Podcast: The Ride - Pandemonium Cartoon Circus with Marissa Strickland

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

When Islands of Adventure’s Toon Lagoon opened, an “innovative” new show debuted. Rocky and Bullwinkle, Betty Boop, and Beetle Bailey got together to put on a revue filled with razzle-dazzle crap. It was not exactly well received, and it closed within nine months.Ancient funny-page characters? Hooray-for-Hollywood bullshit? Seems like the perfect PTR and Marissa Strickland topic to me!Link to the original show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42hQJN7jTsI&t=517s"Chuck's Arcade" episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Forever. Warning, the following podcast may contain potato books, a relentless list, characters that your grandma kind of liked, and big sandwiches for everyone. All that, plus Marissa Strickland returns to talk about the short-lived Islands of Adventure show Pandemonium Cartoon Circus on today's podcast, The Ride. Welcome to Podcast, The Ride, a podcast that is coming to phone. as opposed to the circus, which is coming to tune. Oh, my goodness.

Here's my Carlson. I knew he would have opinions on that. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Yes, I'm Mike Carlson. I'm here. This is, I think, a hallmark of a Jason shared intro. He will drop a reference to the thing we're going to talk about, often obscure, often

very confusing, and then throw a joke on top of it. A hat on a hat, and then there's like a tarp thrown over it or something. That's generally what we get with a Jason shirt and joke. And he did not disappoint because he asked if I had something and I did, but I said, I'd like to hear what you have. And that's what we're doing. Can I hear what you had?

It was just sort of a general. I guess now we have to do it. Yeah, I want to hear it. Well, I was going to be like, welcome to podcast the ride, a theme park podcast that would make a stranger ask, why did you choose that topic? My name is Mike Carlson, right?

Because that happened to me yesterday. I said something about having a podcast. That's how I made a living. And they were like, oh, well, what's it about? And I went, oh, it's about theme parks. And they were like, oh, how did you choose that topic? And it was that in the voice. I might be exaggerating a bit, but not too much.

I could feel it that they were like, this is confusing. Why would you want to talk about that? So yours was a little more existential. Yeah. Than just a lyric from a song. It was not a lyric from a song turned on its head. Yeah. So that's okay.

I mean, look, we have different strategies. what makes this podcast good is everybody has a different strategy. We have different approaches. Different approaches. Scott Gierden are not here. He has a totally different approach than you and I. Yeah. It's so different than us. It just doesn't answer his phone. They respond to my email. Yeah. You said we're recording and he said nothing. Yeah. But he would love, he would love to chime in, I think, on that joke. Yeah. But, uh, so this is a Scott Free episode, but we do have a guest, uh, returning guest. It's Brumhilda herself. Marissa Strickland.

I also thought, oh, we're going to say Marissa is Broom Hilda today. Can I say I love Broom Hilda? I don't know enough about Broom Hilda, but I love Brum Hilda. This is not the first time I feel like you've been compared to Broom Hilda or you've taken the mantle of Brum Hilda? That's what I'm saying. It feels right to me to call Marissa Broom Hilda. Also, her proportions are good. So many female comics are, you know, very voluptial.

Broomhilda's just coming in normal. Yes. You're saying it's not like a Lola Bunny, a Cleo from Heathcliffe situation. Not like a cheesecake art, kind of Betty Poops. Jason's going to be polite, but what you just said made him so mad.

He loves it when like a cat is sexy. Like a human woman. Well, certain ones. Please don't. He loves Cleo from Heathcliff. Yeah. I mean, I as a young girl loved Cleo from Heathcliff.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Like she's hot and she's like little leg warmers, right? Yeah, she was cool. Yeah, yeah. But yeah. So, yeah, Brumilda, much more just like a cute little cartoon character. It's more wholesome that way, isn't it?

I think so. I think so. Also, did you like Sonia, Heathcliff's girl? Isn't that? But she just looks like a cat. Yeah, she just looks like a cat. She might have a bow. Do you like Sonia?

Sonia's just like a white cat. I, more like. Scale of one to ten. How much do you like Sonia? More like a friend. All right, one at ten friendship scale. What do you think? Oh, I'd say six.

Oh, okay, okay. What's the number for seven? We were never that close to like six or seven. Six or seven is really high. So you guys are getting lunch every once in a while. Yeah. Well, that's crazy. Six or seven?

I don't feel like that about like a lot of people I talk to once a week. Yeah. Okay. He likes Sonia. He does. I think he does. No, come on. He just doesn't want to admit because she doesn't have the body of

Leo. Look, I know married here. You see the ring. You see the ring. We're getting him in trouble right now. Cleo is enough. We're getting him in deep. Cleo, the total babe is enough.

Yeah. But, uh, yeah. You got one home pass. Cleo's a whole house. It's Cleo or Kim Bass and you're from Cool World. Oh, oh. She just looks like a lady. Yeah.

The cartoon Kim baser. Yeah. The cartoon. Not real life Kimbazier. Who is walking this earth. Who is alive, yeah. He's around. Yeah.

But not her. Anyway, Jason is very, I think he very much, like relates to riffraff, I think. Oh, yeah. I think of yourself as riffraff a type from Heathcliffe. It's only a matter until I get that Dom Deloese, a matter of time before I get the Dom Deloese hat. And the scar, he wears a scarf too. He does if you don't know what I'm talking about. Doesn't he have like a big, big floppy tan?

Yeah, that's what you're talking about. Dom deli's hat. Oh, hat. Oh, yes. like on his, I don't know, dressings? Didn't he have some dressing or some pasta sauce? What?

Oh, like a salad dressing? The cat from Heathcliff had a salad dressing? Oh, Dom Dolby's, sorry. I wish the cat from Heathcliff had salad dressing. That is what will happen with everything now with like posting like IP on things that that riffraff will have his own. Yes, I think Dom Dolubies did have something like that, didn't he?

I see his picture and on a label. But doesn't it, in my mind, it looks like the Newman's own label. Exactly. But it was Dom Deloese. Yeah. And that's why I think I'm saying salad dressing, but I think it was probably pasta sauce. Well, we have to look. Jason, look it up real quick.

There's a teenage meat Ninja Turtles X. What is it? Green Chef? Wow. Hello fresh. Like there's Kroger or something. Yes. And they were on the masked singer last week.

And Ken Jong was singing the Ninja Turtles theme. And I'm like, do I like the Ninja Turtles anymore? No offense. to Ken, I'm just like, why is this on TV? Because life is like an auriboros right now. We're just munch, munch in. There's Dom Deloese cookbook. Okay.

That might be what you're thinking of. Can I see? Yeah, you can. There's pasta on the front. His hat's a little taller on the cookbook. It's a big hat, Domelowitz. It looks like he got scared and it puffed up. Yeah.

I should say that there's going to be a lot of like the names and the cartoon names are going to be flying on this episode. So if you're a podcast to ride, like casual listener who's like, I just tune in for the theme. parks and stuff, and I don't necessarily like when they're listing off cats from a shitty 80s cartoon or actors that have been dead for 40 years. This might not be the episode for you. So I just want to give a fair warning.

And if you really don't like comic strip syndicators, we're going to be saying a number of them. Well, yeah, I consider that part of what I'm saying. Oh, okay. Well, I guess you're saying the actual name of the syndicators? Yeah. Okay. I think there's only a couple syndicators, so there shouldn't be too many.

Yeah, there's more than you'd think How many are there? So get ready. Some of them have closed and some of them have merged. Do you have a list of those? I only a couple because I was trying to figure out because we always talk about King Features Syndicate. A lot of this land of Toon Lagoon.

It's Jay Ward Properties. That makes sense. You know, Rock and Bullwinkle. Dudley Doerite and Snidly Whiplash and Nell And Peabody and Sherman kind of And then a bunch of comic strip characters Yes And Betty Boop and Popeye

Yes so we are going to be talking about a very short-lived show At Islands of Adventure Jason's favorite place on Earth, Islands of Adventure Anytime we talk about it he gets so happy And we're going to be And he loves it, especially when we're talking about something that closed quickly, too, that involved a lot of his favorite characters. The, what is it called? The cartoon pandemonium circuit.

Oh, I screwed it up. Pandemonium Cartoonian Circus, a show where all those characters you were just mentioning came together to put on a spectacle like no one has ever seen. Yeah. And I saw this. That's what I was wondering. Oh, my God. This is jaw-dropping. I saw this in June 99.

I was there. You got the year right. Yeah. And then my family, we went back in like spring 2000 and it was gone. Yeah. And you just felt your knees weeping outside the front. I felt on my knees weeping. I was excited, happy to see this show, happy to see all my friends, a little confused by it.

I think that's rightful. Because, yeah, there's some confusing stuff. And who's it for? I think that was one of the reasons toward the closure. I think the 2000 seat purpose-built amphitheater was not exactly, I mean, I don't know if it was exactly built for this purpose, but this was the original show in this amphitheater in Toon Lagoon. Yeah.

So, yeah, if you didn't know, there's an area still in Islands of Adventure that is all like, like a comic strip and Rocky and Bullwinkle themed in the year of our Lord 2026. Yeah. If you can buy it on a tin lunchbox at a knickknack shop. Right. They have attractions in this land. So yeah, Tune Lagoon is hanging on and it's remarkable.

And obviously at this point, we just wanted to stay forever. But it feels like it's... I've never been and I need to go. Yes. I mean, it's yes, because there's, you know, a lot of these things. I brought up this topic for your episode because I know that you're very into a lot of these characters specifically. I love them.

If they're close to 100 years old, I know it makes it more attractive. I'm in the shape language alone. People were drawn better back then. People were drawn better back then. There's no doubt about it. Not a propriety thing. Not a moral thing.

Oh, no. It's just like, oh, no, they're just drawn. Betty Boop is letting it fly. You know what I mean? Popeye and Bluto. I mean, the arms, you know, love Rousseff's legs, love Popeye's arms. A topical, a semi-topical Rusev back in WWE in the recent years. He is, you might be in the Royal Rumble today with his big legs.

Wow. That's right. I hope they're, you know, stomping around. Oh, they will be. They will be. That's what they do. So, yeah, this place still exists. You can go to it, not the show, but the whole place still exists.

So you still get the feeling of this. this show, the confusing nature of it and the mashup of characters, because these characters weren't like hanging out before Toon Lagoon existed. It's a beautiful crossover. It's a beautiful crossover. And it's, you know. And you can still see some remnants of it. Of the show.

Yeah. There is like flags on light poles still brag about circuit, like those kind of vertical banners. Still brag about like see Bullwinkle J. Moose in the circus. or like see Betty Boop singing. And the aerial loop, the music loop, like by the amphitheater, you can still hear like instrumental versions of some of this. The ghost lingered.

The ghost of the tunes. Marissa, what is your, like, do you want to expound on what I'm saying, like your relationship with Popeye and Rocky and Bolwinkle and Betty Boop and all of the blondie and Dagwood? Yeah. Well, I guess. I have older parents. So I think that's the like originator of knowing older things because they just gave me old things to look at.

