Podcast: The Ride - New CityWalk Security Grievances with Nick Wiger

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

The news sent a shockwave through Los Angeles: Universal Hollywood moved its security checkpoints. People were pissed. You now have to walk through metal detectors even if you’re just going to a CityWalk store or the movie theater.Does PTR and returning parking garage pundit Nick Wiger (Doughboys, Get Played) agree with the angry online mob? Find out!"Marvin Sease (Scott's Birthday Shot) " Recap episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Carlson's Improv Show on 9/11: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/improv-land-tickets-1998116971650FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Forever. Warning, the following podcast may contain a self-declared celebrity chef. Hardcore pack ripping. A never-opening cookie store. And elaborate anti-counterfeit money measures at the Universal Parking Booths. All that, plus we dissect the new security situation at CityWalk Hollywood. Now you used to only go through metal detectors to get into Universal Studios Hollywood, the theme park. But now you go through them before you even go into CityWalk.

Walk. Some people are upset by this. Hey, but maybe some aren't. It's new City Walk security grievances with PTR parking garage expert Nick Weiger on today's podcast, The Ride. Welcome to podcast The Ride, hosted by men who are honored to go through TSA-style security to pay $5 more for raising canes. I'm Scott Gerdner, and I feel privileged, and I hope Mike Carlson feels similarly privileged. I, I, sir, yes. I feel good about it. it. I feel like I'm actually helping helping one of my favorite places when I do that. Helping it be safer. Whatever they want.

In addition to paying the city walk bump, that extends the future of citywalk. So you're happy to do it. If CitiWalk wants me to volunteer a few times a week, I'm happy to do it if it helps out the business. Insecurity or just like cycling through, you're going to work at the gym store for

if they need me to play the robot at Tootham, I'll do that. need me to do security. I will learn how to do that. Whatever they want. I'll take a nightstick course where I learn how to use a nightstick if they want me to do security. I assume that's what protect your home. Yeah. You have to learn how to use that. You can't just use it. You can't just go willy-nilly smacking people in the head with it. I don't, doesn't it seem though? It seems like it's a common misconception. Their job is night sticking probably is. They just pick one up and start to leave. It seems like it. I think. I think it's a common. Yeah, people think that. There's a level of quality.

Also, to the things you were just saying, I think the only way they're going to get a robot again at Toothsome is to... A volunteer. Yes, yeah. The salary is zero dollars. Right. What if I showed up just as a robot one day and walked around the restaurant? I'm part of this.

I am part of this. I have a gear on me. I am an old style robot. I am part of the Lord. Which is accurate to the steampunk theme. I am looking at my long watch. Integral part of the story. of Dr. Toosome and hers quest.

I came with lore. You know, we should say Jason Chardon is not with us today. He is actually currently being detained by CityWalk Security. Oh, yeah. He tried to bring in a giant lolly from home, and it was classified a weapon. So we are asking and begging them for his safe release as soon as possible. I don't know how long he's going to be in CityWalk holding. I don't know.

But hopefully back sooner than later. but I think it's time to bring our guest into it and just a quick thing to say about our guests You know it's funny we recently wrapped McMount which is our series about McDonald's And in thinking about who to have to talk about McDonald's We certainly thought about our friends The Do-Boys

Mike Mitchell was with us And the other doughboy on the other hand Was like fast food Been there done that for 11 fucking years Call me when you're talking about something interesting And we said the new security measures outside city walk Hollywood? He said, let's fucking

go. It's Nick Wier. Wow, hey buddy. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much about the size of it. We should add that Sheridan is being detained in part because he refuses to let go of the lolly. Like, if he just released the lolly,

he could walk away. That's all it would take. Yeah, yeah, no, just put it down. He's stubborn. Yeah, yeah, no. He's got a vision in his head for it. Please, please to be here happy to report for duty as well. I will say to the cynics out

there, I will happily endure a little security theater for security in the theater. The AMC theater at CityWalk. Oh, geez. Well, is the beautiful few sentences. Is that the overarching opinion that we're, I didn't know what we were going to get as far

as your take. Winston Churchill might have said something similar or like a states from some wonderful statesman. Right. No, it's, we'll get, we'll get into it. I do have an update, I have a parking related update. Oh, yeah, please. It's usually my beat here on PTR.

Since my last appearance, I have visited Epic Universe in Orlando. Oh, I forgot. Yeah, we haven't to talk to you or Mitch about that unless somebody has conversationally, but I have no idea how that went for you. I went weird. The Doe Boys were in Orlando for a live show. We were guests of Samoa Joe and his lovely family. brought us out.

We got to do the whole VIP experience at Epic Universe. It was the most spoiled I've ever felt in the theme park, and I could never go back. It was absolute fucking heaven. But we got VIP parking as a result, and the parking was very close to the park, like physically, like just steps away. Certainly there was much less of a hike than you would get from,

like, the Universal Parking lot, and the Universal City Walk parking lot to, you know, to Universal. Well, in that law, we haven't, you know, forgive us for not going straight to you, you know, being the universal opened a new parking lot. Yes, yeah. We did not rush to you to get opinions and get an episode out of it. But it is an extremely, like, the way theme parks used to do it, just one big old lot. One.

That is, there, you can do a hike in that epic universe lot. Yeah, it is, it is, it is like a, it seems to be a pretty gigantic, just surface lot. I could be, I could be wrong if there's some, some tiers somewhere. But I only saw one, one level. And a lot of it is uncovered. Thankfully, the VIP parking did have some shade, which I think is the main reason to do it, honestly. Because your car sitting out there in that hot Orlando sun all day would just be absolutely brutal, you know. But I thought it was a good parking experience.

Okay. Okay. Easy and easy out. Do you have any opinions about you got the VIP parking situation for free? Do you have any idea what the cost of that would be? And would you recommend it, were you able to afford such a cost? I could look it up. I believe the VIP parking, I may have misstated.

I think we might have actually paid for the VIP parking. Oh, okay. I think we got, you know, like, I think we got the, I think that's where we decided to splurge because we were getting into the park. Oh, that's for free. So like, but I don't remember it being outlandish. Right. Could be completely wrong. I don't have it.

It's like $100 or something. It's probably in that. It might be. It's probably in that ballpark. It could be. I mean, that's how much it cost to just park it so far. Yes, right, right. If you go for a concert.

Really? Oh, my God. It's like a concert. It's like $80 or something. I think even when we went to Taylor Swift a couple years ago, it was like, and we took a lift. Well, we tried to take the subway, but like it was crazy. And then we got off at a certain point and just took a lift. What does sphere these days?

Like, because it started really. Yeah, I don't know. It started massive. We took a lift. Probably, yeah, and there's a lot of like, yeah, I just walked. I had my first sphere experience. But wait, let me see. Find tickets.

Because didn't they start at like 125? Yeah, I think that's right. Is it still? I'm not sure. I took a driverless car. I'm seeing some cheaper. Maybe they have actually figured out some cheaper. Maybe these aren't for concerts.

This might be for, you know, just a day-to-day Wizard of Oz. Oh, right. I took a driverless car in Vegas, whatever. I forget the name of their type. It's not a Waymo. It's something else. Right. No.

But I don't think it drops you off its sphere. It's free right now because they're still testing it, which makes you a little nervous. Okay. But if you can get it on the app, I took it from, like, Excalibur to the Cosmo. And I loved it. Wow. I love the driverless car experience. I would probably be a little hesitant to hop into the free autonomous vehicle.

Because I did like what you're saying. How safe is this thing if they're not even going to charge you? It seems short enough and it was just straight. Sure. Like on the strip. They can't fuck this up. Yeah. And I was alone in there and I got to play my own music in there, which I loved.

That's great. Change the color of the lights, which I loved. So I was having a ball in there. Wow. What did you put on? Weezer, we might as well be strangers from the new forthcoming album. You put on new Weezer? That's right.

The choice of all the music in the world? You put on new Weasers? Yeah, I've been listening to it. It's a duet with Carly from Wednesday, you know? A very song I really like, yeah. How about that? Pretty cool, huh? She's young.

Maybe I'm. Rivers is all, but Carly is young. This is a thing. I have noticed this that you do classify. Yeah. Who's the guy, MJ Lenderman? Yeah, he's young. There was an episode.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't here for it. I never brought this up, but it was with Zach Reno. And in your, in briefly explaining, because I didn't know who that was, and in your brief explanation, you didn't say the genre of music. You say, he's this young man I like.

Yes. I don't think you even clarified that he is a musician necessarily. He's just a nice guy. Generally, are you interested now he's a young man? Well, to me, that seems like if he's nice, that's really all that's important. He's a young man. That seems to me that suggests nice.

I guess. But like Zach might be like is a young man who like, you know, does chores? Will he like clean my yard? Fair criticism. Fair criticism. Because like young blood is a young man I like. But I don't necessarily love the music of young blood. But I do love the music of MJ Lenderman.

But you like the first part of his name. You like that for sure. Especially because it's a hip, young spelling of young. It's because you know what he is. But MJ and Wednesday, they used to, Carly and MJ used to date. They broke up, of course. These young people knew each other. The two young people knew each other?

There's a bunch of young people that make music for old people. And they, I count them in this category. They're like very like Wilco, Neil Young influenced people. So young for olds. Young for olds. They're in their 20s. Some of them are in their 30s. It's a few.

This is a few years ago example of that now. I think they're still going. But what's the band that sounds just exactly like Led Zeppelin? Greta Vanne. Greta Van Fleet. And that's very much that. Like you get in a Greta Van Fleet, like, YouTube video, and like all the comments are like, like, like, I'm 50,

and this is the only new music I like. Finally, Rock is back. Yeah. Yeah. Can you get concerned that this is going to be a confusing term, given that we're talking about age and trickery, but are you concerned ever about getting catfished? Not in that way.

But, well, no, I guess it is the same. Somebody pretending to be a young musician. but then they are actually old. Because it seems like you do quickly look up the age of the young musicians that you like. I do like to know the age of the musicians. That's like part of engaging with it. That's really early on in the process. I get very into it, yeah, because I want to know what year they were born.

Because MJ specifically, he uses a lot of references. The same way that we or me specifically uses like a reference to Charles Nelson Riley or Paul Lind. And that's actually, I shouldn't be making those references. That's before your time. That's before more time. He's making references to stuff that I. feel like is before his time because he's like 27 or something. So that's maybe like a tell or he's just an old soul and that's why he writes

music that's so appealing to older generations. He has like songs about professional wrestling. He has a song called Tune Town. He has a song called Six Flags, I believe. Oh. He has a, there's so many things where, things in his songs. And then he's like song about Dan Marino or Michael Jordan's, uh, hangover game is one of my favorite of his songs.

Okay. About how he's lying about the food poisoning. Oh, about the, he's a song about, Michael Jordan lying about the piece. Really? Interesting. Yeah. So it's and I'm like, well, obviously Michael Jordan's one of the most famous guys ever, but this is

technically before his time. So they had the, this is the lore of this and for the non basketball sportos out there. Carlson, you know this intimately as a Chicago Bulls fan. But the Michael Jordan for years it was called the flu game.

Yes. And it was just like, oh, he had the flu, but he went out there and he had this amazing like NBA finals performance and like without that game they would not have won the championship and he was so sick visibly sick. So like a heroic like superhero moment of like digging deep and doing it. Yeah. Then later on there was like the rumor or maybe the rumor was always there that he was actually hung over and like that's like he was playing it off like the flu but he but this was notoriously hard partying guy would stay up all night playing poker and you know or at casinos and then get up and play like a round like two rounds of golf right and drink the whole time

and then go play a basketball game and then go play the 50 points in the game exactly yeah just insane wow I guess if you can sustain it do it if you're a superhero sure but there's another layer to this which is when the last dance the documentary came out mj was like i'm going to tell you the truth about the flu game it was actually the food poisoning game and he said that he got a pizza he was they were the game was in Utah and he ordered a pizza from a Utah like from a Salt Lake City Pizzeria. They knew who he was and he suspects they poisoned his food. They tainted his food.

He implies that he was on purpose poisoned in the last dance. And yes, this is, I'm, I love that era of Chicago Bulls. I'm not the biggest sports fan as far as following stats and players anymore. But as soon as that happened, I go, what is this retcon? This is a retcon? Wait a minute. That's brand new. Because no one had ever heard that explanation that, like, it was some, like, evil plot to take him out of the game.

But I, but like, you were watching him on your iPad and you had problems with what he was in. Yeah. Yeah, true. No, no, no. So, I mean, the last dance is one of the greatest pieces of media of all time because it's Michael Jordan propaganda. Yes, right. It's exactly what he wants you to see from and, like, all his grievances. Many of the players are pissed that he played with.

over the years for how he portrays them. Yeah, it's so petty. It's so petty. It's just so fantastic. It's great. Normal? Yeah. It's this narcissist like, you know, painting, like, like writing his own, whatever,

painting his own portrait, basically. Yeah. It's really, really, really just, and it's, it's, it's as such, such an engaging piece of, of content. I mean, it's all stuff I didn't know before yet. Right. Completely pulled in and, yeah, love it very much. But I also bought it.

