Podcast: The Ride - Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with Kelly Nugent

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Kelly Nugent (Teen Creeps, Exile) joins us to talk about one of California's oldest parks. Featuring a transcendent spinner ride, pier destroying hurricanes, and delicious turnover pies. Mortal Kombat Live Tour Episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever. Dog. Whoa, warning man. The following podcast features fun, sun, and surfing cave bed. Grab your lotion or oil or your tannic butter as we breathe along the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with guest Kelly Nugent. Hey, Cowabunga, man. This podcast's the Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, the theme park podcast that today will try to focus on actual rides and not a store called the Octopus's Garden Gift Shop.

My name is Mike Carlson. Joining me as always, under the sea, Jason Sheridan. Yeah, I mean, between the Octopus's Garden and like all of the long gone closed stuff and just just the past the past looms large at this destination we're gonna try okay uh scott you're gonna hear as well i know it's it's a good thing there's some very good rides because it'd be easy to get lost in the woods i want to know about this gift shop though i didn't previously so we're gonna have to carve out some time anytime i uh the podcast veer dangerously veers into ringo star obsession territory with me a lot and again i'm trying if you hear like me going it's like i want to talk about ringo in this gift shop which i assume he knows a lot about and definitely gave his blessing to personally approved yeah a lot of ringo lately a lot of leno obviously buffett beach boy is always around the corner but we know we know the topic we we will stay and there's such

good rides here so we promise we'll be good very good rides of course i did discover that the nearby sand uh sun and sand inn offers cookies every day from three to five but we'll get to the lodging uh if it comes to it there There's only a couple. Let's bring in our guest to prevent me from talking about Ringo Starr's solo music career and all the songs that I like that I feel like people don't appreciate enough. I do

myself. I'm your friend and I don't. Bring the guest in. This will make me not have to talk about this. You know her from the podcasts Exile and Teen Creeps. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Callie Nuglly nugent hey guys thank you so much for having me hey thanks for coming thanks for doing the show uh thanks for talking about a place that we all wish we could visit ah wish i was there wish i was there i do feel bad um because i know you were like begging for anyone to give you a reason to not talk about ringo but i did have a question upon hearing what you said.

I was like, is that an actual, uh, gift shop? I looked at the website and it said, that's what the name of the gift, a gift shop is called. And I got very excited because it's a Beatles reference.

So yes, that is real. I did not make that up. Uh, I would sound like someplace I would make up, but I did not. Okay. I don like someplace I would make up But I did not I don't mean to derail straight off But do we know what kind of product they sell?

Is it specific to Ringo? No, it's not specific to Ringo I wish it was all Ringo star hats And shirts, that would be incredible It says Santa Cruz inspired clothing Hats, stickers, and gifts As well as a wide selection of sunglasses And sundries

Yeah, all of the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk Stores hats, stickers, and gifts, as well as a wide selection of sunglasses and sundries. Yeah, all of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk stores seem to sell similar surf-inspired items. But if it was like Surf Ringo and he was like peace and love while he was on a surfboard in the water, I mean, the sales would triple, quadruple. So we're throwing that idea out for these places for free if they want them. They got a Darth Vader, and it says, may the surf be with you. So that's cool. I don't think that's... Why Darth for that, though?

I guess it's not Force, so I guess he might say, may the surf be with you. It's a little muddy, but whatever. Hey, it looks cool. Nobody's thinking about it that hard. I shouldn't either. Yeah. So, yeah, not Ringo specific. As far as we know, maybe there is a Ringo section in there, but I don't know.

I'm hoping. I haven't been. I mean, missed opportunity. Missed opportunity if they don't have it. Yeah, for sure. At least, obviously, they would have cute octopus stuff and it would be uh you know lines from the song maybe yeah that's kids kids that good kid could wear that and not be beaten up at school like a child a young child would go with a ringo star shirt

and be like this is the coolest like if i had a son he'd be like daddy says this is the coolest celebrity on the planet a 90 year old ringo star and then the kid's just right in his stomach punch right i also just i i feel like it's such a because you know how you see all those um like tweets that are like what if your old kids don't even know who blah blah blah is right like i feel like there would be such little context that maybe this hypothetical son could fly under the radar and people would just be like okay man i mean whatever you think that's cool yeah who is that you're saying i'm my references will be so out of it yes by that point that the kids won't even know to make fun of this right

hypothetical son of mine uh so yeah he may be fine be fine. He may be. He may. Oh, he's got that older man on his shirt. That must be a cool guy. I've never heard of. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a good. That's a dream I can hold on to, at least. But we're talking Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk today. Yes.

A place that none of the hosts have been. I've been. You've never been there? I've been. Wait, you've never been there? I've been at the beach part, but it was I did not have time to go to the amusement park part. I know that it was beautiful and

chill, but I didn't know how wonderful some of these rides were and a lot of the mythology and everything. So I really wish I'd gotten to go. But Kelly, you've been clearly uh what's what's what's your story with this place okay i do feel uh tricky being the person that wants to talk about this because i didn't grow up in santa cruz i don't have like

these childhood memories of like oh my god you know me and my friends used to go to the boardwalk first of all i was not allowed to do anything when i was a kid so like i wasn't i even if i lived near it i would not have been at the boardwalk you weren't allowed to have stories growing up yeah no no i mean i my stories were like i sat at a dining room table and like stared at a math book and was sad so it yeah, it was great. Um, the, I went there for the first time, probably in college because a friend of mine's like family lived out there. So we went there to visit it. Um, and that visit, I think I did the whole gamut of rides. I did like all the different rides, the, um, the big old roller coaster, classic giant dipper. It's like a wooden roller coaster, shared lap bar with the person that you're sitting next to.

So if you are someone who's smaller like me, and I was sitting next to someone who was like 6'4 or something, I did fear for my life, like going down the drop because it was safe for him, but it was not safe for me. But also it's the boardwalk, so who cares? Right. You know? That's part of the thrill. So safe. I hate to say this, though.

This is an attraction. It's been around for a long time, so it's had a lot of opportunities to kill people. And it has killed three people. Stop. Yeah, I hate to tell you that now, but you're off. You're not on it now, so everything's okay. But again, like, you know, there's Disney rides that haven't killed anybody, but they haven't been around as long.

There's a century of opportunity for death. Yes. And most of them were a long time ago before there were better safety standards. So I'm sure nothing to worry about now. No bars, maybe. Simultaneously simultaneously a historical landmark along with the carousel the giant dipper a historical landmark the um in fact the picture i i wonder if i can ever find it because they snap a picture of you as you go down

i swear my jaw is like unhinged because i was truly shrieking for my life because I was suspended in air and was just gripping with my hands on the lap bar because I was like, oh, I will just fly out of the top of this car. Yeah. Yes. That would be interesting. I mean, you should find that because I would. There's like a newer Six Flags coaster that like has like really strong restraints and it still felt like I was flying out of it it was the Twisted Colossus uh and I would like to see what older technology to restrain someone it looks like it's just a lap bar yeah it's just a metal it's just the

shared it's like one so you just pull it down to whomever has taller legs and then hope for the best yeah and by the time you realize it there's like a teenager that's like okay go and then it's just going and you're like oh but i'm not it's fine yeah the santa cruz teens who work there are not so uh diligent maybe as far as safety no i assume at least they weren't when I was in college. Yeah, I bet they haven't changed. Well, they do go out of their way on the website to say they have four engineers every day checking on

this thing every few hours. What? Like on call. They have full-time mechanics and stuff. There's also a full medical staff on call all the time for this ride listing all the things they have a defibrillator in case your car stops the the medical staff does they transport on the sky glider though so it will take a significant time a significant amount of time

yeah so they gotta wait in line and if it you know, it could be upwards of 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Kelly, when you went on this, is this one of those things where like you were terrified and you were like, I'm not going on that again. Or it was like right back in line.