So my dad was like obsessed with Popeye. So I had to read a lot of Popeye. And I really think it was like Popeye and like old comic books that got me to read. So I think that like they're in my little brain and in my little DNA. And then I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle growing up. Like I think it's still one of the greatest shows. There's a ton of it on YouTube. I would encourage you to watch some, especially on a Saturday morning, enjoy yourself.

Oh, there's a lot of, like, a few hours of, like, compiled cartoons. Just put it on and enjoy, eat some breakfast. I want you to have stamina for all the Rocky Bowlwinkle. But I just love these characters. They feel like home, you know? Yeah. Funny? Funny.

I mean, I think Rocky and Boleinkle is so funny. Like, it's, like, truly so funny. it holds up. It's great. The, you know, dual alternate next titles for the next, you know, episode, delight and really felt like a missed opportunity in this show. It feels like they could have used that. Yeah. Did you ever get any themed entertainment with Rocky and Bullwinkle? There was a play.

I mean, there is still one, one, bowlwinkles around, which was like a Chucky Cheezish place. I'm aware of it. No, I never got to do it. I had a Dudley-Du-Rite t-shirt in seventh grade. Okay. Okay. You were just like theming, you themed yourself to a character you like. Yes.

Yeah. Did, uh, did you like all those like the separate Rocky Bowlwinkle characters equally? Was it like Peabody and Sherman and Dudley and everybody? I like Peabody and Sherman less, honestly. I think they're great. I think they're really stand up characters. I want to watch them. But to me, I love Rocky and Bullwinkle number one.

And then I love Fractured Fairy Tales. Fractured Fairy Tales, I think is like excellent. It's so fun. They're turning fairy tales on their ear, and you won't believe what some of these characters are saying. Now, that was a blur worthy of like an old-time film critic or Jason Sheridan talking about any actor or any performance recently, which is a newer thing for him. You just throw an actor out at him and he'll give you like five or six words about how great they are. Sam Rockwell? Oh, terrific.

Confessions of a dangerous mind gets an amazing performance. always love him in supporting roles too. Steels his scene. Doesn't need to be leading. Doesn't need to be a supporting player. He's good at all of it. He is. So anytime during the show you want to throw an at him.

Great. Please go for it. Great. So yeah. I mean, we watched Rocky and Bowmankel all the time growing up. I remember when it had like a resurgence in the 90s as well. Yeah. It very at that schoolhouse rock kind of 70s, 90s does 70s.

Syndication at some point. At some point it was. I remember I was like Oh this show is good It's on Nickelodeon and Nick at night Like that was the stamp Like a seal of approval That was a seal of approval

Kids and adults approve of this Yeah Right so yeah we were very into it And it felt obviously they were doing movies At the time none of which worked so well Perhaps But they were it was the era The decade of Rocky and Bullwinkle I feel like

Sure unless that movie came out in 2000 or 2001 I think it was 99 right It feels like a 99 We've discussed this on the show before and I forgot So, Dudley Duhryke came. Well, no, Dudley came out in 99. Rocky and Boehinkle, I think, was before that. So it might have been earlier.

Confusing films. That's the most negative thing he said about a film in months. I know. I've never seen the Dudley movie, but I remember seeing the Rock and Boehinkle in theaters and going like, oh, oh, that was. I didn't, I didn't love that. Yeah, I've never seen it. I don't know. I'll have to go back and watch it.

Same. Yeah. But I mean, why? We only have so much time. Jason Alexander as Boris Bannonoff. That's pretty fun. It's fun, sure. Great casting.

De Niro is a fearless leader. That's right. Really? That's, wow. How about that? I think you produced the movie as well? Holy moly. But anyway, that's maybe where he started

is doing anything. Yeah. Not what he wants. Anything for money. That might have been the turning point. But then, yeah. So you take those characters and then you mix them up with a bunch of comic strip characters. And we read the Sunday funny certainly a lot.

But I was very focused on a couple. I was focused on Garfield. Yeah. I was focused, I guess, on baby blues because that's what my mom liked. And it was young and fresh at the time. And they were young characters. And maybe they were being written by somebody who was alive. That was maybe the difference with baby blues.

And obviously with like peanuts. But I even remember when peanut like Charles Schultz died. And a couple of years before, I remember. my mom reading going, this doesn't make sense anymore. Have you ever been to the Santa Rosa Airport? No. It's themed to Charles Schultz. It's very cute.

There's this tiny little regional airport in Northern California. Yeah. Take a trip. Take a trip. It's up there, I think. His museum and ice skating rink. Oh, that sounds great. Yeah, he has some, yeah, we've talked about that before on the show too, and I forgot

what it is. But like Beatle Bailey, who's very prominent in the show, I wasn't so, I am into Beatle Bailey now. But I wasn't so into Beatle Bailey back then. I didn't really, he's in the military, I don't know what that is. Children aren't into Army. Hogan's Heroes. That wasn't really on Nick at Night

or it was later maybe. Maybe. So like some of those characters, even Betty Boop, I'm more of a Boop fan now than I was back then. I mean, maybe Betty Boop is too aggressive for me, I guess. Perhaps that was it, but I don't know. So a lot of these characters I'm saying at the time this would have

been playing, I wasn't so excited about them. You didn't go like, oh, look, helping Beetle Bailey Bailey Bailey with that set piece. It's his fellow soldier, the bucktooth zero. I did not. I did not. I had to look up.

Wait, is that another, so, is that an, it's not Sarge or Sarge's dog. No, it wasn't Sarge, it was zero. It's zero. I saw that as well. Yeah, not the dog, the dog, ghost dog from nightmare before Christmas. It is beetlebelly's friend. It is Beatle Bailey's

dim-witted friends And isn't Biddle Bailey Dim-witted? I think Biedel Bailey is dim-witted. So his friend is dumber than Bidel Bailey? There's always someone. Fresh off the turned-up truck.

Like, you're saying he's more naive? Hayseed type of a hill-lily sort. So he's more of a hillbilly than Biddle-Baley? So one's... He's dumb and one's a hill-billy? No, I read about all the characters last night because I'm like, what is this one's name? Okay, so Bidle Bailey, though, is not fresh

off the boat or truck. He's kind of a doofus, isn't he? Yeah, kind of a doofist, kind of a scamp. Yeah. Right. But then his friend Zero is sort of from the South, but is got less intelligence? Yeah. Okay.

I think so. There's not a lot of background in some of those strips. Well, there's only 50 years of comic strips to learn about zero. But no, Beatle Bailey, again, I love that he exists. I love saying Beatle Bailey, but I don't actually have a tremendous amount of knowledge about it, the comic strip. And some of the other character,

like who else? Blondy and Dagwood, we did read, but I wasn't so into it as a kid. It didn't feel like I related to it. I always wanted to like Blondie because there are so few like woman-centered comic strips. And then I was like,

I don't really like Blondie. But it ends up like it felt like it was always about Dagwood. It's exactly. Right. Yeah, which it's like give the girl a bone. You know what I mean? I think she needs some fun stories.

She should be able to just eat the big sandwiches too. Thank you. Yeah. She should. That's a quality. Jason's fighting for equality. There's got to be one issue. There's got to be one strip where Bologna eats the big sandwich that her husband usually eats.

There has to be. Or is it like the tricks rabbit not getting his own cereal? Yeah, but more covert, you know, because we just accept that she doesn't ever get a sandwich. Or maybe. Grip would end if she did. I don't want your slop sandwiches. I don't want your nasty big sandwiches. Look up.

Does Blondie ever get to eat the big sandwich? All right. We'll do. But I was familiar with that. So I was like, oh, good. I saw it. But Toon Lagoon also, just in general, has, like, pictures of Little Nemo and Slumberland.

That is a joy. And there's all these different, and it's like stuff around there. There is a little baby blues representation around there, too. For the youngsters. For the young kids. They do have some of the new hipper comics. So I'm sure I would have been psyched to have seen this because of like the characters I did like and then just knowing who everyone was except for zero.

But I don't know that I would have, I guess I'm tipping my hand to two earlier. I don't know that I would have loved the show. Yeah. Yeah. I think I love it more watching it now. Yeah. So I'm sure we'll go through the numbers in it. I'm sure.

But a big thing about this show that I found confusing at the time. And I, this is what I was saying, I made a chart beforehand, is that some of these characters, this might be an oversimplification, but this is like theme park terminology. There's face characters and their fur characters. Face characters, you can see the actor's face. So it's just a wig and makeup and stuff. For characters, it's like the mascot head or body.

And they're sexy. Hold on now. No, no, no, keep talking. Well, let's examine that. Michael. No, let's not. Boris Badenoff. This is an attractive, like cartoon.

Yeah. Sure. So this one, I want to speed run this. list real quick of who is face and who is fur. In order of appearance to the best of by-building,

the guy who I thought was a weird clown at the top, but is actually old Bill the janitor from Peabody and Sherman. Yes. Face character. Face, yeah. And should I say, let me, let me, I think this is where

you're going with this, make this distinction of sometimes there are human characters where you see the actual performer's human face. And sometimes there are a human character that have a big cartoon helmet on. Yes, big mascot style. So that's what's interesting about this like juxtaposing all of these things together. Yeah. And I think they were like rejiggering it because there's footage of some of them.

Oh, really? Both. Yeah. I would. So it felt like it really ran down gendered lines, but I guess we're going to see this in your. These comprehensive notes. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Popeye. fur. Wait, hold on. This is confusing because these are human characters that don't have fur. But it's fur, it's furry, it's fur to the touch. It's fur, it's, it's. No, I know what you mean, but.

FACE character. Isn't there a better term we could use for this? Can we say fuzz character? Oh, fuzz characters. That's good. All right. I like that better. Again, propriety's sake, we'll say, uh, podcast of the owner.

By the way, anything you say today, we own. That's our proprietary IP. Okay. So I'm Brumelda is now owned by you. That's right. The concept of you being a cartoon character is owned by us. You can't use it in your private life. Oh, okay.

I think I meant, that wasn't the word I meant. Okay, never mind. It's all right. Don't worry about it. Fuzz characters. Popeye, Fuzz character. Olive Oil, Fuzz character. Beetle-Belie Fuzz character.

Broom Hilda Fuzz character. Blondie, face character. Dagwood, face character. Bimbo the dog. fur character. I mean, I would hope. And using fur makes sense for Bimbo.

Yeah. Betty Boop face character. Except you can see the fur character version of her in the Rosie O'Donnell show that taped on this stage for a week

when Islands opened. And I don't know how that would work because the person is doing like trapeze stuff. Like aerial stuff. Yeah, aerial stuff. But I wanted her to be a fuzz.

I wanted her face to be like 10 times bigger. You know what I mean? Like Betty Boop has a big head and it was not represented. Yeah. I had the same thought. I'm like, you want to see, no offense to the performer, but you do like want to see Betty look like she looks from the comic strip because it is part of her person. It's part of her whole thing.

