Podcast: The Ride - Pinocchio's Daring Journey with Erin Gairdner

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

Erin Gairdner (The Price is Right) joins us to talk about this charming and unnerving dark ride. Featuring tobacco, cussing, and Figaro memory swaps. Plus, Erin was on The Price is Right! Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus Honey, I Shrunk The Kids Movie Set Adventure Episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever. Dog. Warning, the following podcast contains abusive wood, a sad man's clock room, a father and son reunion, and the real life fairy tale of competing on the magical game show, The Price is Right. Aaron Gairner returns to tell us the tale and talk Pinocchio's daring journey on today's podcast, The Ride. Hi, diddle-dee-dee, a podcaster's life for we.

This is Podcast The Ride. I'm Scott Gerner, joined by Mike Carlson. Joined by Mike Carlson. When I thought about what joke we might make, it was exactly that joke. Hey, all right. Great minds think averagely. I said, yeah, if Scott doesn't have anything, I got something in the chamber. Something real original. You know, it felt if Scott doesn't have anything, I got something in the chamber. Something real original. You know, it felt nice and jaunty to say it.

Gave me the boost I needed. Jason Sheridan. And if you'll take a look at my notes, I also have high deedle-dee-dee, a podcaster's life. I've written down. This is across the board the same idea. Yeah, completing the Patrick. I wasn't smart enough to land on we i said me oh that i think was the key yeah i think that's the little bit of magic if we were on match game

we would have all matched hey that's right if gene rayburn were asking us to fill that in you know that's it's it's funny you mentioned that because uh we are joined by a game show luminary that's right today uh long running game show luminary today. Long-running game show luminary. Besides that, there's a list of superlatives that I wanted to say that are new since the time our guest was here, which was way back in the CityWalk saga. Yeah. Which was, was that like nine years ago now? That's how it feels.

That's right. But since she was here last, she's the designer, not just of our main logo, but of the second gate logo and our best piece of Tee Public merch, Potanacush, our beloved Potanacush. She and I also, since the last time she was here, we collaborated on a human being. That's an ongoing project that's going well. But most importantly, she's a recent winner on The Price is Right. Erin Gairdner, come on down. Hi, happy to be here.

Oddly enough, I also had high diddly-dee podcaster's life for We. Oh, it was mine. So, yeah, we would have gotten the full match. Oh, yeah. So you guys matched. The couples matched. The couples matched. Right.

That's right. Written on your hand. Thank you for bringing it in. Thanks for being here. Good to have you. Thanks for having me. Honestly, we were going to do this back in, what was it, February of 2020? Yeah. And then I got bronchitis and then COVID happened. So we were going to do this episode a very

long time ago and I thought it was going to be second gate. With bronchitis too? Yeah, remember I was super, super sick in February when I was pregnant I don't remember that Because there's been so many things That one's completely left my head Well, and also I think there was a date set And then we found out Fry's was closing

On the day Like that all happened So many things conspired to make this episode not happen which was potentially going to be the announcement of our son of of you expecting it was almost going to happen yeah of your little wooden boy we're still waiting for him to become a real boy but he hasn't found the courage yet what is he looking for yeah he's got to prove himself yeah pure of heart and truthful well he's a little dick right now so

I'm just kidding he's honest John and Gideon smoking American spirits in the backyard he's on pleasure island right now while you guys are here no I mean I don't know where he is honestly no he's offending for himself yeah he's learning he's getting his virtue his first words tobacco that's why it's like almost difficult to talk about this topic today it feels like a

preview of what uh years of parenting are going to be like yeah extremely harrowing cigars very out of a child's mouth constantly. That's what Jason's childhood was like. You know, if it's what the 1930s were like, then thank God we live today. This is such a grim, the film really. Way back when, when we were going to do that, I think we watched the movie in preparation. If you have a faint memory of that. We did. And it's horrifying. I loved Pinocchio when was a kid it was it was one of my favorites like it was like

cinderella pinocchio those were like probably one and two and it is horrible to watch now i don't know if you've watched the film recently i have not watched it i i was actually in preparation i read the what the original story was which i will read a piece of it a certain point today. Cause it's very funny to me, but I clip, I was watching some clips of it and I loved it as a kid, but yeah, it's the nightmare inducing.

Yes. I it's, it's, it cracks me up that it's like family like film because to me it's horror. This is a horror film. I might as well be watching saw. Yes. I mean, there's definitely like, it starts with like kind of a cronenberg style like come to like something that shouldn't be turning into a human turns into a human hundred percent there's so much body hoarder so much body horror and pinocchio yeah then between the nose and the and the donkey

stuff yes the donkey stuff is very disturbing i get like hot thinking about it like i when i watch things that make me like just psychologically uncomfortable i start to like shake and get like hot like hot flesh not hot you don't get it's not a it's not a turn on okay no let's be clear i get yeah like like somebody get me a cold towel because I feel Like I'm going to faint yeah Yeah hero's journey is not Similar from like one of the Indiana Jones's where it's just constantly Getting his ass kicked but he doesn't

Get to do any ass kick like Pinocchio Doesn't kick anyone's ass no he just Constantly gets manipulated And fooled and tricked He's a child he's a Freshly born child He's a child. He's a freshly born child. He's like an impossibility. Like doesn't, shouldn't exist.

He's a child. Like, I don't know. Godless? You mean to say he's godless? Like a monster. Yeah. Does he get, does he have the soul? Does he prove he has a soul?

Or does the blue fairy, when she grants him boyhood give him a soul does his the daring journey is what gets him the soul yeah i guess yeah but even but it is a journey in which he has no agency he's just like shoved from bad room to bad room yeah each worse than the last then the last bad room is the sea and yes, the room is a whale. The room is inside a whale. And why is, and Geppetto is that disgusting? That like he is an old man and he like, he never found love? You don't know his backstory. Yeah, Jason, that's real presumptuous.

Do we know his backstory? I don't know. Maybe he had a barren wife. Who knows? Now that we're not, I thought we were going to start with Price is Right. It's like she was made of, it was all splinters inside. We're going to have to start with Pinocchio here and then we'll get back to prices right uh because i was looking through the original story pinocchio this is just the wikipedia i did not get the book i'm a very

terrible reader i'm an idiot i'm terrified of this because every it's always like though the little mermaid is so nice well you know the origin the original well like she was nine and got gutted by a hook and like they're always so horrible but after every america sings all rides are now a mercy all rides are a blessing oh yeah this is a this is a great attraction i will say this uh even though some of the stuff is depressing i laugh out loud at least two times per paragraph of the original pinocchio uh right a carpenter settling yeah in. So bear with me here. There's a lot of this

and you cut me off if this doesn't become interesting anymore. A carpenter named Master Antonio but whom everyone calls Master Cherry has found a block of wood

which he plans to carve into a leg for his table. Sorry, Antonio and Cherry. Who are these? I don't know. These characters I believe are cut out of the original Disney movie.

When he begins, however, the log shouts out, frightened by the talking log, Master Cherry gives it to his neighbor Geppetto, an extremely poor man who plans to make a living as a puppeteer in hopes of earning a crust of bread and a glass of wine. Isn't that what we're all looking for, though? Accurate expectations, I think. Yes.

He's a DIY content maker, just like us. Exactly. Press some bread, please. I am but a poor streamer, but a poor podcaster. May I trouble you for a food box subscription sponsorship? Based on holding the old Dickens cup. Like the poop. Yeah, the poop.

The tin cup. Or Robin Hood. Robinens cup. Like the poop. Yeah, the poop. The tin cup. Or Robin Hood. Almost for the porn. He's got the glasses on. Pinocchio already has a mischievous attitude. No sooner than Geppetto is finished carving Pinocchio's feet does the puppet proceed to kick him. Once the puppet has been finished and Geppetto teaches him to walk, Pinocchio runs out the door and

away into the town. He is caught by Cara Beaner, I think, who assumes Pinocchio has been the door and away into the town. He is caught by Cara Beaner, I think, who assumes Pinocchio has been mistreated and imprisons Geppetto. Well, that's awfully different. Don't recall an imprisoning scene, no. Okay, so

left alone, Pinocchio heads back to Geppetto's house to get something to eat. Once he arrives at home, a talking cricket who has lived in the house for over a century warns him of the perils of disobedience and hedonism. What is it? Him being very elderly is a strange detail. Yes. In retaliation, Pinocchio throws a hammer at the cricket,

more accurately than intended to, and accidentally kills it. No, I don't know the amount of page, I don't know the page count of this, but within your synopses, it seems like this happens within two minutes. I think this is the amount of page i don't know the page count of this but within your synopses it seems like this happens within two minutes this is page this is first act 120 year old cricket is felled as soon as he meets this uh screeching block of wood where is the cricket the cricket didn't consult does geppetto know about the cricket are they friends like feel like the cricket would be like I don't know about that block of wood,

man. Like, I feel like avoid this guy. This isn't, it's not very well, like a sitcom where there's like a common place where they all know each other. And there's a connection.

These are all like disparate characters and species that have no central hub. No right being in a story together. That's for sure. No, they're all different tales. It's just, it's like a big car crash is why they're all meeting this it is like the movie crash but it was puppets and the movie crash is

they modernized and changed all the names it's based on original carlos collodi is that the name is it crash uh no no no the writer of pinocchio. Oh, okay. I don't believe that's Brendan Fraser's character's name. Does Brendan Fraser play the author of Pinocchio in the movie Crash? Wow, I guess that's crazy. I didn't realize that. He's 120 years old, much like Jiminy Cricket. He has an unpleasant, belabored monologue about different woods have different shades, and you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You can't. You cannot do this. This beat Brokeback Mountain. Jesus. aids and you're like oh no no no no no no you can't you cannot do this this beat broke back mountain jesus yeah uh one more and i'll be done i swam i swear pinocchio gets hungry and tries to fry an egg but what comes out of it is a little bird that flies out the window forcing pinocchio to leave the house to ask for food then he knocks on an old man's door to ask for food the man thinking that pinocchio is one of the hooligans who ring the bell for fun and instead of giving him a good piece of bread, all he gets is a bucket of cold water on his head. Wet Pinocchio comes

home and lies down on a stove, but the next day he wakes up, he falls to the ground with burned feet. Luckily, Geppetto is released from prison and makes Pinocchio a new pair of feet. In gratitude, he promises to attend school, but Geppetto sells his only coat to buy him a school book.

The end. That's a gratitude he promises to attend school jupiter sells his only coat to buy him a school book the end that's like that's four paragraphs into like 25 paragraphs like on wikipedia recapping original pinocchio i love it the red like if that's the rest of it's not gonna be nice no like if that's the his some of his little journey but then but then they these people did not live happily ever after no that's just a slice of their life yeah it's just horrors every day burning your feet needing new finocchio is going to need new feet daily honestly he's lucky if he laid down on a stove and the only thing he burned was his feet oh yes if he was all the way reclined yes that's that's half of his body so hasclap hasclap full hasclap full is exactly what i meant to say nice lesson um i so bizarre yeah what made how could walt disney have known about this and thought, now this, this is the tale. All of those things they like made,

made like nicer. All those, all of the awful, I mean, not awful, but like just scary. Now some of them are awful, but scary children's stories.

