Podcast: The Ride - Ocean City, NJ Boardwalk with Allan McLeod

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Host Jason Sheridan loves the New Jersey taffy, mascots and brittle wooden planks more than anything. Luckily Allan McLeod's( You're the Worst, Walkin' About) soothing voice and gentle manner keeps Jason from going fully feral while discussing this beloved boardwalk.  SkyDome is up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide  FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever, dog. Warning, the following podcast may contain unified taffy agreements, Chuck E. Cheese's skeleton wearing the skin of a different animal, a very rare mention of F Troop actor Larry Storch, and the danger of teens claiming too many boardwalk benches. All that plus, Alan McLeod joins us

to talk the Ocean City, New Jersey boardwalk on today's podcast, The Ride. welcome to podcast the ride but today alt title taffy boys i'm scott i'm taffy boy scott there's taffy boy jason i was wondering if you were gonna go for uh seaside confections or the title america's greatest family resort which is well this is heavy marketing jason i could not go to this is deeper than i can go because this is not this is not my place it's not a place i've been uh it's a place you've been we've talked about before yeah yeah and a place uh dear to our guests seemingly mike carlson i don't know uh never never been but i am a taffy boy that's you don't have to be in this you don't have to be in ocean city to be a taffy boy um catch all of this i feel like ocean city boardwalk

is that kind of the way i think that's right ocean city we need to clarify ocean city new jersey because ocean city maryland is very different town is another thing yeah and i got confused in some research where i started because it seems like there's like two main parks that we're dealing with on the boardwalk here and then i bumped into a third and like what are you hang on what a whole other and then really got a little bit into it and realized it was maryland so a whole different history okay okay so that means trimpers rides you're out trimper out on the trimper enjoy getting air right now because that's it for you trimper uh not till we make it to Maryland. But we're in New Jersey here, and this comes courtesy of a great guest,

somebody who it defies logic that he has not been here yet, and I'm happy it's happening. Him being on the show, you'd have to say, it's a no-brainer. Very glad to have. He's got a great new podcast called Walking About, and I'm excited to talk about that. If you're a Doughboys fan, you know him as Molasses Boy. It's Alan McLeod. Hello.

Hey. Oh, my gosh. I'm so happy to be on. I guess it does... Everything's so crazy in the world, it does seem logical now that I am here, you know? Yes, finally. Finally, there's something... Yes, things make sense.

This crazy world of ours. It's good to be here with all the taffy boys. I am a molasses boy. Yeah. Oh, right. Which is also available. Aesthetically very close. It's very close and you can,

and it's available at the same shops that you might find along the boardwalk if you're getting your saltwater taffy. Sticky and sweet, both molasses and taffy. Yeah. Well, and I saw a big line. I watched a video that filmed a big line of taffy barrels at the place you've talked about before, Jason. The Shriver's is the name of it?

Shriver's, yeah. Home of Mr. Taffy, a mascot character. You brought us a toy that my son loves. And I saw in that lineup of taffy barrels some molasses taffy. mascot character you brought us a toy that my son loves um and i saw in that lineup of taffy barrels some molasses taffy so it all it all ties together um happy to be in in second or third or fourth place i don't know if how would you would rank the chewy treats oh oh jason jason should he should have this in terms of taffy or in terms of Shriver's? Shriver's, yeah, yeah.

I rank Shriver's pretty high. No, I mean, just as far as like... You're talking more taffy versus molasses versus... Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know what else. I mean, molasses is not really just you eat it on its own, right? Do you just drink a cup of molasses? You guys don't do that?

I can't really picture. I don't have a clear image like if i'm looking at just molasses what is you don't do that well molasses is like the leftover stuff after you make you know something good they're like well what do you do with this shit put it into some cookies or something yeah it's got a fun name how do you feel about that that that you're the nickname that's stuck to you is that it's you now you're equating it with like with leftovers does it feel like it i mean there's something good in everything you know i mean i don't know like uh it's a very utilitarian nickname maybe to have you know, or use every bit of everything. I've fully accepted that I'm, you know, the name originated from me being slow, being a slow boy, and I've turned into a slow man that's accepted that name.

Did it come from, did they name you that? Did Doughboys name you that, or did you come in, has that been floating around? That's an old football nickname oh gotcha being too slow on the uh on the offensive line it is it's not it's not an easy going attitude it is about literal physical it's now become more of a lifestyle you've owned it now that's my brand uh but it is nice to see that molasses is available at uh shrivers which a place that i love i love looking at those machines i love just kind of going to see what they're doing oh yeah in that little factory through the window you know yeah yeah

there's like 100 plus year old machines they're still using they're still using they don't make them like that anymore yeah wow so you get to see people doing it's like on disneyland main street you get to see people making like what candy apples or something so you get to see people like doing it churning it out yeah working on the taffy yeah it's great this is wow mind meld that's happened not not since you were paired with your own past self was there during the city walk saga was there such agreement yeah uh i mean this is great i love that this is where we're starting from and that you that you brought us this out that you wanted to talk about this because perfect for jason this is great um but we were we were both like uh where does your ocean city new jersey fondness uh come from

because you grew up alabama i'm correct yeah so this is and so the i do uh i have a i have a a huge fondness for ocean city and it's from my wife's family. They do a family reunion there pretty much every year and have done it since for decades and decades. And then so when I kind of came along, I started accompanying Stacy on these family reunions and just fell in love with uh with ocean city and you know had never really been to spent any time in new jersey like at all so um and you know i i just i like while i don't have a nostalgia from being a kid there i embrace it's automatically a place you just become nostalgic for because it's so stuck in time and just like oh sure such uh just a fun environment a fun place to go of course i love walking around so it's like if you don't like walking then i don't know ocean city might

not be the place for you yeah because not only not only just, I mean, parking is not easy. Like, once you kind of find a parking spot, it's like you're not driving around much. Like, you just kind of make your way around. And then, of course, the boardwalk, which is about two and a half miles long. I think it's eight miles. Oh, really? Oh, okay. I think two and a half for, like, you know, amusement parks and restaurants and stuff.

But the boardwalk keeps going in both directions. Oh, right. To houses and stuff, too. Houses and beaches. That's true. The amusement zone itself is like two and a half, three miles. Something like that. Yeah.

That's good. Blocks and blocks. Wow. Yeah. Of it. Crazy. Yeah. something like that yeah that's good that's blocks and blocks wow yeah of it crazy yeah so it's just it's so it's just a place that from getting to go and see my wife's family and and get a sense of like hear all the stories that they've had from when they were kids and that their parents had from when they were kids you just kind of develop a real appreciation for it and uh um taking tours i remember we took several years ago took uh like a ghost tour around and it was just hilarious you

know because then you get to know a bit more about the history of the area and it was just really funny like the guide was just a very old man who sort of made an attempt at a costume with sort of a pirate shirt and uh but he kept trying to recruit my friend chris to kind of like pass the torch to him you know like who chris was living in philadelphia at the time and he was like you might be a good guy do you know like and he kept trying to convince chris to take the business. Yeah, to take over the business on the tour. It was so funny. Was he doing that to every group he had?

Finding one person in the group and going, maybe this person will get me out of this hell. Maybe. Or there's a pyramid. Oh, yeah, perhaps. That's what it is.

Yeah, yeah. Just give me 10%, but otherwise, you control the business and that's a good point. It's funny you say that because because I never took the Ghost Tour, but my memory in the mid to late 90s is the Ghost Tour company, and I don't know if it's the same company.

I don't know if it's popped up and gone away, but I remember they had a building or they had offices shared with, it was Ghost store and internet cafe and i was brand new to the internet at the time and i was like mom mom we gotta go over ocean city we gotta check out this internet cafe and i just remember the mark the signs outside like ghost store slash internet cafe that's so awesome i don't know if this ghost store had a brick and mortar office i can't imagine yeah uh and i can't remember that sadly i can't remember the name of the the tour that we took but um but it was very memorable for that for that aspect

alone internet cafes are gonna be one of those really hard things to explain to our kids that now that all cafes are internet cafes these have to be specially designated okay imagine you're borrowing a dirty desktop computer okay a desktop computer is let me go back well now they have cafes that are specifically non-internet right like i mean oh maybe some places yeah oh so you can really like interact with humans i guess that's the idea right you're not all on your device right so you can like get into that book you're reading or really like you know be present with your friends right well man like all of the great you know, be present with your friends. Right. Well, man, like all of the great, you know, think about Seinfeld, Frasier, friends. All of them, cafe, central location. Right, yes.

And today, all of them would just be, they'd just sit down and plop right down on their phones. That's right, yeah. No hijinks would ensue. No relationship discussion. That's so true. Yeah, yeah. There'd be no stories would occur. We're all missing out, you might say.

I would say. The existence of Wi-Fi makes it so we don't get into any capers at that one place that we go. Right. And it ruins a lot of horror movie stories, you know? Yes, true. You would text. I would just text yeah text the policeman there was an episode of studio 60 that took it right up to the wire we're like

we're deep in cell phone era like but they wanted to trap some characters on the roof and they like so they have to write it into it like oh god we're in the one place in los angeles where there's no cell reception. Sorkin has just said on it, figure it out. We got a trapped character. There's romantic tension between the characters. We got to put them on the roof. Figure it out. There's pockets where there's no reception.