It's a giant like mutant gourd shaped head. And then, yeah, see a human woman's face. It's just like, it's not really baddie. Boop. She could do the voice. That's fine. And maybe she embodies the character. But it does feel like she has to have that head.

Now, this is a struggle, I think, that they, they were dealing with for a lot of characters. And Disney even sometimes will, like, go back and forth on, okay, should we just do a human face for this character or should they look cartoonish? And I'm trying to think there's a good example that I cannot pull off the top of my head of, like, they've tried multiple versions of certain characters. and then they either, like they hopefully settle on something, but hopefully, hopefully they don't keep it like every hour it switches.

That would be too confusing for everybody. It's just a hell, yeah. It's just a hell. The actors don't know what they're doing. It also is just every, all these characters are different, are drawn by different artists. So then that's also a thing too where you're like,

all right, if it's closer to human face, then we'll just go with human face. But so many of these characters are style. like stylized. But like, you know, the Popeye movie, the Robin Williams movie is human faces. Yeah. And it does look, it seems weird. The movie is kind of sleepy.

Mm-hmm. And the songs are nice. And I like that it exists. But it does part of it is like, I want to see like Popeye's weird face. Yeah. And not just like this bizarre Robin Williams with prosthetics. Yeah. So I get it.

I do like it that it's mostly fuzz. I wish it was almost exclusively fuzz. I would go all fuzz. I would go all fuzz. Jason, what do you think about Fuzz versus FACE? Well, I think FACE works if you're doing like semi-dangerous circus tricks.

Take the safety out of it, though. Oh, okay. What do you want? I guess the whole show to be Fuzz then. All right, good. You're on Team Fuzz. Yeah. Okay, let me continue this list.

Oh, there's more? Yeah, there's a lot more. A lot? All right. A Dudley-Dew-Right face. Nell face Boris Bauer Burris Badenov

Fur fuzz Natasha Something is face I think she's also Badenov Right Is she or she like Fatal Or something I think is her last name

Yeah that makes Wait you don't think they're together I think they're definitely together Do they ever kiss? They are so in a relationship I always thought they were But I'm just thinking out loud now I thought they were just co-work

I swear. I thought there was just a pair of agents. No, I think they're, I think they're in a relationship. I think you're right. I'm just trying to remember if there's any confirmation of it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's probably some, there was a lot of wordplay and innuendoes and those J. Ward shows. I think they say like sweet things to each other though. Yeah. You know? Okay. Yeah. Let's go with that. Um, Pluto, Fuzz character. Snidely Whiplash. I can't tell. It's hard. It's hard to tell.

I've seen versions of Sniley Whiplash with Fuzz, but then there's also, when I was looking at this, I thought he looked like Charles Nelson Riley from Lidsville. Yes, he did. I didn't even think about that. By the way, I really hit you with a name there if you were mostly into the theme park stuff on this podcast. That's an old Sid and Marty Croft show about a world where hats come alive. And this old actor was a guy with a green face and a long nose. And he looks like the Snidley Whiplash character. in this pandemonium cartoon circus.

It almost looked like he had a very small, like, mascot head. It's possible, yeah. Or it's just a lot of prosthetics and makeup, but they didn't seem, it seemed like all the makeup and hair went to Betty Boob, Blondy, and Dagwood. To me, I felt Snidly had a rubber face. Like, it wasn't fully prosthesis.

It might have been like a mask. Yeah. I don't know. I think there was something, but there might have to be a third category that Jason introduces. Yeah, what is it? more of like a regular mask, like a slight mask.

Yeah. What's like half? A slick. Like a phantom of the op-trial. Right. Sniley Whiplash. Mask character. Woody Woodpecker.

He's still going. Buzz character. There's more. What I was trying to do this fast? What if Woody Whitaker was a face character? Oh, it's just a night marriage creature. A guy with a beak up to his nose. Like a zoobloy zoo character.

He's got 12 more. Fuzz, Boinkle, Fuzz, Rocky Fuzz. Chili Willie is only represented in the mural. I believe Hagar, the Arbor and Marmaduke are in the mural. Why are the mural characters listed in this list? I think, like, Alice the Goon might have been up there. I don't know. The Goon is up there.

And Heathcliff's up there too. Oh, heathcliff, too. But those are flat, those are cardboard cutouts? Why is this in the list of space or fuzz? Zero the Soldier is the last fuzz character Yes he's a fuzz yes for sure Yeah But I feel like they may be at a certain point

And I don't have the confirmation of this They thought okay we're going to put Hagar And we're going to put Heathcliff in Right And they were like we don't have time or money Just paint up a painting That piece of cardboard over there Just paint Heathcliff on it

And I would say it looks like a children's theater production Like flat You know what I mean? Yeah yeah Like somebody at a school could have made that The most advanced art student at an elementary school could have painted Hagar. Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, that's your rundown in case you were wondering, Face versus Fuzz. That's my quick rundown. Yes. I should also say the, I think the only full copy, video copy of this show is online on the channel, storybook amusements. Yes. It makes a lot of fun videos, a lot of early islands of it. adventure like video essays.

So I like that. They also had, they had a video on Pantamonium Cartoon Circus and then they had a, they add like a video that's like the master audio of this show with different artists illustrating what's going on. And that was called a Pantamonium Cartoon Circus re-illustrate it. Yeah, we'll put some links in the show notes here. But that's if you, that's the channel if you need all of your information.

and your entertainment from this show is a storybook amusement on YouTube because they do a very good breakdown of everything and then you can watch the full show and then watch this new cartoon version come to life. Yeah, and you can hear like some, oh, that's

the word they said during I didn't pick up on the garbled song lyric in a VHS copy, a mini-div copy of this. Yes, there was a lot of like mushy words where I'm like, I think they're BANK cartoon. Yeah.

Now, I don't know that you need to know every lyric of these songs necessarily. No. There's not so many, like, hidden treasures in these songs. The composer of this. It's a real deal composer. It's a real deal. And not that it wouldn't be if he could make these songs. Face or Fuzz.

He is a face. He is a face. Andrew Lippa. Andrew Lippa, who would go on to write music and lyrics for the Adams Family Musical and the Big Fish musical. Yeah, and a bunch of other stuff. And one of two competing The Wild Party musicals, one premiered the same year,

one was on Broadway, one was off Broadway. Wow. So he's, yeah, very prolific. Is that what you would call somebody? Yeah, I think so. She immediately knew the name. And she's like, oh, he did Wild Party.

Right. In, she said in musical theater school, one or two with the Wild Party songs were like regular, like, the stuff would people would do it for like, you know, prepare a song kind of thing. Yes. And I think I think the biggest compliment I could give it and I mean this is a compliment is that he really nails like Jason Sheridan loving hooray for Hollywood style bullshit. Yeah. Because it very much feels old time Hollywood like the hooray for Hollywood song.

Fun variety show. We're going to put on a show. Yeah. Right. That is what I loved about it. When I first saw it was, we're going to put on a show. All your favorite Sunday funnies, which I would grab the weekend newspaper and pull out the full-color Sunday funnies. My first note I wrote down in my notes is this was Jason's idea of show business.

Is cartoon strip characters? True or false? True. True. At 13, I had some cool thoughts at 13. And how do you feel about it now? now having a glimpse into show business. Oh,

he likes it even more. I like, I likes it even more because I can relive it as, there's a lot less horrors, you know. The fantasy is better. Were you asking about the show or show business? Show business.

Yeah. That's what I thought. The fantasy is better for sure. Yeah, yeah. So yes. And it's not that I didn't like that. It's just that I've talked about this before. I've in my old ages matured into liking like the old

West and some old time like Hollywood showbiz stuff. I really like a lot of that stuff in Kitchy 70s. But the time I was very much like what's cool. I like space. I don't like the past. I'm like the future. I'm a future kid. You like the

X game style shows that came after this in the space. I learned about some names of I don't even know if you've ever said these names of shows that were placed to this show. But they have got some great names. I'll say one of them right now. Matt Hoffman's agro circus.

They kept the circus theme. They did freak it back. Yeah, the circus ironically did come back. So that was a show that replaced it years later. It was a BMX stunts called the Agro Circus. We got to try and fight all the BMX shows. Yeah. Oh, I know.

Because there was also Matt Hoffman's crazy fracken stunt show. Freaking. No, it was freaking. Was it freaking? People were upset. They were not fracking at that point. They weren't fracking. They were fracking.

No. So we got to get into the Matt Hoffman era for this theater. But I love that Matt Hoffman had all these shows in Toon Lagoon. Like this like extreme sports guy is like doing this right next to Dudley Dew Wright's Ripsaw Falls. Well, you know, they do crazy fiscal stuff in those comic strips. And Matt Hoffman, if you want to talk about a crazy freaking show. But if you want to do, if you like would Joe, you know what would be good if they did BMX stunts. but like Nell was tied to train tracks

and he would jump the track. Oh my God. Don't help her, but jump the track. Don't help her. But like, yeah, you could do, you can incorporate some of the Tune Lagoon characters. What he, woodpecker does show up in one of the BMX shows.

Oh, he does. He does. Is he in a little train? Huh? Is he in a little train? No, he's got a little best on, I think. They were really trying hard to make him the corporate icon in this time,

in the early 2000s, late 90s. When you think of Woody Woodpecker, like, what are his characteristics? Kind of corporate icon-y, I would say. Something you want to get behind. Oh, that's a great corporate icon, I would say. Neutral enough, but, like, relatable? Yeah. This is a discussion we've had on the show before.

Like, do we like Woody Woodpecker? And usually all it leads to is just Jason going, yes, but what about his girlfriend, Winnie Woodpecker? Like, that's usually where it leads to. Because I've always found him annoying. I've never really been that into him. I'm with you. And I would love to like learn, love to learn like what the good Woody Woodpecker stuff was.

Yeah. Like what was it about Woody that people just went cuckoo for? I think, I mean, I would guess it's that he's annoying and a scamp and everyone. Yeah. You know, in the tame days. Yeah. Yeah. People are like, oh, I want to be annoying, but I have to work at a bread factory or something.

So people could live vicariously through Woody. They wanted to be annoying to their boss at work. Yeah. But they couldn't. We should ask Eric Bousa because he's the current Woody Woodpecker when he does stuff. Like there was Netflix. I think there was a movie mostly released in Latin America and then the sequel went to Netflix. And it's like Woody Woodpecker at a summer camp.

Interesting. And everyone's real life, but he's like CG and stuff. Not even fuzz. He's a pixel character. Yeah. He's pixel face. Yeah, so Woody, yes, I don't want to be so negative about Woody, but yeah, I never got it. He doesn't get a lot to him, Broomhilda, Beatle Bailey, and Zero are kind of swing characters in this.