He probably liked them as kids. I read for this one that like an animator had gotten a hold of like a newer translation of Pinocchio and like pitched it to Walt and Walt was like, you know,

uh, into it, like delighted by it or, uh, what have you. Okay. It was a more pleasant version. Oh,

I'm sure it was way more pleasant. I'm sure. And I have to say, I agree. Like when I watched the movie as a kid, I found it very unnerving, but I made sure to ride this when we were, i went back to disneyland and stuff was reopening and riding around i was like i like that like i like this ride like i feel like i didn't have this ride as a kid because

it was disneyland exclusive in america so i was like oh this is this has a lot in common with mr toad it's like the level of weird and scary. This is about what I could handle as a kid, I feel like, these kinds of rides. Yeah. Well, let me tee up, Erin, because you're here to talk about Pinocchio, because if there's somebody more enthusiastic about this ride, I haven't met them. We've been to Disneyland so many times, and you and you just like you're magnetized to it you sprint up to it it is such a joy every time my favorite ride at disneyland wow favorite ride

at disneyland yeah you will i might be the only person in the world who can say that i can't imagine this being anyone else's favorite ride um maybe somebody somebody related to carlos collodi maybe somebody a great great grandson or something yeah um how can how how to begin to explain why this ride is of all the rides of all the wonderful attractions i feel like i'm gonna backtrack immediately though because this doesn't sound like a reason to to like but i think that it is neglected, shitty. Hey, you know us. That's a reason to like. And it has no right being at Disneyland. It just confounds me, and that's why I love it so much.

Would you say it's like you mean like lo-fi when you say shitty? Like in the sense that like it's those flats, like as opposed to a lot of. It's shitty. It's okay. So if you look at all of the other fantasyland rides it doesn't get any attention like it just i feel like it needs a couple of 60 watt light bulbs and that would help it out and they're not going to give it to them

it's just it's dark there's no need to be a reinvest in pinocchio that was a big takeaway last time we went, that Geppetto is calling to him after Monstro, and he doesn't have a light on him anymore. Nope. It's just like, where's Geppetto? This attraction is crumbling, and I love it. It's been crumbling for decades,

and every time I go, it just tickles me. It's a good point, because it is definitely the least popular of the four Disneyland dark rides 100 bar none and now with Snow White getting a redo which I think makes it so much better even this thing is way distant last place at this point yeah if you did a poll yeah that would have to show up around five percent or something I was gonna say zero like I can't imagine anybody who runs to this ride the way i do but i also like it because like and i think people are gonna tear me apart for this but don't you dare you stay away reddit people i feel like

mr toad gets too much credit for being the fucked up ride you know what i mean because mr toad everyone's like oh you go to hell at the end that one's like crazy and like can you believe that this is a disneyland go on pinocchio's daring journey because it is 10 times scarier way darker they swear in it they do that's right they do a cuss yes um it's just it's it's terrifying they live okay there's the in the end of mr toad's wild ride you go to hell but pinocchio lives in hell yes his life every moment of his life is hell life is a living hell but yeah i feel i just feel like every time i get off pinocchio's daring journey i step off the ride vehicle and go oh my god like it's it's still the same it's still it's still as

crazy as it is like yeah i found one or two tweaks well one i was very surprised by there's one thing in this ride where i was like you had a close for 16 months and you didn't pull that which is the bird cages in the bird cages there is a very peculiar uh asian caricature and it's like that could just be an empty bird cage like how did you not swap that out during the closure there's a lot of things yeah that are problematic in the ride um yeah from a cultural sensitivity point probably the last mention of tobacco on disney property yes disneyland property yes and yeah that has its problems too with the uh cigar store indians oh sure wait are they are there are those in the ride yeah oh my god yes there's so much going on there's a lot hard i can't remember yeah like half this i was watching

the video because i haven't been on it a little while because i neglected it last time we were the last two times we were disneyland I was like, well, we went on the other three. But I think we always do it. I think it really scratches that itch of, well, we will get on this. There will not be much of a line. We will tick a ride tally. It could be Labor Day and everything in the park could have a three-hour wait and nobody will want to go on pinocchio's journey so that's another reason that i love it yes another reason for it to be a favor

because you will guaranteed get on it no matter what yeah and the pinocchio like the pinocchio um presence in this area even because they changed pinocchio village house to do they permanently change it to red rose tavern let me look up, because it lasted a lot longer, I think, than they planned. Was that supposed to be a temporary thing? Yeah, I believe it was. I think so, yeah. And I think they were like, no one likes Pinocchio anymore. Get him out of here. Pinocchio

merch ain't selling. Yeah, yeah, I did kind of like that restaurant. I mean, like, let me say, I like the vibe of the exterior, of the carts, and the of the exterior of the of the carts and the restaurant is ties in yeah very nicely i like it all it all feels um it's it's a pretty core component of that fantasyland redo from 83 which i think is so great it's very to me i don't know how to i don't know why that i feel that it is 80s wood. Everything is made of 80s wood.

There's just like a comforting reddish brown to the whole thing. There's something, yeah, it's darker. Yeah. Kind of like more knots. Yeah, you're right. There's a lot of 80s wood at knots as well. Oh no, I meant knots in the wood.

Oh, I thought you meant... Knotberry Farm has plenty of beautiful knotted wood as well you're okay okay you're talking about the knots yeah in the yeah sure detailed knots yeah i appreciate those knots it's an interesting thing about this ride is it only dates to 1983 although it does seem like it's been there forever yeah people think it's an original fantasy land like after they yanked out the pirate ship and skull rock and moved some stuff around and expanded some of the existing dark rides and gave them facades that look uh nice and not like little pop-up tents uh it was all

kind of it felt like a temporary land for a long time yeah and i think they had a story explanation for that that it was like a traveling circus that came to town and set up by the castle but like it was also like well what was running out of money and we just had to get some stuff there that's why that was their idea that a travel a bunch of like hooligans in a cart put up the thing that he was trying to make a place to get away from oh yes yeah yeah he doesn't like shady carnivals right yeah so let me make a shady carnival yeah which is an interesting like conflict in pinocchio too because they go to like a shady carnival island and then like wald is clearly roasting it but it's like and then you built 20 years later you built your

own shady carnival uh island in the sea of uh orange county orange groves sure yeah yeah um i yeah that it replaced uh something called mickey mouse theater which was just a room where they played mickey cartoons was it mickey mouse club theater there's a club yeah gotcha so it was a tv show yeah mickey mouse club theater yeah uh an outpost i guess if you were if you considered yourself a member as a way to if you like showed up there a lot maybe you'd get some face time with jimmy cubby i don't know if cubby was hanging out there a lot but uh it was yeah it was just like on a loop i don't there were no no bands played yeah so one block away from the main street cinema where you could also see old mickey cartoons you can watch old mickey cartoons in fantasy land

this thing literally had a sign i saw a photo where it's like you know dazzling cartoons air conditioned inside like that subtle thing that makes us like uh you know not so great attractions they were just advertising um but so three decades of that and then we got to do something less chintzy so they they do this um let me uh here's something i like about the the premise when you uh just look at the sign saying what the ride is uh you were told that here's the synopsis board a wood carver's cart to travel through the adventures of pinocchio a wood carver's cart that's what you're on like is that implying that geppetto made the carts um or hmm if it's his then maybe he made it and it is it is wood with nice knots so maybe or is it like are you on a cart that he

would use to transport lumber around uh but it is made out of wood, too. It looks hand-carved. And they're pretty ornate. Those are really nice vehicles. It doesn't seem utilitarian. I wouldn't say that's... But Geppetto is so... Geppetto didn't have time to get around to making 25 of these. This guy can barely get out of bed in the morning, let's be honest. He filled his house with cuckoo clocks.

I can't wait to get to that part. The clocks. the grand finale uh just to confirm it is still red rose tavern the restaurant yeah that's okay it's open and you can still get the grace but they got rid of pinocchio's pinocchio village house yeah a u.s and they were like get out i say one of the driest facts that has ever gone in and out of my brain? I subscribed to this thing, Disney News. Once quarterly, get a bunch of advertisements for Disney parks to make your parents take you. I mean, I got the annual report, too, but it was like getting four more annual reports.

My brain was very warped by all this. But there was some trivia article where they said that at the village house, when you're leaving, there's an exit sign. But the exit sign, they messed up the dimensions of it, and it is not directly over the door. It's way over to the right. So they made this right. They justified it by drawing Figaro the cat with a rope pulling the exit sign to where it should be. Wow, that's cute. That's nice and cute. And then I heard that in the same article, they say that in Paris, they did another village house restaurant. And this time, the exit sign is in the right place and figaro is given a thumbs up and leaning up against it as if to say i got it this time it's the one thing we got right in france the

only thing you corrected um it's it's such an odd little like for no one i liked this so much and i really wanted to i remember reading that and think well i'll never go to disneyland paris there's no way that i will see that and i don't know if you remember that i wanted to seem like oh so we got to go into the can we go to the village house so i could see this time there's this thing where figures dragging the sign over but then here they fixed it and here is a handkerchief breathe into this as they cook the fetid disney theme park french food this is our honeymoon that's okay right this is how we're ending our honeymoon um and we tried to do that and i tried to go in the village house but it was closed fairman as we're fair oh yeah that's right we saw so much fair may everything was closed the word

closed closed closed oh that's closed too okay that's closed too? Okay, that's closed. Yeah. Yeah. There was nothing. That was a foreclosed park. Depressing. Really? I'm so... One of you guys have to go one day. I know. Don't go in winter.

Just don't. Well, that's what it feels like. You may have gone at the worst possible time. We did. It's like all of a sudden the park, I feel like, started getting a little bit more money and they started making stuff a little fresher. That's what it feels like. But it feels like you went in like the worst like was bad weather right

as well or no yes yeah just freezing like yeah bad weather everything was closed it was like the complete like lowest point of the decade for the for the park so yeah so much is closed and then employees are like uh mad they're mad that you're there. That implies that they had any employees. Yeah, that's true. It was like a six flag when Giona went six flags and that we could barely find an employee on the Justice League ride. Kind of that park wide.

And then we checked ourselves in. You scan your own tickets at the turnstiles. They didn't have any employees at the gate. You caught them during their traditional four hour break. Yes. Eight to noon, we are on break yeah the french siesta yeah ride their self-service like kiosks for those four hours like at a cvs self-checkout you have to hit how many people are in the car and then you hit okay and then you get in the vehicle yourself disneyland paris extra bucks yeah uh now what's your thought um village house a village house uh yeah how long have you had yourself. Disneyland Paris extra bucks. Yeah.

Now, what's your thought? Village House. Yeah. How long have you, did you have that fact in your head? 30 years, Scott? Something like that. Yeah, I probably read it when I was 7. This has been, my dream has been to go to France and see the Eiffel Tower, the great art. No, no, no.

The Figaro squaring the circle. Right. Getting his job of exit sign installation. That's your Sistine Chapel. Right this time. That's Figaro's backstory. That's probably in the Wikipedia, too, that you had up.

Do we see the literal Sistine Chapel on that trip? Yes. Okay. I remember that less than not see, not achieving. You had to ask if we saw that, but you do remember what you didn't see. Oh man,

this is great. On the plane, I'm in the airport on the plane. Oh, I'm going to see the sign. I'm going to see the sign. Making a list of things to do, but crossing things off. Yeah, I'm going to see the sign. I'm going to see the sign. Making a list of things to do, crossing things off.

Yeah. I don't need to ever sign. Let's sign. I'm going to say, I'm going to circle sign again. I can feel my brain working. I can feel like an extended family members name and face, or like a beloved childhood friend,

leaving my brain to have these Figaro facts. Make room. Figaro nuzzling in backwards like a cat getting comfy great at Betsy out yeah what don't we need what don't we need in here sure to make your acquaintance

Jason Figaro then pulls on a rope to get more family members out yeah you're being this is the giant billboard that says lamp the coachman yes that character's name being the coachman you're in um something your parents worked really hard to make really nice for you when you were eight years old out and then the phrase wet pinocchio is now living it does feel like an intrusive thought like i will be lying in bed trying to count breaths to fall asleep and then i just keep going wet pinocchio

it'll be like in a clown with wet pinocchio aaron if you ever been, when we've been taking care of our son and we put him in the bathtub, has the fact ever occurred, has the phrase ever occurred to you?