I don't think I realized until now that poison was, fake. I think that's when MJ wrote that song is making fun of it. Oh, okay. So, because a couple, it's a song is a couple of years old. MJ versus MJ. MJ versus MJ, yeah. Yeah, so it's, uh, well, it's the fresh perspective and boldness that you can get

out of youngsters. Well, right. They're more brazen, you see. I know they are. I have something related. This is, this is fully organic, but I'll get to that one second because I did want to address. What you're talking about is an old person posing as a young person to do music.

and they become popular. That should be like the Simone reboot. That should be like the new Tootsie. Oh, yeah. You know, like, like, the new, I guess kind of Mrs. Doubtfire is similar, but just like it's an old person playing young, maybe with some sort of AI assistance. But they have like, they know how to write music for old people,

but they know that being young is the only way they can get it to them. Yeah. So hiring, well, then, and now we're in like, now we're in the Millie Vanilli territory. Right. hiring like handsome young guy to be the face of it. Right. And then all the comments are about how does this young guy make music that resonates

with me, an old guy, but it is an old guy making the music for old guys. See, I was, I was thinking AI, but that's better because, and then if there's a guy, then you get to have, like, the Cyrano, like, earpiece malfunction during the interview when he's trying to, like, you know, talk to a, he's trying, he's on Bill Maher's podcast. He's on Club Random, and, like, they're really chopping it up about. like, you know, mash. And then the earpiece goes out and he's like, oh, fuck. Starts making up characters.

Yeah. And then mud flaps comes in. Mudflaps. Oh, gee. That's a good idea. That's a billion dollar idea. All right, let's write it. You got a thing.

I got a thing. This is such kismet. I cannot believe how organic this is. Wow. I went to the NBA store at Citywalk. Oh, right. for Carlson to make his way through security before we had a lovely lunch at a Vino

Italian kitchen and Vivo Italian kitchen? Vivo, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I said Vino thinking it was Vino and a reasonable word to say because that's wine but it's Vivo some other shit. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Oh boy, ooh. Carlson, I got you a gift. Garner, I got you a gift as well and then I got something for us to perhaps indulge in. And I just, I cannot, honestly cannot believe the conversation went here. I got you a Michael Jordan pop figure. Wow.

This is the Michael Jordan three times in a row MVP hat. Wow, he's got the hat on. He's got the hat on. And he's sitting down, which usually the pops just have the same boring sort of standing, but this is like a sitting pop. With an item, yeah. Which is really good. One of the only pops I have is a prince with a guitar.

It's nice if you can get a prop in your pop. This is like when he's, He's leaning, what, against the locker room? And he's sitting down after he's won. This is great. Like overcome with emotion? Is that kind of what we're? Yeah, I'm trying to remember what the pop doesn't convey the emotion.

He's just, like, so drained in that moment. No pressure, but what I would love the most to come out of the bag is Jerry Seinfeld meeting Michael Jordan in the locker room. Boy. Something that happens in the last dance. I sure wish I could deliver that for you. I'd have to get my own separate Jerry Seinfeld and make it happen. Yeah, that should be a sex. Unfortunately, everything they had there was just strictly basketball themed.

And I know you're not a basketball fan. You're more of a baseball fan. But I did get you. I thought something that perhaps your boys might enjoy. The Sonics Sasquatch. Whoa. He looks like chewy. The Super Sonics mascot the defunct Seattle franchise.

He was around with your kids too, right? Oh, my God. Oh, that rules. That's fun. Squatch. Oh, thank you. Oh, they'll spark to this right away. And then the last thing.

Oh, wow. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought, if we want, we don't have to. If we want, we can't rip some packs. Whoa, you know me. You can't. That's like putting drugs on the table at a party for me. I got some, I got some Tops, NBA 25, 26, cards. So I'm just going to open this up.

I'm not saying we have to do this right this minute. But at some point, we could rip some packs, or maybe that's a video. Well, whatever we all that is. If somehow we got bored talking about security procedures, we could go down a different rabbit all and do some. Rippin. Yeah, Rippie. I know I love to rip.

Feel free. Look, it's... Is this podcast the Rippin? You're getting it out fast. So, you know, it's awesome. We have six packs here. What is the... I think that's two apiece, right?

You're a very... You're one of the most generous people, and I'm being sincere when I say that, when we get, take the pack. If I get a good one, I'm going to give you the good card, though. Oh, no. That's how a packer up and goes. It should be the pack, so you don't, you know, swap things back. No, I know.

I'm just saying I don't want to like if what I've got like a good one. If you're getting a good one, I'm going to be happy for you. This is not going to be a Larry David's Sower Grape situation. But what if it's like a million dollars? Can we split? Let's just a check? It's a check for a million dollars from. It beggars belief that that would actually be in here.

But if there's a million dollar card, I just know your soul. And I know that you will make some sort of gesture that I'm sure would make me feel adequately. Wow. Donate to Joe Boys Foundation. There you go. Donate to my scam charity. I employ all my family members. For Christmas this year, all I want is a donation to the foundation.

That's fine. I'm going to distribute these. I'm just going to walk them over. Oh, hey, thank you. Thank you. Wow. Thanks for not whipping. I love to rip.

Whippin. I've said it 10 times. Not whipping, but ripping. Seven cards per pack. But keep in mind, these are four basketball, so they will not contain, you know, like a piece of Joe Rodi's mustache. I okay thanks for reminding me I knew that just don't get that excited but I didn't know that but it does we could have like a player shorts right

they do stuff like that yeah they'll do things like that yeah I don't know what's exactly in this edition but no shorts for me no shirts for me yeah what Scott has already ripped a pack no yeah which I was I supposed to do it slower what's the no I don't know I just ripping your own page wild my biggest concern is saying player names incorrectly that's now what I'm facing I don't think some I'm going to get fine. C.J. McCollum. I'm going to wait a second.

Crescent City. Chris Paul. Hey, that's a bit. Great. Rob Dillingham. Great. Donovan Mitchell. These have all been fine.

Aaron Gordon. Any of these exciting to you? Donovan Mitchell's a superstar. Oh, that's a good one. And I like Aaron Gordon a lot. And Chris Paul's a Hall of Famer. So you got some good pit. Alparan Sangoon.

You did that pretty good. Oh, okay. Hey, great. And Nas Reid. Oh, yeah. Nas Reid. Oh, yeah. I know.

Fan favorite in Minnesota recently traded. to the Charlotte Hornets, I believe. Oh, really? Pretty good pull. Pretty good pull? Any like one of ten or anything on there? Like any sort of like different, because sometimes you'll see like it'll be one of 50

or like those are the special cards. Any sort of special numbering on. It's usually on the front actually or often on the front, I should say. It says their pick in the draft. Yeah, that's not. But not. But like a little gold, usually it'll be like a little gold thing.

I don't believe so. Yes. Okay. Our buddy payment. Ben's was texting me this morning about I guess there's a one-of-one Steph Curry minion card. No way. That sold for $15,000.

Whoa. Wow. You know, you did the Lorcahanna episode with us at this point. That's right. It's why packs you're on the brain. And I have I realize I have like a Lorcana card that's worth like $1,700 from the first. Really? Holy shit. From when we recorded that episode?

Well, I knew that, I didn't bring that one because I knew it was like worth $100 at the time. Whoa. And since then, really? I think it's sold if it's like, if it's graded and it's like perfect, I think maybe that's how much, it probably would go for a lot less, but still like I think it really appreciated since that episode.

It's the rare bell nip slip card. I got discontinued. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Printing air. It was in the Christmas straight to DVD movie. That's why it's nobody caught it. Not as many eyes on it as main beauty in the beast.

And I, like, I have damaged the car from staring at it so long. So, like, it's not going to get as much money. Burned a hole, like a magnifying glass. If you look at a car too long, it depreciates. You know, all that. Well, let's talk about some stuff. And now that we, you have proven with items and very generously, that you were up there. But this is also, this is something that we've been just talking about conversationally and in text threads and stuff.

And I'm excited that you wanted to come talk about it on the show. I will try to encapsulate. this briefly. Maybe I already did. Maybe we already have on the show. But CityWalk in Hollywood has changed its security procedures. They're basically emulating the Disneyland

model in which there is a bubble. They have created a bubble where once you are scanned by security you now have free access not just to the theme parks but also to the shopping district. This is different than before. You used to be able to go to CityWalk without going

through security, then you would go through security and go into the theme park. This is different now. They've created a little bubble. This is something that I think we were aware of and it talked about on the show and new was coming. And I don't think I realized what a hot button and controversial issue it would become once implemented. I feel like, you know, tell me if you disagree. I feel like this has been received kind of negatively online and I just circumstantially. by people we know who have been up there. And it seems like the main issue for people is that the movie theater, which we have assessed is perhaps, of all the things at Citywalk,

the destination with the most value to a regular person, where you might get, you know, what you came in there to get, a high-quality experience to, you know, I have my opinions about the restaurants that are different than your opinions about the restaurant. But basically, I think there's a lot of people who are mad that you've got to go through the security to get to the movie theater now. Yeah. So now I've been to City Walk post-security change twice now.

And I've only entered one way. Carlson, you've entered multiple ways. I have been two different ways. Two different ways. I've tested two ways. However, I've entered that same security pathway via both self-driving and parking, which I did today. then ride share, which I did previously for an event at Bucca de Beppo. And short take, just in short, I think it's a nightmare.

Like I really, I really hate the security change. Wow. I think it's such a disruption. I think it removes so much charm from like what seems a little bit more neighborhoody. It's like, here's this thing you can just kind of go up to. And like, you know, if you're ride sharing, you're basically, or if someone's dropping you off, it's like right in front and you just walk right in. It is a sidewalk and then you're just in city walk. Yeah, exactly. As opposed to here's this blockade that feels like something, it feels like gating in like an open world like video game where it's just like you get to this area and there's this like weird fence. There's this weird like clearly something that kind of just is like we just don't want you to go here. It feels as uninviting as the previous way felt inviting. So then you have to walk through that. Then you have to walk through the parking structure.

from being dropped off. So it doesn't even feel like you're saving any time. If anything, it's taking you more time because now I have to physically walk into a parking structure, walk through that to get to the security line, which is on the complete other opposite end. No matter where you parked, you were sent through the specific. And you can end up parking very far away. You could be in the deepest, highest corner of the ET parking lot.

And then once you make your way all the way down, now you were funneled all the way through the bottom level of the curious George lot, and then you hit security. So it's adding time no matter what. Which is exactly what happened to me. Today, I was on level 6T of the ET lot. By the way, being in the T area of the E.T lot is very fun. So, like, 6T. That's like E.T.

E.6T. That's good. That's fun. So I did enjoy that. But, yeah, I had to go. I did take the route you just talked about. And it just added so much time to entering and exiting. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is a whole, like, as far as, and then I'm the most curious where Mike is falling on this. I've been waiting for weeks to know where Mike has landed on this. But let me just jump to some of the critical reaction, the online reaction, which is like, okay, something that we've learned through all of the, you know, through the, through the, grosses of the world and all of these things that come up. There is, no matter what theme park change is made, there is an online army that will defend anything that the theme park has done to the death. They line up, like, I,

Like, how dare you? I will be arguing all day for free on a voluntary basis, just like they want. And I, and as far as the MSNBC watching Democrats, you know what I mean? No matter what dumb shit, that party does, they're still defending it. I will find a way to send this through my brain in a way that comes back out. Tim Kane is actually the perfect vice presidential pick. But I've, I've definitely seen, and this is a thing that I think we'll get into. is like amount of time.

What is the amount of time that it takes? And I don't know. I had my own experience, but I certainly cannot assess the length that it can take to get through the actual security line itself. But I definitely have seen a lot of people going like, oh, what, so it adds an extra three minutes. You have to be in a line for three minutes.

Like get used to, you ever been in any theme park security line before? Boohoo. Which is like, okay, yes, but you're not taking into account that already the citywalk and universal parking hassle was immense. Why, you've been here for multiple episodes somehow of discussing the parking garages outside of theme parks? And I think Hollywood, I mean, there was immediately just like a poor comparison between the clarity of Disneyland. Like, there's no question.

Parking at Disneyland is insane and a hassle in and of itself, but at least you kind of understand the process. and where you're going and where to come back at the end of the day. Universal parking already a confusing labyrinthian nightmare. So to add anything on top of that is just a deterrent to go to that particular movie theater. And dare I say, it kind of makes me want to go to a different raising canes or a different mediocre pokey place. Yeah, I mean, like, look, whatever you want to say, however you want to minimize how much time it takes to go through security, itself, which I will say my experiences with the actual security part of the security line have been fairly efficient. It's like TSA pre-check levels of like a little bit of a weight to no weight.

But it's just an added amount of inconvenience and dehumanization. And it's just like, I'm already paying $40 to park and go to the It's Sugar store. It's like this already sucks. and now you're making it worse. Well, hold on. Yeah, yeah. Well, now we got to turn. You're so nice to bring things to me, but like now you're making me very upset.

It's a good thing you buttered them up just to get them to base. You'd be throwing shit at you otherwise. Such a unique candy store. I mean, like, where are you going to get that in the valley otherwise, you know? Here's a thing I will just say about today's experience, which is the cue itself was pretty quick. There definitely is an element of just like people being disoriented because it's like if for some people going here is like a, is like a one time experience.