Wouldn't a roof have better reception? I don't know. Fuck it. Couldn't they have just left their phones in their office? That's a good one well you should have been in there yeah you should have tried i tried so hard to intern on studios you actually did yes i did i lined up with your like summer semester in la and it was like so everyone was like oh erin sorkin's making a new TV show. And it's shooting right at Warner Brothers.

Stay on the street from the Oakwood apartment. And if you can get in on that, you'll be there for 10 seasons straight. And I did not, they didn't hire any interns except one person because her mom was Bradley Whitford's cousin. There you go. How close did you get like cousin did you just how did you learn that about like oh i was rejected like did you have an in did you have an inside person oh she told i i um she was another student oh you knew her yeah no i knew her and she was like oh they didn't hire i just got in because my mom is related oh wow you still got that number uh you we give us that contact info we

could get in with bradley whitford's uh oh i mean i guess so i never really thought about it so we're really close with her this could be a ticket for all of us except we're included i want that internship uh uh okay wait where were that was if i was from cell it for all of us except when you were like what are you holding out on her i wanted internship uh uh okay wait where were that was that was from cell phone so it was from internet cafes okay okay well speaking of like you know hearkening back to to times gone by am i correct that ocean city is a dry city you are correct okay yes Okay. Dry as a bone. Wow. Dry as a bone. The thing that always makes me laugh,

there's, I think, three bridges into town and at the foot of all those bridges, because you can bring alcohol in. You can have alcohol in your homes. And you can drink it at home home you can't drink it on the beach uh but at the foot of every bridge on the mainland uh is a giant liquor store oh as soon as not even one foot from where yeah okay oh yeah no we always stop it i can't remember the name of

this show yeah but it's just like that you stop because you have to fly in for, I mean, as far as I know, either from here, you fly in to like New York or Atlantic City or Philadelphia. Or Philadelphia, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, generally the drive from any of those areas, you got to stop at one of these bridge liquor stores to get, well, to also get, generally they're groceries and stuff too, so you're kind of stocking up for the week or whatever. Okay.

But yeah, that's where people just have carts full of booze on their way out. And there is a lot of controversy in the last few years because some restaurants, so for the longest time, you couldn't do BYOB. In the last few years, some restaurants established membership supper clubs where if you paid like 10 bucks, 15 bucks, you were a member and then you could BYOB. This dance you have to do to what are we

retaining here because is it because doesn't it just cause because i i saw that you know like despite being a dry city that uh it was that ocean city was declared the drunkest town in new jersey like does it not just create people overcompensate yeah yeah for that maybe yeah yeah i but but also like as i was alluding to at the top like at some point i think on a travel channel special it was deemed like number one america's greatest family resort and they just took that moniker and just they have stamped it on beach tags they've stamped on t-shirts they stamped it on marketing material something the travel channel said once not any official there was no there was no voting body for this there might have been voting uh or it

could have been a poll but i was like i i was having trouble finding the origin of it, but I just remember at some point in high school, I started seeing, just one day, there was all this stuff about America's greatest family resort. Well, what's the town where Bruce Springsteen's from? That's Asbury Park. That's further up North Jersey. I feel like there was a time when Asbury Park was a dry town or something like a long

time ago or something and then they introduced they made it not a dry town anymore whatever they made it just a regular wet town and then it all turned and that's like when the rock and roll scene really like took off

you know and the people that kind of the, the forebearers before even Bruce Springsteen kind of, and what led to him, you know? So I feel like there's like this new, you know, the neighboring towns or whatever, cause I don't even know if Atlantic city is in that, probably not a dry town. No Atlantic city. And even if you go either direction, either isle or margate or vent or immediately there's yeah bars so like ocean city new jersey is like we're doing our own thing we're not becoming one of those rock and roll towns you know everybody's drunk coming out of the taj mahal

yeah trump building in it yeah yeah yeah we don't want any uh global rock stars being born here maybe causing tourism it goes back to the founding because the town was founded by like methodist who wanted like a wholesome place to go on vacation gotcha and uh yeah it's just kind of kept the the wholesomeness kind of vibe the whole time. But it's funny I say that. Like, Cape May, New Jersey, which is at the end of, like, the coast. Also a lot of historical stuff. And, like, you know, very focused on preserving the old houses.

And a lot of restaurants have been there a long and long time, and people have their traditions, family trips, family reunions that they do and stuff. But Cape May is like a wet town, and it doesn't seem, like, grimy. Some towns are very wet towns and seem very grimy. Very wet. Yeah.

The wettest and the grimiest of towns but we just passed memorial day weekend and i saw there were at some of the beach towns like ocean city at like you know there were a bunch of teens like roving bands of teens there was only one stabbing which is unusual but it's more usually or it's unusual what's that because there's more stabbing usually a number of stabbing usually not usually it's just rally teens and they just get arrested for what drinking or weed yeah and then they just take them to the police station and the parents can come pick them up and there's no charges if they do community service like this is a thing but like in wildwood uh which is a much larger like wilder josie shore peach down they had to they declared

a state of emergency there were so many groups of roaming it's going down right now in both of these places like it seems like the ocean city thing's more mild but although a stabbing but then yeah the headlines are dramatic a guy here's a headline from the inquirer.com jersey shore official says unruly teens won't be allowed to steal summer there's a concern i mean there's a tension as we record this and even i didn't realize what a hot button issue we were talking about wow we have the we're at the top of summer here and there's the potential that summer could be stolen wow we gotta stop these teens i remember when i was in high this was a uh headlines then like the teens are taking over all the pavilions those old people need those benches by the boardwalk you know the

benches on the boardwalk that they can sit and stare at the ocean like it's full of goths it's full of punks there's makeup and hair dye rubbing on those benches so what do they do now now it's like all the beaches are closed at 8 p.m and that'll but it's like well now the roving bands of teens are on the boardwalk this is just this is a dirty dancing scenario i was gonna say it's like no yeah it's some reverend behind this it's like oh i don't know these teens whose childhood happened during covid they might be the socialization might be they might be a little off kilter i mean if they're just if anybody just would go out there with a boombox and start

playing the footloose song oh yeah we could they just start dancing and then that would be the end of it they wouldn't get violent yeah that's what i was thinking of with reverend it is reverence the footloose that's right oh yeah that's what they need yeah they said a town that banned dancing yes yeah yeah um well is that they banned dancing i think that's right i just assume it was dirty dancing must be about a town that bands dirty dancing. No, they're like at a camp or I don't know something. There's just dirty dancing occurring between people. It's just a bit of a conservative vibe.

So dirty dancing, incidentally, is was made at my it was shot at uh two different hotels in virginia oh and one of them was a hotel that my aunt sharon and uncle mac used to be the managers wow whoa really it was at the time so i was going there as a kid to mountain lake virginia to this hotel even before dirty dance like as a little kid even before so when dirty dancing came out i was like oh my gosh look at that wow that's surreal probably yeah it was very surreal and it and it was like just one it's still one of my favorite movies uh i can't really separate the two like i mean it's it is objectively a great movie yeah but it's one of your favorite like home movies yeah it's like it kind of brought it kind of brought hollywood home to me you know because i recognized it and it was just yeah it was the best it's pretty exciting yeah like a bit not even just some move because sometimes it'll be

like some movie you know like i remember like i mean like lots of stuff filmed around me i guess in the valley but you know just like monday you know monday that's just like a because it's like a living back lot yeah i'm like oh you know hey blast from the past filmed one scene down the street from you for the uh brendan fraser uh uh what is that it's seeing a time not a time case in like a bomb right uh but during dancing a pretty like timeless we're probably where the setting brings a lot to it so like and people must travel there to go to those places somebody Jason and I know grew up on the

pond from on Golden Pond really wow my big one and it was very surreal because when it came out I had not traveled back home in a little while due to the pandemic but Mayor of very surreal because when it came out, I had not traveled back home, uh,

in a little while due to the pandemic, but mayor of East town is filmed like where I grew up. Oh, like she got in the first or second episode, she goes to an aquarium supply store. And I looked up where that was. I was like, Oh,

just a quarter mile from, uh, the middle school. I went to like just down the. Where you manage the football team. The fact I remain obsessed with. You manage a football team in 7th grade. I haven't watched, there is, there was a movie

starring Kristen Wiig, an indie movie that shot in Ocean City. Oh. But I haven't watched that one yet. Were they worried about all the Hollywood roughnecks coming in, bringing their left coast ideals? Well, no, I think they were very excited

because I believe it probably shot in the off season and I'm sure they were happy for the money. That anything is happening there? Is this a place that is dead when it is not summer? Oh, yeah. It's like a college town where, like, oh, during the school year, in this case, the summer season, it's like, oh, there's, like, 100,000 people, and then the off season, it shrinks to, like, 20,000 people.