Oh, we drop him in the tub and he warped. Yep. Every time. Please don't warp. Please don't warp. Oh, what a funny

little wooden puppet we make. I mean, that would be, I would just pretend my son was Pinocchio real quick. If you're a newer listener we're referring just

consult the Christmas episodes for this Geppetto nonsense that we talk about I also have never hit my son for fear of splinters very good only that reason morally whatever you know gotta keep him in line but ouch

what's his name Avery Schreiber Avery yeah yeah classic Pinocchio performance another a name that's in all of our heads yeah and is pushed out like your

beloved treehouse yeah gone Avery Schreiber in did I have one I don't remember was my dad around not sure probably not now Avery Schreiber Avery Schreiber. Avery Schreiber.

I wake up every morning thinking of his face. I should call Avery Schreiber. Tell him I love him. Make sure he knows. Let me just quick reunite Jason with his son. All right, here he is. Little puppet boy. What's happening?

Is this the surprise? This is the surprise, yeah. Jason, this is Jason's son, littleet boy. What's happening? Is this the surprise? This is the surprise, yeah. Jason, this is Jason's son, little puppet boy. You're going to notice that I had to cut the strings on him because he was too tangled up. So I apologize. There are no strings on him. You're going to have to restring him. What's happening?

What is this? We're looking at a little marionette of Pinocchio. Well, it's a not specific puppet. It's got a long nose. It's Pinocchio-like, it's a not specific puppet. It's got a long nose. It's Pinocchio. He's a liar. Pinocchio's in, I feel like that's public domain. He's all over Italy.

Yeah, he's just kind of a puppet. And yeah, we bought this for a show at UCB years ago and then ended up using it in like a dozen other shows. But it's been in my drawer upstairs. And I realized, I saw it last night just by happenstance. I went, oh yeah, little puppet puppet boy we pass it back and forth and jason hasn't been with his son little puppet boy in a few years i've been falling yeah over the years he's he's not in the best shape so we'll post a photo but i want jason just to be able to work the puppet during the show if he

feels like inspired or anything i don't know what you can't though because yeah there's nothing you can really work. You could kind of work the arms. Yeah, there you go. His hands are going up. That's pretty good. This is a bit of a dance. I mean,

the posture isn't great. Stromboli would whip him. So we'll post a photo of father and son here as well. I just wanted to do that on there. Can you sing as much of that song

as you remember? Or could you sing Cat Stevens' Father and Son? Either one. wanted to do that on there can you sing any as much of that song as you remember or could you sing uh cat steven's father and son either one your choice or a medley old man take a look at my wrong option three uh the other the other prop we bought that then used like two dozen times was a teddy a child's extra large teddy bear costume that fit me pretty well and i feel like i can get in it i mark renny has borrowed it like many past guests have used it or gotten in it mike can get in it uh that stretches yeah you see i'm sorry you have a little you have a bear costume that you're passing around from guest to guest does aaron have to wear the bear costume all right i'll put on the bear

it might that might be downstairs that might be downstairs by the car in the storage Casting around from guest to guest. Does Aaron have to wear the bear costume? All right, I'll put on the bear costume. That might be downstairs. That might be downstairs by the car in the storage. We'll wait. Leave it recording. We'll talk about something. Next time you're on the show, I will bring the bear costume out. Great.

You get to wear an old bear costume from a garage. In about four and a half years. That's when you're back. We're still doing it. We got more on a mansion to get through. Yeah. Grizzly peak. If we do grizzly peak or something.

We really should have done it for that. Or when we did. We did the ride, right? Grizzly peak week. River rap. Grizzly peak week. We're not ready. Country bear jammer week is going to be too packed. Yeah.

Grizzly peak week. We'll have more time. Exactly. Yeah. Costume show and tell. Thatzzly Peak Week, we'll have more time. Exactly, yeah. Costume show and tell. That area where you get to chill out is just lovely, and we don't talk about it enough. And the little paths? And the little paths in Grizzly Peak?

Forget about it. It's so good. My best friend, Kia's favorite part of the park. Yeah. She listens. Hi, Kia. Hi, Kia. That's the tree.

Count the rings of the tree. Yeah. But Kia would only have one, I guess. I guess, yeah. That's how it works for it. From fresh wood, so fresh you can hear it scream. The wood, it screams. Let's, you want to dive into the ride a little bit?

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I need, because I'm so excited to talk about the ride. I bit yeah yeah i feel like i need because i'm so excited to talk about the ride i feel like it's not coming off like like that yeah the joy i am so joyous when i go see it and when i say it's dilapidated and not cared for those are all positives in my book like it's little it's like it's you like you call things that need a little more love duds. Yes, it's a dud. Like our dear departed cat.

Yes, a dud. It was a dud, but a dud needs the most love. Or a lemon. A dud or a lemon. That is like my highest praise. The things that I love the most in life. I feel like I'm opening the door for a slam for you right now, Scott. What a dud.

I love him. Hey, okay. Well, i take the first part and i rose in the second date like scott's a mystery date yes you got the done but no it's it's the highest compliment that i i love things that that need it the most like yeah and that's somebody if if like somebody doesn't go to this because because peter pan is going to be full day and day. There is plenty of love to go around for every other Fantasyland attraction. Everybody loves the other ones.

Nobody loves Pinocchio, and I'm going to love it. That's a good point. Yeah, because Snow White just got a big refresh. Oh, yeah. Peter Pan, it may as well be in another park. The lines get so long. And then Toad is like the cult favorite. Exactly.

So then you're left with pinocchio toad is like uh here come the warm jets brian eno like that's the hip the hip of the four it's big star i'm still confused by the notion that record i agree with the cool i'm i remain confused by the notion that mr toad is obscure well or off the beaten i think it is one of the most famous things on earth. I think the thing that maybe makes people think it's obscure is that it's not a beloved like diamond classic

film. Yeah. Oh, the diamond classics. Yes. And the clamshells. I haven't thought about that phrase in a long time. Yeah, because who even, it's hard to even remember, like you almost think that the thing is called, yeah, but then the movie isn't. That's the part of Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Right.

It's from that weird murky era and you don't know which one had Casey at the bat. It's so confusing. I declared a while that I was going to read The Wind in the Willows. Do you remember that? I never made good on that because we were watching a Mr toad cartoon and i was really is it the one the thing where he is it's the claymation thing where he's driving and yells poop poop poop poop yeah yeah something really juvenile and i was like i'm gonna read those books he's funny read a book in 12 years you're gonna start with i'm gonna read this one because it has poop in it mr toad Toad is funny. We watched some old Toad stuff a couple years ago,

and we were like, Mr. Toad is funny. Yeah, driving like a maniac and everything. And then the ride is funny. That's really how it sets itself apart. I guess, you know, originally Snow White was scary, and Peter Pan is magical to some people. Mr. Toad's kind of the funny madcap one. And what is Pinocchio?

Depressing. Sad. Moralistic. Very moralistic. Heavy-handed morals. Heavy-handed morals. Heavy-handed morals, but makes the immoral stuff look awesome.

There is some element of Pleasure Island that you go, this is cool as shit. It's scary, but also like it's stylized in a way that you'd go, yeah, I see why you'd go over there. I think it's so grimy though. Maybe it's because I know what's coming. It is, but I could see why you would be like, this is such a, like, I know what a real rundown scary, like, I'm trying to think of like something. Yeah, it's Pleasure Island. Yeah.

Although rundown isn't the word because it is like, I'm trying to think of something. Yeah, it's Pleasure Island. Yeah. Although, run down isn't the word, because it is like, yes, I think it is Imagineered. There's, like, massive heads and mechanisms. No, that's fair. It's like a terrifying well, like, if the Imagineers were evil, that's what Pleasure Island is. It's like an immaculate Batman Villains

lair, which is enticing to go to. If, like are depending on your Batman media if you're in like you know the Joker and he's got a cool like carnival like fun house or something that is his lair you do want to go there even though you know you're gonna get killed yeah I think

if that if like a drawbridge didn't come up if you didn't know you couldn't leave Pleasure Island sure well you can leave oh yes but as a slave donkey in a crate to salt yeah you can go to the salt mines you can get a park hopper between pleasure island and the salt mines and you can go back kind of freely uh i mean clearly imagineers were like yeah this should be fun let's name our nightlife district our brand new nightlife district after this 40 yearyear-old hellscape.

That is a really funny thing. Was that a way to curb drinking, like public drunkenness? Now remember, I think it was the opposite. Have fun, but don't go too nuts here at Pleasure Island. They had signs up everywhere

saying don't make a jackass out of yourself. If they do, I was about to say if they do a Pin to say, if they do a Pinocchio. Everyone's doing a Pinocchio. Every studio has two different Pinocchios in production. Always. Always. Somewhere in the world, there's a Pinocchio. Every older actor

is obsessed with doing Pinocchio. Robert Downey Jr. has been trying to do it for 20 years. Every, he's like roped everybody in. You should always let him do any 19th century story that is his heart's desire it's always gonna work out tom hanks is in the zemeckis pinocchio that's coming out as soon but they should add what is is pinocchio like an unknown child or they do some horrible that it's like in a dog. Oh, we can mocap Martin Short. Yeah, Martin Short is Pinocchio in this mocap.

Have we brought up the Drew Carey made for TV Pinocchio? We have not. We have not. We brought up the Drew Carey TV movie. Drew Carey, Aaron's pal. My good friend. Your good friend. Have you seen it?

Did we watch any of it and i feel like i i must have seen it at some point not recently and it didn't come up when you were at the show no i did not talk to him about pinocchio and he did not say hey you know no if you like this you might like my movie he doesn't plug his baby made-for-TV movie to the guests? There was an article going around a few weeks ago on Collider or some film website about, like, everyone has memory hold this made-for-TV Drew Carey Pinot.

It's nowhere to be found. And Cinderella just came back with a little bit of fanfare because it's got Whitney and Brandy. Yeah, yeah. Very talented cast. And, yeah yeah not so with with geppetto specifically with julie louis dray this is the blue fairy oh boy um it's really strange this he has like a this like show stopping number that it's like do you guys know the song

it's about like if uh when i when you took my love away from me um it's about all the things you could take from geppetto before you take his son i do not know this and he's singing to like a mean banker played by brent spiner well he does have a house full of garbage so it could be a long song i will say a lot of expendable you saying mean banker played by Brent Spiner makes me ashamed to not have seen that. Because that's right at my level. That's really cute. I know that's something about if I had a bank account, you could take the whole amount. That's the one that's in my head.

If I had. I don't have a bank account. It's beyond that it's negative he just never never had one i don't know i go in the bank i get confused oh poor simple so sad i know puppets i don't know i don't know amounts and ledgers i just instinctively knew you would be able to pull facts about this movie we have no i don't think we've ever talked about this but i was like someone in this room will know this movie i feel like it's one of the ones where i just watched so much tv i knew the commercials by heart and it just it felt like i'd seen the movie and then never never got around to it never done the whole thing there's

just been so much drew Carey in the air. So much Drew Carey in the air that YouTube is now algorithming me. That was tough to get through. Who's Line montage, like clips. Like 10 times that Ryan Stiles owned Drew in the hoedown are now clips that are... Like it's every time.