It's that they'll go to a universal city walk once in their lives. And honestly, that's maybe what your count should approximately be if you've got a good head on your shoulders. It's the natural way of living in this world. So it's a count of one. Right. So you're just going there and like people are, it just is like, wait, what is going on? Where am I supposed to go?

What am I supposed to do? Do I take my shoes off? you know, there's that sort of thing. I'm wearing a wrist watch. I took my watch off and to go through security, because again, you're getting basically no instruction from these people in terms of what to do. And I got on the other side, and I had my bag,

and I felt, and I was like, oh, shit, I don't have my watch. Now, what I didn't realize I'd done is that I'd actually had the foresight to put my watch into my purse so that it was in there. When I rifle it threw, I was able to find it. But it's just like a moment of like, I have to have an, oh shit, my watch is gone moment. Like just to, again, I'm going to the fucking Vivo Italian kitchen in the NBA store, you know? Like what, like, I don't know.

Just a little extra, you get that like that kind of that, that, that curtness or all the way to that rudeness or just like something or even just like an unpleasant situation. Like it's just not, it's not going to be a super positive experience. It's not going to build you up for the day. That's for sure. Right. It's just a little bit off-putting. I have a, like, okay, my experience is very particular, and I'll get into it more thoroughly, but I went at a late hour to where there was literally no line when I got over there.

However, even with no line, there was just one person in front of me, and he put all his belongings in the bin to go on the little security belt, and he didn't, like, put it on the belt to push it through. So I was waiting and I couldn't get in until I did that. And in a TSA manner, I was like, well, they want you to take initiative. They tell you to take initiative to keep things moving yourself. So I took the guy's little bin and I nudged it ahead so that I could put my little bit. And now we're all getting through faster. And immediately the guy said, do not put the bin on the, don't put the bin on the belt.

I was yelled at. You got yelled at it. You're getting barked at. Yes. That sucks. For something that keeps things moving, and wouldn't that be helpful if there's 200 people behind me? I would think, and this was not, like, the rudest interaction I've ever had. This is not something I would typically complain about if it wasn't in this hot button situation where you're just like, there should be no conflict in this.

It used to be you got out on a curb and now you're in city walk. Yeah, and also you want to feel welcomed in, right? Like, maybe they give some training to the security staff, who I'm sure are all underpaid. and don't want to be doing that themselves or maybe they do maybe some of these are power trip people or maybe that's what you encounter, yeah. But like

I'd least some power but I but like don't you want more of like a welcome to city walk you want you want like a little bit of like like yeah we got to do this thing but it's those are the rules like come on and have a fun time which is how I've found Disney to be I'm often entering from the harbor side of Disney based on where I'm staying hotel-wise or parking

and that can be, you can get a crazy long line there, but everybody's so friendly. And the little bit of friendliness goes a long way just to like, all right, we're all in it together. We'll be over it soon. You know what? I just, we just went through the security Disney over by, what I guess it's, what is it, Lulu Lemon now,

the former ESPN zone. And I was saying to the family, it's a Lulu Lemon now? I'm pretty sure. Wow. I have not been in there, but yeah. Big change. That's a fucking hulking Lulu Lemon.

Jesus. I should go, you're right. I should go in there. Do they have like all of their surplus inventory? Is it some weird thing where it's like a warehouse slash store? But I said to my family, I was like, you know, Knott's has these new screening things where you just walk. It's one of those things.

A lot of modern, I feel like sports arena is now. Just like you walk through, you don't empty your pockets. Which that feels like fake to me now. I feel like we can supposedly it's calibrated so it only knows if you have a gun or explosives. I don't know. But then they can, you know, as long as you get James Dolan on the inside monitoring. storing your face forever. That's where he makes up for the...

It's like x-raying all the women and James Dolan's just, like looking that way, I assume. In the sphere by himself projecting it. True supervillain. Yeah. So I said, oh, you know, Nats has the thing where, like, you don't even have to empty your pockets anymore. And one of the security guys at Disney goes,

he goes, yeah, well, we care about you more. We care about your safety more. It would really be, like, being funny. And I was like, like, Twink. You usually do get a fun interaction with a guy or a person at the city, at the, at the downtown Disney, for sure. The, yeah, I mean, just in terms of weird interactions at the universal line, mine, mine was not as confrontational as yours, but it was just a thing of why, like, why is this a question? So I was behind a, another woman who was, who was there by herself. And, like, we're going, we're using, she's using a bin in front of me.

I'm using the bin She's using the bin directly in front of me And I'm using my own bin And the guy, security guy turns to us and asks Like not in a friendly way like Are you together? And we had to be like, no

Like what? Like why does that matter? Like what do you talk? Like what? Like what are we going to be screened? Like as a duo? Why do you need to know that? Made us both just like feel kind of

Just a little uncomfortable and off put Oh, good hands anyway. Kiss for me. And then I'm a security line. I'm by myself, so naturally I have to acknowledge that I'm wiger solo. That's what happens in that direction. It's like a formative moment, yeah. I don't want to wait any longer.

I'm waiting for weeks. I am dying to know what you, Mike Carlson, think about the new... We got fucking blue balls over here, Carlson. Yeah, yeah. Stop making us edge. All right, all right, all right. All right. Let's start.

Where should we start here? Okay, let's start here. I am definitely a person that is a little bit, you could say, over-worryed about gun violence in America. Let's put it there. Let's start there, okay? Yes. So once in a while, when I'm in a movie theater, I just go, you know what, let's take a look around. Let's just make sure.

Once in a while, now I go to movie theaters, I can do it. I'm fine. I'm not like hysterical about it. But it does enter my mind. So when they announced this change coming to Citywalk, I went, good. That's why. That's what I went, oh, good. There's a little, whether it's fake or not, it gives you a little sense of security.

And I go, oh, that'll be okay. So maybe that's Citywalk. That's the place. You can take a nice, relaxing breath while you're seeing your Marvel movie on Thursday night, whatever. So initially, I said yes. I said this is good. All other movie theaters because other movie theaters don't. Exactly, exactly.

And obviously. Do any other movie theaters in the area have security just based on where they are? It's a great question. I went through security, seeing. Force Awakens opening night at the Chinese theater, but I think that was just for that screening. I think that was just for like opening night. Yeah, I don't think they regularly.

They don't regularly do that. Another little online back and forth that I saw was somebody saying, like, oh, boo-hoo, you've got to go through security to go to a movie theater. Like, that's been the deal of downtown Disney for like, I guess you never heard of downtown Disney. You never heard of the downtown Disney AMC. And somebody's response to that was, hey, how's that theater doing? Which is true.

That Peter closed many years ago. So that's the only one that I could think of that was behind his security gate and that has been closed. Well, Orlando City Walk. Yes. It does match Orlando Citywalk. Now, I don't exactly know, but I feel like I have caught that if you are living in that area, that there's less theater options around. That you might end up having to drive further and go through the hassle of that just given that. And I could be totally wrong.

know the movie theater situation but i think i think maybe that one is making it just based on you don't have the myriad of options that we have here yes maybe that's right i i don't know that but yeah that that that's one in there in that zone the the amc in downtown disney was closed because they thought they were building a hotel oh i don't know that really remember they they closed all that stuff really quickly because they all announced that hotel that never got built well you mean not florida no no excuse me yeah yeah in anaheim okay remember that they closed that they were like, we're building this weird looking hotel. It's going to be right by the monorail.

We're closing ESPN zone, Rainforest Cafe and the movie theater. Yes. And then the city was like, no, you're not doing that. You're not zoned for that. Which is how that started rolling them getting approval for everything for Disneyland forward. So it may not be that the theater closed due to dwindling attendance from being behind a security line. That's actually not a difficult security line at all. But, you know, adding hassle.

I'm just saying it's not a thing in L.A. You don't go through security. Yes, of course. We don't have your dream, Mike, of going to security every time. for everything. You see a movie. To go to Sprouts. It's a reasonable concern because, like, first off, if you, if there is going to be a shooting at a theater in L.A.,

it would probably be a, like, it'd probably be the Man Chinese Theater or the city walk one because those are like marquee theaters. That's where people are, you're going to have a packed house to see, like, the opening weekend, IMAX, like, Spider-Man or whatever the fuck. So, like, I like, I do understand. understand like this specifically might be a target. I also will say, like I've had a, both at the dark night, not the dark night rises, the dark night and at Force Awakens opening night, I got evacuated.

Really? Really? And the first time was like some prankster pulled a fire alarm. And the second time was, I believe, a cleaning apparatus, like a vacuum cleaner caught, like caught fire or started smoking and set up the smoke alarm. but both times it felt like, like, oh, shit, there is some sort of mass violence happening in an adjacent theater, all of which are, you know, show it's opening night. So I understand that concern. It's a collective anxiety for a reason because it's a thing that happens in this stupid, shitty fucking country where nothing ever gets better.

Sure. But all that said, I still think it's just such a pain in the ass. But keep going. Sure. You were on a path. So that was the, yeah, so that's the start. I was like, okay, that's good. And plus, yes, we, we, I'm used to that for things, especially if you go into universally, you pop out to go to vivo for dinner.

You want to go pop back in. Sure. When, if you're doing a day like that, it is actually easier like that. Like that, it does work easy, like easier when you're at Disney. It seems like a better park goer experience. That is the one defense. Yes. If you're going to the park.

Yeah. So, yeah, so all of that. So I saw the complaining start. And I understand. these are people that weren't aware this was happening. You know, I've known for months. I've been able to prepare mentally for months. So I get some of these uninformed people out there.

What is this? They're very upset because they come up upon the wall and the security. And I get that they would be mad because they don't pay attention to the news like I do. And it does sometimes seem inexplicable. Like whether, because we know that this is ultimate, they're trying to make really the theme park experience smoother and kind of emulating something about or Orlando or Disneyland here. But it can seem inexplicable if you're like,

is this to protect the movie theater or our friend Jack Allison when this news was going right? He was trying to parse. Why did this happen? And he said, did someone try to 9-11 the chocolate important? So, okay, if you weren't paying attention to the issues day to day, those are the places your mind can start going. Yeah, sure, I understand that. Now, I would also like to say that I think that the out of the outdoors. cry proves just how popular citywalk is as a destination.

I think that I was very vindicated because of all the people that were like, I love citywalk the way it is. I don't like the change. I think that amount, the volume of people, I was like, well, of course.

I've been right the whole time. Mike, are you, would you really characterize it as city walk as opposed to I like that movie theater? I didn't do a pole. That is an IMAX theater. That's one of the nicer theaters in the city.

And I am upset that something has changed. that the theater. Citywalk is part of city walls. It counts. It has to count. Even if they don't say the word city walls. It has to count. Okay.

It has to count in my book. I think that's fair. Yeah. So I saw that. People were not, oh, we're not ready for it. And I was a little dismissive when I saw everybody complaining because I said, okay, well, what is it security? You go all the same complaints from the three minutes. Three minutes.

I do this all the time when I go to Orlando or when I'm in Anaheim. His baby wants this bottle of zero minute weight. Or Disney Springs. You got to go through security in the parking garage at Disney Springs. So I go, this is part for the course. This is city walks behind the times. They're finally catching up. So I was like, all right, what's the deal?

So I went a couple weeks ago with my daughter and we were meeting up with my friend and his son. And that was the first time I went. So we parked in Jurassic parking. And I think on the show, we've talked about this. I'm sure on the other episode, the first episode, about how it is like you're not exactly sure. sometimes where you are in citywalk parking. Like you'll be like popped out of a, like you'll think you're over by Margaritaville,

but you're actually way over by the Johnny Rockets or whatever it is now or the dancing fountain. Like sometimes you don't know. You're actually over by insomnia cookies, which will never open. This is not happening. Right. Which Jason's happy about because it gave him a tummy ache 20 years ago. Oh, that's right. Even though he ate like five at midnight or something.

Yes, even though it was a situation. Makes all the sense in the world It would make him sick Right, and it was yeah The whatever college town Insomnia cookies But he's mad at them So so it is always like

It is always like a little bit confusing Because you don't know where you're coming out But I think I argued at least at the time I kind of found that fun I kind of found it fun because it was never very far It's never like you're going to get popped out down the hill or something You're always like city walk isn't that big So like whatever you end up by the NBC Grill

Instead of the celebrity authentic whatever. That's not that big of a deal. And oh, look where we are, whatever. So I believe we parked at Jurassic Parking with my daughter a couple weeks ago. And I actually forgot exactly. I didn't know where the security checkpoints were. So we got out. And if you park in Jurassic parking, it's a very easy thing.

You're not but like a hundred feet from the escalators and the elevators that put you right by city food and by the celebrity authentics. Sometimes you're in it shockingly quickly. Like, oh, I'm right here. Wow. Exactly, yes. So we were walking there, and I was expecting there to be just a security spot right there. So we walked right over down the escalator, and I'm like, well, surely we're going to breeze right through security. What are all these whiners complaining about?

And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, we don't. It's closed. This is not. You can't. And I go, wait, what? You can't? They're like, no, no, you've got to walk this way. And I go, oh, okay.