Okay, okay. I have another logistics question. Is any of, because I'm keeping, I've had a hard time keeping all these straight, all the Jersey amusement places there's ocean city and then there's these two parks that we'll talk about that are that are here then wildwood and maury's pier that's way south of everything we're talking about correct i believe wildwood is south i forget what's north but that's but it's a separate district atlantic city is all a thing that's like that's a little bit up north is any of this the jersey shore or is what you call it considered there's all considered yeah okay okay but there is north jersey shore which that's where you get to like um

uh uh asbury park as we talked about uh i believe long beach island alito country is oh that's i think north jersey where they're flying weird flags um i've never been anywhere here i've never been to any of the jersey shore no i haven't done any of this you've never gone down to the shore is that what they yeah you go down go down the shore. Go down the shore. Go down shore. Go down shore. Yeah, that's the thing. They just, that's the like.

Go down shore. Go down shore. Oh, we're going down the shore this weekend. Hope the rain ain't bad. Wow. That's great to hear. When it's the off season, are they still making as much taffy as they do during the peak? Shriver's is one of the boardwalk businesses that are open all year round. I don't think they're making as much, but they certainly are.

Are they shipping out or are they making taffy just for the boardwalk? Sorry to go back to taffy. They have a big online business. They're working in there, but they're shipping a lot of that out. That's not just being made for the patrons of the of the boardwalk okay uh yeah no they have big shipping business some uh listeners on the our discord uh the discord uh that fans made for the show they sent me a shrivers uh a while back yeah wait a minute did the gift basket include because i'm going into shrivers

and i'm looking up mr taffy he brought that toy and i and in the google images i'm like wait a minute there's a book called the birth of mr taffy first of all you ever seen mr taffy alan i recognize mr taffy you've seen him around i didn't know about this book you've seen him stroll in the store oh god was there a book There might have been a book. I'm upset I can't find even a preview page because I want to know his story very much. I mean, Jane and I both, you know, we have insane sweet tooth,

so we just like rabbit. You might have eaten the book. Animals we tore through, we might have eaten it. Yeah, it's very possible. Ins eaten animals we tore through we might have eaten it yeah it's very possible insane sweet tooth tore through is that i'd like the word choices i really appreciate it there i think there is taffy in the freezer because you can freeze taffy you know if you have taffy in that freezer i know i know i still have taffy in the house i'm not sure if it's in the cabinet or freezer you just don't know where it's located yeah i don't know where it's located

you're like hiding it in the in the toilet but you know the compartment over the toilet in case any burglars break in and then they wouldn't think to look there and steal your taffy well and it's tube taffy too so like it doesn't really go stick because shrivers uh has info like brochures and they're like if it gets hard you just rub it between your hands you warm it up a little and it softens it oh so you taffy stays good forever as long as you roll it and rub it it stays good for a really long time you have to rub it twice a year you rub it you rub it every other six months you roll it okay every other other six you warm up your taffy when you change your smoke detector battery oh okay you're the chirp of the detector oh yeah

okay rub rub rub rub and we're set all right i'll see you in a couple years buddy keep aging um am i crazy to sit like i mean maybe not really growing up with a lot of taffy taffy is the thing i will i'll i'm fine to have one thing of taffy every three years that i mean one uh a piece of it one inch long piece of it is that insane am i missing out on great taffy possibilities in my life i like sweets uh i'm not buying a lot of taffy if somebody offered me taffy sure but it's not my go not my go-to and also my teeth it's not good for your teeth it's not good for your teeth no this is a jersey i don't take it out of your mouth right now. For audio fidelity, you probably should have stopped chewing it.

I'm experiencing tremendous pain in my mouth right now. You have taffy in like a dip. I feel every tooth. Like it's like chewing tobacco. You just have a taffy in your lip at all times. Alan has been dipping taffy since he walked in. This is a Jersey Shore thing. Jane, I'm wearing an Ocean City t-shirt right now.

Oh, nice. Hey. I should have worn my hoodie. I have a little hoodie. And I think that's how we first, I was wearing an Ocean City hoodie at a party or something. You came up to me and talking about Ocean City. And I was like i it's so i was

so surprised because i'm like i went from alabama how does he know all this ocean city stuff yeah no i'm very fortunate to have the ocean city connection uh through uh stacy's family yeah i like this new nostalgia too i like that you can like have it like an equivalent of childhood nostalgia or something you're discovering in your yeah i'm sort of coasting off their nostalgia and now i have a bit of nostalgia of my own and then also having uh a kid that's gotten to go there every couple years you know yeah that's nice seeing it because a lot of it you're viewing through or in me me, if you're a parent there wandering around, there's plenty to enjoy if you're not a parent.

Once you start seeing the kids run around and their reaction to stuff, oh, that's super fun too. Oh, geez. Well, so what's he into? What are the go-tos kid-wise? Well, he loves the two big amusement parks that are, I don't know if they're exactly on either end.

I mean, one is. Oh, yeah, they're a few blocks apart. Yeah, they're like maybe a 10 or 15 minute walk apart. And we can get into them, but just to say, Gillian's Wonderland Pier and Playland, what is that clunky name? Playland's Castaway Cove. Playland's Castaway Coveland it's the newer name we always just call it a playland okay and wonderland pier we should it is it is not a pier it runs parallel at the boardwalk

and the ocean that confused me getting in all this too well yeah i'm looking i don't see no pier there's no more is pier and whyogwood is a pier that juts out into the sea and if you were a car in I think it was Seaside Heights another town during Hurricane Sandy I believe a roller coaster fell

into the like the pier broke up and a roller coaster like fell into the ocean that was that was at ocean city no that was at seaside yeah right um but so those and we'll get into those a little bit but like okay so those are kid hits for sure oh yeah so those are like the big things i mean it's like you said in the beginning like the whole boardwalk to me feels like you're not just going to one place it's all kind of a continuum it's all like you're popping around.

Like we're going to go to, we're going to go to play land and we're going to go to this arcade or go get, you know, a Cal zone over at this place or whatever. It's all kind of like it's, it gets mixed up. Like when you're in just specific spots, like it's,

it's never going to be just that one thing that you do because you're out there yeah and uh you're going to pop around a little bit but yeah many golfs that look like and a lot of mini golf you go to the music pier to use the bathroom has historically been the most reliable bathrooms oh yeah that's a good tip that's a great that's a great spot i like that that. That's a neat, interesting architectural little location that music. Yeah, that does jut out into the ocean

and it's like a big event space for a long time. Beach Boys have played there last few years. They're playing this summer. If you can believe it. Yeah, the Beach Boys are getting out there this summer and they're taking their French on stainless with them can you believe it

they're becoming a regular presence at the music pier Bacon Brothers I bet it's been 50 years some of this stuff goes back 50 years Jane saw you know grabbed this shirt for me this morning,

and she's like, oh, it's coming up on 150 years old. And I was like, oh, what did they do for the 100th? And I was like, oh, I wasn't alive. Okay, not that much of an old man. I was not alive for the 100th. Beach Boys soon enough, too. 150 years? I was going to say the Beach Boys are 150 years.

They did like an OC con there or something too I think they just did a comic convention yeah okay and I

and I remember last time I was there I saw a picture of Gian Carlo Esposito was gonna be okay oh cool so yeah

this is not not too shabby the stars come to shine well and Mike Love oh yeah Mike J Carlo Esposito I looked at the schedule This is not too shabby. The stars come to shine. Well, yeah. Mike Love. Oh, yeah.

Mike Love. I looked at the schedule. Mike Love coming. Kenny G coming. Oh, wow. Herman's Hermits features starring Peter. Starring Peter Noon. Peter Noon. Yes.

That's how it's built now. He made it up to starring. Starring Peter Noon. Like the Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show credit. Yes. So all the Epcot eats of the beet grapes. Yeah. Another Ocean City Connect.

I just started writing down. I was like, oh, and I don't have to research a lot because I just started writing down. Alan, do you know the term shoobies? Have you encountered that in your travels? I don't think so. This is probably like a hundred year old thing. Shoobies were the name for day trippers

who would come down to the beach because there used to be a train from Philadelphia. There used to be like a train or a trolley sort of thing and people would pack their lunches in a cardboard shoe box. And so you knew they were oh my god if you saw how have you not revealed this to us before you would not recognize shoobies because they have the cardboard lunch boxes so they got the name the day trippers got the name shoobies

shoobies so you'd have to okay wait so a shooby is just somebody who brings their lunch in a shoebox that's coming to the pier for a day that's the origin of it uh they're coming down to the beach for the day but now it's kind of like i feel like the locals call the people who come you know is it all derisive that's what i was is this a slur should we be bleeping this term yeah it's like sis on twitter you're on x the everything app you can't say it anymore can't even say shooby anymore comedy is back comedy's back i do stand-up sets and i say shooby and the whole audience is silent i don't know what's going on to never gets a laugh pc but i i think it's like oh people don't know or it's like oh they don't know to go to mancos

some mancos for the best pizza or they don't know that you need beach tags to get on the beach so these are kind of like these are naive people that come down well for one day they don't know this fucking place. Yeah. They're eating the wrong shit. They have their fucking lunch in a shoe box. Get out of here. We're the people who live here and we know what the real stuff is. Alan, you know,

I mean, you've been enough, you know, about the beach tag. Oh, now I've learned about the beach tag. Is Alan a shoopy though? He's not anymore.