That's what he always did. We'll get better. We will... I'll a little bit there's maybe a little game coming at the end of the episode we'll get back we'll get back to drew we'll have his time to shine uh but we're we gotta talk about uh uh the geppetto we know the pinocchio that we know um and dear god not about joseph gordon levitt jiminy crickets oh yeah i forgot about seeing him it's gonna be we're gonna have a we're gonna be seeing him on street corners and billboards everywhere for a long time about Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jiminy Crickets. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. We're going to be seeing him on street corners and billboards everywhere for a long time.

We'll deal with that later. There goes my first crush's name, and here comes a new friend. Here comes Figaro. Here comes Figaro. Pull it in. Okay, the ride. This is, like, when I think about sitting down

and boarding a woodcarver's cart with you and the anticipation and that you're just like bouncing. I'm usually bouncing. I just like physically bounce in my seat, like a little king. A baby in a high chair. A little king. Yes, and which tonally fits so great with the first scene.

No, I wouldn't call it a scene. The first half scene. Yeah. Half of a room. Hi, diddly dee slam. And then it's just horrible from there on out. It is so quick to gloom. As all, like even faster than, it's kind of the same format as Snow White but at

least there's like that cottage is sort of big you got to get to the other side yeah yeah yeah and seven dancing care eight now that they've added Snow White but here it's just

Pinocchio and then like the Dutch girl and the Russian girl the puppets who he barely meets and then you're just two and a half seconds and then it's interrupted by just a big slam sound there's just a divide where did you think this is a fun ride no it is not a fun ride it's so fat and now it just like it's still surprises me how fast every time i love

it yeah the darkness heidi the day that's also my theory for a long time has been like that walt probably loved that song and he's like that was his real what he really thought of actors he's like these foolish little puppets like they're a necessary evil these these foolish ignorant little puppets 100 i was thinking that with the um the the three of you, actually, because this is something I have not had the pleasure, but when I hear the line, high dilly dumb, an actor's life is fun,

and then I think about you guys driving to Santa Monica for commercial auditions at 4.30. I did do commercial auditions for about a year and a half. It's awful. Not fun, you're saying. Yeah. An actor's life in that case is not so fun. Yeah.

I walked, well, the funniest one I ever did was I did drive, I drove like maybe three hours round trip to walk into a piece of plexiglass and then leave. And that was the entire audition. I didn't even have to say a line or anything. So there's, yeah. Yes, there's a lot of unglamorous parts of it. Now, if you're lucky enough to get on set and you get a breakfast quesadilla in the morning,

now that is fantastic. See, I was never lucky enough to get on set. I was not very good. But again, my theory is that like, because what you wanted to be, you wanted to be doing the kinds of ads that air during your favorite show, The Price is Right.

The Price is Right. I wanted to be doing a consumer cellular ad. Oh, my mom just signed up for that. Did she really? There's one. Rated number one for customer experience. You want to be a nice lady telling older folks. What I'm excellent for is game show auditions

because I'm a big jackass if you want to tie it back into the right at hand. I'm good at being big. They want big. They want braying. I can bray among the best of them. Now let's see you bray. No, I know what you mean here.

We'll just like keep, I think just like weaving in the Price is Right story through it. That is what I recall is that like, yeah, there's certain like, you guys can attest, like some things that commercials want now are just like the driest, most subtle,

just kind of like look at the camera, John Krasinski take. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of like, yeah, like a little bit of like, oh, like you make theinski take yeah yeah it's a lot of like yeah like a little bit of like oh good like you you make the eyes and you go get a load of this guy with but say it with your face you know yeah throw it away is said a lot like don't even think about the line basically they're telling you hey we know we told you to uh do improvise a full half hour for us for 10 years stop doing that shit um just say this and leave please and it's

like all right man whatever you want i'm gonna hit you with a big board yeah see what happens to your face and then you go but that's what like when because just the way the price is right thing worked out you did a zoom audition that i heard happening in the other room and uh small dry not part of it at all i i heard you doing it and I was like she got it. She got it for sure. She's gonna be on the show. I just knew like it just propelled. They want loud idiots and I can do that.

Glad you got your shot. Your idiotic shot. I anyways so yeah in the in the pleasant scene you hear about the life of an actor and then here's something I noticed in the so so immediately from that you are backstage at Stromboli's puppet theater which is just like oh this will be Faye this looks like a fun show with a nice smiling guy and there's a bunch of Stromboli posters in the beginning of the ride like four or five if you look at them and they sort of like cascade down in terms of his friendliness like he does look like kind of a warm guy initially but by the last one you see which I think is black light those eyebrows have gotten much thicker and

much more pointed down he's just so much more frightening and frothing at the mouth that's funny I've never noticed that yeah yeah yeah maybe I don't know if that was on purpose or they just didn't like, uh, copy the paintings correctly, but, um, I don't know the idea that Stromboli like that you'd want, if you,

if you live in, uh, the town, which is apparently called Pinocchio village, if we are using the cannon of the ride, that you might think that that's a fun, this'll be a fun afternoon let's go see this like glaring laughing man in this tiny decrepit theater uh he's worth the

patronizing giving money to well and as you discover later on in the town there might be not a lot else to do around there because the the signs the directional signs in the town point pinocchio village and then another one that says to the sea that's your option for local sites i mean no wonder pleasure island is uh it's so desirable yeah yeah it's something something's happening jimmy cricket not a great helpful guy though if he's telling pinocchio like um i guess follow the one that says to the sea yeah wait yeah it's kind of on his guidance he ends up there yeah really weird to safety he does eventually in a long winded way. Yeah.

Um, the, you get the phrase, uh, the, the huge starbully phrase, this will be your home. As Pinocchio is caged right away.

This is scene two. This is like setting the seeds of the ride. Scene 1.5. You're in a giant cage. Um, so yeah. And then you yourself are in a cage right right that's creepy um then you're choosing between pinocchio village or pleasure island jimmy cricket says over here

not pleasure island he's popping up throughout the ride telling you don't go this way don't go that way but pretty quickly you're at pleasure island um which again like i mean as we're saying it is sort of mixed messages in a way because like it is a yeah it's a it's a fun themed environment yeah some of the problem i guess is that people are drinking a lot but usually we have been drinking a lot when we've gone on this attraction like what are you mad what I? It seems like I'm doing what you're going on rides, eating junk food and sweets. I mean, we get in brawls all the time when we're at Disneyland. Like, it's just constant roughhousing. You're always in those TikToks where you're fighting a family reunion.

Yeah. No, we look like Andy Cap who got in, got in like big fights yeah look at jason when you ask that question a hundred percent any caps wife was like hitting it with a frying right did they get in like like pig pen style cloud fights though with like commotion like commotion clouds fights uh i think so yeah i have come across uh lately um the sizes were all very odd but there are opening islands of adventure like first couple years shirts that just say that kind of very cheap islands of adventure logo at the bottom and then have andy capp thinking about a beer and his wife just looking mad at it a rolling pin probably yeah how much are these vintage shirts going for like

50 bucks so it was in a good shape i would encourage you to buy yeah i gotta i gotta find one at least like in the realm of my size so i think there were kids was one of them a kid's one maybe it was bizarre a kid's shirt with any cap wanting a beer i i loved andy cap as a kid yeah i did too i loved his hot fries and his cheese fries and i like the comic strips i mean they were the like the lockhorns were the bummer couple that hated each other but andy cap and his wife at least got into some antics yeah yeah they had like high highs and low lows you know the kind of relationship you really want yeah wait does andy cap is he just the like spokesman for the hot fries or does king features syndicate own hot fries no i think it's a licensing thing what's hot fries what are you talking about i don't know i've never had them

actually i actually don't i know that andy cap is posted, plastered all over all kinds of foods and stuff. They're little fried, like, potato sticks. Like, kind of like Cheetos or Takis. Figure I was pulling a new fact there. Well, I'll remember. First kiss, gone. Like, it just auto-complete Andy Caps. Taste the oven-baked crunch. Like, flavor punch in every crunch.

Yep, there he is. But it is even called andy caps like it's his name first yeah so i gotta figure out if king features syndicate owns hot fries i don't think so no i'm getting con con con agra brands con agra brands i think they are a big um so they are just licensing from king features syndicate They own Healthy Choice and Bird's Eye and Banquet. So it's some sinister food concern. Because if Andy Cap had his own food empire, that would imply that he's industrious. And that's the opposite of Andy Cap.

He's a lazy drunk who sleeps on the couch all day. I can't imagine him being a potato. One of these companies stole his recipe. He stumbled upon mid-surprise once, then it got these companies stole his recipe. He stumbled upon mid-surprise once, then it got taken out of his house. Before alcohol showed up. He was a real go-getter before.

You take this. Here's your payment. Bunch of beers. It's nice that he's making some passive income. Yeah. Handicap notable for being the only person ever fired from working on Pleasure Island. You're too much of a loud. out of here shady even for us okay um so uh also one more thing just are you like mike are you at this point like angling for a job at king features syndicate yeah i guess at some point like the full the full the use of the full phrase i'm like what is the end game?

Of saying King Feature? Yeah, it's a good question. I was actually, as you guys were talking, I zoned out just now and I was imagining like, could we license a King Feature Syndicate character? Could we have like Andy Capp's podcast, The Ride? Could we call it that for a while? Andy Capp proudly presents. Yeah. If you like his hot fries.

You'll love his podcast yeah uh the phantom like the phantom presents the billy zane phantom presents podcast the ride or you know i don't know is this gonna cost us money to have to engage in this i assume it might i don't think i'm gonna chip in to get just to have king feature syndicates involved but maybe't know quite the boost it's going to get us. Maybe I email King Feature Syndicate and I say, do you have a list, a sheet, of how much it costs for each character to endorse your podcast?

It's like those bands. You see a list of the bands and how much they cost to play a state fair that came out a couple years ago. I don't want to burst your bubble, but the founder of King Features is listed as William Randolph Hearst, so I think they're going to take you for a ride. This might be difficult. It might be difficult, but maybe there's like a...

Don't bring up Citizen Kane. That's the only thing that can blow the meeting. Do not say... That's my signature, though, and my emails. I've got this. I come to you today with the Citizen Kane of ideas. They press a button and the chair falls back. Thanks for the water, at least.

Hey, enough of this nonsense. We have donkey Ferris wheels to talk about. Everything is donkeys in Pleasure Island. Yeah, in our rewatch. The carousel is all donkeys that you ride. Donkey gingerbread donkeys in Pleasure Island. Yeah, in our rewatch. The carousel is all donkeys that you ride. Donkey gingerbread donkeys. There's a lot of pre-looting to what occurs. In the gate when you come in, there's a big donkey head.

So if you like donkeys, kids. Hey, it's the international symbol for fun. Let's go. kids um hey it's the international symbol for fun seeing a lot of donkeys in one place who had to be there oh you're having a good time a working farm animal um i and then a lot of cigars you got that that's a yeah it continues to be a strange thing about this attraction, the preponderance of cigars and Tobacco Row. I liked watching the Paris version where Tobacco Row was like Rue du Tabac. Yeah.

