your own miniature pizza so okay i gotta try that because i'm a little skeptical i feel like it's like cafeteria like heat lamp like it's just their box and they pull it i didn't eat it to be fair so i don't even want to after what doug and i got into i don't even want to

say anything if i'm not informed. Because he pointed out there's a room, and you'll hear this if you go to the Patreon episode. There's a room upstairs with a disco ball. And I did miss that room. I think we didn't go upstairs when I went there. But I thoroughly explored the downstairs and saw nothing that made me feel good. I agree with you. But I'm saying I have to now go back to Pizza Rizzo and when I go,

I will do probably an official review with Doug of Pizza Rizzo. I'd also like to tease that if you go check out this episode, we also get a ruling on Pizza Rizzo from someone who works in the Jim Henson Creature Shop and I don't want to say either way which way they go about it,

but let this be a, an enticement to go. I'm not sure if it'll be out yet or not, but go check it. Pizza looks like the 1996 theme park pizza. It's so bad. And I also, that,

that pizza planet was always so disappointing. Oh yeah. I was like, I have no problem with them replacing that in the hopes that maybe they build a proper pizza plant somewhere else. It's nice that there'll be a Muppet restaurant there. At least it seems like they're affirming their commitment to the Muppets. You know, Rizzo's gotten a short stick in recent memory. He's barely represented in the Seagull movies.

I love pizza. Give it to me. And I talked my whole group into, we must eat lunch at Pizza Rizzo. Which is funny because Mama melrose around the corner is good like it's my family loves it we always have a good we have to support the muppets especially after this poor showing at the gift shop we need to show them that there's interest in muppet theme right does anybody does everybody know that there was an alternate there was a world where in a bigger muppet area that space was going to be something called,

there's a concept art that I'm looking at right now where that's, that very building is labeled the Swedish chef's video cooking school. Oh my God. And there's a giant balloon of his big head on the top. It was going to be a whole land, right? The part of the land where there was going to be like a whole big ride. And I feel like we've,

we can't even get into it in this one. But if the listeners don't know Muppet studios, Muppet, There was going to be like a whole big ride. I feel like we can't even get into it in this one. But if the listeners don't know, Muppet Studios. This is the most disappointing thing of all. The Muppet Vision 3D was to be but one part of the greater area. Where also this restaurant and the Muppet movie ride, a parody of the great movie ride. With Muppets front to back. A Frankenstein scene going haywire. And all the Muppets front to back a Frankenstein scene going haywire and all the Muppets are in Peter Pan

but it's Miss Piggy or something and she's like she's too big and the rope is breaking and that kind of shit. So making fun of what they would go on to actually do like parroting like we'll put the Muppets in classic stories

the ride parroting that idea which then became what they actually went on to do earnestly and there is a video somewhere uh i'll shout out to rob plays on youtube we made a little video about this but there's in that there's a clip of jim henson even talking about that ride and his framing of it is so wonderfully simple where he just says you know it's a ride about showing the process of making movies only uh all of the information is wrong that's so simple and nice and you also go like how in in this many decades has there still not been like a ride that's a parody of rides and the Muppets are the perfect vehicle to do that. Simpsons is the closest.

You're right. That is the closest. That gets there. But that also feels a little more cynical, maybe, I want to say. Sure, sure, sure. Which is maybe the beauty of the Muppets. And I like the Simpsons ride. They were sort of like, you know, the Muppets are sort of like commentary and meta and subverting before the 90s where commentary and subverting becomes much more cynical. It had to be a negative slant on the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like this, people, it always hit when Rizzo comes out as Mickey or when Waldo turns into Mickey at the end. People ate that shit up i look that's what i specifically remember both of my parents dying at it who don't have the same sense of humor whatsoever and the whole family is literally laughing out loud together such joy from that and a lot of other parts of this always felt more dangerous than like the disney characters just a little bit they felt just a little bit edgy but not dirty not dirty so like when like rizzo's making fun of mickey it feels like a little dangerous and when waldo turns into mickey at the end yeah well i want to say this i think waldo is the pizza

rizzo of muppets i'm not gonna all's the one thing that really doesn't age for me. I was going to ask, worst Muppet of all time is Waldo. It's Waldo. It's Waldo with a poet. I don't think there's one worse. And not Sesame Street. I don't hate Waldo that much. Yeah, I don't either.

I kind of don't like, well, I like him, but I would put him at the bottom of the list. I don't hate him, though. I do have an answer for this. And I don't, you know what? Anyone feel free to send me something that negates this and I don't even have a hatred of this character but I will say that I felt very on the outside when they started using that shrimp all the time.

Pepe. I don't, I never saw what was the source of Pepe that was funny. And suddenly he's just around aggressively too much. They made a big play for him to be one of the big five in the early 2000s this is when they had sold to a german company and no one knew what they were doing and i think rizzo seemed a little too 90s and they were like it the 2000s new millennium it's all about pepe i think a little pepe goes a long way agree i'll say this i don't i don't care for Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's negligence because Beaker always ends up paying the price.

And I think that's... Wait a minute. This is funny, though. Yeah, I mean... It's funny. It's funny. Wait, but you don't hate him the most of all the Muppets. No, I don't hate him.

I just don't care for his lax attitude towards lab safety. You find his behavior kind of cruel. Kind of cruel. Sure. Kind of cruel. Is he your least favorite Muppet though? See, I think he's a great straight man. I always loved him. You're being funny now.

I am. Do you hate that he doesn't have features? That he's just like a he has no hair? No, because that I actually think makes him special. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I have a least favorite Muppet. I'm not sure that I totally hate a Muppet.