And the only thing that really points you where you're going is there be another couple people ahead of you walking through the parking garage and then maybe a little signage. Not much signage or arrows or no. So you're on this like, I'm sure it was five minutes, but you're on this bizarre odyssey through the parking garage to get to wherever you're going. And it's kind of confusing. And you finally go over next to the NBC grill. And once it comes to actually the time you're spending in line going through security,

it's like a minute. or really there was no long line or whatever. It was very easy once you were there. But the whole walk, especially walking, trying to wrangle my three-year-old, I was like, okay, this does suck. I was going to say the fun of, I don't know where I'm coming out and where I'm going back to,

that's got to change with a kid. A kid does not, that's not like, ooh, where did I get spit? What portal did I go through? Like when you're dealing with logistics of a child, things are different. It wouldn't have been as bad if it was just like the regular spot where you could leave.

Okay. But we have to like walk through the whole, parking garage and then we finally got the security was fine or whatever and I was like oh yeah that sucks but the security part itself to me isn't the annoying part yes here's this is this is the next generation take I agree it's not the security that's not the problem security itself is not the problem because today I parked an ET and it was a little bit of a quicker walk it's still kind of an odd walk around the stores and it's like there's no defined path there's a sign or two and you're just following people ahead of you it's disorienting but it's

disorienting and once you get to the security itself again it was a minute it was a minute or less walking through it's just dumping all your shit that's annoying which i get but it's quick but it's not the security problem it's the problem that city walk was not built for this system so you don't get that long runway that you get in orlando because when you park in orlando it's a big parking garage and there's this long, these long runways that take you right to the security. It's in the circular little hub area. And then you're on your way to citywalk. Ah, what the possibilities of the day are ahead of us.

It all feeds to, yes, one avenue. Right. And you're on a moving sidewalk and it's fun. And like, you're never confused where you are and where you're going. You're never confused. But, but, but, and downtown Disney is going to have that when they open up this new parking garage with this bridge. That's going to be, I think, a very.

similar hub on the other side of harbor. You'll do all the security over there. Then your day, the possibilities you walk across the bridge and then Disney, it's just, you don't have to worry about anything. All your cares are gone once the security's checkpoint is passed. So I think they're working on versions of that for downtown Disney because I think Universal Orlando actually has set up the best. Yeah.

But CityWalk now, they have turned it into a prison. They have put up walls where. there once were no walls. And Citywalk now feels like you're in like a prison yard. And you feel there's a couple places to get in and there's like no way out. Like there's a claustrophobia I feel now being inside Citywalk that I didn't feel before. And it was already tighter than we were just getting photos from our friend Jason Walliner who is like amazed by the expansiveness. It's a big lake and toothsome is on the lake.

And like it as opposed I was like, yeah, we're trying to squeeze the. The things that are big and relaxing there, like Tootsam and Margaritaville, are like squeezed into this already claustrophobic space, and now it is more so. Now it's more so. And, you know, in the same way that if you have a small house or apartment and you have high ceilings or like a big window, it can make it feel more open, that's gone. Yes. It's just like the place by Bukitabapo is just, as you're saying, it's a weird, like, iron wall that's been placed there now. It's so unpleasant. It's so unpleasant looking.

A little like holes drilled into hard metal. Yeah, not themed at all. Yeah, it's really not welcoming and it's, and it's not pleasant to look at from the inside or the outside. The aesthetics are horrible. It does have, Carlson, the way you articulated that, which I thought was really well argued. It's, it has, I'm realizing it has the negatives of an indoor mall

without the positives. Like, like you feel really confined, you feel really trapped, you feel claustrophobic, but minus the, you know, the cover. and the AC. So you're just baking in the heat. Yes. That's why you have the prison yard feeling.

Right. It's a real, yeah, it makes the experience such a bummer. And it is kind of like to continue on with the mall analogy, it's kind of like if your your childhood indoor mall, like, it has like whatever, there's there's eight different entrances and you park wherever, you just go into the closest entrance. They made a security change. and now everyone is funneled into either the Nordstrom

or the fucking Chuckie cheese and those are the only two places you can enter them all, you know what I mean? And now it's all of a sudden like, where do I have to go? I have to like loop around over here, you know? And you pay for it on both the entrance and the exit.

Both times it's like an added bit of a pain in the ass to something that's already a pain in the ass. How is leaving via ride share? How has that changed? It's bad because you, you can't exit through, like you have to basically go through the, where you would exit for the parking structure. Like, there isn't a one-way exit.

There isn't like a turnstile or something you can go through just to exit by the drop-off part. You have to go loop back into the parking structure and then walk out of the exit of the parking structure. Do they send you past like Margaritaville and then up to that car? As opposed to, used to be able to call a lift when you're like midway through city walk and then it's waiting for you at the. I mean, I guess you could still do that a few time to write. But, yeah, as opposed to like, oh, and I'm right here and there's my car and then I go. Yeah, it's this extra little walk around through a space that is, by the way, so unplay. I think we have to talk about aesthetics a little bit because that was one of my big questions is,

what did they do here? What did they give you to look at? And I'm not going to be able to describe this very well for the listeners, but like, look, this is very overused. People are saying this stuff a lot, comparing things to back rooms and talking about liminal spaces and what have you. However, like, what else can you say? I'm showing you guys just cement walls and pipes because they're sending people through pre-existing spaces in parking garages, and they've done nothing. Maybe they painted half of a wall blue, but truly, I mean, and this is like, I'm not there that late. This is, I'm showing you photos from a actually very crowded Thursday night where they're showing the Odyssey.

It's crazy that this has all happened right before there is a huge movie that people want to see there. Yeah. And we heard through the grapevine, there is like supposedly somebody passed us the rumor that Christopher Nolan himself is aware of all these changes and mad about them. Yeah. Because he is not happy about this stuff landing right when this is like one of the primary places to see his new big work. It's one of the places with, it's the true IMAX screen, like the actual IMAX screen, the not the L.A. And it is 70mm as well. So it's like it's the place to properly.

see the Odyssey if you can manage it. They have the fucking Trojan horse, the picture used Trojan horse is in front of the city walk AMC. It's incredible to see. To be nice to them for a minute because there's been a lot of city walk complaining, I will say, yeah, that is really something to see.

And that made me feel like, you know, because I grew up around here, like I wouldn't get up there all the time, but it was pretty, I mean, you would often have a big universal release. And then outside the movie theater are giant props from the movie. And it kind of took me back to that and it's such a like it you know it's the ultimate kind of analog movie and it's big physical

items like in the place where you're supposed to see it right near where it was filmed so it gave me childhood vibes in in that regard which which were really nice and then also just getting to like wow there's the horse but then you circle around the back and you see how it looks like it is charging at city food that's a really dramatic image and like lit like that lighting is incredible. It's very, very striking. Wow. Well, I would defend it with my life. People hiding in there so that they can pay extra for the habit.

Chick-fil-A employees popping out to sack the raising canes. I think the, yeah, I mean, what you're saying about the backrooms of it all? Maybe just like, can you give me some minions, like, point, like, right this way, you know what I mean? Like, give us a little bit of show, give us a little bit of theming. Maybe they will as time goes on, maybe. I think they got to do it, yeah.

Yeah, Disney has a pretty, like, unpleasant place where you wait for a parking lot tram, but they did this very simple thing. It's very appealing. It's all these bubbles and the bubbles are filled with silhouettes of the characters. And then you get to kind of play a guessing game. Like, who's that one? Oh, I recognize it now. Yeah, you got nothing here.

You got just color stripes. I don't know if it's possible, though, because the walk is the thing that's annoying. And I don't know that, like, the way the parking garage is set up, like, that's even possible. Hmm. I mean, I guess you can put more signs. Yeah, I don't think you can do a fun funnel, like, like fun. I don't think you can do a lot.

Yeah, signage. Yeah, signage can go a long way. They put a bunch of just like slats and then it's like a color gradient, basically, but the slats look like Trump's wall or something. Right. Like, no matter what you paint on them, it still is just very, I don't know, just unwelcoming and cold. And yeah, these doors are awful.

And then Mike, have you seen? what they did to your beloved Margaritaville. Have you seen it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Because based on where the location, if you don't know, they took out the indoor skydiving. They took out the indoor skydiving, and that opened up a perfect spot to be like, here's this new end of this funnel. But that's also right next to Margaritaville. And I've always found that location to be strange.

I was just saying, like, the Florida ones on the water and that bar by the plane is a wonderful place. relaxing place to be. The only thing you've got at this one, as far as any sort of like outside relaxation, is that patio area, which has a fire pit that's shaped like a fin. And I remember being there for your birthday or just a hang or whatever.

Like, it's, you know, if you have your meal in a very, with a very narrow ceiling with a fake cloudy sky, you feel like, I don't think this is the vibe that Jimmy wants us to have. But you go outside, you get a fire pit, you relax in those chairs. Maybe now we're talking.

look at it now it's just the doors because this would just lead right to the security line and that would be you know and then a bunch of riffraff can go in and out so they don't want that and then from the inside they ruined it they ruined the one good space at that already lacking margaritaville it's dead it's a prison what have they done oh yeah that is really really disappointing because like when margarita will open i was assuming they would use both floors i thought it was easily going to be two stories that is not the case use that space yeah But they didn't do that. And I was like, well, you know, when it's doing, the restaurant's doing so well in a few years. Clearly, you just have to expand. Then we'll have. Converted L.A. to the island lifestyle, finally. Yeah. And they'll destroy the ceiling and make it as, you know, you can be able to see the second floor on some level.

And it'll be much more elaborate. But apparently that hasn't happened. And there's always rumors of that location closing as much as it pains me to say that. But there's also rumors of a lot of things closing. And that hasn't happened. I feel like a city walk, Hollywood. I'm impressed by anything. I mean, look, also, the, I've seen people point out how, like, look, it's not my words.

I've seen people online say, we're already talking about kind of a dead mall. And maybe you would disagree with this. You like the locations that are there. You like the restaurants. Sure. But, like, we have watched many locations go down. It is not the thriving city walk of the year 2000. No.

Every single storefront was filled with some oddity and, you know, wind-up toy stores or whatever it is. Like, it's already they've, like, gutted a lot of the fun. Finally, there was a fun-themed restaurant with characters and stuff. Bad out of the gate, characters cut. Everybody, it's notorious how bad that place is. Yeah. So it's, so, you know, here, here, Wager, I will echo the words of your co-host who was here a couple of weeks ago. And he was very blunt about it.

he said city walk is dead. He was very definitive about that. Do we think that's overdoing it? Or do we think he's on to something? I think, first off, it will endure as long as that AMC is there. Because that is like me living on the complete opposite side of town and being aware of all of the, the many ways in which it's annoying to get there and get out of there,

both because of the distance and because of the parking and now their security theater, Like, like, I still will continue to patronize that theater. Like, I still, like, just go to that AMC because it's just, like, a great place to see a movie. And so I think that will go, that will go a long way to helping it sustain itself. And just enough people will go there and then grab a, you know, pre-movie bite at the, or post-movie bite at the fucking NBC Sports Grill or whatever. Like, like, I think that, I think that will go a long way. That's it. I think it also is salve.

if I don't think they're going to roll this security thing back. I think it's here to stay. But they could do things like that blocked off ride share area. That could be another security entrance. Like if they were increasing the volume of places where you could get in and out, that alone would make it seem a little bit less cumbersome. So like I think there are things they could do. And also like if there's any sort of refurbishing they can do of the long walk you have to do right now, perhaps like I don't know if you could engineer a moving walkway to go in that space. That's interesting. But that would help too.

That might help. The one from Jurassic Parking feels like it would be impossible, but maybe something with E.T. That big long stretch over in Curious George. Yeah, there's that one stretch in Curious George where I think you have to go through regardless. So I think that, yeah, if there's anything to do that to ease that up. Yeah, yeah.

But City Walk as it currently is, it's on its last legs. It's on life support. It also, sometimes I wonder if they want. to be saved. A recent exchange that we had was based on something that Jason sent us, which was, you know, the World Cup happened recently. And there were some pretty huge, you know, just massive scale viewing parties everywhere, I'm sure everywhere across the country, but especially in L.A.

And one night, there was just a jam-packed World Cup viewing party in CityWalk. And when Jason sent the photo, I was like, I don't know how to process this. I don't think I could imagine Citywalk being this full of people, this full of excited people, there for a purpose, there for something that is happening right now for current, relevant entertainment. It made me feel like, oh my God, maybe we're bad. And look, Odyssey's caught. Giant movie is coming here.

They finally figured out something good to do in this Five Towers stage space. Like, this is very impressive. The next day, Citywalk said, no more World Cup viewing parties. They looked at a bunch of people at CityWalk having a good time and said, nah, not really her vibe. Not our thing. It's a reverse taffer. They were so popular.

They were like, shut it down. This could be not full of people. You got people enjoying themselves and spending money. Every square foot is a place you could be losing money. Making nothing. So, yeah, I mean, just another, and I don't think this is necessarily the best ball, but it's a place that's making an effort. The Century City ball where there's also a very nice AMC, AMC.

They had the huge outdoor screens, and it was like packed. You know, like it would be a Columbia game, and there'd be like just like, just like everyone's wearing Columbia shirts and it's just like a massive humanity. And it was fun. Like I watched a couple of games there just because it was just a great. to be with a bunch of people who like gave a shit about this thing. It made it feel like a little bit more of a communal space for like people to congregate, which is what citywalk should be.