They do like stage crew stuff and then they each get like a little moment or a line at some point. I don't even think Brumhilda said one thing, did she? She talks in the opening. Okay. I couldn't hear. I realize in trying to try to describe what we're talking about. We should have said, Broomehilda is a comic strip with like a witch.

She was a witch. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we did say that. I don't think we did. She's a funny witch. We just said she was Marissa and we moved on. Oh, yeah.

No, she's like a beautiful, you know, boxy little green witch. And she just gets into mischief. Yeah. Yeah. It's really just comical, harmless fun that she gets into. Yeah. So we should say this lasted. Yes.

This whole show lasted for nine months. Nine months, yeah, opened in late May. It was an opening day attraction, late May 99. And closed in like February 2000. Yeah, lost media. Up until a couple years ago, this was not online. And I got really excited that I started reading a bit stuff from this episode, finding old pictures and videos.

I was like, Jane, we should watch this. And she said, we have definitely watched this before. So, but she had a connection to the space. This is where she learned the Beetlejuice's Graveyard Review Show. This is where they rehearsed and they had a tape. They had the stage taped out as if it were the Beetlejuice stage. Right. And they faced the back wall, like the warehouse door, back wall.

That's how they rehearsed. That's kind of horrifying if you walked in on it. They didn't rehearse like in, they didn't face the audience when they rehearsed. And she's like, we would be looking out of the back and like. Dr. Doom would just walk by or the Green Goblin or other guys and I say well I hope you called the authorities of Dr. Doom and Green Goblin were about.

Did she chuckle politely? Yeah, begrudgingly, I think. Yes, yeah, yeah. They did the Bill and Ted show, I believe, in here. Yeah, for a few years. Yeah, for a couple years. I wish I could have seen it. Yeah, you never saw the Bill and Ted?

Mm-mm, never. Okay. You've heard tell of. Oh, yeah. And I've seen it. the hanging a million times at at knots, which I feel like it's the modern day heartbeat. Did you do the hanging

last year? No. Okay. Unfortunately. That's too bad. Yeah, they had lobooboo jokes Oh, God. I hope they have Labuobu jokes this year. Oh, yeah. That's going to be a couple year for a couple, five, ten years. I hope the Lubuco costumes get dirtier and dirtier. Like not in a non-oity way, but like, no, cover it.

Like a big dick hanging off of it or something? I don't know. It's kind of weird. Like, like dirty, chunky cheese, like, fucked up chunky cheese. Did you call them chunky cheese? They did not rush. What? You said junkie cheese, right?

But that's correct. If they're dirty, it is chunky cheese. Yeah. Yeah, chunks of the, you know, artificial cheese goop or whatever. So you're predicting dirty Labooobu costumes, not from a pornographic porn. Like, washed up. Labubu's just get more and more washed up as a year. like it's a star is born kind of sequence.

Yeah. Beautiful. Can we sneak in a talk of the big announcement that Johnny Rockets is closing at knots? Oh, wow. I didn't know that. But. Okay. I know you're really upset because you love Johnny Rockets.

Honestly, there used to be one on Melrose and every time I drive by it, I like truly feel a pang in my heart. Oh, really? Yeah, because I used to go there as a kid. We've been to that Johnny Rockets because we used to do rehearsals for improv teams down there. Yeah, down there. Outside the Johnny Rockets. Oh,

Someone had a key to be. I wasn't at these rules. No. Someone had a key. Why wasn't I? It was the groundlings. It was the Grandlings training center. Someone at the key.

Who was it? Name the name of who was the team. Steve Slaga. Steve Slaga. Okay. What's the name of this team? Was it country strong? Is that what that was?

That was the name of the team? There was a team named. Was it brace yourself for Melvin? Oh, it was probably brace yourself for Melvin. Yeah. Okay. Named after the glorious jack. Nicholson character.

That was the slogan on an as good as a gets poster that was in a rec room we used to rehearse that. And we're like, that's our name. I would just look at it and just stare at that slogan. And I think, I don't know if I was the one who's set, but I feel like I pointed at the poster was like, what about that for a name? And we were like, yeah, that's our name. Yeah.

After rehearsal, you go to the Johnny Rockets? Yeah, we. Sometimes. Yeah. And Jason would bang on the jukebox and it would play for free. Yeah. Yeah. I cut my hand up a little.

He broke the jukebox. Yeah. Oh, it was playing garbled sound. We had to wash a lot of dishes to pay it off. Yeah. Jason put his hand right through the top. Good thing. I brought my white dish towels with me.

Gonna be. And these are the characters you can see. embrace yourself from Melbourne. Yeah. Sorry, Jayz. Oh, that's fine. There was in, oh, I was going to finish what. What were you about to finish?

Well, I was going to say in the storybook amusements video, I saw the rough, there were sketches for rough houses. Oh, yes. It was going to be a dinner theater show. Yes. Which never seems to go. Yeah, dinner theater always gets cut. someone is working on a new theme park park or land they're like and this will be an interactive dinner theater show first thing cut the budget do you think it's because of the performers or is it

because food yeah they did it they mounted the whole thing they built the building and then the performers showed up and they go this sucks destroy the building we're not doing this dinner show this uh pop-eye theme dinner show is beneath me yeah it's the performers is why yeah No, okay. So real quick, though, I didn't say what was coming and replacing Johnny Rockets. So Johnny Rockets is out. Who's it? The character from Knott's Barry Tales crafty coyote is moving in and is having his own restaurant in the Johnny Rockets location.

That's special and honoring the history of Knott's. Right. And it's expanding the footprint of the Barry Tales characters because that ride that is better than nothing as far as Barry Tales is at least still there. And this and now will be more Barrytail stuff moving in. Well, I like that. Yeah. That never happens.

No, I hadn't seen that. But I did read the news that the, you did not. No, there's no way you. Okay. Mike's picking up his phone. You keep talking. I just got to double check this. If I miss that text, he's going to make a stink.

I'm going to turn the recording off and yell at you for 10 minutes and then I'll turn it back on and pretend nothing happened. Yeah, that's our normal recording. No. Like, that's our norm recording. The listeners won't know. The parent company of Fat Perger and Jenny Rockets, a declared bankruptcy. That makes sense.

You know, CityWalk was the canary in the coal mine. Johnny Rockets closed, you know. Yeah. Oh, did that happen recently? Yeah. At City Walk, yeah. Because I feel like I ate there in the last like two years. I don't know, a year and a half.

Yeah. I think it closed about a year ago. It's becoming Korean barbecue, I think. Okay. We got a winner. Here it is on the podcast. Cast the ride chain. I texted it.

And then Scott wrote, Dear God, no. And then I wrote another Johnny Rockets has been put down. And that had the Crafty Coyote. Yeah, there it is in the picture. It's the new, it's the art for it. Oh, I didn't see that. I, sorry, I just read the headline.

You should be sorry. It's important news. You're a theme park journalist. It is important. I know. You need to be up on this. I thought I was up on it. I feel like all I've been doing it's reading things.

The Park News lately. Not enough. Not enough, apparently. So, yeah, CityWalk is the bellwether, you know. As goes Citywalk, so goes the world, you know. That's true, yes. That's, yeah. Curious what's going to happen in the midterms.

I'm open. There are clues at Citywalk if you go up there to what's going to happen. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how to decipher them, but there are clues there. But we should go.

I'm just holding out to hope that they finally get a crowed out one of these days. I ain't tried one. I mean, that's a lie. Clearly, I've eaten plenty of cronuts in my time. I don't think I have. I don't think I've read a cronaut. They're really good, but I've heard that cronet is a trademark name, so people have to say other names.

You probably owe someone money right now. I think you can say croissant donut. We can say croissant because it's not a pronunciation that anyone uses. Croson? What, how do you say? Croson. the French is like croissant and then it's also like croissant people say my mom says croissant and she'll be like I would like a croissant like she like code switches into it and I'm

let's just let's just say the word my mom French code switches as well because she took French in high school so she'll do a couple yeah and then that one French song that she likes she'll sing it what's the uh-la la la yeah it's uh-huh it's called uh-lola la la la it's the song is uh-l little girl That is not the song And nor is it in French It's kind of said the French Is it sung by Maurice Chevalier? Is that why you're thinking that?

I think a lot of people have done I think that's like a standard A lot of Frenchmen A lot of Frenchmen I think Gerard de Parreux would have sang it I think there's a good chance that Gerard de Pardu is saying that Yeah

Yeah Anyway The creepiness of Gerard de Pardt Yeah I'm not trying to do that Let's not talk about that. Let's go back to the wholesome entertainment of pandemonium cartoon circus. Jason, you have any more lists? Well, I kind of have the big beats of the show.

Let's go do the big beats. Okay. So you start out by seeing your favorite character that everyone knows. It's old Bill the janitor from Peabody and Sherman. That's right. Peabody and Sherman nowhere near this show. No. Yeah.

But this character, from... Which I carried, I did not remember this guy. I didn't at all. Like truly, this is a revelation for me. Truly thought this was just a regular weird clown. That's what I thought too. I was like, oh, this person probably did a little bit of crowd work beforehand. And then he's just like a weird in-world guy.

Yeah. Yes, for sure. So, yeah, there's some nonsense that happens. I thought it was fun when he vacuumed up the curtain. I thought that was cute. That was cute. I like that. I remember liking that trick.

Instead of as a kid. It's a 13-year-old. Instead of the curtain swinging open, he vacuums it up, and that's how they, like, reveal them the very impressive set of the cartoon circus. Which I also, I should have said this earlier, I feel like it was based on Circus with the Stars, perhaps, of like all the different characters coming together, all these different actors coming and doing circus acts.

I don't know that to be a fact. That's just a guess. Yeah. Anyway. And then they sing what I think is the main song of the show personally. the circus is coming to tune and do I occasionally find myself like muttering the circus is coming to tune to myself?

Like at the top of this episode? Huh? Like at the top of this episode? Well, it was purposeful at the top of this episode but it's more unconscious when I'm just like cleaning or paying bills and singing the circus is coming to tune. That's very sweet.

Yeah, thank you. He's like a wholesome comic strip character. Singing the circus is coming to tune. Now, that's the like, the song is kind of based around just a slight play on words. I don't know that there's so much like comedic content other than just that. Instead of town, they're saying tune. That's the joke of the song. I think that's a joke of a lot of this show.

Just a slight twist on a very old phrase. Yes. So everyone comes out and everyone gets their little, you know, entrance and stuff. I think Popeye and olive oil got an applause break a little. Woody Woodpecker got the biggest round of applause. And then he doesn't do like shit for the rest of the show. Yeah. It's interesting to use a wrestling term who's over in the show.

Who's the most over? And Woody Woodpecker is over. He's like the top of the list. So what we're saying about him and slandering him, I guess is not maybe what the general population feels. And maybe supports your thesis that he's a good corporate mascot. Right. Well, yeah. So they're celebrating him there.

But yeah, he gets a big applause. Maybe it changed from night to night or day to day. I'm not sure. I was really surprised by how much Popeye got. Because Popeye gets a lot throughout the show. Yeah. Yes, he does. I've got my Papa.