But I just don't really get Pepe. I'll say this is my Pepe theory. Pepe's in Muppets Tonight. He's part of a two-person act, Seymour and Pepe. And they're like the doormen to the studio where they film and seymour is like a big fat elephant type right who's kind of dim and pepe is sort of more the like wheeler dealer type and it would always be that they would stop the celebrity guest who was trying to come in it was sort of their version of scooter knocking on the door and going five minutes of show time

was like pepe being like i'm gonna going to need to see ID or whatever, you know, his thing was. And they'd always get into like a fight with the, with the guest. And so I think Pepe was like, kind of worked as part of the duo and the Muppets from space, the weakest of the Muppet films,

they bump Pepe way up. Seymour's gone. Pepe just kind of becomes a little stinker, but in a bad movie pepe kind of pops oh and i think it's because it's like here is a character being played by the person who developed him like the one like the original ones that we love right because that's like the movie where frank oz isn't puppeteering anymore he's dubbing in the voices later okay dave goals is still doing gonzo but they've kind of as you said domesticated him a little bit pepe feels a little more pure

so i think when a german company is buying muppets at a point where they're that dinged they go pepe's got a little heat like there's a little torque on pepe we might be able to run with this and they start leading with him in merchandise and stuff huh but maybe they like pushed it a little too if they'd ripped it less he did like uh long john silver's commercials oh i remember those yeah yeah well let's talk about the original muppet duo statler and waldorf yeah two of the greats two of the greats here they're animatronics and and uh i think that's great i think some of the elements that like make Muppet Vision 3D stand out and make it repeatable as opposed to like

Honey, I Shrunk the Audience which we talked about recently. You get a full-size Sweetums walking around. You get a theme bunny animatronic. You get Statler and Waldorf. The Penguin Orchestra. The Penguin Orchestra.

Chef with a gun and then Chef with a cannon. Specifically, Musket. Musket. Which is the funniest gun. The funniest gun. Oh, you're right. A musket is such a funny gun then chef with a cannon. Specifically musket, which is the funniest gun. The funniest gun. Oh, you're right. A musket is such a funny gun.

His nonsense language, I thought his nonsense speak was just hilarious as a kid. And I think it is still funny. The effect of the damage to the theater is really well done. Damage to the theater is really good. Statler and Waldorf, by the way, when I got older, I realized, oh, they're both named after hotels. That's a joke. Oh. older i realized oh they're both named after hotels that's a joke oh but i found out another

thing statler the statler line of hotels was the first like mid-range line for tourists and business travelers and the waldorf had the waldorf historia has always been like a super fancy hotel so statler and well i think there is an extra joke in there too in the contrast they're mismatched yeah it's not they're not waldorf and historia they're statler and waldorf i'll throw out a couple more quick takes on why i think this has better repeat value than something like honey i shrunk the audience yeah a i think it's one of the few if only theme park movies i won't include live shows right theme park movies that has an emotional arc yeah i'm not saying it's war and peace but like the the bean bunny thing you actually kind of get the stakes of what this guy is trying to prove they set up the the sort of pressure of mounting

the show the big finale the tribute to america uh-huh and and you know what uh all reshoots all post gym interesting and frank oz took over as director wow yeah that was all like so everything in the black void right is uh is reshoots really that stuff's all super really good i believe so wow really good another thing is i think it's like some of the best application 3d technology i've ever seen i think it's still that first gag where the logo comes out of the door is one 3d technology i've ever seen i think it's still that first gag where the logo comes out of the door is one of those like oh it actually feels like it's invading my space yeah and and the joke of it being a cheap gag and that you're supposed to buy it you're supposed to be like oh we're i'm seeing an impressive 3d movie and then it's just a guy

with a stick but the guy with a stick looks really good, too. Really good. It's really impressive when it turns. The flying pie still looks good. Even on like a YouTube rip, that still looks good. And again, a great one-two punch where the pie hits Fozzie in the face and Kermit says, Fozzie, that's terrible. And Fozzie goes, you're right. It needs more sugar. Like that's, again. It's so good.

Funny and for everybody. I also don't know how they do the pie exactly because it seems like it's CGI and then at some point in an invisible cut becomes a physical pie so that Frosting can be on Fozzie's face. And I don't, there's some weird little pop, something happens that you sense there's a cut, but I don't really know how they bridge that gap from computer to real. I was trying to figure that out too. Yeah, you can't really tell. It still looks great. It's pretty seamless and i also feel like when i was i used to watch uh uh what was it called inside disney the show that

was on the disney world inside out uh yes was that what it was called it's probably probably both titles right it was that show that like george foreman was like that's what disney world inside out right okay so i used to watch obsessively, begging my parents to bring me to the park. So I was like, I kind of had had every ride spoiled for me by that show before going on it. So by the time I finally got to go to Disney World, it felt like sort of like

seeing my favorite band in concert and like demanding they play the hits, you know? Yeah. But I remember Muppet Vision was one of the few things where I was like, I don't feel like I've seen all of this. Yeah. They did not exhaust.

You maybe knew about the pie. Yeah. Or you maybe saw, we surrender, we surrender. But a lot of it you'd never seen. It's got a pretty healthy length to it, too. I think it's a real show there. I had no sense going. I know that never was spoiled for me the salute to

America or what's the name of it to say the real thing a salute to all nations but mostly America which is a good joke we keep quoting I have a whole section in my notes just labeled Sam the Eagle Sam the Eagle I think is the he's the funniest by far

and it's all that's all that 70s Muppet subversion where it's kind of goofing on nationalism yeah exactly exactly if they had a show on the air right now with a good writer's room could you imagine the stuff they'd be doing with sam the eagle yeah now is it a good conduit actually the eagle yeah speaking of. There he is up there. I'm like, uh, it's not, it's from this, uh, really good line of toys.

Muppet toys made by a company called Palisades. Can I throw out something super nerdy? Yeah, go for it. I was so active on the Palisades message board. Oh wow. Really? I am listed as a special thing.

So I'm one of the packages. Which one? I believe it's the pigs in space play sets oh really yeah do you own them or do you just you were just oh yeah you got all the palisades oh they're incredible totally incredible it's taken all my willpower to not because that's the only one i have yeah but i have a lot of other things upstairs from but like it's they're so good they're they're incredibly good. They're incredibly good. And that company, they had a very active message board.