That was fun to see. Tobacco Street. Tobacco Street. Right. A little more clear. You got the, I had to remember the name. Okay, the Fox, Honest John is the Fox? fox yes who sat on you who sat on me is there was a giddy i think maybe gideon sat on me oh giddy gideon sat on you yeah yeah um yeah that was one of the first things maybe that ever happened to

me at disneyland and yet i still liked it enough to talk about it every week somewhere um they're doing like a strength testing machine that is so caustic it is like what the mallet yeah yeah it is like it's just like crazy loud it feels very haunted mansion and it's like almost like a little mini jump scare am i crazy that thing is like dialed up so loud the the the noise is so like unpleasant you mean yeah yeah yeah just kind of adds to the i mean they you know they do very well they they're very good at recreating like a hectic shady carnival for sure that's true yeah it feels chaotic yeah yeah but i guess there is there's a joy to this sequence again if you didn't know what was coming oh but do you think aaron do you feel like it's all a little grimy yeah i don't know if i was there in real life my like shady senses would go off i'd be like no yeah yeah keep the kid away there's yeah um

but uh yeah and then you got the rough house yes Yes, the rough house. Which in the movie, the rough house is like just kids break glass. I'm trying to remember in that sequence. I think they are just throwing glass at each other. I'm so confused by the morality here. Walt smoked and drank. Was it just saying kids don't do this until you're 18? Is this what the whole point of it was? Or like 15?

It's just funny to me that you're like, yeah, don't do this thing that you're going to do later. And I do all the time. Yes. Yeah. And some of it involves rides and stuff. Right. I don't really. If it is a morality play, what's the moral?

You step out to a carousel. Like, that's what the exit like points you yeah oh yeah like it's not about like drinking in moderation like pinocchio only have two beers before you drive home or something like it's not that and he's not doing like he's not doing opiates in pleasure island is he uh i I've never gotten that sense. Yeah, cigar and beer. Cigar and like a bottle. There's a fortune telling, but... Yeah. I don't know that there's any drugs implied.

Unless the cigars are laced with something. They could be. We know Pinocchio likes to get wet, but I don't know if he likes to get wet in the PCP sense. No, Pinocchio doesn't like to get wet. There was an actor, that guy threw water at him.

Pinocchio is not you. Right, okay, okay okay so pinocchio is more like ethan hawke training day where he gets wet by like wet tracen yeah wet jason is a new character um so it's all strange and then you end up you end up going through the eight ball, where this is the first that you see is little buddy Lampwick. And Lampwick turns around and reveals his donkey face. And this chapter of the body horror begins. Oh, boy. And this is a hologram trick. Oh, in the mirror. begins. Yeah. Oh, boy. And it's...

This is a hologram trick. Oh, in the mirror. You're right. In the mirror. That's one of the first uses of Disney using holograms. Similar to the queen that we're going in the Snow White ride. Similar to the same like trick in the... Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah. But here's where the curse comes in. Yes. Yeah. Do you want to where the curse comes in. Yes. Yeah. Or do you want to do the honors? Yeah. Go ahead and make a jackass of yourselves. Like so odd.

So crazy. Um, and just like you, here's where you start feeling like you're being scolded by this attraction. Yes. Which I love. It's like, calm down. What are they doing? At this point, we don't really,

especially with the story of the ride stripped out, what exactly has Lampwick done to make himself a jet? He played pool. Played pool? Which is, as far as I know, is legal. And maybe he had a beer. There's beer in that part, right? Yeah, I think they have beer in that, and they play pool.

Pool is bad in The Music Man as well. Yeah, they get a pool table. That's a real bad thing. That is a big thing. I assume that kept you away from pool for years, Jason. Well, you know. This is one of the discrepancies I noticed is that in a 2020 video,

they say go ahead and make a jackass of yourself. But then I caught a 2021 recording of this ride and he says that kid always makes a jackass out yourself but then i caught a 2021 recording of this ride and he says that kid always makes a jackass out of himself so i don't know if it's there's a couple lines in there or we were watching a ride through earlier that was um something about like it was bad kids so you enjoys being bad there we go yeah so maybe it's, there's a few of them. There's a few different lines. That one is pretty fun. I like that one.

Yeah. You were asking for the salt mines. It should sound like Bugsy recorded a few of these. Mind your P's and Q's. Yeah, he works at Bugsy is worked on pleasure Island. I assume that would make a lot of sense somewhere um and then we're now this is just where it's a like a litany of it's so

i it's just like when i when i talked about like just my temperature rising with thinking about this like just think about and it's so upsetting in the movie also just like you still have your brain like i'm still aaron but now my form is a donkey and they're just waiting for me to not be able to vocalize that i'm a person anymore do you remember that in the movie where it's like what's your name and like oh i'm getting upset thinking about it we're like the kid says like daniel or something and he goes this one can still talk and throws him back until he can't talk anymore right so that implies like your brain is still human brain but you're just yeah in the body of a donkey and all you can do is scream as like a donkey's voice and you're in your mind saying i'm a person, like, let me go home. But...

We're watching this while you're pregnant also. We're like bringing a kid into the, and like watching the grimaced, like this thing about boys, bad things happening to little boys. We're bad. Just thinking about, yeah, just... It is truly, like, and that's where,

like, it is funny that they get any mileage out of the magic of Pinocchio. Tom Hanks, America's Greatest, the real life Geppetto would be finally Geppetto for real. And I like, and when you wish upon a star is the anthem. And then it's for a film that has things that grotesque in it. It's upsetting. Yeah. Yeah.

I can't think of much more upsetting than that. Yeah. Have you had bad yeah have you had bad have you had dreams about that occurring i will tonight now we will because now it's now now figaro's keeping that in your head multiple copies yep um i i liked pinocchio as a kid but all this all this i think i blacked out a lot of this stuff when I was like, I liked that stuff you're talking about. Like,

oh, Jiminy Cricket's fun, isn't he? Well, it just didn't bother me as a kid. Like, it was like, then they turn into donkeys and like,

not thinking about, you know, what it actually means. It's terrible. I think I didn't even, so I was like, I didn't even think like, oh,

I better not smoke cigars or drink beer i just thought oh you you're gonna talk and turn into a donkey soon like this will be what happens to you so i just didn't want to deal with that part that reality that i would soon be a donkey boy well as long as you don't get tricked by grifters as long as you avoid like you know railway men don't take improv classes well yeah see that's what happened the lesson went away as i learned so much theme park stuff and then stromboli i had to relearn it it was a reset the theaters went away and then like uh like two people in coats are gonna be isn't it time for you to get back in classes? Sharpen your skills.

Be a performer on a stage. Everyone clapping for you. We take Venmo now. Huh? Convenient, eh? Local theater needs your help more than ever. Oh, there's nothing. Yes, we need your help.

We're all a family. You may as well just be boarding the raft to Pledger Island at that point. We all fell for it. Yeah, we all fell for it. Cage slams down. This will be your home now. Practice your third beats. Oh, the best part of every show.

Do your group games. Your nonverbal. Yeah, sound and movement openings everyone ends up acting like an ape there you go act like a jackass why don't you see if it inspires any seeds uh we're we're joking about you know we're all going like yeah a lot of dark stuff in this but um i don't know if you guys remember this but in the the middle of the pandemic last summer uh of a less than reputable theme park website did clearly get worked by some readers who sincerely wrote in emails complaining about

like they need to read if they're redoing snow white and splash mountain they need to redo this and sincerely we're complaining about there is child slavery in this ride and the emails all had the same ring of like they're using the same phrase of like the pinocchio ride it's not the happiest place to be on earth the pinocchio ride is not the happiest place in disneyland and i to be on earth it's really clunky wait so so somebody had sent like a someone sent an email to emails like astro turfed email like a false flag in the middle of that like save the children epidemic where it's like wayfair is selling kids like uh a q anon madness and and this website it. It's like readers are saying they should change this ride. And they printed all of these?

Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah. Well, I know the one you're talking about that'll say like fans demand and then it's like it's one guy. It's this it's the account that posts about Jack Sparrow three

times a day and has for the last three years. It truly is like, is this like a game meant to drive me insane? I can't unfollow it. I can't do it. We text each other every time. They did it again. What's happening? What does it mean?

How can grown adults care about Jack sparrow to this extent five out of six people that i ran up to at this diner want jack sparrow back in the movies like headlines like that you're like that's a news newsworthy thing anyway so look out for the new q drop on uh pinocchio's daring journey. Bizarre. Well, you know, it is odd and strange. But Aaron, you were saying that like, okay, there have been the redos of these rides and they made Snow White not scary. Oh, if they redo this ride, I won't like it anymore.

Touch one. They changed one salt mine crate. I know I complained about the 60 watt light bulbs that they need if you put in one 60 watt light bulb to brighten this place up I won't like it anymore like I need it to be decaying and sad and a dud and a lemon

yeah yeah yeah if they did things though to make it sadder what if they put more donkey boys in the cage? As long as they're poorly lit and already falling apart, even though they're brand new from a construction standpoint, I'm all in. Okay, yeah. Because what if they stop the car in front of one of them

and it's really upsetting because you hear a minute monologue from them about what they're going through? What they're leaving behind so as long as it's on the upsetting or like low rent range it's good i'm all for it yes i was gonna graduate third grade

now it's all mine for me i was just coming here to stop my friend your car won't move until i see you shed a tear for me. We have the technology to do that now. We're scanning your eyes. We're scanning your eyes for tears. Show that you care.

And then Aaron's like, yes. Hooray. You made it better. I love you. Have you seen the new interactive crate? It's amazing. It's almost a breast after Pleasure Island when like Jiminy Cricket slowly gets lowered down

and then later goes like, oh my gosh, Monstro. Before it's too late. When a whale gets launched at you. Uh-oh. Which is so confusing. I love that, too. There's so much time devoted

to Pleasure Island and the donkey stuff and, you know, to the salt mine and, you know, everyone. Whip cracks. Whip cracks. All the kids have been sold. They're crated. And then you just round a corner.

It's Monstro. Oh, yeah. Huh? Yeah, wait. What are you talking about? Why do you know his name, man? Oh, wait, yeah. You know this specific whale in the sea?

Yeah. That is one of the classic Disney dark ride, like the Ursula thing, where something pops in and you go, wait, what? And Ursula's dying in the background. Don't worry about that. We're past it.

Look, love. Love's in the air. It's the old ending to Snow White, where you're like, ah, the dwarves, they're on the mountains. The rise over? And we're done. What? I love it. Just like weird, like out of left field things, which I feel like they are getting rid of

slowly. But I maybe, to me, maybe it's part of the Fantasyland experience that, at least in the majority of them, there's something really... At least in the recent past, something strange and dark has occurred. And then doors swing open and you're outside again. Bye, thanks for coming. Oh, dream is what your art makes. Bye. It's part of the charm.

Yeah. Yeah. None of you have been on Snow White, though, right? Not yet. No way to go to do it. It's been of the charm Yeah Yeah Yeah They You guys None of you have been On Snow White though right Not yet No way to do it Yeah It's been so long They really solved

This problem for Snow Like there's really like You have a Like everything feels Very satisfying All the moves make sense In the story See I don't think I like that

Maybe that's bad I don't know You don't want it for Well what happens in the movie To the I don't think they get Saved in the movie I think they do go To the salt mines They do yeah all those kids are gonna die donkeys hopefully sooner

rather than later like honestly you pray for death yeah yeah pinocchio gets out and sends no help which also begs the question why does no one help geppetto is he just that reviled that or where was he going around to people and going like can you help me find my lost puppet it's like no man i already you're already on thin fucking ice well yeah a puppet theater is the biggest attraction in town but a puppeteer is spit on how How dare you? They should foreclose your creepy store. Your 40 clocks wakes up every night. I don't know. I make

them. They're set to 4 a.m. I don't know what else to do. Has anyone ever bought his clocks for sale? I would think. You would hope. I mean, what is he doing then? In the not like in the ride You can't like buy the ones at the end No

In the world of them Although There used to be There used to be Yeah there used to be a Geppetto Like wood shop Gift shop At the end of this

Where you'd buy like In the same way on Galaxy's Edge You can buy like Little wooden Boba Fetts You can buy like Little wooden like trinkets That Geppetto would make And apparently that didn't sell very well no it's like this where you could buy your family crest or like an actual sword or suit of armor it's like it's really fun to walk through

what do you clear every year like how much do you make i bought an 800 cuckoo clock, custom made, shipped from Italy. I have to carry it. Take this on Splash Mountain with me. Just shove it in the log. So, yeah, it is like that litany of whip cracks and salt mines and now a whale. And what is the whale doing? He's jumping up. He's jumping up.

