Podcast: The Ride - Test Track

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

We look at both versions of Epcot's first major thrill ride. Disneyland Magic Key Program 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. Warning, the following podcast contains three stereotypical men with high automotive IQs talking about engines that go vroom vroom, horns that go beep beep, and bumpers that are also mouths that say ka-chow. All this plus examining what's under the hood of Epcot's first thrill ride. It's Test Track on today's podcast, The Ride. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Okay, we're going to start you off on an accelerated riff climb. This is designed to test the integrity of the comedians. Let's put up a few co-hosts.

How about Mike and Jason? Yep. Hello. Mike is here. This is me. Checking in, setting up the podcast safety cones. Fantastic. We're going to weave in and out those riffs with facts and non sequiturs and long tangents

that really have nothing to do with the attraction today. That's right. And we're going to weave in and out first using the not using the anti-lock brakes. And then we'll do it again just to show how they work. Now, if this whole routine feels a bit indulgent, you're absolutely right. But that's what a podcast is all about. Hey, I'll see you out there in that topic. Yeah.

I should. You know what? In retrospect, during the bit, I should should have said And we're going to be Experiencing some tangents About the bad boys of Boston I'm of course Talking about Aerosmith But I didn't

No you were right the first time I'll edit it in I'll edit it in after the fact No no It's what it is So it seems seamless Edit out the one you just said Alright fine

Hey guys it's Test Track We're talking Test Track What I just did is from That was kind of an Appropriated excerpt from Test Track 1.0. Yes. Which I think I know more about, I would say. Yes.

Part of doing this episode, like doing Test Track now, I knew I was going to Epcot specifically in a few weeks. And like, oh, maybe that's a fun one. And I wondered if I would go because I haven't gotten to see 2.0 the tronified remake oh you haven't seen i haven't i didn't get to do it i was wondering if i would i remain just intrigued and you guys are gonna have to fill me in on that yeah um so real quick i mean test we'll go off to a hot start here test track um if you don't know what we're talking about is basically a ride where you are in the car while they test a car that's the gist of it yes uh um notably kevin rafferty the imagineer uh refers to it in his book as epcot's first e-ticket thrill ride oh okay that is accurate um so yeah so they've done some changes to it over the years.

Now, it's neon. Now, it looks like a cosmic bowling night, essentially. Yeah. It looks like that. Circus Circus, I think, is doing... Is it Circus Circus doing like a neon amusement park? I feel like a lot of times there's like gimmicks for places where it just goes... It's neon now. Like, you can go see it in its neon lights.

By the way, that works on me. Oh, I was going to say that works on me oh i was gonna say that works on me too always yeah any golf whatever it is yes great uh glowing blue and green neon i think is always in style and like watching both versions of test track back to back today to refresh myself i was like oh that second version is pretty slick and dynamic even though it's from 20 nearly 10 years ago at this point. Yeah. What I'm calling the new one, yes, is pretty old still at this point.

Right. So I'm already getting into my feelings on Test Track, and they're very mixed. And I apologize if this is controversial. I'm sure. No, no, no. But the Neon is not. There's one of the cars now. Yeah.

The Neon does not do a ton ton it's not oh is that such a big deal because i was like oh wow they tronified it you know because tron had come out in the shanghai disney and i was like oh maybe this is really going to give this thing some juice because at the time i the time i had gone on it before i was like a little let down because i was like when i was a kid it was like yeah this is gonna be awesome and we love that 60 miles per hour whatever 45 what is it uh it goes up to specifically 64.9 miles an hour at top speed i apologize i guess um but i was like do i this is fine this ride is fine now and maybe because there's sort of a is there maybe an upkeep issue with it like it maybe has not been the most finely tuned

I feel like it came out of the gate hot and I remember feeling similar in the in the mid 2000s well yeah and let's not forget it it they were plugging it they were promoting it for so long and it had so many production issues that it opened much later

than it was supposed to so i feel like it was coming soon forever yeah because the former attraction in the space world of motion closed in 96 and then this uh test track the first version doesn't open till officially march 1999 but it did soft opening starting in december. So like months of soft openings while they fine-tuned it. It's pretty long. Yeah, and it took forever to build. I remember a lot of build-up, a lot of hype. Yeah.

I think what I would say is I bet I would have given this like an A-plus when I went on it as a kid, and now it's like C-plus. Huh. Maybe. Interesting. Maybe this is, I'm coming in hot. I apologize. But I'm a little like, I don't need to go on it again.