And they would solicit fan feedback on things. Wow, that's wild. You really have thrown it down in the ring here of your credibility. Yeah, I was. Palisades message board poster. That comes up on your Ang Lee Hulk episode. Your co-host is giving you grief because you mentioned like well on the uh message board the action figure message boards

i frequent yes yes yes right which he thought is like the nerdiest pull i could have not that i'm thanked on the package of an action figure when i'm 14 because i want to spend more time in that message room than parties but i was listening to that episode it's like get to the pearl mutter stuff get to the pearl but like the toy biz pearl mutter marvel like so much of this stuff well we got into it also with weirdly with uh we did a batman 89 batman episode recently which toy biz had the rights to the original batman and that sort of gives them the cachet to make the play for the marvel deal right so it's like batman not succeeding would have led to marvel going under weirdly oh my god or michael jackson bike yeah yeah oh yeah wow where was it the the salute to all nations i we were talking about surprises in the movie and i really love that that's just

its own odd thing that the characters play into yeah but that isn't really you know it's not like uh we have to make the finale some like recognize they all sing rainbow connection or something we've seen before yeah it's really its own thing and i love those yeah those vacant dumb dolls and you can feel something yeah it feels like a small world parody which is another little snarky It's really its own thing. And I love those, those vacant, dumb dolls. And you, you can feel some, it feels like a small world parody, which is another little snarky thing. That's fun. And I also like that,

uh, you know, if Sam, the Eagle is a commentary on national nationalism, that it feels, and, and he's the only one taking this seriously. I need to make a really important little number at the end of the show.

And he roped in these clearly dumber Muppets to help him. Like, where did he find all these dummies to march around and dress as colonial people? Like, he got the most brainless idiots to follow him, which also feels like a fun little subversive message. But that's a good point that it's not a greatest hits compilation, you know? Like something like Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which is like so first and foremost kind of like a skill show of like all the effects they can use. Sure. They feel pretty well integrated into this because they're the Muppets. They can call out the fact that it's like a theme park attraction, that it's like gimmicky. But it's also like they're giving you proprietary content.

It's not just Rainbow Connection in 3 3d it's not the same routines you get a little muppet labs like they're hitting all the basics but giving you new spins on right and you can't get it you can't get it anywhere else no you don't get these songs yeah you always see like kermit on the fire truck at the end you are looking at 1990 MGM Studios. And another really good 3D effect when he comes towards you with the ladder. It feels like he's there with you. That must be a robot or something. That has to be like a mechanized version of Kermit.

Another thing I want to say, I love the sets in this thing. That main, that like Victorian atrium where this takes place why is it why does it look like that i i i love that it does i love that they're not in in keeping with how much i love the the building itself where the thing takes place i like that they're not in some like you know some goofy kind of digital world they're in that long long hallway which gives you the depth and that's another thing about it i think there's there's good 3d movies that are full of um you know cgi and maybe shot digitally i don't mean to count out that that stuff can be good but this is i looked it up six of 65 millimeter yeah and it's it it is like a beautiful analog film on beautiful real sets with beautiful with

amazingly crafted real puppets it's very real and and cool and i'll say another real nerdy deep deep cut uh with regards to the sets the the palisades muppet labs play set is based off the muppet vision muppet labs because the Muppet Labs on the show is very generic looking. Right. And they were like, everyone has this memory of Muppet Labs because those segments are so good, but the only one that was kind of

visually compelling on its own, it's that weird sort of like, it looks kind of like H.G. Wells-y. Yeah. And Beaker really takes a beating on that. Like weird river, water wheel sort of mechanic. Huge laughs. Huge laughs. It goes over so well over so well so funny do you have that play set i do most definitely do you have all of the toys i don't have all of them i'd say i have a majority 80 percent um i this is what's depressing i would

say i had 80 at one point and now i probably have closer to 60 and there are a few things i gave up that i really regret that's harder to have like toys in New York with much smaller apartments and all. Very true. Do you have the Jim Henson Palisades toy? I don't. And that's a big regret. It's very expensive now. Of him?

There's a Jim Henson toy that Palisades made. I don't know how you got it. I don't know if it was commercially sold. I believe it was the Collector's Club. I believe it was on the album. The Collector's Club you had to join. And join and then yeah there's a kind of cartoonish jim hench uh it's really cool looking this is a precedent for the michael eisner merch that we're talking about we were talking about exist a couple weeks ago how they disney should start making

michael eisner merch here's a question for you guys because i feel like you bring up a lot um how creepy uh eisner was in this time period when he would do on-camera stuff. Would you insist on being like the Uncle Walt introductions, hosting the specials and all of that? I wouldn't say creepy as much as just, yeah, like kind of so, yeah, yeah. No, when you were younger, did you feel like Eisner was working for you?

Because I remember I would watch Eisner present like Wonderful World of Disney and be like, it's Michael Eisner was working for you? Because I remember I would watch Eisner present Wonderful World of Disney and be like, it's Michael Eisner. He's the magician himself. The man with the keys to Disney. And my dad would come into the room and go, God, can you believe Michael Eisner keeps on wedging himself in front of the camera?

And I'd be like, what are you talking about? He's Michael Eisner. I am completely on your side of things. That's absolutely how I felt. Yeah, he's magical and have i really declared on the show before that i literally there was a time where if you asked me in like a school report or if somebody asked what do you want to be when you grew up and when i was probably this is probably like eight nine years old my answer was i want to be the ceo of the walt disney company i'm sure i could show you some report i filled out where i'm like i'm gonna be

the next eisner i said like i going to be an animator for Disney. That was like the Disney answer. I might have been my answer at one point. But there was some window where it was. I wanted to work in the Team Disney building with the dwarves. I don't think at the time I could have articulated that I had affection for him. I don't think that that was ever. We're not great about articulating affection affection for him. I don't think that that was ever... You're not great about articulating affection

now for anyone. That's fair, but I'm just saying at least I can maybe recognize it, but I do have it, and I know now. Yeah. But I couldn't, I wouldn't have said ever, like, oh, I love that Mike Elias. Oh, Mike Elias is cool. I would have never said that. Because we've all heard stories

about Walt being prickly but when you watch him host and stuff appearing on camera, you were like, he did project a good performative warmth. I think my parents, I think we all agreed like, oh, it's Sunday night, gotta watch The Wonderful World of Disney and there's of course Michael's here.

This week's movie is very special to me. You know, just kind of moving rigidly with his ruddied face. Anything where he's reacting to something unusual happening. Goofy, what are you doing? He seems genuinely upset. Goofy, stop making a mess in my office. The Hollywood Tower Hotel was a gem of the 1930s.