There's some light flashes. He's trying to eat you, I guess, right? And we know that he does eat him in the movie, but I guess we just skip over that part. Right. Yeah, because Geppetto's already okay. Geppetto's just looking for Pinocchio, but they find each other in the whale in the movie.

Isn't that right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Which, it'd be fun to end up in the whale in the movie isn't that right yes yeah yeah which why it'd be fun to like end up in the whale it would it would be yeah that'd be i mean you do it in even though you don't really do it you do it in the storybook um yeah boats yes yeah you go through it at least you're not in it's like guts but guys remember opening morning of galaxy's edge when we got to see the guy brushing monstrous teeth teeth. Oh, wow. Boy, did we cheer. That's not ironic at all.

Oh, my God. We were so excited. It just never would have occurred to me that that happens. The whole group of people walking by as we saw it, we were all, everyone, I think, had the same reaction. Like seeing a giant whale toothbrush. Nobody knew. That is a Disneyland fact nobody had. The figure I had

not pulled in there yet. None of us knew it. What a delightful one. Yeah. Yeah, that can replace any pubescent memory I have, gladly. Wedding day, out. Wedding day, yes. Sorry.

That memory's a dud. Toothbrush, in. So, Unlit Geppetto. Then the Blue fairy shows up then you are back in the comfort you kind of weave back through pinocchio village things get kind of redundant yeah because you've seen it a little bit before you go to pleasure islands yes true yeah well the whole ride does kind of end with like a bunch of ballast a little bit like sort of the the robots and the excitement are a bit done i mean you get blue fairy the pepper's ghost effect and that's cool yeah i'm not even really sure where she is hiding i don't know where that

is right stage yeah that is a good question because i was re-watching and i was like oh yeah that's pretty cool yeah yeah i also like to just imagine that it's just Geppetto's like fantasizing and it's not real. And he died in the whale? Yes. I'll say yes. It's just, yeah, it's a nice, like, peaceful death dream he's having. And none of it. That was just, he, like, brought, he did did make the puppet but it didn't come to life

and he just kind of carried it around and imagined like what if that fox told him to go somewhere it was just like a bunch of madness until he fell into the pier while he was talking to himself swallowed up by what i like that it's a better story yeah yeah yeah um uh but so uh he well this is the scene where he's supposed to become a real boy and yet does this did this occur to anybody that he does not if you watch the video right right right it's it's the same like uh logic of like the little mermaid cartoon she's still a mermaid maybe it was a prequel or something but it's just like that might have been didn't we just watch a whole movie where you got unmermaided yeah forever yeah yeah i don't know that's yeah that's a good point i i don't know are they trying to say that this is just an infinite loop is this like that we're gonna

pinocchio's gonna to do this forever? Or we don't want to resolve it because then you would never need to go on the ride again? I mean, they don't do that with other rides. So it is an odd choice not to put in a very pivotal moment in Pinocchio's life. An unpleasant moment because we were talking about smooth Pinocchio. He is a little, even as a kid, I was i was like oh that's what he looks like as a boy that's how i felt about the beast too when he turns into a human well the beast yeah that's disappointing because you've grown to like this character just as they are in so many other

stories or it's like you had it inside you you were right you were good all along you know right and true beauty is your inner beauty it's not your exterior then the lesson for a lot of the stuff is like yeah but he's also like this luckily luckily he's a beautiful man now he's not the beast he's sort of like there's like a little bit of fabio going on that's what i yeah that's why i said be like a beautiful man like yeah yes in a way that fabio is beautiful like a horse exactly yes luxurious mane exactly um so yeah he's just like it's a different it gives him a different vibe which maybe if you spend another movie with him you would feel that way but but now we've you know we'll see they was there never a weird sequel where you hang out with like as soon as as I said that, I was like, is there a...

This blonde Adonis. Because there's the sequel... Horror beast. The first sequel is the... Doesn't it take place in between Christmas and Thanksgiving or something? I've never seen it. It's like a prequel. There's like a prequel Beauty and the Beast where it takes...

Enchanted Wish. Yes. Where Tim Curry is a CGI organ that mismatches the rest of the film. Right. Like, just utterly different movie. Yeah, like, was drafted straight out of Reboot. Right. And that's a prequel.

Yeah. Yeah. No, they had to keep finding ways to, like, God, we got to remade a fire. We got to re-beastify him. Yeah, because they knew it was a problem. We got to re-beastify him. Because they knew it was a problem. Nobody wants to see this Fabio-looking beast. But in this case, don't you want to have the resolution of this?

Don't you at least want to say, now he's a real boy? I think so. The ride underplays the lying element of the story. It focuses on the journey and adventure. And sometimes he has a big nose. But they really don't cover the lying. They don't talk about it at all. Right. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. So it actually takes out, I guess that one's the most like concrete thing you should tell like a kid, like even though, yeah, like you should tell them like, oh, don't lie. Always tell the truth, even though, you know, sometimes you don't always have to tell the truth, but that depends. Situation by situation, you know, but that's a nuanced thing. It's a subtle thing.

They learn that. Yeah, that's the thing. But okay, generally, don't lie. But just keep that to yourself. Not everyone needs to know everything, you know? But at least that would give like a clear thing to a kid that they want to understand. Because most kids aren't like, I'm dying to have a cigar at five. Like, they're not looking for that.

So if you were really trying to teach some kid something, at least that's the closest thing to a lesson. They could go, okay, I get it. Pinocchio is being tortured brutally because he lied okay got it i can draw a straight line there if they see if they're on this ride you can still have heavy-handed morals just make it applicable to yeah yeah your real life yeah something yeah why are you yelling at me about cigars i don't know look especially now like my childhood past i did not me i've had a tried a cigar or two in my adulthood, but that's okay.

You did it, Walt. I didn't do it when I was a kid, I swear. So why are you mad at me? Right. And if you didn't know anything about Pinocchio, you'd be like, oh, look at this young actor. And now he's being punished. I guess I shouldn't go into the acting profession. Was Pinocchio just a big way to get kids to stop

coming up to Walt and saying, how can I be in one of your movies, sir? Well, I'll tell you what. Go see this new film I have. He did himself a personal favor. Unless you've got the charm of a young Suzanne Plachette,

don't even think about it. Take it off, kid. You all look like the children from this picture this which i am showing the walkman's first album cover of just children smoking cigarettes oh they're all in like uh like sooty hats yeah showing us i see um yep that'll be you that's well that was my childhood yeah i had a cabbie hat and I was just smoking. How was being a newsie?

Well paid? It was terrible on the joints. A lot of work. Children should not develop that level of arthritis that young. Hours of tossing the one motion over. And on Sunday, the thicker paper. Don't even get me started. So then, so Pinocchio is, maybe he'll become a real boy after we're gone.

The blue fairy shows up. The blue fairy is there. That causes Jiminy Cricket to say, does he say this is a cause for celebration? Yeah. Something like that Something about Like let's celebrate And then you go into

An empty room Full of clocks There's not A single person There's not Well now Like Are we

Alright Are we supposed to assume Like let's go celebrate We're out of here And then We're all left in the car while they go celebrate elsewhere do i not get to hang with the cricket i could party with him after all this where your primary entertainment is a puppet theater to go in a room and see so

many accurate clocks ticking in one place is a party that That's a celebration. That's a celebration. That was the equivalent of going to a movie back then. Yeah. Going into a room with different kind of clocks and looking at them. Look at all these synchronized clocks. That was like seeing the Avengers. If you saw like seven clocks on the wall. Yeah. We're all different.

And that's how this ride ends. That is your like, ta-da, grand finale. It's a quiet room of ticking clocks. Two rooms of well-maintained clocks. The time is accurate. They're loud, but enough, but not too loud. They're charming. Well-crafted. Good knots.

Rise of the Resistance ends with you're on a star destroyer, and it's blowing up, and you have to get in an escape pod and fly back to the surface of a planet. Yeah. Pinocchio. The equivalent of looking at seven accurate clocks. Exactly. Same thing. Lieutenant Beck could have a

cuckoo clock at that console. Oh yeah, for sure. He'd love to. Yeah, and then you're out and you see a sign that says when you wish upon a star all your dreams come true. All true dreams of seeing accurate clocks sit in a clock room look at a bunch of plates on a mantle what's going on with that why are like because you see that at knots when you go nuts very far i'm like here's what a mantle was like and it would have five silver plates and i feel like i remember my grandma having her

five plates make sure you have the plates what what is that you would have anything like a yeah like a piece of furniture that would display plates standing up and i do recall i think my grandmother had it too i don't know you would show your plates i guess to people yeah you're not gonna like they're probably dusty as shit you're not gonna eat off of them they would be like plates sometimes you put it under a different plate. What do you call that? Yeah, like for an elegant meal where you have the show plate where yeah, like where the mayor comes over or back into the display cabinet or the mantle yes that's still a trap a part of the show at like fine dining fine restaurants but i think people were like we don't have to do this in our homes every night this is exhausting i make my toddler his uh his dinner with a show plate once Once Kmart came along,

once you're like, I bought my plates at the same place I bought my underwear. It's like, oh yeah, show plates are on their way out. It's like sometimes

I feel like the kid's just in it for the little pieces of chicken nuggets and doesn't even care about presentation. Put so much effort into the show plate

and the white glove. I see no appreciation for luxury. And the mayor's baby is coming over and he's not even gonna impress him. He doesn't even know.

And that's Pinocchio's daring journey. What a strange... I always bounce off the car at the end and go, ah! Yeah, I mean, it's... We did it!

You really... Yeah, it's almost odd to step through it in this way and go ah yeah i mean it's you did it you really yeah it's it's almost odd to step through it in this way and go and then salt mines and then plates but you are always on this ride like yay like you're like you're a dog sticking your head out the window yep ah look that and that it's it's so exuberant one of these days i feel like they're gonna change it and yeah when they do i'll be really disappointed little little pockets of weirdness slowly getting cleaned up at disneyland even 10 years ago there was so much little little oddity i mean that carnation garden stuck around for so long where it's just like this is just um you know an outdoor gazebo kind of thing and some times people swing dance here and it's like isn't this the most expensive real estate in the country yes yeah people swing dance at fantasy fair now they do yeah so there's

still some strange yeah that sums up a lot of stuff that we're all obsessed with about any of this that you do like that these are yeah it's like the the primest of real estate that a corporation spends billions of dollars to maintain every year. And some of the things there are the most outlandish blockbuster things you've ever seen. Like unreal uses of technology and storytelling. And then also here's this cuckoo clock room. Some of it is just confusing trash and I love it. Yeah, but that's part of it. Yeah, and that's like i i don't know i

think it's like what we get caught on so much is like how has this been allowed to stay here but it's great that it's allowed to stay like if they had if they were able to micromanage everything it would be something so much kind of sleepier yeah i think i said was it on the fortune teller one where i was like i think if disney or any other say like this was a new idea to build a giant multi-million dollar theme park entertainment place so much weird stuff would be gone there would be no like now we must allocate a spot for people to square dance or like yeah for once every month or something like that stuff will be ska bands go yeah um so yeah i think they're like some some of it's, yeah, holdover, but then now it's just sort of grandfathered in to try.