This was a Christmas. I've got Popeye like with a chain and he's at a poker table. He's like a bowling shirt on. He's going all in. He's got a pair of twos because he's not the brightest man. But he'll eat some spinach. He'll make it work. He'll eat some spinach.

Yeah, beat up the rest of the table and steal their money. Yeah, there's a lot of online recently. There's a lot of like hard Popeye merch. Really? Like hard like that. You know what I'm saying? Like he's like a cool guy. Where does that come from?

It's a great question. I don't know the answer to it. I feel like, you know, tough guys or musly guys where I grew up would wear like the popai, the tough Popeye shirt, Gucci Popeye shirt to the beach. I have Gucci Popeye. I don't think it fits me anymore. You have Gucci Popeye? Well, yeah, remember when I bought like all those novelty t-shirts in the middle of the pandemic

and sent people's stuff from the J.C. Penny website. Yeah, I got a Taz shirt from you. Yes. Oh, yeah. Did you give me like a back-to-back, like. It was the, yeah, the main guy. Chris Cross style bugs and Taz. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I do remember that, yes. So maybe it is just an extension of what Popeye has always been of like this, like, icon of like masculinity and now it's just a new version of it yeah yeah it's very um I well never mind makes me want to hear what yeah thought we were just about to express I was gonna feel like it feels like a noir dogs playing poker but Popeye you that specific shirt does yeah it does agree yes but then I was like that's not that novel he's playing poker so I didn't feel like a big leap All right, I don't understand.

I understand now. Here is Betty Boop, like, Fuzz character head, Betty Boop with Rosie O'Donnell. Yes, right. And if she had been wearing that, I would have been so much happier. Right. Do you think so? Oh, yes. Okay.

Because that's her head. That's her head. That's what we love. I feel like that would have flown off when she's like upside down on the moon. But the engineers have to figure it out. What do I keep? You keep bringing up the practicality of it, but we want to feel something. You know what I'm saying?

I know you're worried about the performer's safety, but it's their job to figure out how to safely put a big head on a performer. And let her flip around on a moon in the sky. But walk around Betty Boop in the park is usually face. I don't think I've ever seen. The walk around I've seen that, yeah, face character as well. Yeah.

But isn't that disappointing, don't we want the fuzz? I want the fuzz. Well, I think because then she can talk to you. Where are you in town from, Soldier? Yeah. This is your little dream. Now, Betty Boop comes out. I'm unsurely, Mrs. Boob.

Well, how do you, sell? I'm back from Korea, Mrs. Boop. Betty Boop comes out with Bimbo, the dog, who apparently, Betty Boop had a small little dog later on called Pudgy. Yeah. Bimbo was her love interest early on. Yeah.

Because in the early Betty Boop, she's like a poodle. And then they changed the design to just make her a lady. I didn't realize that. Is that why you like her so much? Because she's an anthropomorphic animal. Let's not start this trip. It's kind of a part of it. Yeah.

So Bimbo the dog is not Bimbo the bear, the mascot of the Shelfstable Bakery Company Never in a million years would I have pulled the words shelf stable individually wrapped

Hotel Continental Breakfast Bakery Company Bimbo brand Sometimes he'll be just folding clothes around the house and he'll think shelf stable very common phrase

Honey is this shelf stable The circus is coming to shelf stable I do have a lot of canned fish in the house And I was checking the shelf stable It's like oh good to 2028 great What is the true definition of shelf stable? Like it's on the shelf at the rest of it's not refrigerated Yeah

Like it won't go bad unless it's opened But it's like a period of time Because like bread is shelf stable But it goes bad after Depending what nine days, 10 days Yeah Or less But that is shelf stable.

I don't, is bread considered shelves? I don't know. But when I think of Bimbo, I first think of white bread. Yeah. Like Bimbo, the little white, you know, the guy that looks like snuggle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And is that character's named Bimbo? Or is the bread just named Bimbo? I don't know. I would love to know that. Yeah. I don't know. I've never bought that bread either. No.

I lived in Spain as a little kid and they had that bread. And everyone called it Bimbo. And I feel like it sounds better that way. Yeah. You just Spanish code switched. Yeah, I know. I know I hated it as soon as I did it. I was like, I'm my mother.

Hey, you had to. You lived in Spain for a couple months. So it's basically like you're, you have the accent. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, what's the second number in the show? The second bit is Rock and Boehinkle doing a little bit of business. And can I say when this happened?

Because I didn't know anything about this when I watched it. I gasped when I saw them in delight. I was so excited. Wow, really. Yeah, I truly did. That is the power, because they look exactly like they looked on the cartoon. And that's what you want. Yeah.

And the voices were great, you know? And it's June 4th and I forget the guy who does. I love her so much. Yes. And she lived in her in like 90s. She was doing it until the end or very close to the end. One of the actresses who voiced Betty Boop in the 30s also voiced Olive Oil. Hey.

That makes total sense. In my mind. they have the same voice, but that probably was slightly different. So yeah, Rocky and Bowlingle do some business in this part. And I'm trying to remember what the business was. I think I've blanked on it. Oh, Rocky says the log line of the show in here. He says, aren't you excited to see our cartoon friends perform in circus tricks?

Right. And the audience is, oh, yeah. They're like, sure, I guess we sat here. I guess, yeah. And I do think that they honored kind of a little bit of the Rocky and Bullwinkle by giving Bullwinkle, the mooster of ceremonies. You know what some puns. You want some puns.

The mooster of ceremonies. That's a fun thing we all can enjoy. Yeah. Do we get Boris and Natasha here too with the bomb that doesn't work? Pretty quickly the bad guys show up in this show. Yeah. They're in the song. They all come out in the song.

Yeah. And Bluto's with them. Yeah. Bluto comes and they come from the back of the audience. Which always I blew my mind as a kid that you can do that. Play with the space. Play with the space. And anytime we saw like an improv show where somebody would pop in the audience, like, oh, you can do that.

Yeah. Whoa. I'm going to put that in my back pocket. That's right. I did. So every time we ever did a show, I was in the audience yelling from the audience. We're like, quiet. This isn't your show.

Every show. Yeah, but it was fun. I came from the back of the room. So yeah, they come in and it spits bad news. That would have, if I'm trying to think, 99, I think I'm too old to have been scared in. in 99. Yeah. I don't believe you.

That's fair enough. And again, I'm thinking it over. I didn't declare it. I didn't declare it so aggressively. Yeah. I think I would not have been scared. I'm pretty sure, especially with cartoon or whatever. Broad daylight.

Broad daylight. The show got a lot scarier. It's an ambit theater. There's no walls. Yeah. I'm, oh, whatever. Would it be 13 at this point? Yeah, I think I would be okay.

But like I've said in the Teenage Muti Ninja Turtle, coming out of our shells tour I guess I was five or six and Shredder locked the doors and I was like holy shit we're fucked yeah that's scary yeah but no that I was much older

so I think I've been right Jason you weren't afraid of these characters I hope no okay no even Pluto yeah Pluto is kind of happy go lucky in this show yeah I guess he doesn't do anything that dastardly

sometimes it's almost more sinister when Pluto's happy Yeah. You guys know more about Popeye than I do. Did Bluto ever have a period where he would team up? Like Pete and Disney stuff was sometimes Pete was kind of a good guy or their friend recently more or so maybe. But Pete was really bad and then he would be like half and half. But did Bluto ever team up where he's always just a bad guy?

I think he was always bad. I think he's pretty bad all the time. And then sometimes he's Brutus and sometimes he's Bluto. It depends on the- era of Popeye. And I don't know what the marking is, but I would assume it has to do with money. Right.

You know what I mean? Like who's owning something. Ownership over it. But it was the same design, I think. Yeah. I think maybe sometimes he's wearing a blue shirt instead of a white shirt. Okay. Different character.

You know, King Feature Syndicate owns the comics and Slisher Studios. I think owns the cartoons, you know. Yes. You're saying that could be what's going to. Yeah, yeah. It could be the brutus. Or like a fan of it. And the graphics, I believe, puts out the archival, like, big coffee dable heartback collections.

So they might have some wiggle room for, like, making the covers or whatever. Does somebody still own the, like, copyright on Brutus or Blu? Because it seems like it's Bluto now. Yeah. I feel like that's everything. The toy says Blu-O. Yeah. Right.

But, like, this can we, like, copyright Brutus and we could own Brutus or something? I mean, I think try. And then we could. Try. I'll try. Jason could play a face character of Brutus. You know, they didn't go back enough to the early, early 1900s. They didn't have any representation in Toon Lagoon of the outburst of Everett True.

Have you seen this? I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know. There's like a few panel comic strip and it's like a big, like fancy man, but he's always fury. Like every time someone's a little rude or like eating peanuts too. in a movie theater or smoking in the in an inopportune place he's always socking them so pulling their hat over their head so he's a wealthy man getting mad at people living their everyday lives well no but it's people breaking social contract it's people being very rude i think ever it's on

the side of the working man because he's always yelling at people for taking their dogs out when it's too cold out or they're leaving their horses in the snow You know? This is an old comic or a new? Yeah, this is an old comic that like there's like automated accounts that like once or twice a day uploads every true. So there's a comic strip where in three panels a man will yell at people for leaving a horse in the snow. And you thought this was new. I know Jason, you know, follow some interesting people.

Maybe there's an old school kind of a person who's making it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's possible, I suppose. When did this end? When did this comic strip end? The outbursts of Everett True. It sounds more like a modern name that's designed to sound old, too.

It's very lemony snicket. It ran from 1905 to 1927. So right around the time you were born. Yeah. Well, the time I was most engaged in popular culture. Like, it's very, like, detailed in the illustrations and stuff. stuff. Yeah, it looks nice.

Yeah, all that stuff. So he was like a voice of frustration. He was a voice of reason and frustration. He was the Woody Woodpecker of 1900 to 1920 where people would live vicariously through him. Yes. And then Woody took that mantle. Yeah.

And I guess we love him. Everett? No. Woody. Oh, Woody. Okay. Sorry. Well, what did Ever look like?

Was he a handsome man? He's kind of a rotund. band kind of as like Mike Wazowski's body with a head on top okay okay fun yeah that's fun he should have been in the show too he should have been in the show nemo and slumberland i have all sorts of pitches for who should have been in this show yeah oh is it every comic strip character ever oh we'll get to it yeah don't worry about it we get to it at the end um so we get after rock and bo wiggle first beer we get a dudley and nell section yeah A knife throwing setup.

I believe what is the phrase they always titled the shorts like wordplay. This was called Burry the Hatchet. Yes. And then Dudley is like blindfolded and starts throwing axes at Nell. Yeah. But he doesn't know he's doing it. On a big wheel. Because he's an idiot.

Yeah. He is an idiot and she always seems to save herself, right? Isn't that kind of the game? I think so. Yeah. Or something that he didn't do saves her. Right. Yeah, that, I mean, that seems to be like Dagwood is a fool in this show.