I walked past him on the street once. I'd say maybe about seven or eight Years ago I was Walking with my mom near Central Park and she said Griffin do you See who that is because she knew how much I idolized Him when I was a child and I went No who is that angry monstrous Looking man

And she said that's Michael Eisner and I couldn't Believe it and he was a So tall yes yeah yes Really really tall and B. Just looked Kind of like Like he was like muttering to himself Wearing like a clean suit But he looked kind of like red faced

And angry I don't think it's out of the question that he's on the podcast By the end of 2019 I mean we would like that I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility it'll be so nice it'll be the easy the most like like just gushing thing he's ever been a part of any little dirt i mean if he gives a speck of dirt we'll just lose our minds like i think at this point he would be so appreciative of people who had nostalgia for when he was introducing tv movies yeah i think so because i mean i think about him like

i was saying like my parents probably i believe also liked him because they were old enough right that they grew up with the wonderful world of disney when walt was introducing stuff so it's like oh now michael's the head of the company and he does that we'll put we'll do a whole powerpoint presentation for him on different merch that he would approve of himself, maybe. We would just be like, how? What do you think about this doll of you at the desk? I mean, he should have a vinyl nation at least. At the very least.

At the very least. But I think I said it should be like a $100 figure, $100 like that Oswald over there. If we put you on a t-shirt and we can bulk order from Tee Public, would you come back and sign like the show? So you're saying that you on the Podcast The Ride Tee Public page will become the exclusive

licensors for... You should sign a deal with them and say we want to have the exclusive rights to Eisner sure Eisner and Marvel McFay for God's six pikes

also if they're just sitting around give it to us by the end of 2019 I think we should also declare that we will retain the right we will find a way to buy the rights to

Astroworld's Marvel McFay and his animal yeah that feels like there's some meat on that bone I mean I think you could really flip That and make a profit on that I also think that with the battle there would just Be tracking down who has the rights

I keep honestly I have so many notes to myself of stuff to do It's like find who owns Marvel McFay Can I ask which has to be six flags It has to be Warner Brothers honestly But it's probably so buried in like A deep file. I mean, there's this thing, not to bring it back around to a self-serving thing, but Ben Edlund, who created The Tick, which was an independent comic book published by his local comic book store, he retained the key rights to the characters, but then did the cartoon show for Fox Kids.

And they retained anything that was created first in the cartoon show for fox kids and they retained anything that was created first in the cartoon show so a lot of supporting cast not tick and arthur but a lot of supporting villains and heroes fox kids owned which then disney bought so disney has all these supporting tick characters right right right when we do like conventions and stuff and people are like hey any chance of this and the answer is like it's somewhere in a file at disney and they can't be bothered to get on the phone to agree to a deal right it's not worth it chair face chip and dale chair face is still is in the comic first okay that's what i thought yeah chair face is in the comic first this is the case with a lot of stuff.

Maybe not a lot, but like Ninja Turtles, for instance. There was an Archie comic series that I loved. Right, some of the pieces. Some of those characters are kind of just floating in, owned by Archie maybe still. Yeah. Because they've not been in an... It's these weird limos. It's also like they're never going to use them.

No one's going to use... Disney's not going to do anything with like American made or dinosaur Neil, you know, like that's there. There's no interest there. I don't know. We should roll into Disney plus and see if we can get a spin on

dinosaur. Yeah. Dinosaur Neil show. I have wondered like, yeah, why haven't any of the live actions had American made? She had such a cool costume. That's the reason why.

Yeah. No, right. Because, uh, um, uh, Captain Liberty and,

uh, Batman. Well, we're both workarounds for Fox Kids having the rights. Oh, it sucks. And then Disney by proxy. Yeah. Everyone needs to wake up and realize what they have.

Marvel McFay might be owned by someone who died and their niece never went into their files. It's just a safe deposit box. They might be lost to the ages. All right, so that means Disney must own Eek the Cat, right? Can I get a Eek the Cat? I think so. I think Disney has Eek the Cat. Oh, yeah, Eek the Cat.

Who owns Louis Anderson as a child? Disney, I think it's Disney. It's not Louis himself. Yeah, you're right. It's not the actual child. He does not own the image of his father. Louis Anderson does not own the image of his father as a cartoon. Disney owns the first nine years of Louis Anderson's life.

They own his memories. He can't reference them on a podcast without flipping them a check. If he goes through an old photo album, technically he has to kick some money. They get residual. We're over the two hour mark, I can just say. But let me get to a couple of things. One thing that really depressed me when I read it, and I didn't realize it. 2004, Disney takes Jim Henson's name off of the show because they bought the Muppets. So now they own it. So fuck you. They don't have to do the license.

Let's say all this. Muppet Vision 3D was made in a period where Disney was trying to buy the Muppets. Jim Henson died. The deal went bust. They did it as a license thing. And even then, there was a strong possibility that the movie Would not even be put into the parks the family

Was like so sour on Disney by that point And Frank Oz was a person Among other people were like people the public Deserves to see the last thing Jim Made and that was the emotional Trump card that got it into the parks But yeah they had to pay a license thing so by the time They bought it then like

Screw this we don't it's like if like Pixar doesn't need to be up here anymore. If the deal, the license deal went away. And I feel like, I mean, the main reason I was reading Jim Hill in high school was I was so interested in, he was the only guy writing about the business dealings of the Muppets and Pixar. It was that more than the theme park stuff. Before that, I had never been a like imagineering rumor guy i liked the parks and then through trying to track like what is disney doing with the muppets i started getting keyed into all of that stuff but um it was like the last thing eisner did when he was already on the way out of the company, they had negotiated his payout and his exit.

He bought the Muppets. And it kind of felt like it was a vindictive thing to be like, that was my Waterloo. That was the one I could never, the Moby Dick I couldn't catch. And then he saddled Disney with the Muppets. And Disney was like, we wouldn't have bought them. We don't know what to do with them. Now we're stuck with this expensive purchase because Eisner wanted to stick it to somebody. To dead Jim Henson.