He's a pro anymore. At one time, I hate to say it. i really am flattered with that compliment it seems like it seemed at one point you had to have been a shooby oh of course i mean yeah you got to be a be a shooby to not be a shooby you were getting mocked behind your back by these locals i still feel no i mean it's i i don't know if uh if i'll get to an honorary you know uh not local stats but you know right right i feel uh and i don't want to presume anything but i do feel more comfortable there i am aware of the beach

tags although i often forget them but that is a that's a thing that's like the moment you get there you know the the relatives are passing the beach tags around here's yours you're sticking it you're pinning it to a towel or your backpack or whatever yeah what are these two beach tags these are little like like um i don't even know what you call it it's like like almost like bottle cap size or something yeah bottle cap size good way to put it but it's really like sturdy like paper kind of vinyl-y, it's like a pin you wear, you pay to access the beach. And this is kind of

split. Like, the beaches are free in Wildwood. Because it's like half a mile to the water. But the beaches are a lot smaller in Ocean City, so to pay for upkeep and like, uh, just maintaining the beaches

a number of towns, Cape May comes to mind Ocean City you had to buy a beach tag, you could buy them for a day or for a week or for the season and you just gotta show it, there's usually

a bored teenager at most entrances and you just show it and then sometimes there's beach tag uh people walking around the beach like hey can i say your beach tags you know and if like you are serious yeah if you just walked on and sat down and you didn't know about them they'll sell you a beach tag okay but maybe that's why that kid got stabbed or whatever because they didn't have a beach tag oh maybe you stole a beach tag in which case i mean how can you you know what else are you gonna do yeah yeah a little bit isn't there isn't there a cape may cafe it just happened this week sorry sorry to make a joke about this okay no we're

just kidding this is a joke i hope you've recovered from the stabbing isn't there a Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club yeah there is the Cape May Cafe and the Beach Club is above fame at the Disney World Hotel so is that why you like the Beach Club so much is because it kind of reminds you we just liked the seafood buffet

my family was a big like fish family okay you were a big fish family and that's my parents liked you know the shrimp and crab legs and that sort of thing yeah then you're watching big fish i'm always yeah i'm always constantly watching big fish i remember that i saw big fish the day it came out uh and it was we did a double feature where we saw Big Fish and 21 grams. Wow. And that, we didn't, you know, we were just excited for Oscar movie, little movie nerds in high school.

And thankfully, we saw 21 grams first. So Big Fish really helped cut the edge, take the edge off. Wow. Wow. If you'd done 21 grams and then seen Big Fish, that would probably would have put the edge on.

we did 21 grams. No, I'm saying if you literally did 21 grams to pregame for Big Fish. 21 grams of taffy. Not enough. I got a high talent i'm gonna have two souls in my body and what's gonna be made of taffy there's also there's a whole other term benny too you got shooby and then you got benny there's an atlas obscure article it says are you a Shuby or a Benny?

I'm having trouble figuring out Benny. Benny's just like fucking people called Benjamin come down here. Is that what it is? I think so. I'm not reading this terribly carefully, but yeah, I think. Or it's people who come to the shore to soak up beneficial rays.

Thus, Bennys. That seems like a stretch. People people want beneficial things for their body you know bennies d i'm a benny it's a strange either and it depends on where you are apparently if in michigan you call them fudgies people come in just all they want is the fudge and then they want to leave this is like fucking howley's in Hawaii or something like that, I guess. What is that one? Yeah. Howley's is like you're not a native to Hawaii, you know,

or you're native blood, you know, like indigenous to Hawaii. Anybody out of that, mostly white guys like me would be a Howley. Oh, yes, anyone, yes. By virtue of how anyone visits Hawaii,i yes we're all hellies um there's apparently apparently there's a version in in jaws they make one up for that jaws oh really what is it what's the jaws town uh amity uh yeah summer dinks they say everybody People who pop into Amity and don't even care about the rich Amity culture, just summer dinks. There is a connection between Ocean City and Southern California in that Pasadena and Ocean City both have doodah parades. Oh, I remember the doodah parade.

Right. Yeah. What is that about? It's like a silly parade. This is an off-season thing at Ocean City. They used to have like a famous, they would have a famous Grand Marshal every year. I think Mickey Rooney was at least one doodah parade Grand Marshal

at Ocean City. But this year, it was a guy who I think used to play for the Flyers. Oh, wow. A little less exciting i mean probably exciting i i think it was mostly partially rained out the dude are they considered sister cities pasadena and ocean i don't think so can we get you to be the grand marshal of one of these i would die if i was the grand marshal of the ocean city this gotta be possible this seems possible it's kind of the star caliber and get ready because i'm gonna say some of the names that we all love to hear i love the rooney's in there uh soupy sales this is the pasadena one this is this is ocean city oh Larry Storch, who we just talked about. Just passed away from F Troop.

Oh, okay. Of course. Show from 70 years ago. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, as much as I laud Jason for his theme park podcast fame, he's no Larry Storch. I'm sorry, just purely sadistically. But these are all people that died 30 years ago.

Well, no, Larry died a couple years ago. Well, Jason does have a leg up on them in that he didn't die 30 years ago. He's alive. Yes. Being alive, that's the thing that's number one on the resume. Right. I've got that going, but I did not play for a tri-state area sports team. But you managed your high school's football team, now we know.

And I don't think this season went that well. It's in my memory. But how much is that your fault, though? Well, I told them I was. Alan, you would know. What do you call the little orange thing you put the football on to kick? Oh, gosh. Well, I wasn't the kicker, but I should know this.

It's not a T, but maybe it's something like a tee. Something like that. We did this the other day. Yeah, we could have figured it out. It's a stand, isn't it? It might just be a stand. It might just be a stand. But if anybody should have known this, I hate to say it.

The manager. No, I did. They were like, okay, you run out and put the stand out there. And I would always just not be paying attention because football is kind of boring. Maybe they call it a shooting. And I don't really know how it's played very well. Were you too slow putting the stand

out? So like it's a similar thing to Alan. I think they Yeah, you guys are kind of equivalent here. I was a bit of a molasses boy. Yeah! Wow! Both Ocean City did two molasses boys together. A molasses boy and a taffy boy. If you'd been in the same game all right now

uh manager go set up the first name what the thing is and then go put it out uh uh i'll just grab it i'll name it later then slow run out to the middle of it okay last boy get in there take the kick slow walk out to the we would have lined it up perfectly yeah wow you're gonna get you guys on the field together we gotta go back we gotta go back the slowest game ever played yeah um alan let me ask because you know we we mentioned the amusement parks um my uh memory i feel like ocean city and maybe stacy's family does this too where it's like oh we go here we don't go there we go to main coast for pizza we don't go to preps or it's like oh no preps is better you gotta go there does your son have a preference between playland and wonderland um that's a

great question and i do believe that stacy's family is more of a manco family yeah mancos always comes up um i would say that right now and this could just be an age thing that he's more of a uh a uh sometimes i mix them up gillian's like the uh the one that looks like the castle the yeah top gillian's yeah because that i feel like the the majority of the rides there are more geared towards smaller kids that's the place that he's more inclined to go and then when we go to the bigger one which is playland playland that uh that's got a that's got a little bit more faster rides and stuff like that there i think this is so this is so funny you say that because when i was growing up playland was the one for little kids and wonderland was the one for big kids and now it's swapped and i'm like oh yeah playland does have a lot of big rides now and they've built it's a little crazy walking

around there because they've built a lot of things on top of other things you know there's a lot of rides packed into a smaller area yeah yeah there's coasters going from different rides that are just right next to each other yeah flying by and right next to hotels which is probably like right across the alley rattling windows yeah rattling windows for sure um so they've like are you saying they've kind of like jammed in coasters, that there was like kind of a modest layout of little kid rides, but then they've had to like court the adult market, so they just kind of like, all right, every inch of free space gets a coaster now.

And Wonderland is still pretty spread out. A lot of kid rides. Definitely a lot of kid rides, yeah. Yeah. Monorail, a small it's an it's a train it's like a ripoff thomas it's kind of a ripoff thomas it's always been a ripoff thomas but it's like what 20 feet in the air it goes above the park which is very cool why would thomas do that that's strange don't worry about. My son is all about the logic

of time. He's the most logical train player I've ever seen. He'd be so bothered that he was up in the air. The rip-off aspect is in the kind of the non, I mean, there's almost there's not, there's no real IP there as far as I can tell. Yeah.

Like it's all sort of faint representations of things that you kind of know or have heard of you know like there's something yeah that's like a just a structure that they can run across with a bridge called raiders arc raiders arc i love that uh as a kid it's not specifically there's no indiana jones stuff necessarily yeah Raiders is the first There's no Indiana Jones stuff necessarily. Raiders of the Lost Ark, but like there's the ride that you're on

the Ark of a Raider. Why does a Raider have an Ark? It's like a fun, it's like there's rope bridges and tunnels and that sort of thing. The logic. The logic is airbrushing. A lot of the giant airbrush mural.

There's like a worm one. I forget what it's called, but it looks like the worm from like Alice in Wonderland or something, but it's not. The caterpillar, you mean? Sorry, the caterpillar,

not a worm. But it might be a worm that looks like the caterpillar. In their world, it's a worm. Yeah. The hookah, but he has like a joint instead of a hookah.