Oh, I was never going to go on that ride ever again in my life. Got it. Um, it was that kind of thing. It was scary. Like I truly was, it was one of those things where,

so I, I was in college at the time. So I was like, Oh, this is like fun and scary. And then we didn't go on that ride again. And then for my, uh,

like bachelorette trip, basically my, uh, three best friends arranged a like, um, spooky tour of the California coast. And so we went to go see all these like haunted places and also went to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. And as an adult, I saw that ride and I was like, I will not be riding

that ride again. Like now that I'm in my thirties, I don't need to go to parish. Interesting. So yeah, you were not looking to conquer it. That was, you were done with it. I was done. Yeah. But then we went on rides that I had overlooked as possibly being babyish or boring on the second trip that I went there. And those rides, I mean, 10 out of 10. Cave Train is amazing. Amazing. Yeah. It's so good.

My friends Tyler and Kia, who've spent a lot of time up there i asked them like what's the big stuff to hit and they said just main just mainly cave train anything else you get to whatever cave train is the shit make sure you get a lot of cave train in there i couldn't believe this right this is this looks like a i i cannot wait to go on this thing and it's uh the i mean it's not Tramp, but some of these other dark rides that they have are long. These are massive rides with so many animatronics, fairly limited animatronics. But but like you feel the heart and spirit in the making of them. Yes. Yes. Really good.

Yeah. Honey Castle goes under the boardwalk which was very popular for a certain while on the Jersey Shore towns and the amusement parks there now on the east coast that's a real dicey proposition because while that is very fun you are subject

to hurricane storm surges and every now and then once in a generation, Superstorm, that does this to theme parks. Because this is in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. So Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is built, like the amusement park is built parallel to the boardwalk.

On the East Coast, like beach down board parks are built like similar to Santa Cruz boardwalk, but just kind of like in a patch of land. Or they're built on the piers, which again, subject to storm surges, sometimes hurricanes take those parks away. Wait, explain that photo, Jason. It's like there's a roller coaster that's just not on the pier anymore it's in the osh yes uh so sandy uh hit seaside like hit the jersey shore pretty hard and like wildwood and seaside heights two two towns on different parts of uh jersey um

they they built their parks on piers going out into the water and um this the seaside heights uh park just like the pier part of it collapsed and the whole roller coaster just plopped down into the water are you trying to put santa are you trying to put santa cruz on notice like this could happen to you well i did find historical photos where there are one pier that used to have like a water intake pipe on it that would fill the indoor pool was partially destroyed by like a storm. But when you build the park further back behind the boardwalk, less chance of damage. So you're saying Santa Cruz is better prepared for a storm. You just want us to know about the storm. Possibilities.

Yeah. Possibilities before we start talking about these fun rides. Well, compare and contrast. They were in the middle of talking about a fun ride and then like, but hang on, storm possibilities. Also in the listed things, they have doctors on staff. They also have you on staff being like, guys, this could go away at any time. You're like a Doc Brown style, like, it's coming, it's coming.

Look at this photo from the other coast. Get off the ride, kids. For the sake of listeners. You've got some interesting literature underneath your seat. And it's the picture. For the sake of listeners, because my impression of Seaside Boardwalk is a little different than this one.

I mean, they were more popular on the East Coast than on the West Coast. Santa Cruz Boardwalk is one of the bigger ones. And one of the few still around on the West Coast. Yeah, that's a miracle. The oldest surviving one. So let's hope the storm never comes for these cute little rides that I like from the video.

Not the Q Storm either. No storms. Not a capital storm. I don't want any storms in this place. No one should storm the boardwalk. Oh, yeah. No. There we go.

Let the cave people be. That's right. This is one of the older places we've taught. I think Kennywood might be a little older than this, but this park goes back to 1907. Well, if the cave train is to be believed, this park goes back to prehistoric times. Yes.

That's right. You go to a world that has stayed intact since prehistoric times that happened to exist. It's a world that exists only under the boardwalk. It's a microcosm, entire other universe. Perfectly preserved. When you watch the video of the thing, I really like the casual narration you get. You're looking at the phrase cave train

like what does that even mean like i is that a frequent thing that trains go into caves you have no real indication of what the premise of the ride is going to be and then there's this folksy narration it's like it's the funniest thing people were looking under the boardwalk one time and there was a whole race of cave people anyway so we so we thought that was neat. I'd give you a chance to go see it. It's just like tossed off in the amount of time it takes to go through this hallway. I do love that the name is kind of a misdirect. Like you don't know what if you because if you go on the ride as I did, not knowing what was going to happen to me when you come upon the like scores of cave families and also cave dinosaur families because dinosaurs are also there um coexisting they're all friends coexisting all friends

sometimes they're fun little enemies frenemies sure sure um rivals you. It's deeply voyeuristic in a way that's, like, different from other rides that have, like, families of animatronics, like, doing things. Because, like, it feels very uniquely. And I don't know. Maybe I was just experiencing something myself when I was going through this ride. But, like, I feel like a lot of other animatronic rides, it's like, this is a show that you're going to see. Right.

But like, there's so little effort put into like a show for the person going through. It's just kind of like these animatronics exist here and you get to go through it and you see what is happening. And that's kind of it. They aren't. In other words, they aren't like, um, Hey, you're here. Welcome. And that's kind of it. They aren't. In other words, they aren't like, hey, you're here.

Welcome. They don't acknowledge you. You're just watching them go about their day to day. No, no, no. It is. It is. They're not trying too hard. You know, they're kind of just like, like, oh, we're playing cave volleyball.

Oh, did you know we have our own boardwalk? Like, it's gone back all the way since here. We have a square dancing. It's like there's a whole thing. There's a drive boardwalk? Like it's gone back all the way since here. We have a square dancing. It's like there's a whole thing. There's a drive in. Like it's amazing. Amazing. Yeah.