They'll be back on Disney+. No question. It's all hands on deck with Disney+. That's everything they've said, sort of. But that's that weird sort of, that period period uh when well what i mean i guess do they buy the muppets after uh the california adventure outpost opens yes because it's 2004 yeah so 2001 is the opening right but then there was a long period where they just weren't doing anything right yeah no one had an idea it wasn't like get them so we can do this. No, they did Muppet Wizard of Oz for Wonderful World of Disney, and they

did like one Christmas special. That thing with Quentin Tarantino. Oh. Yeah. He plays an actor in it. There's a talk show appearance. You won't believe who he plays. Oh, boy. Take one guess. Hmm. I don't know the world of it.

He's somebody's uh dad he's uh he plays quentin tarantino he pulls out a sword and one pulls out a cantata he threatens kermit yeah right he wants to make a kill bill with kermit and the movie grinds to a halt to cut to him in a conference room pitching kermit on a martial arts a dynamic location if ever there was one a conference room there's an endearing and weird interview

with him on Conan talking about it where he's like he gets to take a picture with a couple of his favorite Muppets which are Janice and Rolf I believe

oh yeah and he talks about like having then he talks about having a crush on Janet or Janice excuse me he probably took a picture

with Janice's feet well oh no can I say something sad about Janice Do you guys know this Oh I don't know I don't think so Okay this in addition to that Miserably this is the final work

Of Jim Henson Richard Hunt Richard Hunt died Richard Hunt was very sick while this was being made. Richard Hunt is the puppeteer behind Scooter, in this production, Scooter, Statler, Beaker, and Sweetums. But he died of complications from HIV AIDS, and he was sick by the time they were shooting this.

He dubbed the voices, but he was not on set puppeteering he was actually one of Henson's sons as Sweetums he was only 40 years old super young and so yeah the last it was so both Statler and Waldorf passed away almost immediately after the show and there's

one pickup line in there somewhere that is not Henson that somebody else doing the voice. But other than that, it's the last time the two of them. But so he was sick and they knew it wasn't looking good by the time they were shooting this. So on the way into Miss Piggy's musical number, two characters go from the atrium world into her music. They like ride a bike into her musical number. And that's Janice and Scooter. And that is a tribute to Richard

I always noticed that in the background of the shot I didn't realize like that's brutal you always hear about like there's a whole generation entertainment might look totally different today if a whole generation was not just devastated by AIDS

Scooter is another one like Rolf where there wasn't as clear of a game and when the performer died there was like no character yeah when they tried to put him in things yeah i mean i guess you see sweetums but uh yeah i mean and sweetums was more like visually distinctive but like in the same way that rolf was just kind of like an old-timer scooter was just kind of like a nice kid yeah and i yeah so much of it was like that was apparently the character that was like closest to Richard Hunt and his sort of vibe and his energy and then when people just do a Scooter impression now I mean they worked him a little bit into the modern

movies it just kind of feels like well it's like nice that they're acknowledging he used to be important but Scooter's like the original Walter. They are kind of the same, just a guy. Scooter also, he's a big fan. Also trying his best. He is like the practical producer. He's the... Scott Adsit, 30 Rock. Yeah, he's the, what's the title, that associate producer?

That's the one that's either given out as a vanity credit or they did everything to make a movie happen. There's no common ground. The idea with Sco scooter too is that there is a a muppet named jp gross who is like their muppet tribute to lord lougrade oh who owns the theater and demands that they hire his nephew to work and everyone's like oh jesus christ nepotism and scooter shows up and so scooters kind of got like a chip on his shoulder to prove to them that he can like he can fuck with the muppets you know that he can like carry his weight and so like you know muppet show is not very serialized but in later seasons they

start to let scooter every once in a while have a musical performance and kermit always has this like would you believe it one of our own our little gopher wants to do a little song and i thought it was always very endearing this like quiet narrative of like scooter earns their respect and occasionally they let him sing a little song wow that's great he's a good guy this is a good guy there's a lot of heartwarming aspects it's a shame in that newer abc Scooter's whole thing was that he was just addicted to nicotine gum. Like Marin. Scooter was the Marin of the show.

He was beaten down by too many failed pilots. That's what that show feels like. Oh, fuck. Pilot season coming up again. Don't put your industry bitterness into the Muppets, for God's sake. If they can't have hope, then who can? Wow. Wow.

What else have we missed? Oh, Constantine. Yeah. Briefly. Okay. So from Muppets Most Wanted. Yeah. And this lasted like two years from like 2014 to 2016 or something.

Or no. I think the years might be wrong. It lasted a while. They stuck in a constantine segment into the pre-show which interesting the pre-show was already great but it was constantine of course the kermit right the mole evil kermit who's now become just a meme yeah um like he's just like oh uh the the show. Like, he said something. He takes over and does nothing.

He takes over, does nothing, and then they just cut back to a few minutes later in the pre-show. I've interrupted the very, which is a trope I usually like, like, we're taking over the fee. But then he doesn't, he just talks. There's no point to it. And it really shows the lack of cultural impact of Constantine or any of the new movies that it was that was in the parks for two years. And I only just heard about it yesterday. Yeah, I had no idea. It's also it's weird that now the the actor, the performer behind Constantine is the one who took over Kermit.

And the whole bit to Constantine is this is a very bad Kermit impression which i like constantine but it still was an odd choice to be like the guy who did the purposefully bad kermit is now doing real kermit is there been a is there been a big thing with his voice as kermit already they've done like a couple of these like youtube like muppet musings uh-huh where it's like a fucking eight minute not eight minute eight second video where it's like if you don't look out for life it might hit you in the back of like whatever dumb sort of like what up fam make sure to click here here and here to like and subscribe i like that i like that that's like they you know made a big deal like it was such a news story about like firing kermit

you know which everyone turned into like an emotional thing not really knowing the intricacies of the whitmire thing and then they were like here it is finally the first debut of the new kermit and it was like a video where he's like oh hi didn't see you there and then like walks away or something i don't think they've done anything with him since yeah i don't know kermit drinking the tea yeah has had more of a cultural impact truly than a lot of the newer muppets it's that and the kermit facing constantine with the hood which is like a parallel to the like spider-man pointing at himself yes it's any sort of shadow version of yourself those are the most impactful muppet things and they're they're things that the audience has taken back like that the audience

has remixed yes and used yeah it's very odd i like the constantine song i think that's my favorite thing in either of the two new movies yeah yeah that's the main thing keeping me afloat on the new movies of the songs i think songs are are very good. Songs are good. Yeah. Life's a happy song. Yeah. I like that song. I'm just down. The only reason I'm down on the first single one is because like I was just so depressed at like Kermit in his mansion alone.