We don't have it, which is lacking in Los Angeles in general. Yeah. Yeah. They want, I mean, there has been a shift. I mean, they've gotten rid of all the nightlife in the last so many years. Your saddle ranches, your haul at the moon. Right. It does feel like primarily they want citywalk's customer base to be just people that want a begrudging meal.

Yeah. Yes. Just like, well, I guess, okay, let's eat here. Like that, that is, I think, what they want. And it has been veering that way. Now, I don't know if they've actually broken ground, but supposedly there's a hotel being built right at the entrance of Universal. That's what the rumors. They never confirmed it, but it seems like it.

Yes. And that's a big reason why they had to get rid of the security there and move it elsewhere. So I don't know if they think that when they have people literally like right there, even though there's hotels down the street, like right? Right there, will that just be more begrudging families to have okay meals up until 10 p.m. And they can keep, like, partiers out because it's too big of a hassle. It does feel like there's some feeling of that's what they need. They don't want the partying because there's still that in Citywalk Orlando.

It's a surprising difference there. I was trying to think if could they get some good will back if you could sip and stroll. Boy, that'd be great. at Hollywood. Maybe that doesn't make a big difference. Maybe there's not, maybe other people are not as driven by their desire to, to sip and stroll. Yeah, yeah, to walk with beers in a theme park adjacent environment. But for me, big.

I don't know. That would be huge because I will say that getting to the exit of Vivo and no alcohol forbidden beyond this point, it's just kind of like, oh, yeah, this is not a place. Like, it would be kind of fun if I could have a shitty cocktail to carry around. Yeah, yeah. Because Orlando, yeah. Obviously, you can do that in Orlando. Right.

Can you do it at Disney Springs? I'm not sure. I don't know actually. Not downtown Disney that out loud. Not downtown Disney for sure. Springs, yeah, yeah. But I don't think they'll allow that here. I just think they're like really worried here.

I wonder how much of that is also like just like municipal law. Yes, I'm sure that's. Is it an LA County ordinance or something like that? I will say that they did that in the city of Santa Monica, so not the city of Los Angeles, the city of Santa Monica recently did that for a, a different dead mall, the 3rd Street promenade, which is a fucking ghost town. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I hadn't been in years and years, and it was very upsetting the last night went. Is that where the turtle restaurant is? Yes, I haven't been yet. I know I've got to go. Do you? Do you? Well, some people, the reviews are like,

oh, better than expected. Very expensive. Yes. Oh, man. Yeah, it's like a $40, like, pepperoni pizza. Like, not even like it's shredder special or something like that, or Raphael's favorite.

It's just like a complete. Femeless pepperoni. I understand, like, you know, a place that's recreating a location from a movie or a TV show, but this isn't like a specific thing from turtles. They've just put up images of the turtles. And you already live surrounded by those. You're going to be buried in your turtle representations. I have more of a themed environment to live in.

Yeah, yeah. You already live there. Well, I haven't been there yet. So obviously I wasn't like running down to see it. Yeah. Look, we're talking about how shitty this place. that place looks and how shitty the 3rd Street Promenade is. So in this context, I regret to inform you that you have booked the PTR Doe Boys crossover episode

where we review the Turtles Pete. Wow. That's a good pitch. I like that pitch. That was good, yeah. Anyway, we'll figure it out. That also proves wrong something else that Mitch said when he was here, which is that you haven't wanted to have us on because we're three people.

He was very definitive about that. Mitch just loves throwing me under the butt. us for any reason. He didn't even just say that conversationally. He said that to everyone who's hearing this right now. I love having you guys on. I love this podcast. You've been on.

We'll sort it out. No, please. Even though we are three people. You have the chairs. We did Beck and Kyle's show. We know they've got the chairs over there. We've seen the three chairs for ourselves. We have enough chairs.

The chairs are chairs as a solid rob. So anyway, we're like, but down, Third Street Promenade has instituted open, I keep calling it an open carry by mistake. Not open carry. They have instituted open beverage. What is it? Like carrying? Yeah.

And so you can go into, we were at Barney's Beinerie and we're like, hell, let's get some cocktails to go. And then we took them outside. The thing is it's like, and these might be L.A. County ordinances is they have to be like, okay, we have to give you a wristband. Now we have to put it in this special cup that is different than the normal cup. And then now you can take it outside. So we went through all this rigamarole.

And then we walked up and down this. this completely vacant, you know, a commercial space with our drinks. This was me, even Eva Anderson and Tim Calpacchus and Mookie Blakelock were all there. And then we just walked right back into Barney's Beehnery. There's nothing to do. It's nothing to look at it. It's not a scenic place. My visit there was pretty quick.

I know it kind of like ends in what used to be Santa Monica Place. Wasn't it like an indoor mall that became an outdoor mall? Is there anything going on over there? Is that dead too? No. There's the Gorman Days School is the one thing. know how to say that word. But it's they, they have a cooking school there that I guess

is thriving and that's the one thing that's that's holding it down. But everything else is like just just shudder like like a commercial spaces. It's like the Peloton store closed. I think like the Tiffany store closed. It's like it's and

they went way too high end. That's part of the problem. They were trying to make it like this luxury retail. There's a fucking Tesla store there and a Nike town and a cheesecake factory and that's about it. The Beverly centers like that too. The Nordstrom closed, which is fucking insane. Yeah.

Yeah, those don't really close. No. Do they? Yeah, those are, I feel, are all malls just, like, completely dependent on Dintai Fung? It seems like the franchise that is, at least around here, right? Because the, my childhood mall, Westfield, Topanga, this, like, food hall thing closed. And I think the only, which is, like, eerie to be there now, this thing that only opened a few years ago is now, like, now they're just struggling. to find anybody to bring in to fill tons and tons of space.

So much space, yeah. Thriving for years and yet, and I think Dintai Fung's going in. Oh, is it? Maybe not there, but elsewhere in the month. It's like the last hope. That's going to save it. Yeah, yeah, it has to, and it probably will, too. It seems like it always does.

The Westfield Century City, for that matter, does have a Dintai Fong. Okay. So that, you know, that might be part of why they're able to have World Cup games there. Maybe it's sort of replaced City. What I was describing my childhood thing of, like, it's where you see a movie in a grand way, and there'll be like big activations, right? Aren't there, like, dumb things of like this billboard's on fire, this billboard's spitting water or whatever, like,

that's kind of where that shit happens. Yeah, yeah, they do. They had a, they had a huge, like, avatar, fire and ash thing there that was just like a big flaming A. Oh, wow. That was honestly fucking badass. Yeah. Oh, that's, yeah.

Yeah, I saw somebody, like, posting about it, like, it was odd to have to be seated at a restaurant, and that's their view. And I'm like, I will pay extra if that's my view. And speaking of nice views, I haven't seen Varang in person. Oh, yeah. Can I see her? Oh, yeah.

Absolutely can. There's Varan. Damn. Wow, wow. Right there with her sister wife, power for chainsaw man. So that's great. I'll be adding more to Big City as we go. Oh, congrats.

Wow. Hell yeah. Yeah, congrats on the new, the newest relationship. I love it. It's a very, this is, this is, I was trying to find an avenue for my midlife crisis that was not, did not involve completely destroying my life. And I think just getting tattoos. Wow.

It's been a nice, like, this, I just write down the, middle. I guess I didn't explain that's what that was. I should have said the word tattoo as context for listeners or people who don't listen to your show. I have a tattoo of the villain from Avatar, Fire, and Ash, as played by Una Chaplin. Yeah, yeah.

You can even name a character from that, fucking you can. Fucking, we all can. She's on your fucking body. Can you even name a person that has one of the characters on their body? I wanted to pull in some other opinions on this because I've, you know, I've seen friends get involved and make statements

as Mitch did. And I saw a post by a friend of the show and past guest Landon, Zachheim. And I, he did a post and I said, he texted me. Oh, really? Okay. He said, I forget his statement, but it was something pretty lofty about like, it's done. I'm not seeing movies here anymore. And I said, would you care to describe what was the worst part of the experience to me? And he sent this in just before we started recording. Oh, great. Every part is the worst part. You already had to contend with parking in a theme park garage. You're parking far away and walking.

Now they've sullied your path with hastily put together blockades, showing you exactly where you could have gone. But now you're funneled down yet another walkway, taking you away from citywalking towards a massive, unfriendly theme park security line for a theme park you're not going to. Why would you go through airport security if you're not getting on a plane? That's city walk now. Why would I ever see a movie there again?

Oh, God. Why do I feel like Mike likes the new line? I was not alone Everyone is so used to you defending city water I'm a city water I love city water He said thanks for doing the good work Please send updates on the new jelly rolls locations

There you go You haven't had an update in a while Immediately after They denied I didn't say this on our Patreon episode about Comic Con But there was a dueling piano bar That we tried to get into And they were clearly still going

But they wouldn't let us in Because they go oh we're closing Oh that sucks Fucking bullshit You're a dueling piano influencer That's what I tried to say, but they didn't let me in. Anyway. What that accurately enraged testimonial reflects is a thing we already touched on the surliness,

the gruffness of the security employees. Like, it's just like that's a big part of the, I mean, we've already made the counterpoint, the counter example with the Disney security line. It's just like, why do they have like assholes working there? Like, why is that like the energy? You know, like it shouldn't evoke TSA. because no one likes going through TSA. Everyone's like, this fucking sucks.

This is degrading. Yeah, you wouldn't necessarily say that about all security lines, but this you do. In the Disney lines, you get to see like a nice dog, you know? I mean, you could be dismayed that the dog, like, what are they things going to happen? They need a dog to sniff thing, but I always like seeing the dog. It's nice. The guy a nice hat next to a nice dog. Yeah, usually has like a boater or something on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little dog clothes. I know. I like that. Yeah, I mean, it would be, like, Disney probably make sure that, like, They have somebody that's been brainwashed by the magic to do the security, I assume. Yeah. Which obviously is a more pleasant experience. Universal should, like, pay a little more money and, like, train everybody to, like, be in character, like, to be in, like, happy security person character.

Is it, is it a third-party security firm they're using? Oh, that's good question. I don't know. Oh, that's a very good thing. I'm thinking about that, and it's just like, oh, if that should, they're just going to the lowest bidder, you know, and whatever. They're using the hell's angels. Exactly. You know what? It feels like with the temporary or I guess they're temporary, maybe perhaps permanent,

I have to feel like they'll change what that looks like eventually because it's just so industrial and it looks really horrible and confining and feels prison like what you're saying. But it kind of makes you feel like you're visiting citywalk in the midst of the events of Alex Garland's Civil War. You know what I mean? It's just like, there's a sense of normal, but things aren't exactly normal. Yeah. Once we get in there, it'll be okay. Right, right. To earn that privilege.

I am skeptical that there's enough room to really do what we're saying. I don't think, I think we have a limited amount of space. And I think the construction project would be so big to really fix all of the different hubs that I don't think we're getting it. I think, as you were saying, like, the best we can get is, like, a minion sign pointing us somewhere. But let's do that. I'll take that. Fine. We'll take it.

You know what I like is I've only had nice things to say ever since it opened when they opened the E.T. parking garage and the little because they know it's a little walk before you can get there and they want to give you a pleasant feeling or going into Citywog the other way. And that E.T. light mural all done with dots or there's one in Jurassic too, I believe. Yes. This is like this kind of abstract representation of the characters where it feels like they thought about it. They're representing universal iconography in a clever.

unified way. And instead they took the, we're already at a character who no longer really exists in the parks. You do kind of go, Curious George, Brad, I guess that was something with Curious George. And then I think he's represented in one sign that you pass by. Right. And otherwise, it is blank. Can they not, why not, can we, yes, just name it the minion garage.

Right. And then put minion shit all over the place. I think everybody's happy. Or keep at the Curious George garage and still put minions stuff there. Like, no one cares. Like, just put some big screen. up. Just a catch-all universal, like, a, like, proper IP trailer, you know, just, just, just, just cycle through all this, all the guys we know. Um, like, you know, it's, it's,

who's the, Victoria Frankenstein? Throw her in the mix. Why not? Okay. Sure. Yeah. She's in the family now. Absolutely. I, by the way, they should be developing a Victoria Frankenstein feature if they're not. That's, that's another, that's another idea I think we can pitch, along with our, um, uh, a old person pretending to be a young musician. Oh, okay, sure. To T-T. To T-C. for boomer music fans. We'll talk through all these on the Do Boys episode. That was your favorite ride, I think, right? You told me monsters?

I loved it. I loved Monsters Unchained. Yeah. It's the best. We should, can we, we probably need to second gate just that chunk because, um. It's off topic? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not, I'm not talking about parking garage and security stuff specifically.

I could just cut it. Yeah, maybe just bleep it. All right, I'll bleep it. Yeah. We veered into a very unpleasant area. I can get things back on track as far as extremely unpleasant customer experiences because here's the specific way that I did it. I will spend decent chunks through it.

With annual passes with theme parks, I kind of go in and out. I want absence to make the heart grow fonder. And then I get excited to get one again. So I am off universal at the moment. I'm off too. You are too. Okay. So I will...

What was your parking deal today? Well. I hope and do a little AMC, a little AMC trick. You did an old AMC lie, you cancel the ticket and then you get the code, you scan, you pay $5 and you cancel the ticket. It costs like $7 or $8 total, yeah. Is that a more streamlined process than it used to be? Was that more complicated? I remember we talked about that on the show, but.