Well, that's what, you know, I was weighing that being there recently. You made the decision. You're looking at that line number. You're really weighing the line number. I think I was looking at 80. And I don't know. Was that worth an 80? No. Corralling the line number. I think I was looking at 80. And I don't know. Was that worth an 80? No.

Corralling the big group. That's a lot of beer missed if we hit that 80. Yeah. Yeah. No, 80 minutes. Yeah. There's no fast pass. If it's a fast pass, okay.

Yeah. And knowing that if you're a bunch of Californifornians rolling in i know that the reaction to that might be it was cool but it's not as good as radiator springs racers yes again we're jumping all around i'm sorry it's my fault the story of it more yeah but isn't that what you might and i like now i don't feel like super negative about it i don't want to i don't want i don't want to like uh you know start start things on a bummer note, but I think you do view this, you have to view it at this point as the building block to other tracks.

I agree. Which it's a crucial building block. It unlocked a lot of, you know, great technologies and this entire ride mechanism that I think just has been topped by the other things that used it. When we were down altogether in the fall of 2019, I think I was the only one who went off and did it. And I don't know if you guys had left the park or I was there another day

and just hopped on it in the single rider line. You found time between testing various boats and the wait time on boats and how long a tram took to get to the boat. Let's see how they apply to urban planning. And you had different insoles in your shoes and you wanted to see how the different insoles reacted to the different pavements in Epcot. Yeah. You just wanted to test those as well. How long does it take to get from the raclette cheese station to like the French cream puff station? Right.

And how do your Achilles tendons feel after you've walked there? As the history, modern current history has shown me not well. That's true. That's a good point. I'm sorry. I don't want to bring that up. But I'm working on it. So I did go on it and the ride itself, I did like it.

It was feeling very rough. And I think it recently closed for like a month or so for refurbishment. That said, the first impression after I, of course, designed my sim car that will ride on the sim track. And we'll get to that rigmarole. They put us in the car. We put our seatbelt on and we moved maybe three feet. And then someone slammed the emergency stop button on the console because someone's seatbelt was loose.

And it felt like I had just gotten clotheslined across the chest. And it was like, oh, my God. This isn't a great first start. And I've ridden some rickety rides, but I was like, oh, that was a shock to the system so you got like uh you were you were in a car and it was tested on you like the the system worked honestly i yeah an extra little test worked both practically and storyline wise yeah luckily luckily you had those seat belts there imagine if you didn't they worked as they should have. Yeah, that's right. You would have flown out of the car like the Ralph Wiggum gif.

The first four feet of the ride, and I splattered across the job, peeling myself off the track. Now let's try it without the seatbelts. Moaning, full car of people, children. Did the person that didn't have their seatbelt on, wouldn't that have thrown them out of the vehicle? No, it was like in, but it was like, I think, a little loose or something.

But like, they didn't do, they did first checks, but they didn't do double checks. It was a very stupid reason. Yeah, maybe they didn't tug on the dirty yellow straps. It's very important. Yeah. I may be bringing some personal baggage into it too,

because the last time that I went on it I was like was I taking a picture that must have been what it was and like we were we just gotten off the ride and then I'm I'm probably to either I'm just dilly-dallying or like fixing something that was loose or like where's my sunglasses? For some reason, I'm like in the unload area, essentially. And then a car arrives so loud and with such squealing that everybody in the room, everybody waiting to get on other people, the employees, everybody like turns to look. It's like so jarring. And then in a true nightmare scenario, a, an employee turns to me and says you know why that happened because of you you need to keep moving you need to walk out of this area you're too close to the car so it applied the emergency and that you did that wow that's insane that's so shitty wait

how was i to know i don't know the ins and outs. I'm not hosting a theme park podcast yet. I don't know what sensors trigger what. Wow. Yeah, when was that? I don't know. Probably like 2010 or something, pre 2.0. I may have shared this story on the podcast before, but you may have been with me.

You may not have. It was the opening, coincidentallyidentally of Radiator Springs Racer and there was somebody running like kind of the area the queue area that was screaming at everyone they were it was crazy I've never seen any employee at Disney like screaming at everyone and we went to I don't remember if we were like we weren't going to go tell on them when we were telling on them for some like fast pass reason we were going to go like talk to a different supervisor somewhere. And we explained what was happening. And they were like, oh, yeah, that person's from Florida. It's a different thing over in Florida.