Yeah. Being a sad sack. It like bummed me out so much. And I was like, this isn't. That's a bummer. I don't like this. All your favorite Luke Skywalker, Kermit all of these guys are look we have never talked about Last Jedi

and today will be no exception I will not talk about it there's nothing bad that happens when you talk about Last Jedi I will not talk about it at all I love it I've got a good feeling about this the listeners might know I love it I was talking to

someone who's like an editor, like a big sort of entertainment, like a higher end website. And he was saying he still keeps on getting pitches where people are like, I just want you to know I got a hot pitch. I figured out conclusively why The Last Jedi is bad. And from like respectable culture writers.

And he's like, I don't want to litigate this it doesn't matter it's a while later and there's another you know there's another one coming maybe save your energy keep on coming at it with the energy of but I'm finally going to win the argument like it's an arm wrestling match it's a year later

all the arguments from the original trilogy and the prequels have been settled surely I'm sure it'll go away soon we all know who shot first and the arguments from the original trilogy and the prequels have been settled uh surely yeah yeah well i'm sure it'll go away soon we all know who shot first and it's always interesting when it gets brought up again yeah yeah let's keep going over this please um what have we missed i oh you know what you know what's an aspect we missed the uh um like we've sort of breezed past the pre-show other than quoting some lines in this Constantine thing.

The three monitors. That is such a clever. If you never got a chance to go on this. And please let me shout out Martin's Vids who we have before. This great archivist of these videos. God bless this man who took the three monitors that are in the pre-show room and stitched them together. So you get it. It's sort of a reconstructed version of how these things work.

But like they have, there's so much fun with the three monitors where it's sometimes it's the same image on all of them and it's Gonzo dancing and you think it's three of the same, but then one drops something and the pattern deviates or you watch the characters cross from one

to the far left one all the way to the far right one. I think that stuff's super faulty action between the three monitors. I honestly don't know how they did it. I'm like, did they line up three cameras? Was it that simple? Or are those three different takes? It's really well done. What a weird thing to have to direct.

It's a good pre-show. Yeah. It's a great pre-show. All the props, all the Acme Corporation. Yeah, there's a waiting area. It's so fun yeah it's just like pat like when i'm watching just the video i'm like it's just packed full of stuff like that's the rewatch ability or whatever you would call it not ride ability but

like that's why you like there's so much stuff and so many little things and that you don't get tired of as much as other comedy theme parks well i was gonna say you guys talk a lot about and it's really made me think about how hard it is to write theme park comedy because you need things that can play to everyone and that can play for a long time, you know? And I feel like Muppet Vision 3D

is the most purely successful comedic attraction. Maybe it is. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's great. Yeah, and with the right IP to do it. Because the Muppets have always had their funny kids and parents. Yeah, but those jokes, like, still play. You go see it at MGM Studios and the audience still laughs a ton.

Yeah. And they have a little bit of an out in that, like, you know, like, some of the jokes are groaners on purpose. Right. And then you get Statler and Waldorf as a commentary on wasn't that bad. They're the greatest comedic conceit of all time. Being able to have a Statler and Waldorf baked into your show where you can win back any bad joke by commenting on it and acknowledging it and how fun that if you're if you know if you're seeing muppet vision for the ninth time that your eyes can wander and like i'm just gonna stare at those statler and waldorf

puppets doing nothing for a while yeah let me just pick one animatronic uh penguin to watch i like this is just a fun thing i didn't it's just a thing like it makes sense when you hear it but it's like they have three arms when they wave the white flags at the end it's obviously a separate arm it's not their puppet arm so there's just separate arms that come up with the white flags oh interesting there's three you know yeah yeah well no i'm just saying they have three arms so they have their two normal arms and then they can't get an animatronic to reach and grab the top and hold it of course sure right right and i went of course oh that's cool yeah yeah and a similar thing to that it's multiple swedish chefs and they're all

on a big turntable so when one is done with their specific task it all rotates and number two is up and number three that's great i'll say this because we talked about like oh yeah there's muppets coming to disney plus i think we like have all agreed like go back to the Muppets, the core, they're putting on a show, a lot of hearts. And I think the thing to look at of like, well, how do they, can the Muppets comment on like the current media,

like the current showbiz, all the nonsense streaming sites. And like, there's a new Netflix thing every day. Yeah. The example I would point at is the new run of Nancy comic strips, where it's like the core of the characters but there's all of this like Nancy adding movies to her queue and never watching them

and it doesn't it feels modern and it hits on like modern anxieties and stuff and it's like I think that's a great example the other one I've been thinking of this whole episode is at the Disneyland Hotel they had a channel that was just playing those new mickey mouse shorts over and over again and i had been dismissive of them just because i was like this looks like some unnecessary redesign of all the characters but those things are actually funny yeah and they actually give the characters like a personality again yeah after like decades of being like mickey can't be too much of any one thing because he has to work as a thing that can sell bath towels you watch that like he gets angry he can be petty yeah like they're funny gags in them and those have a guy those have a guy

overseeing them all and he's like an animation life i think it's a rocko's modern life guy you feel the fact that they have like a clear voice and a take and a comedic sensibility. And you need to have someone come in who like gets the history of the thing, but also isn't just trying to recreate it. Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

It's tough. It's very tough with the Muppets. Of all the things I would like to work on, Muppets just sounds cool, but it feels like the most daunting to me. I would be terrified, but it's like. Yeah. It's like Batman. There's been a million great versions of Batman. Right. and now all different things but it's like muppets i'm like

i don't know what the hell like i don't know what the secret is i don't really have the answer i feel like i don't like but i don't know what i think the other scary thing is they need to develop a lot of new characters like i think you keep the main core but i think you need to get some performers creating their own characters that they own fully. And so often the new characters are plot functions. I mean, like, Walter's a plot function. Constantine's a plot function. Right, right, right.

Let someone workshop something until they come up with a fun voice, a fun character design, and mix them in with the classics. I got a big one. The next Muppet thing cannot be a cameo fest. Yeah. Every single Muppet thing ever since Jim Dot. There's one person. How about that? Like, I think everybody likes the host of the Muppet show.