Like it's a very it's a crazy premise that. All right. So you're going to go see an underground cave world. Great. What is that? I'm going to see a lot of like bats or what is this going to be? No, it's a bunch of cave people all with a really united specific style of drawing that's or or not drawn but of design wallace and gromedy very um totally

nation looking absolutely yeah i thought rugrats a little bit too yeah a little rugratsy there's some garfield too though yeah a little bit a little bit but a little bit. But there's definitely some Tommy Pickles faces like throughout the ride in the in the dance hall scene. That's like a step up from the Billy Joel piano man song. Like it kind of looks like the caveman version of that bar. Yes. And I feel like there's also a lot of like no stakes like, oh, this thing's about to happen. Stuff going on like like there's like one where i i'm trying to recall i think it's like a dinosaur is like hoisting up something that's

gonna drop on like a cave person and yet i don't know how to put my finger on it, but it lacks any of the urgency of like any other of setups of those kinds that you see in like another ride, you know, where you're like, Oh God, the dynamite's going to fall. Or like, for example,

in pirates of the Caribbean, right. When they're all like shooting at each other and there's like explosives everywhere. And there's that thing hanging above you. I guess it's because nothing's ever hanging above you. It's like to the side and it all looks like very obviously like paper mache and so you're just like and if it falls on him so what you know danger is more casual in this time yes yes yeah

it's a more brutal era yes it's gonna happen it was yeah brutal brutal yeah they similar to that there's a i think my favorite aspect of it yeah so it is like it's cave people who are also like beach dwellers they're doing the same thing that you're doing up on top of the boardwalk but they're doing it underground they're having like they're they're having fun burgers mcboulder burgers and dino dogs and they're watching bands play and stuff they're having a fun seaside day just like you but there is a big sign that says sharkasaurus warning today yeah so that feels like stakes a little bit uh-oh is it gonna be we're gonna see a sharkasaurus maybe at the end of the ride and then it's like uh 15 seconds later there just is the sharkasaurus

it's very big but it's grinning. It seems to be lunging at somebody, but you don't find out what happened. And they're probably fine. I'm not worried about it. No, exactly. No one's in peril. Like, you're just like, oh, I guess they're together. There's also like interpersonal stuff happening between the animatronics.

Like, you get to see kind of fun, like, oh, he's looking at her, but he's with her. You know what I mean? Like, that kind of thing. Because they're all, like, swinging singles. Like, they're all... The vibrant, like, poly scene in the cave. That's the first. They're poly cave people, yes.

And the big band era never ended, seemingly. The big band era that once the the big bands have played the the old coconut grove at the santa cruz beach boardwalk uh there's still cave people uh big bands in the ride the clam tones you got the clam tones playing that seems like a good show there's a lot of good that might be on the like our fake Final Four is like full animatronic bands. That's a fun area. And Knott's has that really good one in the log ride.

And yeah, shout out to the Clamtones. Good job, Clamtones. And with the Clamtones, I do want to say here, I think this kind of falls in the same joie de vivre of the name. Where it's like the Clamtones tones like of the name of the ride the clam tones there's no danger that the clam tones are playing the music that you hear like they are supposed to be but we all know like their movements like there's not any way that the music that they are creating is the music that we're hearing do you know what i'm saying they don't suddenly that is not a speaker that you pass by

that's playing music similar to the instruments you see them playing. It's entirely unrelated. I feel like the ride is trying to tell us, you believe that they're playing this music, right? But you know there's no way. They're playing a different genre or something, you're feeling like.

Yeah, and just the way that that they're moving there's no possible way that like their range of motion would be able to even at all play that kind of music it's very nice I like it a lot of suspension of disbelief yeah yeah that makes sense should we describe a little bit just looks

wise we're talking about this this cave ride like it's very like I wanted to say kind of it's it's a better version of the kiss mini golf in vegas color wise there's like kind of day glow neon uh black light great black light right stuff yeah going on um but oh it's glow low rentish i think in a good way, in a way that I actually feel like it gives it a vibe. Oh, it's so super charming. And the story that I looked up about it is that they thought that this thing was kind of, this was open in 1961. In the late 90s, they thought this is decaying. This was put in in Flintstones era.

Do people care about the Flintstones anymore? Let's do something different here. They were going to put a whole other dark ride in. And then people started saying, but I love the cave people. And I think the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk folks were like, they, you do like, I don't think they realize the cult. And then they, they talked about it and said, well, is there just a way to like inject new energy in a new storyline? And they got this dark ride company, R and R to come in and rev about it and said, well, is there just a way to like inject new energy in a new storyline? And they got this dark ride company, R and R to come in and revamp it and make the effects better, but it's all still the original figures. So it's this like great,

it's sixties bones and kooky sub Flintstones characters mixed with, uh, you know, a nineties refresh. Um, and I think all of that, that it's a beach, uh, you know know that they're hanging

out on the pier and uh um uh eating brano burgers and all that i think that's all new in the 90s so um i don't know it's so nice that this was like it's 60s charm being uh uh saved um yeah due to a public uh outcry and crosses over with a different ride in this park, because there is a caveman on one of the ride vehicles on the Sky Glider, the chairlift-type ride that you can ride up and down the boardwalk. Again, another thing that I was so excited to see one of these,

because I feel like a lot of beach towns used to have these on their boardwalk and then remove them, partially probably because the upkeep is expensive and the liability. It really feels like you'd fall out of one of these things. You definitely would. Yeah. And it's always fun seeing that cave guy because there's, you know, a story there, right?

Like, did he get out? Is he stuck? Is he coming back i i like the idea of like this larger mythos surrounding these cave people is he an encino man oh link yeah right right yes did he leave did he somehow escape the time vortex that you go into at the beginning of cave train i also wanted to bring up like what's because i was just thinking about this and i don't know if this is real or anything this is just me postulating but okay so i was thinking about why a train right like why are you in a train in the train cave

train right because every and the train looks it doesn't look cave-ish. It looks like a train. But the boardwalk is right off of a set of train tracks. So maybe that's like a world within a world. You know what I'm saying? So you're saying it's like in the narrative of the boardwalk, you're using the same train that might have been on those tracks in the real world that's transporting you to this magical cave land yeah and that's what people on that train the real train are experiencing kind of like when they go by the boardwalk sure yes so like look at this world of boardwalk people oh but then and we're not talking to the people on the train right

and waving to them maybe a little bit you acknowledge them but not we're not talking to the people on the train right and waving to them maybe a little bit you acknowledge them but not we're just going about our day and in the same way the cave people are just living in their cave worlds they're not concerned about us on the train yeah they're just like us levels is really what it is yeah yeah no i think that's i think that's right this thing is so cool i love that it's the whole time, if you're up on the boardwalk, you're doing anything on the boardwalk, that you're above this long, long, dark ride this entire time. It's such, like, clever use of the double-decker space. This thing is great. Everybody watch a video of Cave Train.

It's great. There's also, okay, there's this other ride, and I cannot recall the name of it right now, but it's right across the way from the cave train. And it's like something like waves or something. Anyway, you go in, it's under the boardwalk, but it's like a concrete space. Okay. And it's just a nothing room. The walls are like, they look like temporary rigging. It doesn't even, it's like no effort put in, right?

But it's just a bunch of like, I want to say like wave runners. Like you just sit and it's like a bunch of them on like a series of little carousels that all each spin and they all, all together all spin. Wow. But they turn out all the lights and each of the wave runners that you're sitting in has headlights and you're just spinning like crazy in the dark with these lights that are just like and it is the most transformative experience like once those lights go off and they have like you know neon like lasers and like music it's like and you're spinning in the dark the difference from before the ride starts and while the ride is occurring is phenomenal wow but really nothing happens except for lights can't find what this is called it's it's not wave rider because i looked it up and

that's a slide there's no dark light i think it's called wipe out wipe out yes wipe out that ride is so fun it really whips you around and it's a transformative experience of some kind is what you're saying yeah when you walk in you're like what is this but it only costs you know x amount of tickets so i guess i'll do it and then you do and it's very fun it's uh yeah it just like really takes advantage of that like centripetal force kind of thing. There's a whole like, like tilt, like I think some people, I'm a guy who likes to be spun around fast in a circle. Oh, so you'd love that tilt to world that they have.