But like my favorite ride is there has like a joint instead of a hookah but like my favorite ride is there's like a haunted a haunted ride or whatever yeah that's new in the last few years I watched a ride through that

a while ago and it's pretty good like a haunted dark ride it's very effective it's very good it's like a very and Sonny is still haunted by it two years later

when he wrote it when he was five and now yeah and because this is he we're going to go i don't want to time stamp this episode oh sure we will be going this summer back to ocean city oh great and so i was asking him like what do you think about that haunted

dark ride you want to get back on there he's like oh i don't know dad i don't know really wow stuck with him like one of his little cousins in front, and the seats on that are reminiscent of the Haunted Mansion. Kind of high backs. Chairs. Yeah. This is a fine Jersey Shore tradition of intellectual property theft, but don't worry about it.

Who's going gonna see it like there there is in the last few years there is a a candy shop called candy land that just uses giant like the can the board game it just uses disney it uses the disney like handwritten font oh and then it just has like giant uh photo you know print printouts of the castles and stuff in the store wow how close can we get that's crazy yeah this ride is just called a haunted house dark ride i think it's like they don't really they don't put too much the whole message across it's dark it's scary kids are likely scared by the horrible metal noises that affordable uh basic animatronics make yes they're they're natural creaking and screeching yes in addition to like the copyright free haunted house music and screams and stuff

yeah but there's skeletons there's clowns that glows in the dark there's things i believe there's maybe even a couple times you get wind blowing at you oh yeah yeah um so there's a lot of screaming from what i saw just like loud scream in which case i like yeah a little five year old of course is gonna be hey that's it's just upsetting yeah yeah Has he been on like Haunted Mansion And like a Disneyland and stuff too? No I Hate to tell y'all This might turn the tables on me

We have not been to Disney World, Disneyland This is like his exposure To amusement parks Is something along the lines Of this or like a state fair kind of quality of stuff but at that age also it's you know so i really so i think he's really gonna appreciate it i'm i'm sort of like i justify going like i really want him to remember it when we go you know like oh sure yeah yeah well that's i'm i feel the same way but on my like hardcore fandom scale i say the same thing

about going to tokyo disneyland but like we were you know like i've been talking about maybe going to like universal with him this summer and uh and he we we were listening in the car not too long ago to y'all's uh you know universal know, universal, it's the Mario land. Oh yeah. Episode. Oh, well, I'm sorry if we cursed.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I did have to like, uh, kind of, uh, and I'm sorry if I said something that I was attracted to chase Meridian from Batman forever

or something. You had to explain that. I went on and on for like 15 minutes. Very graphic. I mean, he really loved it. He really liked it. He really liked hearing y'all recap it and talk about it.

Your son heard the show and enjoyed it? Yeah. He enjoyed the show. It's fun. He's kind of into podcasts. Wow. Interesting. I do have to be careful.

And you guys don't have to edit yourselves or do anything. Obviously, it's for whoever. This is a very explicit show. Very, very explicit. That's how we're labeled on Apple Podcasts. We get that E or no. Most shows have the E next to it. We have V-E.

It's bad parenting on my part to do that, but the topic was so juicy for us that you know we're excited to get into these things now that he's like really yeah yeah in his own of to appreciate it did he like did he ask how old we were and say like well so these guys are like closer to my age right they sound so young like they they're not kids, then they are just barely not kids, right? Yeah, no, this is like, I mean, it's often like me going something like, these are some of dad's friends, or you've met this one guy before, such and such's birthday.

So he vaguely, I don't know what that's like to have some sort of a tangential connection yeah the media you're listening to or watching you know as a kid but uh other than dirty dancing um but uh anyway that's that's generally how i kind of describe and there's one one of you one of daddy's friends shows is not appropriate because there's a lot of talk about sucking your own dick you can't you can't play all of them yeah no that's just for daddy some daddy's friends uncle nick has a little mouth he says some naughty words um in the in the topic of like in the area of kind of like rip-offs to me the juiciest thing not knowing anything about this park was discovering something in gillian's wonderland pier and that is that there is a little area where you can put in a dollar and you can activate an animatronic band that is clearly a re-skinned chucky cheese robot yes and you guys are both familiar that you run into this too mike i saw a picture yeah yeah yeah uh awesome so cool i mean like i judge

a lot of these places on like you know i don't expect a place like this to have animatronics but it's certainly a bonus it's it's a cool it's like all right well now we're talking and this thing so yeah you can like activate you know here you've you guys have seen them, but here they are. They're on kind of like a little western porch, and they are called Rocky and the Railroad Ramblers. So good, yeah. Because they're right up, you have to go up a level to board the railroad that goes around the park. Oh, so the monorail passes. So they're right next to it. Yes, the Thomas monorail passes behind them while they do their show yeah um

and it it is just so evident if you're uh into these characters as we are it's so obvious that they just it's like the same facial shapes as the chucky cheese and they just put new felt on them or whatever um the gestures are the same they took chucky's skin off and they put new skin on there's gonna be a lot more of that i feel like because of they're gonna because chucky cheese has got to get rid of a lot of their yeah yeah they haven't smashed the question is they have to kill them they're like alive enough they have to you have to separate the the head from the spine and it has to be like they like wolverine you're killing wolverine you have to kill wolverine in the comics you have to like separate his head off his body but then like you have to separate

his body from like so they don't he doesn't grow back because he's a healing power right so similar to the chucky cheese robots yeah. Yeah. It's the same gestures and they are all, their limbs are contorted such that they should be holding instruments that they are not. So they're clearly like gesturing as if they're playing the

keyboards or a guitar, but it's just that they have severely bent. They just look mangled. Yes, yeah, they're playing phantom instruments air guitar i guess um let me quickly go through sure uh uh okay here's here's here's equivalence uh okay so again the band it's not munch's make-believe band it's rocky and the railroad ramblers uh chucky is rocky the panda helen henney is henrietta hatpin this mr munch the monster one is bubba jasper t jowls the dog is hank the dalmatian and pasquale the pizza chef is antonio

he's just old he looks like an old mayor he an old mayor. I think the mustache is built into the mechanics, so he has to still have the mustache. They just made him old. They didn't get too far from the original characters. They're just one little generation removed. Still a bird and a dog. Chucky maybe changes the most. Chucky might have the face of,

or one of them has the face of that elvis one oh the king yeah the king wait down you should know we know a lot about these do you think there's a way to track where that can't like i wonder if there was a was a showbiz pizza or chucky cheese that was like closed down and why in fact the 90s or something that is exactly what it is it actually was one that i think closed and was fully done in the 80s it was like an early went under yeah didn't have the chuck e cheese license anymore but the restaurant somebody came in redid the i think i'm getting all this right that it was the chuck e cheese band then it closed then some other enterprising people came in and

said well this is you got a perfectly good band here we'll build a restaurant around it and this i think this is all in scranton and there was a there there was a place called zach perry winkle's pizza wow so these are multi-generation they have been through multi it started as the chucky t's characters now it is rocky and the robo ramblers in the middle it was whatever zach perry winkle's panda band i don't know what it is Rocky and the Royal Ramblers. In the middle, it was whatever. Zach Periwinkle's Panda Band. I don't know what it is. Let me do it. I have to do this list again. Chuck E. Cheese was Zach Periwinkle.

Helen Henney is Henrietta Henn. Stayed Henrietta. Wow. Jasper T. Giles, Dudley Dog. Pasquale was Pasta Pete. I really like that one. And then my absolute favorite, mr munch the monster used to be thirsty jones the best born name i've heard in a long time wow that's great i wish we could

get some old robots and just change the characters a little bit. That would be so fun. Yeah. Oh, invent our own. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Not go too far from the originals.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always thought that would be a great, uh, talk show band, like to have a talk show. Oh yeah. That's a really good idea.

That's a good, especially as the, as the bands disappears, the first thing that talk shows are losing is the band and that's a so you can't be you know we can't pay humans anymore right why not but then it's boring to just play pre-recorded music no put some ai into the animatronic oh yeah yeah and then now we're cooking wow just enough to say to say like, ha ha, yeah, Trump is screwed. Don't forget to eat your small rock every day.

What? That was one of the AI Google results when people were trying to get it to do, it said like, someone asked, how many rocks should I eat every day? Oh, because Google is broken right now. Yeah, Google is broken on this AI thing. So like you can find people like if for

certain ai prompts you can ask questions like is it okay to eat glass and it says like yes it's okay to eat like one liter of glass a day so like there's all these errors going on when you like search things the funniest was someone asked like how do you make pizza or how do you keep cheese from falling off pizza and they're like you know uh it could be too much sauce or not enough cheese try putting some glue in the pizza and katie netopolis used to be at buzzfeed i think is that business insider now is a very funny reporter uh she made the glue pizza she got she made google's glue pizza she made the glue pizza she got like non-toxic like elmer's glue and put it mixed it in the sauce and made the pizza did she eat it she did oh yeah for the she's like well it smells a little chemically cooking but she made the glue pizza

really taking their word for it with that non-toxic you know really trust the elmer's people think about all the people that are doing that not ironically oh yes yeah just because they look for glue pizza because they were looking for the recipe and then yeah that's why that's why my pizza's not tasting right a lack of glue she really wrote i think she actually not elmer she used like the up and up the target house brand version of elmer's uh non-toxic glue oh interesting hmm so kind of bold kind of bold going with the uh so it's up and up like the rouse it's like the sauce that you spring for yeah you know like you buy the right glue the The glue makes the pizza. I think she went with Francesca Rinaldi, which is an East Coast brand.