Well, Wiger did the old-fashioned way. Yeah. I did the, well, I have A-list. So my ticket to the 1.30 p.m. screening of one night only was free. And I, so like, like, yeah, I do the A list. I got myself a ticket. I went in there and I showed my receipt and the ticket to the guy and he just handed me $35 cash. They still do the cash?

In this world, we're talking about where everything has been revised. I assumed cash was in the past. That's completely insane. You know what? They probably need security because of the amount of cash they have to have on hand for reimbursements. Like Vegas. Right. They have like a Brinks truck every morning that pulls up.

Oh, my God. I'm shocked. You apparently can. The guy showed me on the app now, the AMC app. You can, if you're A-List, you can get a barcode. Yes, that's right. Yeah. And then you pay only $5 when you're parking.

And that's, that's an easier process. But it feels less like a scam. I like the bit of chicanery of like, I'm going to get, I'm paying with a car, but then I'm getting cash back, you know? It's a fun way to get cash also. Like more fun than going to an ATM with a debit card. I So here's how

You know Even in those gaps where I don't have the the Included with certain passes Theme Park parking Yeah Sometimes I will desire to go up there If it's for something for the show Or I just want to wander and write

Or just be somewhere weird You know I will I'll find windows and go up to CityWog And what I will usually do Though probably just Pay in the Five is the way to do it Sometimes I will park on Coenga down below

at a meter so you're only paying a little bit and then walk up and that's a big hike from there for sure but it's good you get your steps and that's always been fine I mean I know what I'm getting into it's like long and uphill and I don't

I don't dock them for that being an unpleasant experience but I don't know the degree to which they control the streets but if they do it all there's something that they need to to do because like well this has always been like a little bit harrowing there's two areas where you have to like cross at like a like an exit where cars are barreling oh yeah i know you're talking about yeah there's

a few spots where i'm always like be very very careful here do not look at your phone yeah cautious where you're standing it's not really none of it is that pedestrian friendly right no but i'm like all right i need to i want to try this method i'm going to walk from this spot down by the la fitness gym i'm going to walk all the way. I'm going to see how all of this stuff has impacted this situation. And towards the top of the hill, you can see the Universal Studios sign. Like, I've almost arrived. And this is what I see. An open ditch. Oh, my God. That is deep. It is a deep open ditch on the corner, just surrounded by dirt and dust and so many orange cones and barricades. And then they have filled this

deep ditch just with wood pallets. And they're just tossed in there. The process, was definitely throw them in. And I don't know how long this has been there. I don't know how long this is going to be there. I don't know how much universal has anything to say about this specific construction project, or does that have something to do with the city? However, I already know my task tonight

is to go see an unpleasant parking line. And then I run into this, just an open ditch that is not blocked in any way from just like people jumping in, like living in there. You could easily spend a night in here. I'm trying to think of a Disney, version. I mean, during that Chepec era, the brief Cheapac era, remember

there was like a crane demolishing a building at downtown Disney, like in broad daylight? People were like, huh? What the hell is this? I don't know if it's Cheapac's fault necessarily. Let's blame it on him because it's fun. But that's the only thing I can think of where like bad show, whatever they would call it,

you're like, yeah, why is that? Maybe it's not theirs? Maybe that's out late, but they need to make a phone call. This is one of the most strange, ugly, dangerous things I've ever seen on any sidewalk for any reason. Yes, yeah, yeah. Maybe it is. Maybe we don't know that.

That does look like a backroom's biome. Like that does look like it's like, oh yeah, there's also like a half of a yield sign sticking out of the floor and like a lone prosthetic arm, you know? Some monster made of all these items is going to come out of this hole. I do. You have to grade all of Universal Hollywood though on a curve because of the bizarre way it's been built and where it is. Like so much so that like they needed to build. the roller coaster and the only option they had was build it on the side of a mountain. It's the only way they could do it.

So it is like they have such a tiny piece of real estate and they are doing their best. So I just want to defend them right now and say they are doing their best even if it looks like they have a hole that like a Wiley Coyote would fall into by their sidewalk. I just think like you do understand that like this is a weird place to have built this if they planned it to be this massive like, blueprint of a theme park decades ago, they would have been like, let's maybe move this elsewhere. Let's maybe not do it up here. Not this land. Yeah. Just talking about the universal city walk experience in general, I mostly find myself driving,

sometimes ride sharing. I am someone who loves the L.A. Metro, and there is a universal city stop. However, when I've taken the train to that universal city stop, it is either a. harrowing walk through pedestrian unfriendly zones and up a hill. Very steep. That end is harder than the other end for sure. And that's like you got to budget an extra 25 minutes for that. So that I can't imagine going through that and then also waiting in a security queue

and being additionally funneled somewhere. Like that feels like that'd be a pain in the ass. The other option is there is a tram, but the tram is sporadic, it feels like. I get so bored waiting for that tram. I'm just, I'll just do it. I don't care. So it's, I mean, that's another thing of just like, if they had a great, if they had a, Because people go to that universal city metro stop.

Like, that's, that's towards the end of the line. That's kind of, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, it's a part of their commute. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, like, I, I think if they had a better shuttle system from there, that would go a long way. Oh, just straight, don't even make people cross the street, just straight from the metro. Yeah, you get out of the metro use. Yeah, yeah. And then there's just, like, I mean, like, like, like, like, like, certainly for tourists, too. Like if you aren't staying in Universal City,

I mean, that would be another way you could get there a little easier. Like a gondola from the... Yeah, give a gondola. Oh, man, how fun would that be? Yeah, it would be fun, yeah. It would get destroyed by people. But it would be fun, and while it lasted.

It's fun, fucked up, gondola. Yeah. Now, wait a minute. What happened with you guys? Because... Oh, oh. Like, I don't know whether it is... Just explain what happened

because I think I need to explain how the Citywalk parking process affected our day. Well, it was not, okay, really what the holdup was was getting into the parking garage in my car. Okay. So it wasn't the actual security itself, but it was, you know what's funny? Okay, I'll tell a different story, too, though, that highlights some of what slows down.

And it didn't, I, in all, I want to be untruthful. This didn't happen today, but I feel like sometimes stupid stuff slows down the process of getting into Universal. The last time I got into Universal, I was driving up in my car. I was going to pay in cash. I actually thought it would go faster paying in cash. I took a 20 out. I handed it to the person at the booth.

And they said, we have to make sure this isn't counterfeit. Oh, my God. And I said, what? Okay. I have other. No, they're like, no, we have to check this to make sure it's not counterfeit. And they deal in cash all day with movie patrons. Right.

And they go, hold on a second. and they brought it to another booth. They examined it. They found the results inconclusive. They went back to me. My daughter kept saying, why are we not moving? Why are we?

What are we doing? I said, I know. I'm sorry. And they go, pull over to the side over here and wait. What? And I pulled over to the side and we waited for 10 minutes for them to go somewhere else. And I was like, I have a credit card.

Just give me the money back. Maybe it is counterfeit. I don't know. I didn't counterfeit it. You were handed a bill by a counterfeiter. So I was just like, guy, this is not. Just let me pay with the card. Like I'm like, am I going to get like arrested?

Like why wouldn't they just take my offer? We got one. To get the credit card. And I was like something weird is going to happen. And then eventually somebody came back and they go, all right, the 20 is good. here's your 15 whatever in change and they sent me through

in a little booth somewhere in Jurassic parking checks it So that didn't happen today but like it was taking that long So I wonder how often that happens Yeah Getting in because I thought I would be there faster today And the line just took forever

And I didn't see a 20 being examined ahead of me But that they It took forever when my 20 needed to be examined never paying in cash there again. I can't believe they don't have some way to do it at each individual booth. Like, don't they do enough cash transactions, especially they're checking every bill? They do. But how they had to take it to a different booth just to get a second opinion?

They did three opinions. They didn't just do two. They have like the thing to look through it or whatever that is or you mark it, I think, with like a certain kind of highlighter. That's what I experienced the past. I don't know if the new bills were different or whatever. I don't know if the news, when I worked retail 20 years ago, I think that's what you would do for like 50 and above.

Not for 20s. No think you'd ever check 20. Who's just the counterfeit 20? It's the lowest stakes. Right. I was like, I can almost pay for lunch. Right. So yeah, but it really like, the whole process, I think, took 15 minutes.

That feels like. That feels like from a, you know, a worker standpoint, that may have been they were excited to have something to do. Perhaps. They're like, hey, we get to do the counterfeit thing. Let's go. Let's fucking roll with it. Let's put on some music. Turn on the UV light. I was at Costco once, and I got the, they check your receipt at Costco.

And the only time this has ever happened to me, there was something wrong with the receipt. And I forget what they, I think they, I forget what term they yelled. But the woman was so excited to like yell something and then marched me over. And she was super friendly about it. But it was just the sort of thing of like one item was missing or had been run up twice or something like that. that and that felt like that same sort of thing of like like like oh i'm checking receipts all day but now i get to go like talk to somebody else like this is a protocol we trained for this something different happened one day finally but yeah then they went to a place that was not

the parking garage to check it they left the area and then they checked it and then came back and i was like for sure i guess it's counterfeit because like why wouldn't it have been approved with the regular and yeah this is the kind of thing i don't know what happened this is the kind of where the 05 extra minutes boo-hoo people are being disingenuous. They are ignoring the fact that it is already quite a hassle. And like for me, maybe not everybody is, like, this probably is still the most convenient theater for a lot of people, but I am fairly close to the myriad of Burbank AMCs, which I can drive to find free street parking because I know where it is.

It's a three-minute walk, and I am in the chair, and I can time that to where I've skipped all the trailers. and that is very important in a world of putting kids to bed. As any friend I see a movie with now, I'm like, I will not be meeting you before. I'm going to be sliding in when the opening credits are starting. So it does, like for me, why would I ever make city walk my movie theater? Unless I'm seeing, unless I'm meeting Veron. It's an event movie you got to see there.

Well, that's the most, that Burbank one, is that the most successful theater in the country? Is it number one? I think it's number one. Is that fudged by like you put all three of the weird? If you don't know this, there's weirdly three different AMCs all extremely close to each other in the downtown Burbank area. And it's still every time you got to remember which one's six, which one's eight. But, you know, good experience once you're there. I went with some coworkers to that AMC recently to see The Odyssey.

And we pre-gamed at islands and went inside. And it was just like, you know, contrasting that with a citywalk experience, I was like, oh, yeah, that was such a breeze. even though it was like, it's just like we didn't have any, we didn't have any weird, like the parking's not great there, but it's fine, it's adequate. We didn't have to pay, I don't think you have to pay anything at those structures. You certainly didn't have to pay $40 and then figure out some weird reimbursement scheme. And then, and also there was no security to deal with.

It's just like, I don't know. But keep in mind, the slice house by Tony Gimignani there is cheaper and has one less neon sign than the city walk one. If you're going to pit two of my favorite places against each other, I'm not going to choose favorite children. There's a Batman statue by those. And there's not a Batman statue at Citywalk. How can you, it's so much closer to, how can you justify the city walk at this point?

I know that you have to. I know it's like, because you're, you know, the last you were here, why it was the end of the CityWock Orlando saga. Right. And I feel like that was a real dividing point, particularly between Mike and I. That was the point where I realized, like, maybe I have run out of fumes of enjoying and justifying the citywalk experience. Mike transcended to some new nirvana plane.

He unlocked levels of loving citywalk that he didn't even know were in him. It's like when you have a child and like, I didn't know there was room for so much love in my heart. You got to the end of that and we're like, I'm a new, even more. How infinitely do I love? Let's go back. Yeah. Let's go back. Yeah, it's like you ascended.

Yeah, I became one with city walk. Can I go back to Slice House by Tony Gaminiani? Please. Can we, I think the irritates me most about that place, and a place is fine. Yes. I've enjoyed slices that I have. I've had good slices there. They're trying too many different varietals, but it's fine.

Tony Giamignani, that's the guy, right? Yeah, Gaminia, I don't forget. He's probably right. You're probably right, yeah. It's like, you can't just act like he's a guy. Like, like, hey, it's Slice House. Buy this guy we just, like, came up with. Who's like, like, we're just acting like he's a celebrity chef.

Yes. Like, it's like, like, fucking Anthony Bourdain or something like that. Like, it's Guy Fieri. Like, it's just like, you can't just say your guy is a guy and put the buy in there. I guess you can. It seems to be working for them. They did it. Yeah.

You start asking questions. Who's the, ooh, that's pretty bold to put the name. And the, is, I believe it is the space in Burbank that was once the, uh, steak and shake. Yes. by Big Bois time is yeah Steak and Shake by Big Lari Another weird like self Just he declared himself a guy

Well that's a different thing to me because And you're you're correct It is it is great point of conspiracy That it's in the exact same space And Big Lari exited And then Giamignani went in there like a hermit crab Made in a Sice house But like Big Lari is like a fucking

Asshole like venture capitalist Who like bought you know A steak and shit and shake and in a hostile takeover and then was trying to do a hostile takeover of cracker barrel. And it's basically like the Trump here, who just wants to put his name on these things, has no real influence on, I guess he does have influence on the menu in terms of he's stripped away everything that was interesting about it. And then got in the, as the RFK tallow fries.