I like a tilt to world. I like a Gravitron. I don't think it's a sensation everyone likes, but it's, I'm a lights guy and I'm a spinning around in a circle guy. So I'm looking at this now and I do, I see exactly what you're saying. It seems like, it seems like you're doing I see exactly what you're saying. It seems like

you're doing cosmic bowling or you're playing laser tag, but you're being spun around twice, essentially, at the same time. Yes. Double spins. And it looks, yes. With lights. And darkness. I was going to say it would have blown my mind as a kid, but let's be honest, it would blow my mind now.

It blew my mind now. I went on that ride for the first time two years ago and I was changed. I truly was like this ride, like because I was like, this seems so low rent and so nothing, especially when you go in, you know, the in-between everybody get off

and everybody get on, all the lights are on because they bring on all the lights. I swear it's like fluorescent bulbs, like so no magic nothing right terrible lighting it looks uh it looks odd and it looks like um let me hear i'll bring up a share a screen real quick just to show everybody uh how odd it looks with the lights on uh here it is yeah it's very industrial this like i i see what you're saying like you walk into this you just see the machinery and the wires.

You don't think you're going to have a great time on this. Yeah. Oh, also. Okay. So you see how that the blue shirt child is tilting. So you can control your tilt as well. So if you really want to. Yeah.

If you really want to whip around, you just have to put your shoulders into it and you'll really get whipping. Wow. It does. It looks like if you walk in a Broadway theater when it's just rehearsals and they have fluorescents on and then you turn on all the show lights and turn off the audience lights and you're like, oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes. How? It's so fun.

How is this not everywhere? It's it's so, so, so fun. I was cackling the entire time on this ride. Yeah, because because there's so much going on and the lights and then the controlling controllability of it it's very like miami vice like the vibe is very yeah you're on i guess you're on little speed boats yeah i guess or i think they're like hover are they hovercrafts they look like they're hovering well so what you don't see is that the decor not in here is very like ocean themed. Right.

So that's my only thought. So you're on like futuristic boats. Yeah. See how the lights are turning on? It's so cool. Or you're on the boat from Thunder in Paradise or something like a futuristic boat. Mini version. The children of Thunder in Paradise.

Right. Mini. Yeah. What's the name of the boat? Thunder. It's the Thunder, right? On Thunder in Paradise? Right. Mini, yeah. What's the name of the boat? Thunder. It's the Thunder, right? On Thunder in Paradise? Maybe.

Some mini Thunders. Yeah. Thunder Juniors. You're on a Thunder Junior. They're a bunch of Thunder Juniors. Yeah. This is delightful. I know what you mean.

Like, why is this not a standard type of dark ride? It's so fun. Yeah. Because you've got tilting and turning, which I really enjoy the combination of tilting and turning. Yeah. Boy, that's something. I missed that one entirely.

Like we're so focused on dark rides and original IPs, you miss the simple thrills of Wipeout. Yeah. And I only went on it because I had like a weird amount of tickets left because how you do it there and um i guess a lot of boardwalks these days is you like you can get a wristband and then you add you know tickets or points or whatever and so like i had an odd number left and i was like well i could fit in a ride on this weird right also no imagery about what this ride is going to be like because there's just like a door like an open garage basically and it's dark and it just says what what's the name of it wipe wipe out wipe it just says wipe out and you're like what is that and you go in and if you go in while it's not going you're like okay i mean maybe is this

storage is this a shit yeah exactly because it looks so industrial it looks like not for the public yeah but there are people going on it so so I was like, fine, I'll go. And it was very fun. I mean, there's a lot of that. I like the mystery of this whole place in general, which I don't know if it's all purposeful. This sounds like they were just like, oh, we don't want to put up a sign on this shed. But the cause of that or what happens because of that is you have like a very surprising experience because you don't get to see things and it's the same with cave or what like you don't know the

characters are in that ride you don't know there's a lot of mystery to be had at the boardwalk is what i'm saying yeah maybe that's my thing with this place that i was near it essentially and was like i know what that is that's like santa monica pier i don't need to do that i and i was wrong i was completely right like there's so i i maybe Pier. I don't need to do that. And I was wrong. I was completely wrong. Like, there's so, I maybe am, I don't know. I'm maybe not the biggest fan of the Santa Monica Pier. It's a little like all off the shelf there, I feel.

Yeah, I don't like the Santa Monica Pier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not great. You know what it is. Yeah, you look at it. It's too clean. You know what you get.

Whereas this thing, like, you wouldn't expect like, like rides with mythology and rides with surprises and you see the you know the wooden roller coaster like oh okay yeah wooden roll i know by a beach i know what that's like you wouldn't expect that it uh you know almost threw you out of it entirely kelly like there's a yeah and that it's a historical landmark instead like there's uh there's stories and surprises with everything here i feel yeah also with the boardwalk um there's like a discovery aspect to everything because they're not like super streamlined and you know where everything is i mean unless you go there all the time but like there's like because they kind of like don't

bother to make everything super slick you're kind of just like finding yourself on certain rides and then you're like oh i guess i'll go on this ride and then it turns out like it's this huge dark ride that's underneath the entire boardwalk you know and and and there's kind of like this feeling that you discovered it right you know yeah that is that is the best kind of feeling at one of these places is feeling like you've done something you've uncovered something because it does happen even like if you're like you know we were told to go with this ride sinbad's voyage in tokyo disney and we got on it and we were like i we had no idea what it was we loved it it's one of our favorite rides but it felt like you know what we kind of discovered this yeah we didn't even it's really just your brain playing a trick on

you because you didn't know anything about it but it is a feeling of like i did something here if there's nobody telling you this is an incredible classic so get ready and love this like if you don't have any of that build up and just get to big experiences. You're just following like a group of middle schoolers and you're like, I guess I'll just go where they're going. Right. And then afterward,

you're like, I have discovered something. Everyone can come around, gather around. And then you're DMing Podcast of the Ride and you're like, guys,

I have a really not well-known ride I'd like to talk to you about. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. For sure. That happens all the time. I looked up wipeout real quick uh on just on youtube to see if there's another one

wipeout apparently is in the very common name among a wide variety of oh yeah yeah like you just look at you yeah on youtube and it's like one of it's just one of those circle things that spins around one of its uh one of yeah which is not as fun one of them is just one of those circle things that spins around. One of it's... Weak. Yeah, which is not as fun. One of them is like a weird arm with like some kooka arm chair kind of Harry Potter things. I think it just spins. So I guess Wipeout at this point, you can't... Oh yeah, Wipeout. There's one where it's like a long chair of people in an arm.