Like they were like alluding to like people who were at Walt Disney World scream more or they're more intense. Oh, like almost a stereotypical New Yorkian. Like they'll tell you what they think and they got at it uh-huh so I was we were like whoa really we never management right it was someone in like

like slacks and a dress shirt or well it was somebody in a definitely in an authoritative position yeah as far as because it was opening weekend and they must have gotten some reinforcements

because it was such a big deal and it was yeah because it was the whole Cars Land opening have gotten some reinforcements because it was such a big deal and it was yeah because it was the whole cars land opening the whole land it opened and somebody was really intense and then somebody from california who worked there was just like person from florida yeah i i wasn't with you during the incident but i met up with you i think right after that and you just had a stack of make good like however many in your party fast passes that seems right yeah my in your party, fast passes. That seems right.

Yeah. My memory of the whole thing is muddy. I just remember a California person selling all of Disney World out. Wow. Now, this is a talking point. These are fighting words, I think, because we certainly have listeners who work in Disney World. And I'm curious, like, do you think, are you all, look, are you all yelling at each other all the time?

That's right, I'm wondering. Man the guests. I haven't found that when we go to Disney World. No, not besides this one incident, no. Right, and this was in California. Is it only if you're working on a slot car attraction? Yeah, that you get. Like, it's something about being a floridian slot car attraction operator

yeah it gets you like almost like being a like a new york taxi cab dispatcher like louis de palma yeah exactly taxi turns everybody into louis yeah possibly wouldn't it be funny was the same person who yelled at you they yelled at us it. Whoa. It's possible. Maybe. It wasn't that far after. Yeah. A couple years later, they had to go out to California. I don't know. It could be.

Who knows? It was. Maybe somebody listening worked for that person. It's possible. Do you remember a yeller? Or they still work there. They still work at Test Track. Who knows?

Maybe. I think it could be. I don't know. This feels like the kind of thing where we might get the person. i guess i know exactly what you're talking about we also if anybody's listening that worked like opening of cars land at disneyland and there was a yeller from florida they probably remember them if you were staying at a hotel across the street you probably remember that purse they were yelling sure yeah and if you live in california and you know who this is um and you work in the parks division uh congratulations on meeting them again at lake nona your new office oh and you're you're you're

talking about everybody moving being forced to move to florida yeah the 2000 jobs they're moving to an office park next to the orlando airport runways oh man you know how you love living and working in Southern California, one of the coolest places in the country, if not the world? Well, now you live in Florida, which is about to have a Southern California-style housing crisis, so enjoy that. Wow, Jason, really bringing the episode up.

I think you made people feel much worse about it. I think they're hanging their heads in shame now. I mean, I think if I was working in Burbank, living in the San Fernando Valley and everything, and they're like, you have to go live in Florida if you want to keep your job. It's like, oh. Hmm. Well, look,

believe me, in the last couple months, I still have been like, maybe we just move to Orlando. I still think that's fine. Yeah, you're saying like, who would ever move from Burbank to Orlando? I'm like, we got one right here. Yeah, I would do it, and you would do it too. Don't act like you're above that.

I'm upset, by the way. I feel for people because Disney's forcing them to do it. Believe me. But as far as moving to Orlando, I don't know. But they've done this before. They moved like half the animation division and then moved them back a few years later. This just goes back and forth where like budgets and like tax breaks, and they're like, well, we could save

$25 million if we move everyone over here and they have to uproot their whole life. And then a couple years later, it's like, eh, never mind. You can work here again. Yeah, no, this is a rich history of doing this. Well, and Testa pointed out, too, Epic Universe

is about to open in a few years at Universal, so an arms race will probably start in florida with disney having to respond to like a whole new park oh sure yeah and that's when maybe when epic universe opens is when we decide to finally move that's when we actually put the proximity i mean we're it's just the airfare is going to get expensive so why yeah because we're gonna have to go there a lot to cover all the stuff. Because it's going to be, yeah, we're going to have to do, there'll be a CityWalk saga for whatever that like Esplanade thing is there. Because that's going to be a new, by the way, I'm just having this realization for the first time.