Talo, yeah. But he's not like a chef. Whereas here they're like kind of like, this is the chef. This is the pizza guy. This is who you go to for pizza. And it's just like, he should at least have a pizza tea. TV show or something, right? Yeah, you're right.

I was just in the Venetian in Vegas, and there was, yeah, like the cake boss has a restaurant in there. And you're kind of, all right, I've never seen that show, but I know who Buddy V is generally. Yeah, he's a guy. The way that is placed is like, should I, it makes you feel bad about yourself. Do I, should I know Tony Gemingiani? Am I so unaware? Am I not with it?

I don't know who Tony Kimmanyani is. I don't just listen to Youngblood and I don't know who Tony Geminyani is. You know, I'll say this. I love Tony. I think he seems like a good guy. His pizza place is fine. And quite frankly, every place I think should have the person who started its name next to it or before it. I like more guys in the world, more people in the world.

It doesn't have to be just guys. I guess from that standpoint, if I'm thinking of something like the video game franchise, Sid Meyers' civilization. Or like Sid Meier just putting his name on there is fun. It is fun. So I get that, I get it from that standpoint. He came out, I'm not going to lie, you obviously he came out of nowhere. Yes. We didn't have any, like, buildup.

You just wanted a little buildup. Yeah, I did. I just wanted to, like, yeah, like, like, introduce us to Tony Gimini before we have his pizzeria chain. That seems to be omnipresent now in the greater L.A. area. I'm flashing to how, how excited I was to learn about Lee Daniels the butler. Yes, right. I was in just the but I don't think I care, but Lee Daniels the book.

I don't think I knew Lee Daniels. It is excited. Directors especially? Right. That's fun. Although I don't want Nolan to do it. Nolan, you end up no, you know it's a Nolan to matter what. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I want like lesser known directors to just start doing it. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Their own version of Spike Lee joins. Yeah, but we don't want Lee Kronin's the mummy. That's a bridge too far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I crack a pack real quick?

Yeah, crack a pack. All right. Yeah. What do I have? Jordan Clarkson. This is a draft pick, or no, this just is round two. Sorry, that's part of the card. Round two, pick 46.

Jamal Murray, we got Grant Williams, we've got Kallolware, is that how you press his name? Yes, Kellelewere. We have Shaden Sharp. We have, ooh, what is this? This is a different type of card. Oh, it's an orange. Is that something?

Is orange? The precious metal? Dvincenzo. Devencenzo. I don't know that it's any sort of, it doesn't seem to be numbered, but it is a special orange type card. and then I have, oh, another Shaden Sharp, but this one's a foil. So that's probably a pretty good card, but it isn't numbered.

So I think it's okay. I think that was a pretty good pull. Yeah, the Jamal Murray certainly. That's, I think, the standout player there. But if you got a foil, sure. Shaden Sharp is a guy who could turn into a guy. He's still young. Okay.

Let's see. Who do I have here? I have Chris Dunn, Round 1 pick 5. I have a Michael Porter Jr. Round 1 pick 14. Oh, wait. So this is specifically a. draft class. Yeah, yeah, that's what I figured out.

Got it, got it, got it, got it. I have, who's this, Zach Levine, Sacramento King? Oh, my God, here we go. Nicola Yokic. This is exciting. I have Nicole Yokic and a Steph Curry. Two NBA MVP's and champions back to back. That's a good poll. I have Derek Queen, a nice young player for the Pelicans.

Young person. Ais O'Neill, and we're back to Chris Dunn. This is really exciting. I have a question about the ripping process. We've all discussed and noticed that podcast commenters like to complain about different sounds on microphones that they don't like. Do they like the sound of packets being crinkled? Because I know I don't. Is that one of the things that's annoying?

You know what? I think if you're doing card content, a lot of people probably like it because it's like an ASMR thing. It takes them there. But if you're not ready for it, if it's a theme park podcast where you want to hear the hosts give their intelligent takes about things like our. probably maybe everybody loves the said do you like the sound i don't mind the sound okay but i do know that like i've we become very conscious of the uh me so people with misophonia because they they definitely complain about on mic chewing yes yeah yeah that that's it happened to us once and oh my god we're like okay listen learned never again my god how are you able to avoid it you end up

having to eat do you just have to back up from the mics yeah we just try to be off mic and then and then M.R. producer, the MBAVEP, is just a very, very astute at editing around it. But sometimes it slips through. Sometimes it's in MRA. Sure. Yeah, yeah. I crack the other pack, but I was wanted, there's like a special pure card for Jeremiah Fears. Whoa, look at that. I don't know what, I don't know how special it is, but that's different than the other cards. Shiny. It's a nice variant. Different format. Yeah. So. As far as directions to go at this point, you know, as I said, I reached out to different people for opinions as Landon, whose opinion I read.

And we've mentioned a lot of friends of the show in this episode, and somebody we're all friends with Van Robes Show. Oh, yes. Has outwardly said that he likes the changes. He will often do it with like a via text with like a purple devil emoji. He knows he's being like a little stinker that he actually likes the changes. And I said, would you care to address this in some way? knowing that we will all probably be complaining about the changes.

You might be the only voice counter to this who is in favor of the changes. And he sent in a little statement. Here's the thing. I have not fully listened to the statement, and that is because it is 12 minutes long. Okay. What would you guys propose to do as far as we're towards the end of a long episode? I don't know how much anyone wants to,

but he's produced a whole thing. There is text. There's a waveform audio in the part that doesn't have video, but then a lot of it does have video. He seems to walk us through the setting and what he likes about it. Again, I have not scanned this myself. I haven't had the 12 minutes today. What would everyone propose? Let me check if someone's in here in the next few minutes in the recording studio. Another thing about it. We did start late. I know Wiger needs to go. I'm trying to give proper respects to the effort that Van has put in. but also, does anyone really want to listen to my phone for 12 minutes? I mean, it feels like we're going to be, I mean, I should have saved the pack. I could have ripped packs while we were listening to it.

We could do multiple things. I have a couple more packs to rip. I think that I would be down to absorb this message in its entirety. So, like, I'm not, I don't need to get out of here immediately or anything. You're pro playing the message. I'm down to play all of Vance, no doubt insane message. Okay, well, he also gave instruction. about make sure that you play the version I sent you on Dropbox versus just the video because

the quality is higher. And I'm like, dude, I'm playing it off of my phone. I don't know what to tell you. We will try to enter the best version that we can. But, well, do you want to enter into, you want to like start with this plan? We're going to listen to Van Statement and just see if we have the stamina. I think so. This is unprecedented territory. I don't know what to do. Okay, let's start. Hi, this is Van Robes show. And I'd like to show. And I'd like to share with all of you my opinions on the new Universal Studios Hollywood security. Pick up the pace van. I faced a lot of scrutiny since I revealed to Scott that I think the new Universal Studios

security situation is actually good. Not just scrutiny, insults like boot liquor and frisk freak. Hey, my nice, Scott. But I'm here set the record straight. I'm no bootlicker. I f*** hate cops. Who I don't hate are the fine security professionals managing the lines at Universal Studios and CityWalk. Lost in all this hubbub about the extension of the security perimeter to include all of CityWalk's restaurants and the AMC theater is the fact that it isn't just the locations of the security gateways that have moved. The number has been expanded to 29.

More security lines now means that the security wait time to get into the park itself is actually shorter. Now, why should I be concerned about security times to get into the park if it could potentially affect me, a regular tender of citywalks, restaurants, shops, and theater? What if I only want to go see a film? Well, you need a reason? How about justice? How about democracy? How about American values? Per day on average, over 25,000 people visit the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park,

while a mere 2400 on average visit the City Walk AMC. Over 10 times as many people visit the park. Shorter lines for thousands versus potentially longer lines for hundreds. I'm getting a little glad I've played it. These are good points. He's right. Additionally, while I've heard some complain, there's more walking involved. now that specific paths from the parking lot to city walk are required. For those attending the park, the opposite is true, and extremely so.

The original security gates required a long, circuitous walk in a huge circle all the way around to the front of the surface parking lot. Additionally, it often required walking through an empty but lengthy rope queue designed around the fact that there were, at the time, only a limited number of security gates. That rope, too, I will say, not a family. Now you can simply hang a tight right at the end of the Citywalk corridor and head straight into the entrance of the park. Also, if you've been a beautiful...

He's right. He's right. It's better for the park. The food in the park is, well, being honest, not very good. There's much better food in Citywalk. And the new security perimeter eliminates a double security weight, providing more and better dining options for park guests. Again, a much better theme park experience. But a lot of this is theory about lines and facts and numbers.

Now, I'm not all talk. So that meant I needed to put this into practice. That's why I headed out to City Walk to check out the lines myself on the most highly attended movie night of the year. The record setting opening night of Spider-Man brand new day. He did all this for this. I'm glad we played it. It's 40 minutes until showtime. A car sound.

I'm headed to Citywalk. To catch the new Spider-Man. Will the line be a problem? I'm predicting it won't. This is, however, likely to be the largest movie-going weekend of the year. Spider-Man is estimated

to be making $800 million this weekend. And so if there's going to be a crowded line, it's going to be tonight. every theater is open and most of them are showing Spider-Man all right

it is just about 30 minutes all of this has captions and waveforms that he made and you guys are seeing it is entirely captioned all 12 minutes Hollywood drive from Lancashim there's a he's driving he's driving so much here

I'm open to skips I'm open to pauses oh you did it he put the effort in the tram heading to parking All right, I have Just paid for my parking They said to go straight $20 bill was inspected

I did not record that interaction California is a two-party consent state for audio recording And I know that The podcast, the ride listeners Can be quite Ornery about certain things And

worried I might get in the wrong side of them I did not want to run the risk of being reported to the authorities for non-consensual recordings. Crank, crank anchor's rules. That's why they do it in Vegas. Yeah, it's the dropout, there's a dropout prank call show they do a in a lot of days. Oh, all right. Continue a certain way as they do.

And go ahead and take a left. And it looks like, all right, there's a spot right here. And I am in B1L. It is, okay, we're not getting video now. No, it's video. Walk through the parking lot and through security. play out in real time. Enjoy the sounds of City Park.

Is this a GoPro situation, or is he just holding his phone? Or his glasses. Last he was on the show, he had the glasses, the Vision Pro. I'm going to grab my notebook because there's a couple points I want to return. Wow, wow. Most people, well, look, most people don't send in videos of their experience, giving the in-studio guest time to make points, as if to, like, mount a rebuttal in a least.

Eagle situation. So I'm thankful to Van for providing this air. In a podcast, you want to just, sometimes you talk and you talk and you talk, and there is no air. There is no air. And he's given us some nice air and some nice ASMR. I will say in this pack, I just read, no one notable for a new Los Angeles Lakers Center, Walker Kessler. My friend saw on an airplane and said he was very nice. Josh Giddy, who was alleged to have had sex with an underage girl.

Oh, still gets a card, really? No charges. Oh, he's, look at this. He's recording, the phone is in the basket and is going through the scanner. Oh, wait, it has not been scanned. That was the process? I guess. Took absolutely no time at all, he says.

It was 22 minutes to showtime. I would say that going through security was the smallest portion of my trip through the parking, etc. He's a very busy night here at City Walk. There are a lot of people going on the dance cam. Let me get a shot of that. I don't think I knew they did the dance cam system. Yeah. It is a bustling night.

Yeah. I was there. I was shocked on an Odyssey night to see how many people were leaving those garage. Again, I'm not used to this amount of crowds. Bad CityWine. So maybe, I don't know, that's where Mitch could be wrong. I think just maybe in terms of numbers, can you say it's dead? Mitch is wrong.

CityWalk will never die. Citywalk will live forever. We'll never die. Humans will be off the earth, but CityWalk will still be here. There's a giant conga line Which now Van is joining I'm very glad I didn't watch this at a time Yes

We can't be mad at that Citywalk is not dead This is crazy We've never seen anything like this in Citywalk Also I will say being in a conga line With Van Robichow is like being in a conga line With a Roomba This inhuman

Atomaton who's grabbing my waist. Like the robot from Tootsam. Yeah. I got through security so quickly that I'm going to stop by things from another world to buy some comments.

It's soon to close. Check the line for security by Margaritaville and see how they're doing over there. I have an answer. The Margaritaville security line looks similarly slim. Yes, it looks like Again, people are walking just straight up to the line walking right through, no delay.

Despite CityWalk, more crowded really than I've seen it recently. A very crowded night at CityWalk. Now, I will say, despite it being very fast, I do miss entrance right by Bucca DeBepo. That was a nice entrance. I agree with us, yeah. I really would like them to, it is an exit now, but I would say I would love if maybe they could put a small security entrance there. Weiger's idea, right? We're on the same age.

Yeah. So that's my suggestion is add a little small for the Bucco de Beppo goers entrance. It's 50 minutes to show time. Like a VIP if you're going to the restaurant. That would be nice. Show your reservation on your phone. Or some kind of Bucanabebo gold card. Right.

Granbo voodoo donut. Because again, I have just so much extra time. All right. All right. I'm sorry. In Auditorium 11. Woodman, that inspires. Five minutes of show time. I know which pre-rollies.

I just want to watch the full 30-minute AMC show of commercials. I'm going to go ahead and stop recording now, though, because we're getting into the pre-show proper. The lights have not yet dinned, and I want to stop recording before they do. It's 11 p.m. I left Spider-Man early. I get it. I know where it's going.