I'm sure the Imagineers have like some fondness for some of the odd stuff like this. I mean, with Pinocchio, yeah, I don't know. It's still, who knows if it could be replaced by what would be the most popular thing. I guess they're probably make a bigger Frozen ride, but. That's what I think this is going to end up being some like it's some maybe this will be the one that gets changed out for um this is tangled or something for sure it will be yeah it's like i mean who knows if that's in 30 years but there's no way they would the other three are more untouchable especially with snow white i would have said snow white was not untouchable until they did this new redo on it and we'll see how the lines are but them doing that much work to it and

snow white's the first movie and that feels a little more precious this is the second one this is the second one yeah second cares at the time was not a big hit i don't believe also it was 1940 why was it it's 1940 america has entered the war. The world is at war. Come see a sad, upsetting film. Come be upset with Mr. Walt Disney. This war might be depressing, but if you think about turning into a donkey, it might make you appreciate the war. Yeah, sure.

So, yeah. I will say, I mean, depending on how... It's funny because I think depending on how ambitious they're going to get with their new like Disney, whatever they're calling it, the Anaheim initiative thing where they're going to build. Oh, yeah. They want to build like tons of new stuff. It's such a boring phrase.

I already don't remember. Yeah, I don't remember what it is either. The initiative. Disneyland initiative. Disneyland proposal. I feel like if that stuff goes, they go like yeah do whatever you want and they're like let's put a bunch of money into that pinocchio has a bigger chance of being safe like it will stick around depending on the ambition of the rest of it because then they're

like well we don't need we have the room now to do other stuff why would we right well and fantasy land is always packed like it's always you go to fantasy land at noon sure it's it is always packed. You go to Fantasyland at noon, it's always packed. So it's not like herding for like, oh, we need something to draw people. It'll always be very popular. Sure. But I'm just saying, if they're not going to do a big ambitious plan, they're definitely going to find places. Start finding the holes.

Yeah. And they're going to go, well, one of these is not like the other. One of these dark rides, not like the other. Yeah. Yeah. One of them has the notion of salt mines. Yeah.

There's a cuckoo, cuckoo clock. Yeah. Has anybody been on this thing in 10 years? My little dad. No. Yeah. But you love it.

You want it to be out. And let me ask you this. If it were to go away and there was some opportunity to salvage one item oh yeah have it in your home have it in our home uh and pass it on to our next generation why would we what was what would we want to have to remember our little dead body i only get to pick one i'd probably i mean it's massive but i'd probably take the crate that says to the salt mine. Oh man. And that's how you keep them in line. Yes.

You want to go to the penalty box? There's a, I was going to suggest a different thing to keep Scott in line. This clown. Oh, you know, he's fine. Let me clarify.

I am not scared of all clowns. I love it. There are some other episodes. I love it. New clown some. Every other episode. I love it. There's new clowns around every corner. It's like 1950s men who are dressed as clowns. I think that's it. Yes.

That being a cartoon. I think I'm rarely scared of cartoon clowns. But when it's like, yeah, it's like a, you know, like a guy with kind of drink bloat and like who hasn't shaved properly and he kind of like rushed some clown makeup on uh and then like a little hat uh with his like stringy unwashed hair coming out underneath so now i have to re-watch mad men to see if there's an episode where like john hammer rich summer dress up as like begrudgingly dress up as a clown for their kid's birthday. That's something they could have done. Scott, so you like Bozo's Clown Babies?

Oh, wait. Oh, God. I stepped right in. Cartoon clowns? No, I don't like all cartoons. Bozo's Clown Babies. Have you seen Bozo's Clown Babies? I haven't. I have poor vision, so I kind of can't see.

Okay, let's keep it that way. Imagine the cutest little clown babies you can. Well, now i just have the muppet babies theme song stuck in my it seems very that era well let me while we're while we're asking running things by you guys uh aaron i want to ask you something i asked scott on the last episode as a kid did you watch the film rockadoodle about shauna claire the bird no no rockadoodle was not part of my my my kid okay but we have a friend who was very into it and showed it to us and i was like oh this just doesn't did we check out of rockadoodle yeah interesting yeah i didn't listen to your last episode actually

jason's uh uh well hey uh spoiler alertdoodle is back and back again well it comes up is like the when Disney was going to do a story of the legend of Chanticleer but like this was a Don Bluth I was talking about the Don Bluth film in the 80s and that that I feel similar to when you describe something as a like

that has a Pinocchio level of sinister energy in it. But I also wanted to run you by you guys. And Mike, you too, a newer theme park innovation. This was sent to us by a Twitter user, Fry Cook on Venus.

And the person who uploaded the video originally on Twitter is named Asher Adams. This is a new offering at universal orlando and uh it's a big walk around boss baby i know all about this i'm a big fan of this walk around boss baby i was at universal not but a few days ago and i did not is this in hollywood or no just no? This is in Orlando, this video. He's walking in a courtyard. I think I love it, though.

I kind of like it. It's a little bit of the vibe of that walk around toad, Universal Japan. Yes, yes. It's like little guy with a huge head. He's kind of cool. I agree. I've never seen Boss Baby.

I think I love it, though. you just like judge it off of this if he's just a guy who kind of makes finger guns at you uh from a from a great distance right for it yeah no reason to be upset about that yeah we gotta hopefully they bring him to hollywood so we can i guess we can go out to florida and meet him when you were talking about unpleasant old cartoons that you that other kids didn't like Aaron I know you were fond of this bizarre movie Pinocchio and

the Emperor of the Night yes yes I thought maybe we're talking about Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night I loved loved loved Pinocchio as a kid and I had a we went to the video store every week to go rent movies.

And I loved it because all I had to do was give the phone number, like my parents' phone number, and I can rent videos. So my mom would let me go be an adult. You could go into the video store. And I rented Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night probably monthly. Which is like this other Pinocchio, just clarify it's not disney it's made by another lloyd in it christopher lloyd is in it i didn't know i didn't write down his character as a boy he's always the emperor of the night okay i think he is the villain of the movie

um but it also features uh if you don't know this this odd non-disney film yes ricky lee jones singing this weird, creepy song that I found was written by the person who wrote all the Steve Winwood hits. Really? Yes, back in the high life in Valerie. Wow. And eventually, My Heart Will Go On. No wonder I liked this.

Also wrote this creepy, what is that song? Do you know it? No, I don't. We re-watched it when we watched Disney's Pinocchio as well. Yeah. Wow, Tom Bosley, Don Knotts. Don Knotts as G. Willikers. Ed Asner as Scalawag the Raccoon.

Jonathan Harris from Lost in Space as Lieutenant Grumblebee. What's any of this? Who are any of them? I don't know, but this movie is packed. It's another bizarre, like the original Pinocchio. Another just insane characters that don't fit together why are we in space there's lieutenants why is pinocchio meeting lieutenants and emperors pinocchio looks a little bit like rainbow bright or something that's probably why

i liked it i really liked rainbow bright very similar to rainbow that whole aesthetic yeah it was really like drawn over like we're like it like, rotoscoped a little bit with some of the characters. And this was a... Like, creepy, too much detail. A filmation movie, which was founded in the Valley. It was founded in Reseda. Yeah. Wow. And was in really close to where I grew up.

My beloved Reseda. In the Emperor of the Night. Yeah. Yeah. That's a bizarre one. Which episode do we... There's a character named Willikers we just came upon, right? In the recent past am i wrong

name of knots is that's no that's widdles it's widdles that's widdles but will occurs is a character we came upon months ago and i cannot remember and somebody who's listening now is yelling the name of it out at me you know what i'm talking about though that sounds familiar a cartoon character will occurs from maybe a different, like a different old ride or something. Oh, this is going to get, not sure. We'll,

we'll come back to it. Okay. Um, let me move, let me move on to this. Uh, cause we have to talk about this a little bit. Uh,

and it'll, it'll bring us into our final thing. Um, Aaron, you wished upon a star and your dream came true. Uh, you, you got to be on the prices,

right? Oh yeah. Um, yes, this was, and which was a, a lifelong dream. Like you attempted to be on the prices right oh yeah um yes this was and which was a a lifelong dream like you attempted to do this many years ago i got tickets um i've loved the prices right for ever and ever and for my 18th birthday that's what i did i skipped school and i got tickets to to go

to a taping of the prices right but that was back when they just gave tickets to anyone who wrote in and i didn't know that you had to get there at like four in the morning if you wanted a chance to even walk in the building. So I waltzed in there way too late and everyone was like, buddy, we're done. I don't know what you're thinking getting here at 10 o'clock. And that kind of turned me off from it. So I never I never tried again. Didn't pursue it again. And then in this bizarre COVID lockdown era, they changed their system of doing things and they had to vet people and test

people. And it still was like, not, you know, it was not guaranteed that you would be on even after passing the audition, you still get there and they have to talk to you and make sure you're not a crazy person. Make sure you are a crazy person. I'm sorry. Let me correct myself. As Jack Cassie as possible.

Yeah, they bring in 12 and nine get to play. Yeah. Yeah. Which is pretty good. Really good odds. Those numbers are great. I don't know how much longer they'll be doing it this way, but you sort of took advantage of the new way that they have been doing it,

which led to this great moment of the show begins. Uh, it is like they say the price is right. And then Aaron Garner come on down like immediately after. Um, and you're, and this is still, so let me,

let me say this also that this, this happens. It just aired. And thank you to our audience for checking it out and being super supportive of it. And cutting a clip of it the user uh apathy monger yeah on reddit which like it was gave you a handy thing to send to people yeah thank you um um whoever you are because i i was i actually sent that clip to a few people because i was like i just i'll just film it off the tv i guess like with my camera i know how to rip it or anything so yeah geez so wonderful so appreciate it and it was so like

so fun watching people like live react and watch and watch the thing but like so you this just aired but you did it in february when things were still so covidy and so miserable and you got to have this moment of it where you there this moment where there was like a little hook to put your mask on, correct? Yeah, at the podiums. Oh, that was at the podium. But you got to like, you were still masked,

but then like took it off to run out. Is that correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you held your masks to your face in the wings. And if you heard your name, they had a garbage can. And you throw your mask in the garbage can right before you exit the door.

You got to do that and then run out and have this moment. You're on TV and on your favorite show. So magical in this dreaded, not great time. And we're heading to something here. But is there anything else you want to say about that experience? Oh, no. great time. We're heading to something here, but is there anything else you want to say about that experience or anything the listener, people wouldn't know about the show or what have you? Oh, no, I don't think so.

I just, yeah. You played, thank you. Which game you played? I played One Right Price, which is, I was both relieved and disappointed because I am such a fan, I'm a super fan of the show and I feel like I could play anything and I think that's why they put me like in the first four to be come on, to come on down.

Because I feel like I know every game and I can play any game and I'm pretty good at them. I'd watch you for months preparing for this. Cause it also got pushed. Cause things got even super locked down. So you were thinking about this for so many months and playing along, you're watching every episode and going, I'll see how it had done this.

And she overbid and she, you were so primed. Yeah. Just like very serious. Um, so yeah, I get, I play one right price,

which is just the easiest, most boring game. It's the quickest, like it's the quickest game. Yeah. So I was a little disappointed, but also relieved because I was nervous as hell. Like it's so much harder when you're in there and you know,

I flubbed it when when it was i got the opportunity to bid last in the second game and i i made a rookie mistake and anyway it took the entire show for it to come back around to me to be the last person to bid which is the position you want to be in so i had to wait the entire show so i didn't i was the first person called to come on down last person to play a game. You got to, it was fun watching the audience like live feel how you felt

where you're like, you like keep getting snaked by the just adding the $1. It's not, that's how you play the game. I wasn't mad at anyone who did that to me. It's just strategy.