And at least once, Blondie says, oh, Dagwood, you're wonderful. And it's like he has done nothing but folly. Yeah. And you are worshipping him. Can I tell you what I thought Dagwood looked like? Yes. Okay. So it's a little bit of a walk, but I think it makes sense.

Oh, that's more than okay. So I think Dagwood looks. like a multiplicity version of flat top from Dick Tracy, the Warren Beatty movie. Oh, yeah. Yes, because, yeah, Dagwood does have kind of a flattish head. The drawing does. So it does feel like they gave him like some sort of, I don't know, would be a wig, I guess, or is it a prosthetic headpiece?

Yeah, I think some kind of prosthetic headpiece. But it just looks like of the same ilk as flat top, but like horrifying. you know, less good multiplicity version. Yeah, he came out a little wrong or something. Yeah, he came out a little wrong. Yeah, no, you're right about that. Did they ever have the Dick Tracy characters in Park? They did, right?

Right around the time of the movie? Yeah, around the time of the movie, they were, I think, in MGM studios. Did they have Flat Top? He's one of the most famous ones, right? I think that's easy. I think Flat Top was easy. You talk about. They all kind of had meat.

A lot of the humans in this have like, Is it meet the needles that have the weird, oh, yeah. The weird kind of like plasticy hair. Yeah. Kind of, that's sort of what they did for this. And yes. In the opening number, Dagwood is really over,

over exaggerating his motions of like scurrying away. He's holding his big sand, it's like a cardboard cut out of his big sandwich. Yeah. Okay. Here is a picture from MGM Studios. I think the one on the left is flat top. Or am I wrong?

Was that a different one? Oh, yeah. The blue one looks like flat top. I'm guessing the purple one might be prune face. That is prune face. And then the middle one is the Al Pacino character that I can't think of the name. I don't remember. But they are all fuzz characters.

They're not face characters. They're wearing masks. Yeah. But then Dick Tracy is a face character and he looks from the side like a young Gavin Newsom. I don't know what. You just said, mm-hmm. And I don't have any feelings on Gavin Newsom's physicality. Right.

But you really is the most aggressive reaction. You've had, Jason, you see this? Yeah, I've seen that picture before. So maybe they reused this for the Dagwood. They could we borrow it? They're going to rent it out. We'll rent out that head for Dagwood. Seven or eight years later or nine, whatever, eight years later.

Yeah. So we get some Rocky and Boehinkle business after Dudley and Nell and Snydley. Yes. I think he starts. He's doing a plate spinning gimmick. lot of this. Of course, they're not actually spinning.

They're like, bo-winkle, there's are glued on. Yeah, they call out that the thing looks like bad. It feels like they're spinning the plates the whole show.

It feels like that's one of the big things they do. Yeah. But I guess it is what, one of the highlights. I mean, isn't it? Yeah, yeah,

yeah, other than the Popeye part, which is coming up. Yeah. Which I'm delighted by. Yeah, it was really fun. Yeah.

The Rock and Bowl, Inocococles? No, I'm talking about the Popeye thing I like that's coming out. Oh, you like Popeye. Okay. I think that's my favorite part of it. Yeah. This is, I think, the halfway mark of the show.

They do another big number called Funny Business. Yes. Another Hoor for Hollywood, but a little bit of a twist. You know what we're doing here. We're having fun with Hooray for Hollywood. And everyone shouts out their occupation, one of which is housewife. Well, it's work, it's work. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm not saying it's not work.

No, and that's what you were saying. I'm just saying the one woman that gets to talk says housewife. Oh, interesting. Okay, now that you say it like that before I was concerned. Yes, so that part is this the halfway point of the show already? I feel like that. Yeah, I guess it is. And then here, my notes are all over the place.

When do we get? Is it Betty Boop next after this? Yeah, there's one more Rock and Bullwinkle interstitial. Got it. And then we get Star Stuck, which is, I think, pretty good. Like, that was a solid, like, musical theater song in, like, Betty Boop, sitting in this moon, she is not strapped in. Are you sure?

I think so. I didn't see any. Did you see, like, a carabiner or a chain? Usually people are strapped into these set pieces. I mean, I guess I didn't see it. I think I just assumed. She had a couple of like wrist-folding things. She had handles that she used to like swing around the moon.

I don't know. I feel like in 1999, though, there was a law that said you have to be strapped into your thing, 35, 40 feet in the air. But is it like circus acrobatics? Is that a way around that? You're saying there's a loophole if she was a circus performer that she wouldn't have to be strapped in? Yeah, because everything's on tape. All the audio's on tape. Everyone's just lipstick.

Yeah, yeah. She had to have been strapped in. I don't know. Oh, yeah, you know what? There is a belt. It was just hidden. Okay. So there is a safety belt.

Of course. Yeah, this isn't the old day, the old Disneyland days. I don't know. There was some way watch from the 80s that I feel like. Now maybe 80s are just hanging into the. But yeah, you're right. 99, though. is the late 90s.

And you get four bimbos, the dogs, and they're swinging around big, uh, flexible street lights. They, that was my favorite part because they were almost in sync. They were perfectly not in sync. Um, and they were like wiggling their little round butts. Like the bimbos were my favorite part of the whole thing. Yes. They're, they're little dog butts. They're like not twerking, but they're like, wholesome, shaking their little butts.

Doing hands. Can I ask what the what is the idea of this performance is it is like a hallucination of some kind or is it just I think it's a sexual awakening for 13 year old boys in the audience for Bimbo? No for Betty Boob. I'm just saying for the four dogs not Betty unrelated like why are there four versions of Bimbo is it like genie and Aladdin where they're kind of coming down the stairs. It's just an old like Busby Berkeley musical is it just it's a it's a creative flourish. I think that's what it is. I think so. Because you never see all four bimboes again. You never see all four in one place. Yeah. But she doesn't, there's no lyric in the song of like, if only I hit four bimbos or something, she doesn't say that.

I wish I had four dogs or something. I wish she said that. That wouldn't make it make sense. I cloned my dog and I have three extra ones. Like multiplicity. Yeah. So I think, I guess that's just what it was. It's just like, oh, it's fun of four.

Because they could have had other, Broom Hilda could have been involved in this. We would have loved it. We would have loved it, but I guess seeing four of the same character is fun. It, well, it truly was a joy because they were coordinated like 90%. So that 10% of not being totally coordinated was a delight because that is human and we love it. Yeah, well, it's also like kind of a clumsy, like, love-lorn dog character. So it kind of makes sense that they're distracted.

I would assume that they were meant to all be in sync, though. I would think so. I don't know how much visibility they have. Yeah. No, they're doing great. I love these. They're my favorite performers in the show. Have you listened to Boop the musical?

No. No, I was kind of following the development. It feels like it's gone. Is it on Broadway? It was. No, I was going to say it's gone to Broadway. Oh. Even I were texting about it like when it was doing out-of-town previews.

Oh, people liked it, I think, right? I think. Right. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know if it's still there, but I feel like there was a little chatter about it. I feel like that wasn't the first time someone tried to do a Betty Boop musical. I can't be. I mean, Simon Colle was trying to do the Betty Boop movie.

Hmm. I think he bought Betty, did he buy Betty Boop or did he just like license it or something? I think isn't she now free for anybody? I think as of this year she might be free for anybody. She's free for anybody now. I think it's one of those things where it's like the version from the first one or two went public to me. which would probably be the dog version. Why he looks so excited?

Well, the creative possibilities of the public domain is... You could go into production today on your own Betty Boop project. And I believe you should. I think you declare on the show you're going into production today. Yeah, Betty Boop... I can't see... I don't know what the date is when she started. She's not...

Wait, this is 30. She's featured in 19... from 1930. I heard she was coming for everybody. Maybe what is that? Like a really how you describe a public domain character. Anyway, I guess they'll keep trying with Boop, I guess, if none of this stuff works. She's timeless.

And she's at every, I've said this before. And now I have more appreciation for her, but it was always just like, why you can find Betty Boop merchandise everywhere. Yeah. And it's just like, I've never seen one of these. Why is this character last? it's so long. You know, it's so funny because I feel like she took on a life of her own outside of the shorts and the films, you know? Outside the Fleischer cartoons, because all the Fleischer stuff is so strange and so creative and stuff. They had that early Superman cartoon that was like

pushed a lot of technological boundaries. Yeah, it looks cool. But don't worry. We won't see poop for a while because we've got to do more rocky bullwinkle. Dudley, Snidley, and Nell business. Can I ask you, how did you guys feel about coming back to two different villain kind of through lines? Because in my mind, in a show, you might just want one big, bad villain, and then you see the other villain just once. You know what I mean? Because Boris and Natasha come back multiple times, and Snidly comes back multiple times. But the Popeye villain, Brutus or Bluto, we're saying Bluto here.

We'll say Bluto from now on you. Blued only comes once. You know what I mean? So I'm like, why isn't Snidly just in one or Boris and Natasha in one? Yeah, it wasn't like a neat. It wasn't a tidy amount of appearances for everybody. Yeah, I'd rather have a through line of one big villain and then see the other villains once. Well, and they're not working together.

At the top, they seem to be like, we're here to ruin the show. And then if they work together, they might be able to take over the show. but due to their folly of working individually doesn't work. If anything, it's a more engaging show. Here's what I think. I hear what you're saying and I agree. I do think the show took a bunch of fun colors and just like put them all together and it became beige. It just became an interesting beige.

And while technically you're right, there might have been larger things in general that maybe didn't get to, you know, These characters didn't get to shine quite as bright as they might have. Yeah. Otherwise. But yes. There's probably changes. Heathcliff was probably involved at a certain point. Who knows?

His uncle's parole officer was going to be one of the villains. I think that's a carrier. It was a carrier, I believe. I believe you. He had like a near-do-well uncle and you would always like call a parole officer. Or a cousin, I think. Some character would mention parole officer because it's the first time I ever heard that in my life. Watching Heathcliff, yeah.

In the cartoon or the comics? The cartoon. I'll look it up. Heathcliff parole officer. So if you get more rocky and all, after you get a bunch of Jay Ward stuff, there's a very kind of, not really thought out,

Blondie and Dagwood and Beetle and Zero doing like, roller skating poorly? Or Blindy and Dagwood are roller skating. Dagwood falls on his face. Beetle Bailey and Zero are just kind of hanging around on the lamps They're not really doing anything

And then Blondie and Dag would do The most rudimentary two-person juggling you've ever seen Which also gets an applause break I just wrote I'm zoning out During this number No this is when I was like oh he's flat top This is the low point of the show I think Yeah

She'll get better after this but this is a low point of it And yeah, I don't know. Blondie is a very like domestic comic strip. And I feel like there's not a lot of action. There's not a lot of roller skating happening. And maybe this show isn't even the right venue for these characters. Well, his boss is such a big like driving force in the comic. The comic strip.