It's fine. I'll see the rest another time. I had an early morning flight. I really was just doing this for podcast the right's sake. And so if you did see Spider-Man, I left off at a scene in a sort of a dock warehouse area with Spider-Man and the Punisher and a third character. So you'll know that's where I left off. That's as much of Spider-Man as I have seen.

There's a lot left, I've got to say, the security was a non-issue, just not a problem at all. There were a full 20, a time to 27 minutes of pre-show. items until the show proper started and then three more minutes of the after we've started our feature presentation kind of warm up things you got the coca-cola dancing street racing spot you've got Nicole Kidman yeah so on and so lights with xenon bulbs or once true from xenon ball that's my new favorite pre-show dead brought it to a full 30 minutes until the movie started so considering that I think that really the The place that complaints should be lodged as far as delaying moviegoing experiences is with AMC theaters and their newly introduced even longer pre-shows. The security line was nothing.

I'm Van Robeshow reporting live on tape from Citywalk. Oh my God. Wow. Applaus to Van went and did it. You got to give them credit for that. Yeah. And there was something too. that. I mean, we're talking, not in hypotheticals, because you guys were just there, but, I mean, he put up some math, and it can be tough to argue the math. However, you have been writing down points as he made all of his. What do you got for us? First off, well, well crafted Van and those 12 minutes flew by. Let me say this. First off, you have to know Van in his nature is a contrarian. For the listeners who are not familiar with Mr. Robichow, that is just kind of like,

how he reacts to everything. He tends to look for a dissenting opinion and glom on to it. You're saying he believes in nothing. No, I'm saying sometimes he just feels it feels like he is just trying to troll, like you were saying earlier. Sure. I don't think that's the case here, but I'm just putting that out there. Didn't he see? He saw a Megalopolis many, many times.

Is that correct? He got Megalopolis pill, and I will just say this. I do like the Megalopolis exists. It's really fun that this 90-year-old man used his own money to make an incoherent film where Dustin Hoffman plays a character named Nush Berman, who's killed by a statue. I think it's great. I think it's possibly John Voight's final role. He has the line.

What do you think of this boner I've got? I've got to see it. I don't know how you see it now, but I've got to see it. It's great. Megalopolis is great. But I will say regardless of your opinion on Megalopolis, lovers and haters and mere people who just have a curious, like, detached opinion on it, have all loved Megadoc. And Megadoc is really, really super compelling. Lots of fun.

So much fun. Okay. Food options. I mean, how strongly do we agree with his take that the food options are much better in CityWalk? I do not strongly agree. And now here's the thing. I was going to make this point. They are emulating downtown Disney where you are in a bubble and you're like, you know,

look, I'll just cut to the chase. There are two theme parks and you're often in the land between the theme parks because you're crossing from one or the other. And during that time, I think you're more likely to go, I'm going to pop over just for a quick Starbucks all the way up to. I'm going to have my lunch for today over in one of these downtown Disney options as opposed to in the park. There's just more cross traffic. universal they can add as many security entrances as they want the park still is funneled all

in that one place so so like getting in and out of the like popping over to city walk is only convenient if you're on the upper lot and you're doing things towards the front of the park this is often the case for me with kids because that's sort of where the kid stuff is but it is it's a major hassle to be like i think in a lot of cases you're maybe just eating it and like i don't care if the food ain't great down on the lower lot i'm just going to do it all the way too because it is a hassle getting in and out with kids. You know, maybe you just veer towards the, what's the Harry Potter restaurant? Three broomsticks?

Three broomsticks. I will often, I think that is, in some cases, depending on what you order, of equal quality to a lot of what is in city walk, or at least enough to where like, well, I could have this and it'll be fine, or I could walk and it'll be 1% above fine. I think I would rather eat Cletus's fried chicken than any option it's. Citywalk. Wow. Like I think like I don't think any of the city walk dining options are strong enough to make me,

induce me to get out of the park. But I do see, I will say, focused on the park goers experience and he is correct in terms of share your volume of visitors. People are going to the park. They're not going to say. What's your lunch mood? Do you disagree on this point as a champion of City Walk's food? I don't, I haven't had a crusty burger in a long time, but I do think the

margaritaville cheeseburger is better than a crusty burger. I think it is better. But that's the longest. That's a long walk. I know. I understand the point. If you're with kids, I can see that, like, we can't do this. That is like just adds a lot more. But if I'm so, maybe if I'm solo, I don't know.

Depends. Yeah. It depends. Let me say something else. This is not about food. This is, I meant to bring this up as a compliment. That leaving, I was immediately like, oh, I'm out of like, or, well, I didn't leave the park, but I walked over there.

And I was like, oh, when I leave the park, I will get to just walk as opposed to, did you ever experience this with a stroller, what they used to make you do, you would be walking through this narrow path fighting traffic of people trying to get into the park. They punish parents who are leaving. Like, how dare you leave at the hour of 10.30 or whatever to get, you know, or 1130 to get your kid back for a nap, where I'm already rushed, it's already hectic, and now, like, I'm bumping into people. I'm the problem. All the traffic's coming this way, and they're squeezing me through this. I'm really glad they killed that. So I would like to, it is a, it will be a much more pleasant expect because the next time I go back, it'll be with two kids.

It's going to be a little more hectic, and it's going to be a lot easier for me. So credit to them for that. All that said, and that's a, that's a perspective that I think is worth sharing from a, you know, as a as a non-parent, I'm always interested in, you know, what are the difficulties, what are the hindrances that people with kids encountering these spaces. So, but I, but I will say like, I still feel like it's a better end-of-day food option. than like middle-of-day food option. If we're talking about city walk. And so, and that's like, if we're doing end of day, we're not reintering the park probably. So, you know, that kind of means the value of that.

That's a very good point. But all that said, Van brought up your fans being annoying about California being a two-party consent state as to why he did not do a recording. And look, I think it's good for him to be lawful. abiding here, especially in a situation where you could get this podcast, what your fans loved, and possibly some sort of legal hot water. That said, Van is also the man who reported Do Boys Media to the FTC for having a Patreon-only giveaway because it violated laws about making contests require money to enter. So he can be a little bit of a...

A scold or a killjoy as well. Well, what is the outcome of that? Thankfully nothing happened. Okay. You have not Brendan Carr. No, right? Come after you. Okay.

He talked about going to the seeing Spider-Man. I did see Mission Impossible Final Reckoning at Universal City Walk with Van in IMAX. It was, you know, that's a flawed film, but it was a fun experience. And as part of that, he got us 3D printed cuneiform keys, me and the rest of the party. The cuneiform key prop from the movie. Oh, yeah, the coolest part of the movie. Yeah, that was fun. So I just wanted to shout out of Dan for doing that.

Oh, wow. All that said, and I keep saying all that said, but I'm saying a lot. His closing point about the AMC pre-show being the biggest time sync if you're a movie goer. You can budget for that. And that's universal to AMC. that's not specific to the Universal City Walk AMC. So, like, you can just be like, hey, you know what? I'm, like Scott was saying earlier,

I'm going to show up 25 minutes after showtime because I know there's not a chance I'm seeing Nicole Kidman before then. That's what I just did yesterday when we went and saw Tony. So, like, I just, to me, again, that's like, that's less a point of emphasis. But in general, my broad critique of this is for, going to some place where you're going to have a good time and you're going to spend a lot of money. It's less about the actual amount of time that you're spending in a queue and more about the way the experience makes you feel. You know what I mean?

And it's just like it makes you feel just a little bit dehumanized, just a little bit more beholden to this security theater, which is such a part of American culture. And it's just one more annoyance. And it just, just, if that blockade was not there, I think citywalk in general would be a better experience. And the fact that so many people, and myself included, find it so off-putting, I think speaks to, again, the whatever you want to say, however you want to rationalize it, however you want to explain it, like Van just did, and like all the theme park apologists have done, it still feels bad. And that is a critique in and of itself. Wow, yeah. And nothing, yes, the stats and no like rundown of time is going to change the fact that it makes you feel bad.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, look, it's caused Mike to say probably the most negative things he's ever said about Citywalk in the years, the many years have been doing this show. And isn't that telling? That's, yeah, that's something. I mean, that being said, if they installed a bed of hot coals, I would gladly walk over it. get to Citywalk, but I might complain about it as well. I think that's the plan to fix that ditch I showed you earlier. I would barefoot walk hot clothes if I had to do it,

but this is, you know, City Walk is theme park adjacent. So your point is correct. It needs to feel good. And I think there's something psychological about putting security a little bit removed from the actual place itself, which makes it feel better. So if you put it in a little hub path, like even when you're leaving ET, there's that section with all the escalators and elevators.

If they somehow could have put it there and then past that, you see ET on the wall. And then again, your day is your day is perfect past that. Yeah. Like stuff like that. Like, but again, I look, I'm a practical guy. So I know logistically, maybe it's just what we want is just not possible. Maybe it can't happen. The perfect solution.

Yeah. The perfect solution is impossible. I feel the logistics are solvable. but that's fair. It's possible. I don't know. That's the case. I'll also just note that Van did not at all call attention to the aesthetics of this,

which we've all said are miserable. Yeah. Can you program a robot to feel, though? I don't know. Sometimes there's movies and TV that say you can't. That's another good idea for a movie. Has anyone ever made that? I don't know.

There's another one we can work on. Commander Data had an emotion ship and it fucked him up in Star Trek Generations. He was very, very close to making a bad decision in first contact. He was tempted. He turned, then he turned the ship off. Because they didn't want to deal with it in like a narrative way. People don't like him in his emotions. Well, this is fascinating.

I mean, that makes me very, Van May makes me glad that we reached out to all viewpoints here. I mean, I just feel like maybe I'll tell. I think he's got a good point that it might improve the theme park experience I think it hurts the city walk experience but like

you know as far as city walk is dead we just saw the first conga line I've ever been aware of happening in that space I just said they chase the World Cup people out

but then weeks later there's a there's a fucking conga line happening and maybe if you're determined if you know that's the place you want to be sitting to see a movie

doesn't matter you will go there you'll endure whatever if that's the place where you want to be that's your preferred slice house by Tony Giminyani, you are going to go there no matter what.

So I don't know, maybe it all makes sense. Maybe they have, what they have shaken out, attendance-wise, is, like, is worth it. And maybe it's just like, that's a pittance compared to the loyalists who will go no matter what. Right. Yeah, and I think also, if we've learned anything from the, you know, whatever,

two Trump presidencies and with COVID in between, it's like Americans have a, capacity to normalize anything. It was just like once the instance is, oh yeah, that's how it is. Yeah, it sucks. That's just what we live with now. That's just how things are. Yes. That's the where, like you could say we're

resilience. That's one way to put it. Or complacence is also another way. Depending on depending on your perspective. They could put a ceiling on Citywalk. They could put a big ceiling or a dome or something. From air attacks.

Yeah. That might be something we need from drones. That's true. We've depleted our stockpile. Yeah. And we need to make sure we have some to protect Citywalk. Maybe some sort of Iron Dome situation. Star Wars program for Citywalk. Yeah. I think that would be good. But until then, I mean, this was genuinely fascinating to me to discuss this for this length of time.

And it really only could have happened with you. Nick Weiger, you survived podcast, The Ride. Thank you for joining us for this. What a thrill. Fascinating time. I'll always always love I love doing your pod one of my absolute favorite podcast to listen to and yeah I did just keep up the good work I'll come back any time to talk about any like extremely mundane and menial topic so as long as something doesn't move or somebody doesn't say something to you and as long as the the use of color is low you will be there um exit to the gift shop, anything you'd like to plug. Yeah, I would like to, you know, hey, dough boys, the podcast about chain restaurants with me and Mike Mitchell, get played a podcast about video games with me, Heather Ann Campbell, Matt Upadaka,

those are both listenable, wherever you listen to things. And we're going to, we've got to figure out how to get podcast the ride over to the TMNT pizzeria on third street promenade before both of those things close permanently. So the clock is ticking. Park clock is sticking absolutely Party bus A man I'm down for a party bus

blasting the theme Teenage Mutant I do want to shout out also I want to plug a friend of the pot Jane Claire because I am fully dressed by Jane Claire today I'm wearing out

all of these picks are from when I worked with her from a hire as a personal stylist the process was so fun and really gave my award wardrobe, new life. So absolutely, anyone wants to take advantage of Jane Claire's talents. You know how to reach her. Oh, geez. Very nice shout-out. Absolutely. As for us, a programming note, I believe this is going to be the last main feed for a second because we're going to take Labor Day weekend off and the weekend after that is a little late summer break. We should be back on Maine, September 18th, if I'm correct about that date. If you are missing us, new episodes are always coming forth at Podcast the Ride the Second.

gate where you get three bonus episodes every month or one more bonus episode in our VIP Tier Club 3. You'll find all of that at patreon.com slash podcast the ride. And it's a digital payment system. There is no way for us to hand you cash back. You can't give us a 40 and then we hand you bill. It's all it's digital and we hope you're okay with that. But it prevents a counterfeit situations. We hope so. Yeah. Also I'm doing improv in Glendale. September 11th. It's called Improv Land. It's improv based on the audience's theme park stories. So come and check that out. 730, September 11th. Forever.

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