Alan, you mentioned like, oh, there is not a lot of IP here, but there is a mascot for Gillian's Wonderland for many years, Wonder Bear. Yeah. I saw him. There is a female either partner or girlfriend or wife or so or stuff i don't know i don't want to assume you don't want to label it yeah this is wait

it's it's wonder bears it's a long-term relationship did you find the name of the girl no no her name is landy land Interesting. In honor of the man who saved Brian Wilson? Dr. Landy. By Wonder Baron Landy, I was like, alright, when you get to Landy, that might be a lack of imagination. It's just confusing.

Yeah, I like it, I guess. I just don't know where it comes from. Oh, it's from Playland. From Wonderland. yeah i like i like it i guess i just don't know where yeah i mean it's oh it's from playland from wonderland but i didn't put that together that's it's so it's so basic it's just looking at the other half bad line around land i still missed it um landy wow she's a girl bear who loves land it's like a land baron. She may not like being so close to the sea, given that she... Or she's named after a piece of family property or whatever.

Oh, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. No, just like, yeah, stacked generations deep. Corrupt family. The current generation, Jay Gillian, was a little busy being uh the mayor of the mayor of ocean city okay yeah a number of gillians have been mayors oh oh so this is in the really ocean city there's a history of god they control the park and they control the town but gillians i

feel like my i feel like my dad the last few years has been like well gillian's uh might have some uh back tax it like it seems like there was talk of sheriff's auctions uh and it seems like it always gets resolved but it's like thank god uh is this this it looks like gillian and one of the rides you can ride inside Gillian's guts? Are you talking about Wonder Bear? Is that Wonder the Bear? Is it a different bear than Gillian? No, Gillian is the family. Gillian's not a bear.

Gillian's the family. I don't know that. Excuse me, Wonder Bear. Yes, I mean Wonder Bear. I'm confused. That's from a ride called the Bear Affair. I got that in front of me. it is okay air affair so that's wonder bear and you can go inside wonder bear's guts yeah okay yeah and have a bear affair that's

kind of weird you can go you can get up inside wonder bear and have a bear affair i guess it's not that weird because you're like sitting inside you're in sitting inside dumbo and disney so i guess not that weird that you're like sitting inside Dumbo. You're sitting inside Dumbo in Disney. So I guess it's not that weird that you're like inside the character. Yeah, but it's also not, it feels like it's almost like you're, you know, it's close to your writing on top of them. This is, you were in a hollowed out stomach. Yeah. Right.

And now we've put the cloak of a fair over it as well. There's a lot going on in Bear Affair. It's like, yes, it's like Wonder Bear has been killed. His guts have been extracted from its body. There's a hole in in its chest and now you're getting to ride in there with your family should have paid his taxes this is a revenant situation as well yeah they could call it revenant the ride this is like yeah kind of like a mech suit situation now that you get in there and then he just gets up and now you're walking around as a big old wonder bear don't tell the teen gangs there's mech suits they can stab a lot more efficiently than um uh so there is um gillian's is just like a block

away from ocean city high school so like they're asking for it then the kids i mean well yeah the kids like that's wild it was always wild to me like oh they go to high school by the boardwalk that's so cool they go to high school by an amusement park and like beach volleyball i mean it's kind of it's iconic looking when you see it. It's like the first big thing you see if you're coming from that direction. Usually our path is like maybe something like people, somebody we've gotten,

we've gone to like, there's a restaurant called Ove's. Oh, my family loves Ove's, yeah. Who doesn't love Ove's? It's delicious, yeah. Everybody loves Oves. Yeah. Who doesn't love Oves? It's delicious. Yeah. Everybody loves Oves. That's where the boardwalk is kind of narrowed. And then you walk from there, you walk off whatever you had.

And then it kind of boardwalk kind of gradually widens out. And then boom, there's Gillian's right there. But one time, last time we were there, Sonny started kind of doing, there was like a family dinner there at Oves and there's like a big balcony. And so you can see over the boardwalk. And then my son went out to the boardwalk and started like dancing around on the boardwalk for some reason, just being a cute five-year-old dancing around. And his cousins were up on the balcony, like cheering him on, like, on like yeah yeah and then some people walked by and they threw him a dollar wow the star showbiz career there are a lot more buskers like so the city approved buskers along

the boardwalk playing saxophone or keyboard or there's a lot of full bands on like family nights along the boardwalk i gotta get sonny a permit or something like that yeah yeah watch out for those beach tags and watch out for you make sure your son is permanent for his own beach tags with his dance oh yeah yeah for his own buckets and like shovels for the beach this time put them to work, basically. Remember that dance from last time? Get down there. Pay your way.

Does he like the, because Gillian's Wonderland, known for the massive Ferris wheel. And that's kind of like an icon of Ocean City. Does he like it? Oh, yeah. No, he loves the Ferris wheel. Okay. Love that Ferris wheel i mean that's the best way to like get the bird's eye view of the whole like yeah uh yeah i mean that's that's how you get the only other tall thing is like there's landers or portico yeah

yeah there's like a couple of tall rides you know yeah this is the one the most kind of serene view and especially at sunset or at night when everything lights up you know it's really pretty way to see the city and all those beautiful old houses that are over there full of the mean people that are judging you full of people that have gotten their liquor from across the bridge and they're just sitting out on their porches yeah judging you what are the night what are you doing when the what are the evenings when when the pier is closed what are you doing you're just like folks are like riding their bikes up and down you know um taking walks a lot of walking oh i feel like oh uh is in the fine tradition of like jersey shore like you get a platter so you get soup and salad uh soup or salad sometimes and your entree occasionally dessert so it's a lot of food

and it's all fried food it's like besides the corn on the cob it's french fries or baked potato and uh fried fish or uh broiled fish which is kind of uh flavorless that's the version where it's nothing okay butter and paprika but that's like a lot of food so yeah you walk it off you you eat a big fish dinner and then you walk the boards to walk it off and oaves is also a bicycle rental place it's bicycle rental and like donuts and i think it even started that way maybe yeah yeah it was like mostly a bicycle rental and like the guy had a grill and then it became more of like a restaurant but it's also a bicycle rental you know yeah so just like, I'll take my girl to work today. If anybody needs anything.

Business started. Bring the George Foreman out. That's what it said. It started 20 years ago. I don't know if this is on the Ferris wheel, but you get the incidence page of these places, and I never want to go too much into the deaths or grim things that happen. I don't think there's any deaths here. No, there are. Oh, no.

In the story I'm about to tell. There was a big fire in the early 1800s. Constant fires. If you build very old- The locals know. As long as you're not a shooby, you know there's a fire every day. If you have very old buildings with very old electrical setups next to a wooden boardwalk you're gonna

have some fires you know this is recurring whenever these places come up with you you have a lot of concern it's always gonna flood the ride's gonna fall into the you're like you're i think you're like concerned generally about seaside amusement parks yeah uh well the jersey shore is uh subject to hurricanes uh some of the year uh i've had i've seen a number of fires there was a fire when i was in elementary school at this place fisherman's wharf which like was like my favorite shop i mean it, it was mostly, at the time, like seashell knickknacks and Simpsons toys because it was 1992.

And they weren't using reputable factories back then, so those cheap Moe's would light up in a second. Flash paper. They were full of lighter fluid. Those are the worst made Barneys you've ever seen. There was one Coors brothers ice cream there's a number of those on the boardwalk i don't know if uh the family likes coors frozen custard there's like yeah multiple of those multiple ones there's a little one at gillian's

right yeah is that the place where is it coors where they do like the flattened ice they like flat when they're mixing the rolled ice cream that was that was like a trend that popped up one summer and it was gone as quickly as it arrived good i said good i was there i was looking for the rolled ice cream we had cores which is delicious yeah you want to roll it for that it was kind of a fun novelty thing yeah i i hate to say it say i don't know the way it sounds to me this rolled ice cream sounds like some shooby shit flash in the pan go in one summer and out the next that's a real jersey sure that where it's like pops up and it either becomes

ubiquitous like dip and dots i remember when they showed up and then they, you know, became everywhere. They stayed. They had what it took. Tasting terrible. They actually got the foothold somehow. There was a movie theater there, too, that I don't think was working last time we were there. It was broken. The Moreland Terrace was bought by a local chain and it's slowly being redone.

It's supposed to reopen. And the other movie theater that was down the block in town became the big Manco & Manco Pizza Headquarters. Oh. It was a shitty family fun center that kept one or two movie screens going. And then the pizza, you know,

chain wanted out. None of these businesses started, none of them started is what they became. This is a place where you can just get something going and then it turns out, no, I sell t-shirts. I thought I was selling

beach tags, but now I sell taffy. But you can always kind of see the remnants of what came before. The skeletons are in the corner. Still hanging out. From when they thought they were a skeleton manufacturing company. Like, open to a movie theater. But I actually just turned into a place that makes kettle corn.