It's like Wipeout is used for many things, but I cannot see another one that looks exactly like that one so maybe that is truly unique well i i've been to a million carnivals or fairs or stuff that have like the bobsleds or the himalayans or and it's it's yeah it's always one of two things but like yeah stuff that's generic that they can call um any rides you know the log ride the log ride uh yeah it's not like an original character say like uh my friend my boardwalk card i came across him my boardwalk rechargeable card he's got a great attitude he's in the safety video for the giant dipper. So I guess you pay for things at this park by putting money on a card. And they have, in the recent past, made their mascot one of these cards with legs, with very scrawny little ant legs and 3D eyeballs. He's very strange.

The voice is strange. Yeah, yeah. I was creeped out by the video I watched where he explains how he works, which has a lot of odd doublespeak. And like, so just make sure you swipe me and don't lose me because other people are going to want me

and then they'll have me and they'll have the money on me and not you. It gets very confusing. This guy talking about you, talking to you about himself. But then it really did you see this one, Jason, where then he suddenly it cuts and there's four of him. He multiplied. Yeah, I haven't seen that. You was right.

I did. I did have the reaction of like, this guy's got a good attitude. But what is he trying to hide and it appears uh multiple man powers is what he's trying to hide that reminds me of um i was uh there's this commercial that's been happening a lot lately uh which is like the colo guard commercial which they've also decided to anthropomorphize a like colorectal test. And the like little box comes up to this guy on the beach

and he's like, I'm ColoGuard. And the guy is like with, I assume his wife and ignoring his wife to have a full-on conversation with like the box. And he's like, I can tell you if you have like this and that and whatever. And it just is a similar thing where you're like i can tell you if you have like this and that and whatever and it it just is a similar thing where you're like why did you make this a character like you couldn't you you don't need to have it be a character hey buddy don't look at her look at me

eyes on me eyes on me eyes on me now put me up your asshole if you want to know if you're sick there he is colo guard holo guy i've never seen cola. There he is, Kologard. Kologard. I've never seen Kologard. Here he is with a hat and a whistle like a referee. He's blowing and he has little he has cheeks. He has cheek puffs. Wow. This is great IP.

Kologard has cheeks. Don't think just because he's a box of colorectal tests doesn't mean he can't have cheeks. Wow. We have to subject him to the podcast the ride test real quick. Is Colo Guard cute? No.

Colo Guard is a criminal. Hmm. How so? Why is he a criminal? Yeah, he's trying to help. I don't. I don't. That's okay.

The best villains think they're trying to help, Mike. I don't trust him. First of all, why is he everywhere? Why is he there? He's everywhere. Why did he follow you to the beach? I'm not saying. He's in your bathroom.

Look, I don't know his motivations. I don't know what's in his heart. But if I'm judging him purely aesthetically, I think he's cute. His face is a colon, by the way. That's true. But it's like it's blue. It's shades of blue. And it's a kind of you could just mistake it for maybe some sort of symbol.

Wait, is it? Wait, the shape on his face is a colon? Like intestines. You see how it goes down? Is his nose the anus? Yeah Anus I guess It's not cute though I think

It's not cute because you know His nose is the anus I think he's cute despite the fact that his nose is the anus Okay I'm not telling you you have to say he's cute I'm just judging my personal opinion. I do think Kolo Guard is cute. I don't know if Jason's that.

Kolo Guard versus my boardwalk card, one will fall, like Godzilla versus Kong. Yeah. I like Kolo Guard more than my boardwalk card. Cute, I'm not sure is the right word. I think he's likable, but he's not like a child. So I think it's weird to call him Clippy. Yeah, yeah. A little too much like Clippy.

I don't think Clippy is cute. I don't mind Clippy. Jason? I don't know if I'd call him cute. What do you think? I do think he's cute. Thank you. All right.

What? Yeah. I think he's cute, and I love love a practical I'm a practical guy You know this kit Makes sense to me I mean the kit makes sense I just don't get why He needs to like follow you everywhere And be a guy

He seems needy It's odd that he's alive It's like did a wizard enchant a Colo guard box and He comes to life one night you're right when you say he seems needy he seems like the kind of guy where like if you're upset about something he's like but i need you to tell me that i'm doing a good job making you feel better comforting you yes yes right right right he's that he does something wrong and then it's like you but it's

actually on you yeah me out yes i agree i mean the pillsbury doughboy i think is cute but he's also one of the neediest characters yes um and so i think it's a similar vibe with him he obviously it makes cookies and doesn't ask people to shit in a box for a side for him in him he says it's in him he's's the box. You're shitting in him. Yeah, I mean, you're shitting in Kologard. Wait, that's what the test is? You shit in a Kologard? You drop off your stool sample, and then they do a test. Clearly, this is a test that I haven't done, and maybe I need to.

Maybe I need to get Kologard. Or are you playing too dumb? You're like, wait, this is what? You do what? I truly did not know until this time what a colorectal test involved. I didn't know that you shit in a little box. Well, you don't go in the box. You go in like a...

It wasn't the box. You go in this little plastic trash can that comes in the box. Yeah, and you put that in the box. Okay, so you would take this little plastic thing out of Kola Gar. You don't have to open the lid of this box with a face that we've all been looking at and poop into him.

No, no, no. He's like the outside of a porta potty. You know what I'm saying? He's like not the part that's holding the poo. He's like holding the thing that's holding the poo. Oh, sure. Right, right. I mean, it would be fun if you were to put it in there and he goes, thank you. Like in the box, we talk a little bit.

Or if you take too long, he goes, I'm hungry. Ironically. That's just flavor. Some of the food offerings at the santa cruz beach boardwalk uh might be helpful to you if you need to use a look card in moving things along it's all like deep fried twinkies and you know uh corn dogs and yeah nachos and and that sort of thing um the you know if you uh take a step back in time this struck me as potentially something despite it being from 1933 something that jason might dig today which is winnie's turnover pies yes and where you can get hot chicken pie for 15 cents there is a substantial historical blog uh on the santa cruz beach boardwalk website and i read a long post about the ownership history

of winnie's turnover pies there's been a lot of turnover at winnie's turnover a lot of turnover and changing tastes i mean a lot this park, Seaside Park's always subject to changing tastes. You know, there used to be the Plunge, a massive indoor chlorinated saltwater pool, which is now... Wow. What is it called? Neptune's Kingdom, I think it's called now.

And it's miniature golf and arcade. Yes, that miniature golf is like Blacklight miniature golf. Very good. Very fun. Yeah, this whole place grew out of the about of of the bath the big bath facility and the the thing that i copy pasted right under that photo of turnover pies is the phrase visitors could swim in the heated plunges

and eat fancy turtle soup at the casino grill. Oh, man. Mass baths and turtle soup, you know, that's what you do in 1895. You are what you eat. I feel like if you're sitting in a hot bath,

you're like basically turtle soup and then you're eating turtle soup. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Anytime. I mean, the shredder would have loved it. Would have been so all into it.

He said that a lot, right? And he's going to turn him into turtle soup? He said tonight. Well, I think the first Nintendo game is he says, tonight I dine on turtle soup, I believe is the quote from the Shredder. What if he did it? What if Shredder killed him and then ate them in a soup? And that was the end of the Ninja Turtle.