Yeah. Or like we like Prince on Muppets Tonight. But all of these movies are just like, and then Elizabeth Banks is herself. And Jack Black is himself twice. There's a sloppiness. And then they build to a giant cameo at the end that ends up being Jack Black again. Right. It's one of those infuriating things that stops me from liking that movie more.

But I think it really does damage the IP. Like, what is this new Muppets about? Well, it really puts a lot of holes in it if it's dependent on ty burrell coming in then you have no it's not an ip anymore and the cameos are good in the original movies because the gag isn't look who it is doing this uh-huh and i feel like there are a lot of them in the new movies where it's like why is sarah silverman playing the waitress who sits amy adams at a table in a scene with no muppets in it you know why is james mcavoy randomly like the delivery man for ups with like no lines you know and they're like a weird level of like is is the joke supposed to be i can't believe they did this because then you have like there's the

scene in muppet sick manhattan where kermit and piggy are fighting in central park and like gregory hines comes in and tries to mediate the fight uh-huh and as a kid i had no idea who gregory hines was but i was like this is a funny scene or this guy's giving a funny performance just the poster of muppets uh most wanted like they were one day i went down to disneyland right before that movie came out they were giving out puzzles that were that poster. And it, nothing glues it more to that year that it's like, look,

it's the Muppets and Ty Burrell and Tina Fey and Ricky Gervais. That's just like stuck in like the 2010s. The Gervais is especially jarring because it's like, that's the last moment where we had tolerance for him. Jason, were you offended by him? Were you offended by his presence? That must be the problem.

I mean, you guys, this was very enlightening on blank check. I found out he's an atheist. Well, let's not say that too loudly. It's kind of like The Last Jedi, where it's a little too hot for people. He doesn't want it getting out there. Yeah, you guys are a little chill about it. I'm sorry if I'm blowing up your spot yeah he's gonna be upset well let me say this in all that you know what's one thing that the the relative the pretty successful timeless muppet vision 3d does not have cameos there's not one cameo in the thing uh uh yeah it's uh i don't know i think i

think that helps it it's a flea muppet experience yeah i agree with you look give some give some henson people license like yeah to create new characters bring on some young excited comedy writers who loved it growing up i'll say that around people i've met around ucb and the comedy community big big love of the muppets that's my thing i just go like musical theater professional wrestling like it all makes sense that then people grew up liking this stuff and like now i want to be theatrical i also feel like the best model for the modern muppet show is like comedy bang bang like that's the vibe of that thing of just like the chaos of people like storming in and ackerman kind of is

like a kermit figure where he's just like trying to hold it all together not a sad sack little put upon little stressed out you have there's there's people in it as themselves but there's also like somebody doing a character they're doing their thing that they're good at it's not purely there's this great clip I saw

I think the museum moving image in New York City opened like this whole Muppet wing and they acquire like a lot of the Henson archives. And they have this incredible permanent exhibit now. And when they acquired all that stuff, Frank Oz did this event where he spoke about his history with the Muppets. And they played a bunch of rare clips. And they had this one clip that was outtakes from them doing a bit for Sesame Street. A show that's ostensibly supposed to be educational,

and they can't get through the bit because they keep on cracking up. And there's another one like that where it's for Emmett Otter's Christmas, where it's like outtakes with them riffing, but in the puppets about things going wrong on set. Oh, yeah. And you get the sense that these guys

were making each other laugh. They were having fun doing the thing in the same way that good comedy podcasts Oh yeah And you get the sense That like these guys Were making each other laugh You know they were Having fun doing the thing In the same way that like Good comedy podcasts And bitch shows do Where it's like They're trying to break

Each other as much as Yeah You want that vibe To Muppet stuff Yeah And if it can't be The old peep The people who did it before

It should be Like the way SNL regenerates It should be people You know who have a camaraderie and a shared sensibility i think you need to go like half new half old you know that makes sense like bringing a bunch of new people so people can have the fun of exploring the characters making the new discoveries adding new depths onto them i mean they were i i was a pa at a comedy festival like 12 13 years ago now now. And Puppet Up was like one of the main shows.

And that was their adult sort of improvised puppet. And no matter how you feel about that sort of thing, like they were gifted improvisers. And they were like Henson light. Because I started talking to them about working at the Henson stuff. Because I was like, I mean, 2007, not great for Henson stuff. But I was like, hey, a lot of shows out on tv shows on dvd are we gonna get muppet babies dvds one guy was like we're working on it yeah like oh interesting

i just feel like there's such a rich library there and i feel like if henson had lived like that the henson studios could have like kept growing and growing and i know some people who work like on on sesame and at henson and these sort of adjacent things who I forced to become friends with me so I can shake stories out of them and stuff. And so many of them are just like, yeah, you know, the landscape isn't great right now. I mean, we all got into doing this because we love this stuff. And now we're kind of doing stuff that doesn't feel totally on point, you know? Hummer. Shaking up an entire culture is very tough and i you know

like the uh disney was in such a rough run post walt because there was so much what would walt do and not enough let's do something for god's sake i feel like the roy years kind of mirror the brian henson years yeah yeah it's like the relative who understood the person a lot and didn't necessarily have the same vision for like the creative aspect right yeah for sure yeah um you need an eisner you need an eisner you talk about uh you know puppeteers breaking each other up and uh and bloopers and stuff uh you ever seen the bloopers from the muppets at walt disney world no i don't think i have oh man it's all very good but the first cup the first minute of it or so is uh fozzie and fozzie's mom uh doing a scene with eisner and uh and he and he keeps fucking up yeah uh and they're

they're like razzing him and you're going oh my god this is like he's trying to do like a hostile takeover right of this of this entity and the actual characters are on like down on their knees at the grand floridian giving him shit i mean he's like a real muppet villain trying to like kick them out of the theater you know yeah yeah very much so and then you but then in the actual finished product is this crazy thing where they all like, he gets like a little bit of, he gets a stain on his shirt from Fozzie and then all the Muppets run in and then they've torn up his clothes instead of fixing it and then they run out and he turns to the camera and goes, they're here. But the actual villain in that show

is my boy Charles Grodin, right? One of the best human Muppet performers. He always knew exactly how to come from the Muppet wavelength. Yeah, the great Muppet caper. That was before Muppet Take Man? Yes.