Like. It lets you grow. It lets you change. It lets you evolve this place. I was going gonna say from the incidents page just this one this one non-fatal thankfully uh in june 2007 the park was closed for two hours after a 17 year old girl had fired shots from a 22 caliber gun into a sand dune from one of the pier's rides thankfully just into a sand dune and you're like what's going on what

what did this 17 year old what was she mad about turns out investigated that she just found it on a seat accidentally dropped by an off duty cop what a police officer left their gun on the ferret's wheel

oh god oh my god this is something straight out of Brickleberry. We had a funny incident, which I was worried about at the time, but it is in hindsight. When Sonny was a very little baby, we went to, this wasn't a violent incident, but it was at just one of the little stores on the boardwalk. Yeah. You know, they do old timey photographs.

Oh, yeah. That old timey photo place has been there forever and ever. And it's great because, you know, it's like you get a family photo and everybody's like, we're all old timey bank robbers. We're gangsters. Yeah, we're gangsters. So there was like a, we were getting all the little cousins together. And at this time sunny must have been like one years old or something so so um some of the the the one of

the nieces i think was like pointed to a picture there was a variety of choices and it's like let's do the pretty flowy dress thing um and so that was from in the category of like an old south portrait or whatever so they start getting their gear on and the girls have these big flowy like uh dresses on and then there's the boys putting on soldier outfits and he's in a little lord fauntleroy thing and they're kind of getting in the pose and the photographer's setting up the thing and um and then nothing's dawning on me and i'm from alabama until the photographer unfurls the confederate flag and he's like oh it's an old south portrait and i'm like oh well can we I was like, whoa, whoa, hey, hey. What's going on over here? And he's like, oh, it's an old South portrait.

And I'm like, oh, well, can we just do the version without the Confederate one? Is there an ocean one? This is the saloon backdrop. Yeah, yeah. Like the saloon thing with the chimney is perfectly fine. Doesn't make any sense. These people wouldn't be at a saloon. They're not at at the same this is antebellum and they're from the old west it's okay i'm not worried about accuracy here that's okay i mean and that was just like that's the jersey shore like this is the old south these are we're hitting all the little traits of the old

south thing and they're not wrong but yeah but it was just like uh and if you look through the photo book yeah there's a lot of like families that are like we're old south you know we're from the confederate flag but anyway it was like it was just the funniest thing because it was just like oh yeah all the cousins are about to be in this photograph now oh no with the wind ass photo yeah which is that would damn him forever he could he be running for office running for some offices some kind of type of uh councilman one day yeah uh yeah but it was just like one of the funniest things oh my god wow. Why did they have, I know why they, wait, except it's, wait, but it's Jersey. Like, that's so weird that they would.

Yeah, they're so weird, yeah. They're so weird. I wouldn't say they're for racism, I think they were just like, these are the touchstones of the old South. I think there was a time, yes, where like, I mean, everyone's always had the agenda of the Confederate South meaning something very specific, but like, I think there was a time yes we're like i mean everyone's always had the agenda of the confederate south meaning something very specific but like i think there were also it

was just like the flag was around as a that equals south and that equals the past yeah sure i just ran into you got woke guys like me coming in there hey what's going on barging in here putting all of your uh kids and cousins into giant puffy bouffant dresses and then you raise a fuss about the confederate flag i just watched uh okay so there's an old uh there's a full house where a uh pop star comes to visit uh stephanie for her birthday i think i've seen that it's a guy named tommy page who seems like made up that seems like a fake guy but i like to know it's a real guy and i'm looking up the tommy page music videos what was his deal all right here's his song shag okay and i'm watching this music video and by the core the chorus kicks in and he's tommy page is busting

moves in front of a confederate flag what is this why and i think it's i think it's a song from a movie called shag that maybe takes place in the south and thus but it was really disconcerting like i did not expect this around this corner just a cool you know like a rick gasley style guy and he's busting moves in front of old i found that chucky cheese clip from like the early 90s where they're flashing flags and the confederate flag flies up on that we talked about that in the episode i think there was a time where you just people were just like this is iconography of a thing that it doesn't yeah there's sort of an innocence about the to them that this is just a thing that's like you know and then as people started you know

maybe not a good symbol now more context about that you know they're surrounding it you're like going like oh maybe maybe we'll find some other maybe an old uh uh oak tree that's all i can pull i can't think about i'm trying to think what's the most innocuous i don't know depending on oak trees branches could be bent in an offensive shape oh here we go there's always something oh yeah it could be bad one of the six one of the six flags at least initially was a confederate flag yeah yeah yeah's a boardwalk t-shirt shop scaled back they just replaced all the like rick and morty with confederate flag they were like oh just make it the supreme logo don't worry about it we do not have the license for this but rick and morty and goku can wear the supreme logo

uh um what have we met what are fun details i mean this has all been and Goku can wear the Supreme logo. What have we met? What are fun details? This has all been super fun stuff to talk about and it's very relaxing to, I don't know, just to even hear about the nice and the pizza place and it's picking oaves. I don't know these places. Just walking around and stealing your popcorn

or whatever you may have in your hand. I will say my favorite, I will shout out my favorite ride, which is at the other place. At Playland? At Playland. Gale Force. That's the big roller coaster. The big coaster? Oh, okay.

It's kind of an advanced coaster, right? It's sort of a good one for being a boardwalk. Yeah. about like advanced coaster right like it's it's it's sort of a good one for being a yeah it's it's like um i forget x number of tickets where you buy ten dollars just to ride it and i rode it a few years ago and it's like a real i think intimate coaster and it rocked my shit like i was not prepared for gale force gale force took years to construct and then it opened and they some stuff was installed wrong so then it went down for months and months but playland is where we were talking about fires uh in early 2021 right before we were about to record the episode with avery monson i learned about there was a massive fire burning on the

boardwalk and it was at playland and they are still reconstructing their like entryway arcade and stuff but it totally destroyed my family's beloved uh hamburger construction company construction company yeah yeah and so it's businesses close or flip because it's like, well, a lot of the comic stores closed because the comic bubble burst. The collectible bubble burst in the 90s. A lot of the bookstores closed. There's still the Bookateria, the used bookstore. My family loves.

And once at Ithaca,aca i was like is that the fucking booketeria van and it was the guy and i was like i love your bookstore my family loves your bookstore he's like the man wait sorry the man from the pure bookstore you liked was in a van by you was in because his daughter was going to the college. Okay. What was his name? I actually do not know his name. I've been going there since the 90s.

Stan Booketeria. Yeah. But businesses flipped because either bubbles burst or like- Fires burst. Fires certainly will close businesses. Bookstores, I think the Atlantic books just went bankrupt. And yeah, trends just changed. Kindles, you know. Can I ask a hard question of you right now?

You love this place. Yes. Okay. I am born here. On the second gate, I started asking some hypotheticals here where i have a giant missile launcher that can blow up a whole oh the launcher's back oh no i'm gonna have to train my missile launcher on one thing toon lagoon or the boardwalk here unfortunately in this case it is toon lagoon all right i have, in this case, it is Toon Lagoon. Toon Lagoon. I have a second question, though.

It is now trained on either Marvel Superhero Island and Islands of Adventure or Ocean City. I don't know if Ocean City is going to make it. You have to decide. You have to say it definitively. We need an answer. The entire city?

The boardwalk? What did they do some people just live there alright if they're mean people though maybe like and they're snooty

about the local they were mad about the shoobies if you've ever spoken ill of a shoobie then you're in the missile path now all the theme park's gone

all the business is gone the boardwalk gone it's probably gotta be Marvel Super Hero Island it's gotta go there wow Marvel Super Hero Island has been destroyed wow this is like like I said uh it's probably got to be marvel superhero island's gotta go there marvel superhero island has been destroyed wow this is like like i said it's like a second home well that's why that's why the marvel superhero island is also a second oh no the offices of the daily whatever where does

spider-man work daily bugle those are yeah you you sleep under one of those desks that's a second home to you too wow wow this is like an impossible scenario this is a kobayashi maru and star trek but you actually decided so we're fine it actually oh i just gotta read oh wait i just had to redo the game on the test oh i didn't know i could cheat on the test i'm a good boy i don't cheat so anyway yeah yeah i would be very interesting wow i don't know i was i wanted to propose one of these with alan but i don't know how to do it i don't know how to like would if you had to be in a missile trained scenario i don't i don't know another i don't know another old place that you're endeared to i was gonna say playland or wonderland

like what is uh stacy's family where does the loyalty lie well i would have to ask them to evacuate um before anything well yeah no they get out of there they okay okay right um um let's see uh which one would i blow up yeah yeah and it's that's a pretty carefully guided missile because these places are close to each other so there's not gonna be a big footprint to these these explosions uh i guess i would uh i would probably train it on uh playland keep wonderland i really like the iconic um spires and castle like yeah and maybe the spinning letters that spell out wonderland really nice those are really cute spinning letters really good if you're looking listener for a visual representation of all this there is an instagram account or they they

professionally do this now i think called ocnj uh drone um and they do drone photography of the island and um uh the theme of the amusement parks i think they've been doing a lot more uh yeah ocnj underscore drone which the drone has the pov that a missile in the air would have you can watch the videos and go pew and pretend that you're a missile on the way to blow something up yeah but also beautiful photos of like the bay and the marshland and the bridges. Look at that. Into town. Wow. Wow. I also did a couple of years ago a little video, not an essay, I wouldn't say, but just took some photos. I got some photos on my walking about pod thing from a couple of years ago that I made of Ocean City.