And then it was like the end. Really fast credits. Yeah. There's a very dark series happening right now. And I have not read the second issue, but it's the future and only one turtle is alive. I've heard about this. It's called The Last Ronin.

Yeah. You read it? I've read the first issue so far. I read both. Lots of fun reveals So maybe that happens Maybe Shredder is got a bowl of something Full page splash of just Him eating the bowl of turtle soup

It's just lots of panels Everything is a full page splash Of Shredder Tasting soups With the comic clinking Mouth chomping Wiping his mouth Picking a little fleck

Like a little bit of orange bandana Out of his teeth And you know that's Michelangelo In the second issue, spoiler alert They do eat eggs So they might be building to a larger More ornate field Turtle eggs? No, not turtle eggs No, they do eat eggs. So they might be building to a larger, more ornate field. Oh, turtle eggs?

Turtle eggs? No, not turtle eggs. No, just like regular eggs, but they're hard to find in this, you know. Who do the turtles eat eggs in this series? Or does Shredder? Do turtles eat eggs? I don't want to spoil anything. These issues are hard to track down.

I asked at my comic shop if they had had issue two for mike and they kind of chuckled like no no like it came out two weeks ago and they're like well wiped out so yeah it's almost comic book man thing to do in real life by the way just looked it up yeah like little grogu yeah um hey i got another uh uh animal who eats unorthodox things right here. Look at Leo the paper eater. Wow. This is a good idea. Wow.

This was a way to get people to clean up trash. This thing called people over and then made chomping sounds. So it encourages kids to put paper in them. It called people over? then made chomping sounds so it encourages kids to put paper in him it called people over like it okay question was it like and you may not know this this might be unfair was it like pre-recorded sounds just every once in a while or was there a person like hiding with a microphone that would like see people and call out to them or my guess is pre-recorded loop i think maybe and then maybe when you put something in it triggers right chomping sounds num num nums or something i don't like how round

his mouth is i wish it were just that teeth more realistic lion it was like more mouth shape like i just don't like i don't like how far i'd probably have to put my hand in to drop whatever. You know what I'm saying? Keep going. Yeah. Keep going. Deeper. Deeper.

Touch my uvula. Get your elbow in. Get your elbow in there. Yeah, it is a little odd. Yeah, it was just a trash can, though, at the base of its... I mean, obviously, it's a disembodied head. I assume it wasn't like a shredder. There was on a paper...

No, I'm not talking about the shredder. I'm talking about a paper shredder. Nightmare. A paper shredder in there? Jesus. I don't think so. I don't think there's like a garbage disposal in this lion's... In this cute lion's mouth.

Seems dangerous. Do we think that lion is cute yes yeah yeah yeah we're all in agreement unfortunately he's cute leo the paper eater is cute cuter than the colorectal box um what have we what have we not talked about you well in terms of these cool rides you want to hit um haunted castle a little bit it's kind of it's it's not quite the uh cave train but it's pretty good too yeah i actually went on that before i went on the cave train and i had you know like zero expectations because um you know a lot of the outdoor rides just seem very carnivally um like the tilt-a-whirl that they have is the is the kind that they're it's

literally just like grating and you just lean against it and they just put a little chain thing in front of you and then when it goes up you just hope you don't fall out um so everything seems very like lo-fi very like basic i don't know so when i saw you see the sign and it just says like haunted castle and there's like you know sounds and you're kind of like okay this is just going to be what like some cardboard cutouts or something and like not but it is a very long and b if you don't know that most of it takes place underneath where you start out, it's quite delightful being like, how far down are we going to go? You know?

Oh, does it descend? I don't think I could tell that from the, I think it does descend. Wow. Wow. Yeah. There's a lot of,

you know, again, um, weirdly, like a lot of like singular animatronics that either like pop out at you or like are down a hallway and you're like oh what's that um but they also have like fun wigs and t-shirts on some of the animatronics like some of the skeletons are wearing like santa cruz boardwalk t-shirts so it's like oh someone from the boardwalk got stuck in the haunted castle

yeah there's a lot of like creatures and skeletons and stuff but then at some point there's a bunch of skeletons who are all burying a santa cruz surfer dude alive it's really creepy and he says like oh no man i don't know what it is but like he you can sense his character big time the voice acting is superb in this one really good yeah there well there's a lot of like notable characters you talk to you like the uh there's a there's a skeleton who's holding his own skull separately from his body i remember that being a fun performance and then there's like a creepy british guillotine guy yeah because that's the end of your trip through the haunted castle is you get guillotined and then it and then it goes then it's the bright light of your back outside and that's

it i think this this right ends with your death yeah there's a yeah you are dead a great effect where there's like an alligator or a crocodile in the distance and it comes towards you under a dock and every board on the dock like yeah that's really cool splits down the middle that is so cinematic it's really cool i was really yeah that was awesome yeah there's a scary rabbit that's being cooked by a skeleton you got projections on bus a la haunted mansion yeah um this is this is great and i love like um the the genre of ride like like the one that i'm very nostalgic for growing up the the scary dark ride in uh balboa island uh in orange county that where you're if you're combining different mythologies of scary stuff if it's like uh full knight's armor moving at you and then like a rat coming out but then

also dinosaurs yeah or big scary snakes or like and ghosts and pirates like how much let's just all the scary things all in one place that is fantastic like mix them all up you know very confusingly i like i like a ride that feels very um like koki in its creation right because they're like well like what's scary like um skeletons right but then also an alligator okay um and it's like very like genre mixing because like if i were thinking haunted castle first of all i would think ghosts but there's like a billion skeletons and then there's also an alligator like that aspect like there's like a whole swamp section that you go through which is like you just wouldn't think oh haunted castle which i love that about that like i love that they were

just kind of like i don't know let's like throw a bunch of shit in there and like hope it's scary like they got bored with the castle premise and are like, all right, we need something else. It's a long, this is a five minute ride. We already made the sign. We can't change it. Yeah, but the haunted castle's backyard. It's marsh backyard. They got to go there.

The castle would have a swamp. Yeah, they wouldn't have a field, they'd have a swamp. If you were watching like a movie version of it with this idea sometimes i feel like i'm watching a movie where i go i feel like 45 minutes and they ran out of the premise and they were like well what are we gonna do now and then they like throw something wild at it which can go bad or less bad sometimes but like for this for a ride situation fantastic bring it on bring it on um they also simultaneously they have a ghost blasters did you see this i did not go on i did not do ghost blasters um just because a listener tweeted at us about ghost blasters recently asking why the nickelodeon park at the mall of america why do

they have a ghost blasters and it's not like danny phantom or something to clarify to answer your question Ghost Blasters is a pre like a prefab ride it's a design dark ride by the Sally Corporation that parks can license and install and it's good to go and it saves money and time by installing a bunch of

unrelated parks kind of across the country yes a bunch of parks have Ghost Blasters and you can go to the sally dark rides website and like look at the like you know brochure like the digital we could buy that or scott could get it and put it in the backyard right now yeah so are you allowed to add your own zest to it or is it like, are there like licensing restrictions? I think depending on your budget, you are able to customize to different levels. I'm sure that you customize yourself though,

is what I'm asking. Like, could you be like, Oh, I want to make this not necessarily existing IP, but like, maybe I want to make this luau themed. Like,

could I do that? Or are they like, you're not allowed to represent our product? That's a great question i bet they never check in on it again i bet like it's out technically that if you ask the question they'd say no but if you just did it nobody would ever find out right that's true if like yeah if we bought one of these rides put it in scott's backyard could we change all the characters into like like characters we talk about a podcast to ride like ringo star or i love lucy

guest star frank nelson could we put those characters on this ride kolo guard kolo guard one of my favorite characters in fiction uh could a ghost poop into kolo guards top yes and would sally ride corporation be upset if one of their ghosts pooped in Kologuard. I don't know. The Kologuard company might be upset. Assuming that you got the correct licensing for the IP that you're using. For Kologuard. Yes. We may have to do an analogous Kologuard. Call him like