That's the second one. The answer is no cameos except for Charles Groton. Except for Groton. And Michael Asker. Siegel wrote him into The Muppets and he turned it down. Oh, yeah. I remember that now. He wanted him to play the same character from Great Muppet Caper.

He was like, it's not the same without Jim. Oh, God. I don't want to do victory lap stuff. Groton also, I think, you know, famous for being a little cantankerous. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, God. Jeez. I don't want to do victory lap stuff. All right. And also, I think, you know, famous for being low cantankerous. Sure. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That's what Jason loves about him. But it is true that it's not the same without Jim. And there is this, I do have this bittersweet feeling talking about this thing that, like, it is, I don't know, it's this, like, it's like this last stop of what train you thought was going to keep going and going. And I think it's really special for that reason. Yeah. I really worry about the threat of them getting rid of it at Disney World because it feels like it's such an important cultural moment in the history of these characters.

Yeah. Especially because it is the swan song for a lot of these people and the eras and the techniques and all of that sort of stuff uh i know we've already been going for seven and a half hours but have any of you seen the defunct land video about what the plans were to do after the muppet takeover of the park yeah oh yes yes yeah where they were going to retheme everything it was the year after mickey's birthday and they were going to take the year off right the characters are going away for a while they're exhausted it wasn't mickey's birthday it was it was the anniversary of right it was the 35th and they were going to say the big five are going on vacation the muppets are taking over right and they were going to paint

the castle green the kermit of the matterhorn or something yes that's what it was the matterhorn was going to be have kermit eyes be painted green yeah and they were just going to work them in all over the park as if they were poorly running the place like animal chasing people around and pirates that is so much fun and of course it would never happen certainly won't happen now no like when everything is so like watch didn't go on over with a fine-tooth comb yeah that's i mean just to to reiterate this one last time that's what startled me about watching these mickey shorts in the hotel was it felt like they weren't as closely guarded as all the mickey stuff yes of the last 30 years

and i wish they would similarly kind of let go and be like we're accepting pitches from anybody on muppet stuff someone come in with a tape I think they're kind of doing that with those Looney. There's like 200 Looney Tunes shorts or something. And it's all been farmed out to different animators and comedy writers and stuff. I'm cautiously optimistic that some good stuff will come out of that. Yeah. Yeah. So that and Disneyland app.

Say where your cheese fries are. Let me search by item. Yeah. That's really smart. We'll find the best cheese fries location. Let me search by item. Yeah. That's really smart. We'll find the best cheese fries location. I will vow to you. We'll find the best place in Disneyland Resort to get cheese fries. I want to be able to crack open the app, search cheese fries.

It goes, here's where they are. I mobile order. And the time it takes me to walk to that stand, then the item's ready. There should be a way to reveal secret menu items on the app because i don't think those mozzarella sticks are available to mobile order so i think that has to be there has to be like some secret you touch on the app the interface is not very helpful unless you know exactly what you want and from where yeah they need to do some upgrades which the anaheim park a lot of people do go regularly so that kind of kind of get that but

like for people who haven't been there much or been there before at all like if you have a kid and the kid's breaking down there's like i want cheese fries or i want a burger like yeah put that search universal search in there like or if you have a grown adult son who you're hanging out with at disneyland who's breaking down i want she's friends it's also a problem sure i think also they should add a jason's pics filter because i'm here waiting for you to tweet back about the ice cream tips right well and i was driving back and forth from a bizarre commercial audition i don't blame you and i hope the audition went well i was replying to you in the drive-through of a taco bell uh i I just feel like I know you have takes on all of this,

and I want them to go to you and put a little Jason banner, you know, on the items that you would order from each place. It's like a video store giving their picks. A person that works there giving their picks. Oh, yeah. The Treatmaster General has decided. He has decreed. Reporting for duty.

Wait, wait, wait. See Everett Scoop? Sid, that's good. Concrete. Reporting for duty. Wait, wait, wait. See Everett Scoop? Sid, that's good. That's pretty good, right? Yeah, that's good. Wonderful. You know what?

If I had put, based on what I knew about you and your nerdy leanings and your work, I would have put money on the fact that this episode would have been a two and a half hour. Yeah. And I'm glad it was. I had a great time. Griffin Newman, you survived Podcast The Ride. What an honor. Come back any time. I don't even like cutting it off.

I feel like it's a card issue at this point. It's at some point, it's going to just burst into smoke like a Muppet item. Just for safety. Yeah, we should. Yeah, yeah. But thanks so much for being here. Let's exit through the gift shop.

Is there anything you'd like to plug? I would. Tick, season one's available now on Amazon. Season two will be coming out semi-shortly within the next couple of months. I don't know if I want to officially say when. Sure, sure. But I'm not waiting to promote season two. I'm plugging season one.

You've got to get people thinking about it regardless. I want people thinking and memeing and gifing. when sure sure uh but but i'm not waiting to promote season two i'm plugging season one get people thinking about it i want people thinking and memeing and giffen we want to get american made in there i know turn off jack ryan like take a break from re-watching jack ryan i know america has jack fever and i want them to move over and get lyme disease this is mazel isn't the only marvelous person yeah and arthur isn't the only neurotic jew on amazon prime let's get a little arthur representation going on that's what i'm waiting for is the big like arthur meets mazel sort of yeah the jetsons you gotta do that yeah um you gotta learn how to talk faster though i i can i can talk pretty fast speed it up uh but watch that please

and uh blank check with griffin david wherever you listen to podcasts absolutely yeah yeah so happy to have you uh what else on our end uh check out like like we said for hot pizza rizzo tastes hotter than the pizza itself which may be lukewarm uh as far as what it sounds like uh go to patreon.com slash podcast the ride We can have it out by the time this comes out Yeah probably we'll figure out that math And check us out on the regular stuff On twitter, instagram

RT public Rate and review us on iTunes Did I miss anything gentlemen Five stars on iTunes specifically Please Help keep this little this muppet theater running Yeah And just everyone's uh respect

the ice cream goddy start send aaron a text to start drawing up that shirt see everett scoop see everett scoop all right see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram

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