Oh, cool. Oh, really? that i made of ocean city oh cool i was so um moved by the experience that year that i made a little i think i made a video of it and took some pictures you know check that out great scroll down this is a nice like it's a pleasant place that inspires nice photography and tributes which ties nicely into into the the pod which we could talk about a little bit but i get why for unless like a one more just like do you anyone want to give like one more out of context name of a restaurant or shop that you like i mean i like i said i've been coming here basically since i was born i do have a list of i was tossing a great closed restaurants great uh shaftos spada for it i thought this was gonna go fast but then shaftos we gotta pick of a toss-em-a-great closed restaurants. Shafto's, Spadafore's.

Shafto's? I thought this was going to go fast, but then Shafto's, we got to pick apart. Shafto's was there for like 50 or 60 years. It was like an old school, kind of like dinner, you know, soup, salad, entree, dessert kind of place.

They said it's twice described the premise of restaurants but no i'm saying you order and you get all that i i oh yeah like at a restaurant yeah no i mean like that comes as a meal you get it all as a meal you get it all for one price and uh that was probably it's an inclusive far too much for a child to be eating. Shoebies don't know about Shaftos. Shoebies don't know about Shaftos. That likely closed because people either want to retire or die. Because they've run a fish house for 40 or 50 years.

Yeah, that ran it. Toy Ararium was a collectible store I loved growing up. Hamburger Construction Company. Green Grill and Flanders Grill. When Flanders Grill closed, they opened the Green Grill, and then they wanted to retire. And I think a lot of the staff went to work at the Varsity or at Reddy's. And those are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So Green Grill, Rental, Reddy's. It's interesting. Flanders, lunch, breakfast. So bring your hotel ready. It's interesting. Flanders, yeah, it's a massive hotel. Yeah. Built, I think, around in the 1930s. Named after, you know, the battlefield. Flanders in tribute. The Field of Flanders.

Oh. From World War I. Interesting. Not the Simpsons character. Not the Simpsons character not the simpsons character not dead no playland has expanded over the years and built into what used to be the massive flanders pool so they shrunk the pool uh they just built another pool okay the first pool felt ready to retire it had been a pool for 50 years this was

a giant pool you know in the mid-20th century when people would go to the seaside resorts for their health and do you know uh bathing in the but you'd the sea is so rough so we have so people would go to bathe because they couldn't bathe at home, you mean? No, no, they could bathe at home, but for a vacation. Ah, be purified. Yeah, I forgot whether it was a saltwater pool. I should know this.

It might have been. Do they have any of the stuff Steve Harvey does? Like a red light machine now, or an ice plunge? It's the modern equivalent. Yeah, now thousands of people all want to take a red light bath together. Yeah, like a red light machine now or an ice plunge. It's the modern equivalent. Yeah. Now thousands of people all want to take a red light bath together. Yeah, like a red light things. Oh, oxygen bars. Those were a big trend on the boardwalk in the 90s.

It's going to be so funny in like seven months, Mike, when we discover like red light treatment causes massive tumors. I see Steve Harvey walking around his head bulging out Steve Harvey's head grew five times its size looks better on camera he wanted it that way it just matches the size

of the suits the suits are proportional to the ties another trend I think there was like escape rooms that like I noticed oh sure there are yeah those have caught on the last few years like an alien invasion one or something yeah but uh restaurant i would shout out is uncle it's a pancake house uh uncle bill's pancake house there's always a line yeah they don't need my help Each line Yeah They don't need this plug

But How old is Uncle Bill? 80? 85? Is he ready to die? He's ready to die I don't know He might just be an idea

I don't know He's a concept He's a little cartoon man On the sign He said Oh he is easy? Yeah Uncle Bill?

Uncle Bill Let me see how old the cartoon is And if the cartoon's ready to die Well the fish people Were really ready to die You do fish for is and if the cartoon's ready to die. Well, the fish people were really ready to die. You do fish for 40 years, you're more than ready to die. Sure. Did you say you're going

out there? I will probably, yeah, this summer. I think besides one summer when I was stuck in LA for work and then 2020, I did not go out there. It was us. 2020 we said fuck no vacation Jason

we gotta do an episode about King Arthur's Carousel you stay here I would love to hear our 2010 episodes but there are only two summers I've not gone back to Ocean City since I've lived here is this Uncle Bill and he's got a woman next to him? yeah they're making pancakes

who's the lady? I don't know. Landy. Landy. All right, look, that one's youthful. They look youthful. They're not ready to die. Keep them youthful. A diet of just pancakes. But we're probably ready to end here.'re ready to wrap it up but what a

pleasant journey through this place um i'm so happy to say alan mcleod you survived podcast the ride uh what a what a pleasant one and let's let's uh let's stroll on into the gift shop is there anything you'd like to plug hey check out my podcast walking about um i uh i love walking and uh hopefully as you've made clear in this episode walks in the name of it uh you can walk while you listen to it you are allowed uh if you want to and uh yeah yeah i got to check out the show yesterday it's great it's so charming thank you uh listeners to this show you love eva anderson i'm sure and she was great on it you guys went to hollywood forever cemetery and it's uh just what a pleasant i mean you know it's it's fun history but also just hanging out with you guys and it's like the way the the way you

cut it up that it's like i don't know it's it's like more like little audio documentary than uh than via normal podcast i guess i just like the formatting a lot it's very charming and also that you you're like the the like interstitial narrations you do i think are really great and funny and the thank you here with your with your uh pleasant southern lilt i was like and we're going to like la landmarks i'm like we're in a little bit of like hugh hauser territory oh i mean hey i'll take that i mean i i praise for me i love you i mean i love you he is like the only sketch comedy character, like impersonation I ever did. You did Huel as a, oh,

that makes so much sense. Wow. When I was first starting, I like at, uh, doing like any kind of sketch stuff or character bits. Like it would be, I remember I had like a sketch that was like,

I was just going into like a restaurant, some restaurant and it was Ryan Perez was the cook. And I was like bugging him going into like a restaurant some restaurant and it was ryan perez was the cook and i was like bugging him as hugh you know just because it came from a place of love yeah because i discovered hugh when i moved to la and i was like oh man oh sure so yeah still alive when like because he wouldn't he wouldn't when he passed away like mid 20 times maybe 10 years ago or so yeah yeah a little longer but uh yeah no i mean i think it's i think it is that just uh you know there's something about coming from another place and you just the excitement you feel over like discovering new places and stuff and yeah and so so uh huge huge fan of

huge fan of rick steves yeah yeah i love rick steves the best yeah yeah and uh so i mean yeah there there's there's another guy that used to do like another presenter like la presenter ralph story who used to do stuff so oh is he is he things that aren't here anymore yes that has come up on this show for some reason i don't remember what it was we've assured, we've talked about some things that aren't here anymore on the show. So, yeah, I mean, you know, it's definitely like I definitely like love all those types of formats and presentation and just kind of got a kick out of figuring out like maybe this is a way to do it. It's sort of like an audio diary, sort of captures the sense of like a place and time you know and just like uh or a person you know that that i admire or friend you know like you know so it's just uh it's been really fun so thank you so much for absolutely it turned out great highly recommended to our to our audience and i haven't gotten to

hear the mitch one but mitch is on it so people you like uh already from our show and other shows and uh i'm excited i'm excited to check out the rest so oh man uh yeah thanks for thanks for chatting with us here uh walking us through the boardwalk uh uh as for us uh you can get three bonus episodes every month the podcast the ride the second gate or get one more bonus episode on our vip tier club three you will find all of that at patreon.ion.com slash podcast, the ride. And because we moved on, I was like,

maybe I'll save it for the end. I ha I have to go back and say, that was not the last of the reskins Chuckie cheeses that I went through. Thank goodness. There's also, wait, yes. All right.

Because, uh, uh, the Chuckie cheese fan community is like, all right, this is a little confusing because ocean city has Rocky and the Railroad Ramblers, but that is not to be confused with Rocky and the Ramblin' Rascals, which you can find in the Enchanted Forest Water Safari

in Old Forge, New York. Wow. And let me speed through those. In that one, Chuck E. Cheese becomes Rocky the Rabbit. Helen Henney becomes Henrietta Hatpin. She's Henrietta in every... Yeah. We have our thing, the Helen test, where a lot of like a very bland name to give to a

lot of like female characters who don't bring a lot to the table is Helen. And I think Henrietta is maybe another one. Yeah, really weird. Yeah, yeah. A bland name. Let's see. Pasquale becomes antonio that one's the same desperate jowls is jacko the donkey and munch becomes bad bonga the monkey oh my gosh uh so we have all these i can't believe how much the family tree yeah thirsty jones is

really fantastic i don't know how to see a picture of i mean thirsty jones is just the purple monster from chuckie cheese but like that i mean munch sounds like i want pizza but thirsty jones is gonna be thirsty jones is slick oh yeah yeah yeah there's a different vibe there's a mess in town, I call it Thirsty Jones. Munch is a clown. Yeah. Thirsty Jones is cool. Yeah. Thirsty Jones,

I'll slurp it up for you. Slurp, slurp. I'm feeling a little thirsty. When are you not, Thirsty Jones? Forever Dog This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey.

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