Poopbox or Mr. Poopbox or something. Right. And then everyone would be like, but I know what you mean. You mean classic Kologuard. Right. And then if we get sued, we say, well, this is parody law. Yeah. This is a classic parody sorry yeah fair use um i bet i bet there's leeway i bet there's leeway with it it feels like if they're just licensing i it feels like i don't know if sally rides corporation is trying to make a ghost blasters tv show i'm not sure how precious with their ip they are i think they should at this point because everything else that's ever been in a thing is becoming a show.

That's true. I bet if you talk to them, they're like, do whatever you want. I don't care. I'm guessing, but maybe not. So let's just gather the probably $7 million it takes to buy all the parts of Ghost Blasters. And then we can do whatever we want. Yeah, you know what? Better to ask forgiveness than...

Absolutely. Permission, yeah. And that applies to Sally Ride Corporation. In the Kologard ride you're going to make. Yeah, by the way, it's mostly going to be the Kologard ride you're going to make. Yeah, it's mostly, by the way, it's mostly going to be the Kologard ride. Yeah, yeah. With a little bit of the knights in white satin stuff that we're able to get from their other innovations. Is this called the rectal blasters?

I think the only, like, the only laser game with a score where you're also curing rectal cancer along the way nice wow yeah that's yes that's the that's the ride yeah pretty cool yeah if only were that simple in the real world you just take a laser gun and blast away the rectal cancer but it

it imagines a better world where that is what's possible someday yeah yeah and at the end, a generic animatronic called like rock and roll. Older man says like, great job, peace and kindness, peace and kindness.

That's our generic rink. That's rock and roll. Older man. Yeah. And then you get a child's t-shirt with his face on it at the end for your child. Generic rock and roll man um there's been a weird history of ip at this place uh do you know they had uh they were just using popeye

for a while popeye olive oil late 80s early 90s i was watching an old commercial and then popeye and olive oil ran by like what are you talking about? So just for like, I don't know, like a decade, they had Popeye and now they don't. Was he present at the park? Yeah, you can take a picture of Popeye at the boardwalk. I love that. Oh, that's stunning. Popeye's weird. Popeye, I mean, it's universal now.

And then there's the creepy island off the coast of Italy where you can hang out with the Popeye characters. And at one point they were also in Santa Cruz, California. That's so funny. Weird travels. There's also, did you guys come across what was in the Haunted Castle space long, long ago in the 30s? A ride called Dante's Inferno? Oh, I missed this.

Oh, I saw a headline about it, but then I didn't click it. So they've always had this space for a scary ride. And I think there was some iteration of a haunted... It's mostly been Haunted Castle for a while. I think the current version came in in 2010. But when this space opened in the 30s, it was a ride called Dante's Inferno,

sub-headline, A Trip to Hades. So this, long before Mr. Toads, was an attraction that was a trip through hell. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Pretty crazy. So I'm assuming you probably die at some point and then you're there?

Or maybe they're just like, welcome to hell. Or maybe it's like Cave Train, where you're just like, you're a tourist. You're visiting hell. And maybe to scope it out, see if you want to live there someday. But I don't know any premise beyond that. It's very weird and creepy. Like seeing like 1930s plaster representing the stalagmites and stalactites that you would find in hell. Like the facade is really fantastic, but I don't know what happened

once you were in there. I don't know if it was either really tame or like unbelievably morality tale terrifying. It could go either way. It could really go either way. It's too bad, yeah. It's too bad there's not like an old newsreel to document.

Definitions of hell were very different. It could be like one room is just a bachelor in a studio apartment, and the next is an unmarried woman. A 30-year-old unmarried woman. A bathing suit in multiple pieces. Couples in the same bed on TV. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's just like two beds being pushed together over and over again. No! Like, no! Don't do it. And then it splits down the middle and they tumble into hell. Oh, that's great. That's a cool effect. Beautiful, beautiful.

People were hospitalized regularly going on this ride. They were so aghast. That band's not big at all. It's a small band. No! Get them on the cave train stat cure it yeah um i've also got i've got another thing in the realm of like uh scary stuff and horrors that occurred uh so lots and lots of movies been filmed filmed at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Lost Boys, yes. Us recently.

Killer Clowns from Outer Space. So lots of varying degrees of creepy movies. But I didn't know. I have never seen the film Sudden Impact, which is a Dirty Harry movie. So Clint Eastwood starred and directed this scene so the movie climaxes at the Santa Cruz Beach

Boardwalk and this is awesome. This is one of the, you know, we were just seeing a lot of movie uses of theme parks for our fake theme park Final Four. This isn't a fake theme park. Boy, this is a great theme park scene. You'll see. And he kicks it off with the

iconic line itself. So buckle up for this. Come on. Make my day. Scary guy holding a woman hostage on top of the giant dipper. She punches her way out.

Dirty Harry shoots him. Many times. He falls off the coaster over and over again. Yes, yes, yes. Then. Electrified into the water. Oh no. Look at that.

He falls off the giant dipper through the glass of the carousel lands on a carousel horse but it's not a horse it's uh he's very unlucky because it's a unicorn and the horn punctures him quite bloodily right through the chest stunning cool huh stunning wow yeah what a little theme park action sequence I'm so jealous of it really great and I love the Santa Cruz boardwalks uh just

devil may care attitude about being portrayed in this way of like being a place where a person could fall and be impaled on their carousel I love that we don't give a shit just give us the money and whatever you want to do, whatever you want to manipulate, go for it. I love it.

Yeah, geez. You know, there was a movie in the 60s. I might be getting this wrong. 40 Pounds of Trouble that was filmed in Disneyland. I think Tony Curtis is in it. And in that movie, it's just like a guy runs around. He's chased by another guy and then everyone runs, but then they emerge safely and that movie it's just like a guy runs around he's chased by another guy and then everyone runs but then they emerge safely and that's it it is the tamest action you've ever seen and that's what

disneyland would allow cut to santa cruz beach ball like all of these horror films and crazy shit and then this impaling and i yeah boy it's devil may care they're taking risks the in in Lost Boys the um you know the bridge that they're supposed to be on by the boardwalk so you can like walk across that to get to the boardwalk you're supposed to walk on like the side of so that basically there's a railway right and it's like on this bridge with like planks. And each of the planks is about, I don't know, five or six inches apart. Like pretty, pretty wide. And then to the side, there's like this safe part for the pedestrians to walk. Okay.