I don't even remember that. I feel like his boss is either coming for dinner or has Dagwood on a big deadline. That's getting stressed to. Blondie. Yeah. Right. So we're getting into like the boring part of Dick Van Dyke shows. It's like, oh, like the coworkers are coming over.

Well, it does feel like they could have done a blondey then dinner theater where the boss is coming over. And now you're watching them get ready for the boss. And then the food arrives and then we realize the audience is the boss. And then we realize that the audience is the boss somehow all collectively. And the audience talks together to simulate the boss. Yeah, yeah. And we give them a script and they have to read it. We give them the scripts on the screen and they all read it together.

And yeah, that's fun audience participation. I think that would be fun to be like, he's already here and he's been served. You know? And then everyone's like, I've got wine that's bad. I thought then it's like, so let's try it. Okay, we're going to say this prime rib was medium rare. And well, three of us are going to say it at the same time. right now like the audience, okay?

I thought this prime rib was medium rare. Oh, blondie. This would have been greenlit by us if we were running Universal in the 90s. But yes, I just don't think it's the right show for these two characters. I think you're spot on. Thank you.

There's a lot more dynamic characters even in Toon Lagoon who could have done. Absolutely. You know. It was Heathckel. his dad Heathcliffe's dad Pop on parole

Oh he just It just switched It just switched No to shirts It switched to like Parole officer badges You know But I like the representation

Of having a challenging father You know Sure yeah But his pop was the one Who had the parole officer Oh yeah But this episode This episode just loomed large

In my head A Popeye's Dirtbag father Yes yeah Or no sorry Heathcliffe's Bag's father, Popeye's father, Poopek Pappy is a perfectly nice man.

Yeah, he's a good guy. Yeah. Right. So I'm losing track of how many of Rock and Bull Winkle We all are. I think it's okay. We don't need to mention every interstitial. And then we get

olive oil tightrope walk. Yeah, here we go. This is the bad. This should have been the whole show. Bluto's causing mischief. That wiggly tightrope that must be some kind of bridge, but really looks like a cartoon rope.

Good allusion. Yeah. Good illusion. She's walking across it. And then Bluto gets up there, I think, and is like an abductor. Yeah, I think so. And then she kind of, does she jump down or fall down? Yeah, she jumps down with her umbrella.

She has the imbalance umbrella. Yeah. And she uses that to glide down the stage. At one point, she goes, my tights are loose. And I was like, well, this is going to be part of the, this is going to be meaningful. The tights being loose are going to help you get out of it. and then it never happened. Yeah.

I think that was supposed to be a joke. I think so, I think it's supposed to be wordplay, but it really, I was like trying to make it work and then I was like, oh, it's just words. It's just words,

not word play. It's important distinction. Then like Popeye, isn't she on Popeye's shoulders or something? Yeah, she does get on Popeye's shoulder because he has his spinach. Yeah. And he's able to knock out Pluto

and throw him in a pit of fire? So, yeah, kind of morbid. He kills Pluto in the show because he throws him. into a pit of fire. They do a fire effect, which is pretty cool. Love the fire effect. Love it.

Yeah. And then he just like does a fall into the fire and he never shows up again. You can only assume the worst. Yeah. So that was pretty like gruesome, I feel like for this show. I think, I think acknowledging that characters die, it's pretty heavy at a tomb park. And the next scene is a funeral. And no one's giving a good eulogy.

No. No, they're like pissing on his grave. Yeah, he sucks. They hate him so much. Villains hate him. Yeah. They see what they don't like in themselves reflected back at them. Yeah.

That's life. No, that is not the next scene, unfortunately. Although the show is almost over at this point. Yeah. At the end of this scene, Brumilda, Beetle Bailey, N-Zero, Blondie and Dagwood, and Bullwinkle come out and do a little dance while Popeye and Olive Oil are getting down from the heights.

Yeah, no, getting down means literally being high up and trying to get to the ground level. They slid down a rope and everyone's dancing and then they've run out in a spotlight. Getting down. Yeah. You're making love while the other characters do a dance. On Brutus's grave. His grave. The ultimate disrespect For your enemy

Papa His spinach makes you so strong But your lower body's just nothing Quiet up there you too I'm down here I can hear what you're doing up there That would have been a plus up for this We're just doing our plus ups as we go

But yeah Then they do the spinning plates come back The splitting plates come back The last Nell and Dudley and Snideley And Woody Whipacker is driving a train. I would say the train track and the little train are disappointing in size. After we got that large cartoon punch, I was like, wow.

Oh, yeah, we didn't even mention that. There's a big, like, boxing glove punch. Oh, there's a big cartoon, probably one of the best gags in the show. I was so excited once we got that. And then when we saw it just like what looks like two regular sized ropes with like four slats that is representing a railroad, I'm like, this is a bummer. It looks like they ran to staples or Home Depot and got bed slats and some foam core and just carved it up. Yeah, I just wanted like a bigger scale, you know? It's like the bed, yeah, the bed slats you get at IKEA.

Yeah. Like they roll out. Yeah. Do that with the fun noise too. What if every one, those bed slats, what if everyone was a different note like a xylophone? I mean, you've got a musical instrument you need to make. that one's confusing because Nell's only tied up to one

so it would just go for like two and a half minutes while that scene plays out yeah that's true yeah that would be like a Hans Zimmer score that would be less less fun

so yeah they do their whole thing and the audience is all confused because everyone's coming back out there's also some rope dancers some like aerial rope dancers. Blondie and Boop get up there and rope around.

Oh, yeah, they do. I cut you off, Jason. I'm sorry. I think the big reveal that Woody was driving the train is important. Yeah. Woody is driving the Toon Lagoon Limited. But he's not, he didn't know that that would kill Nell. We have to make that clear that he wasn't in on the scheme to kill her with the train track tying.

He's just an assistant. but he stops the train even before it happens. And then he giggles his classic giggle. Yeah, classic giggle. Everyone gives him a standing ovation. The nation does for his, his entertainment that lets us live vicariously through him. And then, yes, it is a cute little cutout thing, but it is not the production value of the boxing glove. No.

He would want him or he should even be, and it should be like Starlight Express. he should be like half train, half Woody Woodpecker. Would love it. Would love it. Something grotesque. Yeah. Some circuses were known for side shows and grotesqueries. Yeah.

If the whole thing could have been more grotesque, I think that would have been better. I would love it. Yeah. More characters and agony. Yeah. More melting of faces. Yeah. Did you say melting or melting?

Melting. Oh, I thought you said kneltig. I don't know what that means. Well, like, Nell was melting? It's a type of plan where to do it. here in the show, Pandemonium Cartoon Circus. That closed after nine months.

That closed after nine months. They had to spend a lot of money on costumes and less on sets. I mean, probably spent a lot because they're pretty big. Like if Blondy Dagwood could have looked like the wheelers and return to Oz. Oh. Like really like nightmarish versions of the comic strip. I think King Feature Syndicate would have been upset probably that they looked so different.

I know we said we wanted them to look like the characters. But this show, I feel like he's lacking something. And we're just throwing shit at the wall here to try to help it. Creative license could help. There's a good Dudley line where he says he rescued her. She got rescued due to the efforts of the Canadian Mounted Police and the downsizing of the railroad. That's a decent dudley joke, I feel like.

Do you think they're trying to explain why the railroad is so underwhelming? That could be it. Yeah. Okay. That noise was made. That was the most pained okay I've ever heard. That noise was made 5,000 times a day for nine months. In a variety of ways during the show.

Not by young Jason, though. No. Not by young Jason. He said, can we stay in here and watch the next show? Can we stay, mother? Mother, can we stay? Mother, I've been joining this. They'll need to dry off somewhere after those, you know, rip-roaring water rides.

Mother, I want to see if I missed any of the inside jokes, mother. Please, may I say? Is that the goon from Popeye painted on the back? The mural? That final song is called Last Laugh, and everyone runs back in. Yes. Popeye, or Woody is standing on, like, a platform. Woody and Brum Milda are standing on platforms next to, like, Bullwinkle, as if they were the stars of the show.

the villains try to get a bomb and the janitor vacuums it up there's a lot of backbite the villains are like you idiot no you you know yeah um classic stuff yeah so everyone comes out and does a big hooray ending number there's some very cheap looking streamers

and confetti and stuff yeah that's about it it doesn't really end with a bank it's not a big bag they should have ended with the death of Pluto yeah that was such a a big thing to have happen. Yeah. And the fire even, just impressive looking. Yeah, beautiful.

Beautiful. So it feels like underwhelming to end with this. They unroll a big paint like drawn mural and Betty Boop like comes out for like the last. Boop boop boop be do you know. In her gown. She switched to a gown at some point. Yeah. She's doing.

She did a costume change. And one last goodbye from the old janitor. We all know it love and definitely remember. Yeah. And do we say it was just a 2000 seat venue, right? Yeah, there's a 2000 seat amphitheater. Yes, which is wild. So really, and they didn't have, like, they had stuff, obviously at Island's Adventure first year, but like, this must have really done not well to be gone that quickly.

Yeah, because there was a lot of family, there wasn't a ton of family-friendly stuff. It was a lot of thrill-bred. It's that first year. Yeah. And this is family-friendly. The whole Seuss Landing area, but then this. This is all, because like there's probably some adults or young kids that don't want to do the Ripsaw Falls because it's a big splash mountain style drop. Yeah.

So this is where they would go to be disappointed. Disappointed, have their time eaten up. Get out of the rain. Yes. But I mean, plus up wise. Let's just real quick. Like, how could you like solve this problem? Okay.

One thing. This is a circus theme show. There's no family circus representation. they're in the land They're like in a big like photo op in the land Where that idiot Jeffie is following those dotted lines Which they also got to use those dotted lines There's no marmaduke in the show

There's no marmaduke on the show Now that one was very interesting Because I looked up Marmaduke There's a Marmaduke photo op in the land Yeah I've done it many times He is not King Feature's Syndicate He is owned by a different syndicate What's the syndicate is a marmaduke

Mormaduke is owned by, hold on, I got too many tab. Too many syndicates open on your computer. Syndicates and boop musicals. National newspaper syndicate and then United Features Syndicate. There's a United Feature Syndicate? We've been just talking about King Features, but the United somethings syndicate. They got it. Who do they have?

Who else do they have? United features have. United features. Is there like a war between the syndicates? I think back in the day, maybe. My brain went to like United Artists. The cartoon characters got together to build their own syndicate, you know. That would be nice.

They have a jumpstart. They have Nancy. They, yeah. Well, they got Nancy. Nancy's a big. Nancy's a big get. Yeah. Nancy not in the show, not real.

I don't know. Nancy and Slugger are in the land. Yes. They are in the window somewhere. They would be in the show today. We have a picture of you and Lindsay next to Nancy and Sluggo. Not that you were those characters. I'm just saying.