It's how you play the game. Well, I was mad. They were standing in my way of a trip or maybe some nice plates. I did it at the end, though. It's how you play the game. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

That did end up being your ticket up. You play. So for people who did not watch this, you play the game and the prizes, our prizes were. So I won a giant TV to get up on stage, which is great. And then it ties in so nicely to the topic of the day. A billiards table was one of the prizes. Yes. And a fire table, a fire pit.

A fire pit. Wow. A fire table. I wish it was called that. It is what it's called. Really? Yes. I was calling it a fire pit, but I've gotten many email or not not many i've had some email exchanges now with the company to confirm shipping fire

table fire table that's awesome there is a little like marble table around it i'm so excited we keep saying we feel like like it's gonna transform our backyard into like a uh like a tucson marriott you say that because i'm currently watching Bachelorette and it feels like something there. Yeah. They're wow. No, they're in like New Mexico or something right now,

but yeah, it's not like a Benihana. You could, I think you can cook with it. Really? Is it a propane powered? I think it's gas. Oh,

it's gas. Okay. Yeah. Um, well look, everybody's invited. All the listeners are invited over. We'll give out our address.

You can come check out the fire. We're not going to be turned into donkeys anytime soon, though, because I forfeited the pool table. I don't have room for it. You don't have room for that. Yeah. You can forfeit prizes you don't want. Yeah. Couldn't do it.

Yeah. Couldn't keep the pool table. Kind of broke old Scott's heart. But you know what? We talked about it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, well, I don't't know do we need a bathroom what if we stood it up long ways and only pulled it out

when uh you know the mayor's baby is over but i guess it is the right move uh for our son this would clearly be the path to uh to pray yeah yeah uh yeah donkey turns into donkey as soon as we set it up um okay but all of this to say uh that now i think this is a perfect opportunity to tie everything together uh and to have an actual now price is right winner attempt to play our equally iconic segment that i had to remember what we officially we were calling it souvenir smackdown hey all right we don't have a queue or anything it's not as exciting you don't get to run uh you can stay in your seat um but so not only souvenir smackdown but this i have prepared a specific pinocchio themed version nice of souvenir smack

i did not know about this yes yeah yeah everything is related or well it's related to things that have been in the air uh in the episode uh in general so uh let me let me find my notes here um everybody will play you know i think like while aaron has proven herself on Price is Right, it's weird crap off of eBay, which I think gives Mike an advantage, and some of it is rather old-timey. So Jason is in the game as well. So everyone's got some sort of a hook. We all have our strengths.

Yes, yeah, yeah, superpowers. Okay, and as with Price is Right, as with Bitter's Row, it's whoever is closest to the actual eBay price without going over... Do they shake it up every time? Do they change the order? Erin, I'll start with you. Well, no.

Whoever wins, if we're doing it Price is Right way, whoever, if we're going clockwise, yeah, prices right way, whoever, like if we're going, uh, clockwise, I guess, whoever wins, uh, the first person to bid will be the next person. Okay. Here. Well, look, we're going to start with you and then you just tell me how it works next

time. Okay. Next round. Well, like if I win, then, um, well, technically I'd be out. Uh huh. We'll just make it so that I'm not the last person got it alright I'll still consult with you

let's do round one and we'll figure it out okay so I will try to show this really quickly off my laptop and then I will describe it a little bit more so round one is an original copy of a hand drawn political cartoon from 1986. So it's original art drawn on paper.

This was in a newspaper, but this is the actual copy. And the political cartoon... Is that supposed to be Ronald Reagan? It's not Ronald Reagan. Close. This is then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Oh. And he is dressed as Pinocchio.

And well before this was cleverly said about Trump throughout his presidency, he is portrayed with the long nose. He has told many lies. And in this case, his long nose has enough room to write the whole phrase, Massachusetts payroll under Dukakis. Fucking bodied. Just owned. You're not coming back from that, son.

He tried to run for president. Yeah, really. Why'd you even give it a shot? Okay, so this is original artwork. It's said to be in very good condition. And it's very cutting and satirical. Let's take a guess what this is. The asking price on eBay, Erin.

$4. $4. Jason? I'm going to say $501. Mike? $150. Erin, you win round one. The actual eBay pricebay price 39.99

by taking the low round what was that what made you think that maybe this would be a valued item for people oh i've just gone to a lot of comic book conventions and looked at original art and it's always much higher even if I'm even if it's like little Lulu or something that's probably a bad example because little Lulu kind of beloved yeah more iconic than this one then Pinocchio fused with Governor Dukakis but you never know I don't know I feel like political card I feel like

there are big fans of like Dunesbury and political so you never know okay now actually now I said eBay but we're actually going to switch to Etsy for this next round. Okay. For which I will show you this child's Jiminy Cricket costume.

Okay. It's a cosplay Jiminy Cricket for a little boy. I will demand that we never have this item. I'm glad this isn't like Price is Right and we could end up with it. I do not want to. It looks well made. I think it is very well made. Now, I don't have the facts in front of me, but this is

a custom job on Etsy. So they'll make it to your child's size. I believe some, I think I saw some taffeta was involved. It's prettier than a giant hat. Huge hat so and you know and you're getting buttons and gloves uh the the whole where this is from etsy user

petite leon so for a custom petite leon child's jiminy cricket costume um where do we where do we start well i should like the advantage since I won the last one, I should start because the advantage is going last. Okay, okay. So maybe same order? Yeah. All right, let's do that. All right.

Okay, I'm going to say 190. Jason? I'm going to go with $60. Okay. Mike? $99. Aaron, you win. Now, I was going to was gonna die prepared four and the idea was the two was going to take it so i believe you have already won i'm really good at game shows you're

very good at game shows if you have a game show get a her and on it you have a tip of a game show that is happening uh and you know i want more fire tables also so let's keep this how much is it actually because it looked nice $400 okay yeah for Wow handmade to your child's size yeah there's photos also of this guy's costumes in the Y and they're pretty good people wear them to the parks and everything they're pretty much so you're already the winner let me quickly rip through the last two I mean my favorite well you know what I'll just do this one

I like this more than maybe the final one and here's the old here's where the old timey comes in because what I'm going to show you is a signed photo of the actor who played Geppetto the voice of Geppetto who is of course we all know christian rubb

the actor christian rub we knew it yeah uh-huh which is also how far it's how far I thought I was allowed to go with a girl 13 i was 13 or so okay great christian rub uh christian rub apparently also the basis for the uh the visual of uh geppetto uh so let me show you this it is a photo of course of christian rub in a dark room on the phone he is cloaked in shadow talking to somebody, and he has signed this photo with a lot of text. Here's what Christian Rub had to say. Signed and inscribed in white. Please, Betty, with an extra E,

take five gallons of Arrowhead Spring Water, one can Colonial Stout, three pounds of white corn sugar, and don't forget to let me test it. July 15th, 1932. Christian Rub. What's happening here? What is this a recipe for?

Moonshine. Yeah. Is that in Prohibition era? No, no, no. That's before, not the 30s, right? Right. That's truly insane. prohibition era wow no no no that's before not the 30s right huh right it's the that's uh truly insane okay so he has he has a photo of himself on the phone and has written out a moonshine recipe from 1920 to 1933 so okay still oh my god yeah okay so so he's is he, like, trading celebrity status? Like, if I, the famous actor Christian Rub, say hello to you,

can I get some back alley liquor in exchange for that? Let's hope that he got it. Let's hope Betty came through. The condition says light oxidation. Yeah. We'll change up the order, Aaron, for this photo of Christian Rub. Oh, so I'm not going first? Wait.

I've gone first every time. I could go first. I might go first. Is what is it? Yeah, we're asking like what it's starting at. What the auction price is starting at. Yeah. But this person thinks it's worth. It'll get to thousands and thousands of dollars all the christian rub heads up of course

um but uh uh 250 dollars okay um do we do we put jason in advantage here Go to you. Okay. Eight bucks. Great. And Jason? I'm going to say nine bucks. Yeah. See, that's the smart thing to do. Yeah. So Jason. Mike, what was yours again? 250.

It is 375. Oh, wow. Yay. See? Now autographs by their nature bring, like, I don't know. I don't know if personalization uh lowers the cost or ups the cost but like yeah autographs are always yeah those i feel like are more than you think don't know what oxidation does to it um don't know what people not knowing is something

that happens to food not photographs i think a lot of old media is starting to deteriorate and that physical photographs might fall into that category depending on how they were processed. Deteriorate like our memories. So the important things in our heads, we have to keep them. Like the name of the actor

who played Geppetto, Christian Rub. The fact that the Figaro signs don't line up in America and France. And all of the wonderful moments in this ride. Remember the salt mines.

Always remember the salt mines. Aaron, Gary, you survived Podcast the Ride. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for playing. Thanks for winning. You guys should really chip in on another fire table for us to celebrate. If it's a Benihana style fire table, I would love to do it. You're welcome over.

We'll get somebody over. Or all attempts. I'll put on a show. I'm just flinging shrimp, hot shrimp into your face. I just want somebody to fling hot shrimp in my face. Aaron, let's exit through the gift shop. Are there any recent game show appearances that you would like to plug?

I'm so glad you asked. Yes, I'd love to plug my stellar appearance on episode 9345 of The Price is Right, original air date June 28th, 2021, tape date February 10th, 2021. People are going to have to wait for the prices, right? First half 2021 box set to come out. I'm pretty sure I'll be heavily featured as everyone's favorite contestant.

In fact, yeah, tweet at the prices, right? Let them know that you want me to be a recurring contestant. They haven't done it before, but if you enjoyed seeing me win a pool table in a fire pit, just think of how great it would be to see me win a car. Yeah. I mean, just purely for entertainment value. Yeah, not for gain. And hey, for fun, if you rate and review Podcast the Ride,

but give it five Plinko chips. Like, give it five stars. Yeah, give it five Plinko chips. Oh, fantastic it five stars. Yeah, give it five Plinko chips. Oh, fantastic. Specify, yeah. Absolutely. Oh, and here, let me tie one more thing together and say that, you know,

please go to our TeePublic store, buy merchandise, which in large part is designed by Aaron. Thank you for all the great stuff. And I did like the comments that we got on Reddit, which is that you are a coward because you didn't wear a potanicus shirt on the prices right those are both true statements i am a coward and i did not wear a potanicus t-shirt so yeah i think they i think they would have let

a weed smoking shirt pass in that one it doesn't have logos so yeah oh yeah that's right you just can't wear logos right they might have like if they had a problem they could have just digitally blurred it frame by frame i mean if you were wearing a traditional potatica shirt it would have been far too many sizes too big so you would have eaten it as you came on right trip over my own feet it's like an elephant in the chipmunk shirt yeah shirt dress um that's right if you're gonna buy it buy it many sizes too big that's that's what we asked for uh thanks thanks for being here um as for us um what's the stuff uh let me scroll we said t public patreon find us on the socials at podcast the ride and for three bonus episodes What's the stuff? Let me scroll past the Christian Rub info. We said TeePublic. Patreon.

Find us on the socials at Podcast The Ride. And for three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast The Ride, the second gate at patreon.com slash podcasttheride. And just as one note to go out on, I just want to tie it into the film. I really do believe that when you subscribe to a podcast paywall content your dreams come true

we are absolutely as good of singers as that guy beautiful better i think better yeah avery schreiber earned your every every schrereiber what a funny little podcast we make forever dog this has been a forever dog production executive produced by Mike Carlson Jason Sheridan

Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm Joe Cilio and Alex Ramsey for more original podcasts please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram

at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.