But of course, if you are a rebellious teen or when I was in college, you can walk along where the railway is and it's pretty scary because like once you're you know so far you can't really like you can't really jump over easily to where the pedestrians are supposed to be so you're kind of like tempting fate by like being where a train could hit you and you're very high above the water. So if you're scared of heights, that's a river at that point, it goes over a river that feeds into the Monterey Bay.

Yeah. Um, yeah. And, would you believe, I don't have any close by, but, um,

very popular for engagement photos and influencer bullshit. Uh, I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. If someone sure. I'm sure. That's a good way to put it. If someone tried to propose to me on that,

I would push them into the ocean or the river. And they would fall, or push them onto the carousel. Oh my gosh. Come this way. Perfectly impaled.

What have we not talked about? Kelly, was there anything new, any other odd memories of this place or things you ran into while you were there? No, I guess I just want to. Okay, this is like a, I have to do this because I grew up in the South Bay of, which is Torrance, like not the NorCal South Bay.

And I have to give a shout out to the boardwalk I grew up with, which is the Redondo Beach boardwalk. They had this really creepy boardwalk area that had basically just a little tilt-a-whirl, which was clown-themed. They had this machine that I will never forget, which is you put in... That machine has been there since it opened. You put in a quarter and then like marionettes dance for you and it's like a little scene of like some kind of drama i guess between the marionettes and so they dance for you so i i do have to you know it's now being closed and they're

putting in condos there which is very very sad um yeah i didn't know that that's a bummer yeah i've been there that's really cool i love it yeah i love it yeah so that i do have to say that was my first boardwalk love but the santa cruz boardwalk is so iconic um do you do you recall am i being insulting to this place that you love from my trips down there i recall it like uh uh stinking around there yeah yeah it smells like fish because it's right next to this open air fish market and the way that it is set up is like it's not really that open air because like it's like a like a c-shape and so like at the curve or i guess a u at the bottom curve of the u is the fish market and then just right to the right is like this boardwalk thing with like uh games and rides and stuff but it's all enclosed

so like all the air just like goes into it just funnels straight into and there's a really like um uh like no air escaping parking garage right there. I've ridden my bike through carbon monoxide parking lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's like really tight. So, yeah, carbon monoxide and fish all merge. It's like all blowing into like a tilt a whirl.

That's heaven to me. I mean, that sounds great. It was. I loved it. I loved it. But it is going away. So I'm very sad. But there's still the Santa Cruz Board great. Heaven on Earth. I loved it, but it is going away, so I'm very sad. But there's still the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

Yeah. Can I mention the Coconut Grove? We haven't mentioned that. Spelled an anachronistic spelling of coconut with an A in the middle. This is now used for, like, weddings and conferences and that sort of thing. Back, you know, we were talking about changing tastes, but in the 30s and 40s, it would host big bands like, you know,

fronted by Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and another reoccurring podcast, The Ride character, Xavier Coogan, mentioned on the website. Well, of course. Great. That's great. There's also a... You're welcome, listeners. Xavier Coogan is back. It's 2021. That's great. Um, there's also a, you're welcome. Listeners. Xavier Coogan is back.

It's 2021. More Zave. Uh, there, uh, there's a portion of one of the buildings called the boardwalk historian and where you can learn more about this place. And,

um, I will push anyone out of the way. If you tell me, would you like to learn about the history of this seaside town? Yes, I absolutely would. Hey, and one more little thing about the history of this place. They had a ride called Autorama. Autorama, I'm not sure, but it was a ride a lot like the Autopia, opened in 1961.

And unlike the Autopia, it had a guardrail. So Walt Disney heard about this place and heard that it wasn't constantly maiming children like the Autopia was at the time, which was just Roman free, no guide rail. So the company Arrow built the thing, and they built a lot of the early

Disney rides, so they said, why don't you come check it out? So Walt Disney, in 1963, went up to the Santa Cruz don't you come check it out? So Walt Disney in 1963 went up to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, checked it out, looked around and was like, all right, we should probably do a guardrail. I think we better do it. So that's why there's a guardrail on the Autopia. But his trip to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk led to this photo of a bunch of people. And in the center is Walt Disney smoking a cigarette. Wow. Right under the giant dipper. Right under the dipper, yeah.

Yeah. Having a nice puff. Nice crease in those pants. You can tell he was sitting for a while. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. Very wrinkly pants. Very wrinkled pants. He looks tired.

Tired. Yeah. Worn down. Soon to die. Dead in three years of this photo. Smoking. worn down. Soon to die. Dead in three years of this photo. Of smoking. Well, yeah, the dang Lost Boys are creeping around. They crave this delicious

blood. I cannot believe that the Santa Cruz Boardwalk influenced someone to make, like through good example, to make their ride safer. Because the Santa Cruz Boardwalk is very, you know wow this very ride that he's under you said does not feel safe to you to this day and yet an inspired

safety yeah i mean it's it's i feel like it's safe if you sit next to somebody that's similar in height to you right you know so your plus it up would be uh maybe uh try to even out the size of people going on the giant dipper try to get those leg uh heights and widths in line but other than that to this day they might have changed their lap bars to you know how some places now do an individual like they just slice them down the middle so it goes to you know what i mean oh yeah so maybe they've done that but at the time when i rode in you know 2007 or whatever it was one and um i sat next to someone who was a good foot taller than me so i so i had a lot of space to fly away. I need to find someone 6'3", possibly. Hey, you could ride next to the guy that rode next to me.

Okay, well, if you know him. I'll hook you guys up. Yeah, let me know. His name was Mike, too. Two Mikes. Now we have four Mikes. We have the name. We may as well be best friends.

Wow, and he knows a lot about Xavier Cougat, too. Yeah, huge, huge Zave head head and now i'm on board i think we're all gonna like this new mic we'll uh we'll we'll hit him up soon but uh but but for now uh kelly uh you survive podcast the ride thank you so much for being here this is a delight to talk about this delightful place with you. And let's exit through the Octopus's Garden-esque gift shop. Is there anything that you would like to plug? Sure. Check out my podcast, Teen Creeps. It's the podcast where Lindsay Cate and I talk YA Pulp Fiction.

Also check out Exile. It's my narrative horror podcast. It's out in its entirety you can find it wherever you find your podcasts uh follow me on everything social media twitch all that kelly new g k-e-l-l-y-n-u-g-e-e fantastic uh cool cool and as for us you can find us on lots of things also at podcast the ride we got merch available in our TeePublic store. And for three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast the Ride, the second gate at patreon.com slash podcast the ride. Well, you know, I don't know where to do it, guys. But what I'd like to propose that we all try to go find some hot chicken pies.

Might be more than 15 cents, but if we find a place, let's all meet. I think Jason knows where the hot chicken pies are. So if Jason could take a second out of from warning every boardwalk that their time is imminent. He's so busy, though. You know, climate change is very chaotic. And, you know, just be careful. I'm sure they're designing you know with that in mind there is a pier there is a pier

not a ton on it anymore but you know be careful out there yeah be careful peers be careful peers and good day thanks for listening bye bye

forever dog this has been a forever dog production And good day. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram,

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