I mean, you are a sluggled, but I mean, I think you're just standing there or by the booth or something. Yeah, yeah. Ripley's believe in her. Oh, they did have the Tarzan comic strip. They used to have a comic strip called Nine Chicken Weeds Lane, which is also my current address, so I love that. You're doxing yourself. I'm daching myself. They did have Garfield.

Oh, but now that's Viacom. Viacom probably purchased it outright, I believe. I think something like that. Or whatever you call Paramount, Larry Olson purchased it himself. But at some point for President Trump. They're at United Press Syndicate, which is now, well, that's now part of the, they own United Features, too. That's confusing. I am wondering what is the revenue for newspaper syndicates?

now. Like people syndicating content like comic strips or articles or recipes. Many years ago I said I should call one of these King features and see like what's the lowest price I could pay to license one of the characters for some sort of experience. Like say it's like a maze or something, but it could be the shitty. It looks like that, that Willie Wonka thing overseas. Do you remember that? That like somebody made like a fake Willy Wonka maze.

Oh, the Irish. Oh, yes. Yes. And it was just like, nothing. Yeah, it was just like a warehouse with like a thing in it. Right. But I like, I'm like, I want to license baby blues. I'm going to do an immersive baby blues thing out here in Los Angeles.

I'm sort of a theme park expert and I know exactly how to do it. And I show them like AI generated photos of what it would look like. I go, here's how it's going to be or whatever. And like I sell them on the idea and maybe that's like $5,000. And then we open it and it's just awful. It's humiliating for them. I don't even know if we go viral No one knows baby blues anymore

But I just wonder what the smallest amount of money And what they value the least As far as their portfolio is concerned Yeah I'm curious about all that information Well you should do it I should finally do it after all these years I think

Yeah I'll see I'll see what they care about the least I was gonna say another way into this show Let's get the Fox Trott family in there Fox Trott I don't know Fox Trott Fox Trott was like a mom dad an older son and a nerdy younger son.

I liked it because the older son, the preteen or teen son was named Jason. So I really liked that. I was drawn to that. All he needed was that. That's all I needed, you know. I mean, you love a, what is it, the Friday the 13th. Oh, I do, yeah.

As long as Jason, yeah, as long as his name is in it. I read, I did a little fox trot, sure is it good. Yeah. Or what I really wanted to see. Maris just made a disgusted face in me when I said that. Fox Trot. I just don't know this Fox Trot. You've seen this kid. It was started in 88, so it's a little more modern. You've seen him. Yeah, it looks kind of Christian. I don't know if it is, but that's not. I don't know that we ever got what denomination of Fox Trots.

I don't think it was a religious comic trip, but maybe, yeah, maybe you're right. I don't know. The ones I really want this show are the Lockhorns. Yes. I want the, I want the husband. and just be like, I can't do a circus act. I've been trying to pass a kidney stone for five years. No doctor would listen to me. The lockhorns are an old couple that hated each other.

Yeah. Make sense. Do you remember them? No. Yeah, they, they, I remember them. Oh, yeah. Usually a single panel of lockhorns. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yes. Great name. Really tells you what they are. I'll give this credit. I'll give the lock corn some credit because you say five. Fox Trot and all this other stuff And I probably spent hours reading them

And I have no memory of their personalities Or what was funny about it or what I liked I do at least know the Lockhorns are two old people That hate each other So that did stick with me Yeah What credit is Love is in Lockhorns

But it was not exactly what I liked They were usually on the puzzle page Yeah The newspaper They were next to the jumble The jumble or the trivia Or the chess puzzles Would you read the

love is every week? No. I would see them again in knick-knack shops or antiques store, the little... It's very precious moments. Yeah. Yeah.

You're not a love is fan either? No, sorry. That's okay. I wasn't love his fan either. But Jason wants love is in this cartoon. I mean, you could put love is. I just think Lockhorns or Fox Trout.

It's just kind of an easier way in as a little depth. Yeah. Well, maybe Lockhorns is what I try to license. and then you can dress up as the lock, whatever, the main guy. I'm just incredibly unpleasant. Is he still sitting in a recliner reading the paper in 2026 or does he just have the biggest tab?

Are they still making new lockhorns? Maybe they are. I don't know. It started in the 60s. Oh, here's there's a lockhorns where, okay, so the wife is talking to a friend at a party. They've got martini glasses. and her husband is dancing with like a very, like, sexy young lady. And then she's talking to the friend and she goes,

when I married Leroy, I really hit the jerk pot. Yeah. And that's the kind of words you're getting at a lockhorns. Yeah. Mercia, I feel like you could write a lockhorns. Oh, I could write a lockhorns. I feel like you could do like a daily lockhorns trip. Something that isn't a joke, but you're like, I guess.

The log horns are still running. A lot of these comics are still running. Foxxed, I think, moved to just Sundays. Yeah. Big one. And you're telling me they're not Christian? I do remember he would come home and he would be drunk. I love her curlers.

I do remember this. I think he came home drunk a lot. Mr. Lockhorn and Andy Cap were both scoundrels. Yeah. So I guess the implication was like, this guy's like constantly cheating on his wife. Yeah. But they wouldn't show it. Yeah.

It would just be implied. Yeah. And she's mad about it, but we equally side with him, apparently. She's unpleasant, too, okay? You don't know what it's like living with her. It's a full communications breakdown. They need, like, twice a week counseling now. Thank you.

Are they ever going to get it? No. No. There's got, there's a little lock. I forget where the lockhorns are. Little lockhorns? Do you have a bitch? Two kids who hate each other who are married.

It's like love is, but they hate each other. I don't think we've ever. seen the miserable lockhorns miserable little children. Well, that's an area that has not been explored yet. Anyway, that's really all. I have a little something on the way out here, but Woody, we got anything else to say about this? You know, like I said, you can sometimes hear area music or see signs.

The funny business song came back in a streetmosphere. They used like the kind of landscaped outdoor area for like little mini streetmosphere. shows with the Toon Lagoon characters. And yeah, it's mostly been used for private events, rehearsal spaces. Yeah. Yeah, they rented out. The X games don't have the purchase power that they used to in the early 2000. No.

I haven't seen that in a while. Yeah, it's hard to believe. So Marissa, did a lot of young men make you watch X games footage? Thankfully, no. They just made me watch a lot of Golden Eye. Oh, then playing Golden Eye. Oh, yeah. Guilty of that.

I wasn't dating any of the women. I just made women watch Golden Eye. Many hours. That's the Alan Cummings character's face looks fucked up, so you might not have recognized him. Boris from Golden Eye. Boris. Yeah, it's a funny one. Yeah.

You ever seen it? The movie, actual movie? No, I really haven't. It's funny. The actual movie is pretty fun. The movie is fun, yeah. I just remember you just had to keep upgrading your guns. That's what I remember.

You do, yeah, that's a big part of it. And remote minds. Yeah. You can detonate them wherever you are. Wow, I feel like I'm 14 again. That's right. What a good feeling. All right, Marissa Strickland, you've survived podcast, The Ride.

Oh! Please exit through the gift shop. What do you got? You got something to plug? Just be kind to each other. The world is really rough. Be nice. Find volunteer opportunities or mutual aid.

That's all I say. Okay, cool. And Jason, you have anything to plug? Just Matt Hoffman's crazy freaking stunt show. You got a time machine. People are apparently not happy at the word freaking and a theme part. Oh, yeah, that was too aggressive. Is there a G at the end or is it?

No, there's an imposterone. As for a podcast The Ride, you know, if you want to get bonus episodes Go to Patreon.com slash podcast The Ride. We do four bonus episodes every month. Can you believe that? Bo Bo bingo bingo. And they're like, yeah.

Bubba binga, yes. And in case, yeah, those are full-length episodes if you didn't know. You know, we do fun stuff over there. Yeah. What was the last one we put out? It was about not, not, that's not the last one. But we did one on Chuck's Arcade,

Chuckie Cheeses, recent foray, June Foray into malls with Arcade. games and like a little just the bare minimum of theming to attract aging millennials to get them in there. I wish it was all June 4A doing the voices. I wish it was too. That would be really nice.

But yeah, we have a lot of fun over there as we do here. And I have two things on a way out. Great. There's a message from Scott that he wants me to read. I probably should have read it earlier. I have all of a sudden I got so many different. It's foul. It's very profane.

It's profane. Yes. It says he wants to be clear that he's not avoiding Marissa despite missing her last two appearances, but he does want to say he is avoiding Zach Reno. Oh. Because Zach was here two weeks ago. Wow.

And Zach started a feud between the two of them. Oh, wow. Yeah, he kept saying, yeah, I don't, you listen, go back and listen to it. It was a gift shop episode. For some reason, Zach went through the, went for the throat for some reason. I don't know why. So I guess his feud is like starting. They're brewing now.

He said, he just said, get ready for a Zach attack. Yeah, he said, get ready for Zach attack. He went cut loose. Wait, did Zach say that or did Scott say that? Zach's always saying that. What are you talking about? I was focusing on the next thing. I was going to say so I didn't even know what he said.

But here's the other thing on the way out. Here's a little gift on the way out. This is going to close the gap. Well, it'll open maybe, but close a gap on five years of we were talking about a park and a character five years ago on podcast, The Ride, Mr. Tato. And here is the book. The man inside the jacket. We discussed this book.

I thought I purchased it and maybe it was like my car was charged like illegally at the time. This is five years ago, but I did finally get the book. Wow. Here it is. It is a real book. It is full of like prose. Ages and pages. It's full of pictures.

And we should say Mr. Tato is like a living potato that was the mascot for a brand of crisps. And canon my husband. And in canon on podcast The Ride. your husband and we were talking just we were a lot of discussions about you marrying this little potato man and we found that he had an actual biography that someone wrote i don't know if the corporation wrote it somebody did and here it is it's called the man inside the jacket and i'll give it to you right now you don't have to go through all of it but maybe next time we come up i guess right we will get

into a little more of the lore of mr tato so you're giving me a book report i mean in some ways i just gave you some homework he gave her i don't know if we've ever you know you've ever you know you know You don't have to. You could just enjoy it and put it on the shelf and then we'll do the research. You're giving me work and at least Scott just avoids me. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'm not a good reader.

Not a good reader. Bad reader. Okay. So yes, you're going to have to read it because I can't read a book. I'm going to have to have, I'm going to have to like, there has to be a YouTube video explaining all that information for me to absorb it. That's just how I am. Sorry.

So there he is. Mr. Tato, the man inside the jacket. This is truly a delight. It's really gorgeous. There's a lot of imagery that I'm excited to digest. Yes. So that was probably we did that episode five years ago, I think. And honestly, Tato is a joy.

Tato is a joy. He is a joy. He's fun. Yeah. So there you go. Some of the pros might be a bit pedestrian, but don't worry too much about it. He is a Tato.

Yeah. Some would say they're spedestrian. Wait, is he a pro Tato? Oh, there we go. Oh, he's published now, so I guess he is. He's a proteot. If anybody has another one before I hit the stop button, go for it. Potato.

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