That's going to be like their new high-end CityWalk, basically. I don't know if it'll be called CityWalk, but it's truly, I'm just realizing it'll be shops and restaurants maybe a ride maybe other experiences and that's going to be like some sort of like ultra high-end fancy city walk that we'll have to like put on a suit and tie and go and experience all of it and then there'll probably be some sort of a wacky adventure well right because it's like an esplanade main street ticketless combo supposedly right but i will be called what would it be diamond city walk or something like what would you call what would you call the luxurious version of city walk not it's not for the common man is what i'm assuming the common man uh it's got to be some what they call things like the you know the rick caruso but it's got to be called like

esplendia or something it It's like some fake Italian. But I wish CityWalk was the Luxurionica. Cité. Cité Walk. That's what it'll be. CityWalk, you just put a couple random. I mean, also, I think we're going to want to be down there because, according to my search, the Lake Nona region is a trendy planned community

with sleek family homes and leafy gated communities. Yeah, leafy. The family-focused Nona Adventure Park has a floating obstacle course and wakeboarding. And to the south, hip boxy park features food truck-style eateries, live music, and volleyball courts. Jason, what's the problem with Lake Nona? I think we should all move to Lake Nona. I think Park SRI is moving to Lake Nona. Leafy.

What was that? Leafy, it said? It was leafy somewhere. Leafy gated communities. Are we a bunch of giraffes? We get to munch on the gates? Well, we could raise some. Ooh, yeah.

You could buy a couple black market giraffes from Animal Kingdom. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the zoning's different down there. They're going to want to attract people. So, yeah, they're going to zone it for giraffes to be running around Yeah, so we'll be down there to do the Cité walk saga

We'll see everybody in Lake Nona soon enough Yeah, we'll be there Jason's glued to his computer He's looking for something I'm looking up weed laws in Florida And they're not great That's the other thing, you're moving a bunch of people Who design theme park rides

to like a state with... You're saying oftentimes you go on a ride and you're like, what were these Imagineers smoking? Is that what you're thinking? Only because of the recent old school Imagineers talking in the news recently about drinking and smoking while designing

these rides. You mean like Rolly? You mean that single one? Rolly Crump, the only one? Oh yeah, it was that only one. None of the other ones imbibed. What other articles have been about your vaginers? No, it is Rolly. I just couldn't pull his name off the top of my head. Yeah, Tony Baxter's never like, and then I got high before I

came up with figments. Look, Lake Nona is, Lake Nona sounds sick to me. I think they're going to look the other way. Maybe Florida's been weird with we've lost before. It sounds like a fucking glossy shit hole. Sounds like a fucking nightmare. You're coming in hot and strong and sharp, Jason.

It sounds like the bad version at living at the Americana. Living on top of a mall sounds a little fun. There could never be a bad version of that, I don't think. Yeah, the Americana is a magical place I was just there today in fact Dreaming of living there Well as I've said many times

Lindsay and I thought about doing it 8 years ago We thought it would be funny But then it was like a little too expensive But you're kind of The look on your face is kind of like There's a lot of Like you're going to be telling that in 30 years. I thought about doing it 38 years ago.

Yeah, I know. I thought it was too expensive. I wasn't willing to invest in my own future and live in a place with a trolley and above a Tesla indoor store. There's a store where there's just a Tesla sitting inside. One Tesla. And you, like, go and read about it. And I guess you tell them like i would like one please and they tell you where to go i guess i don't know i'm not sure what the deal

is well eventually our code there were i think this is probably like the calls for this have died down but for like maybe eight or nine years ago was maybe the strong was like tesla should do test Tesla should do Autopia and boy very few people want that anymore uh because that would be I mean it's funny to pitch on as far as a comedic premise certainly isn't it uh the car catches on fire uh Elon Musk is waving at you while he's, I don't know, on Mescaline on Joe Rogan animatronic with Elon Musk and they're on Mescaline

and talking about HGH. The car just stops and you learn about Dogecoin for a good 25 minutes. That's right. You know, you come out of it like, I don't think I know any better

what it is than when this started. Uh-huh. It's him. Recapping Rick and Morty episodes, but he half remembers them. So there's a lot of stuff that when this started uh-huh it's it's him recapping rick and morty episodes but he half remembers them so there's a lot of stuff that's wrong uh-huh yeah that's from an old will and grace i don't know how that got in there um but no that didn't that didn't happen i assume yeah well that will not happen now um as far as a revamp of test track and i I will say Test Track, I think what I'm saying is not so wild

because of what we're, like they've tried multiple things to give it a little extra something. Like they've felt the same kind of lackingness as time has gone on because it's like, I don't know, put neon lights on it or put a little computer

where you can make like Homer's car from that first season of The Simpsons, like make a crazy colorful car contraption. But some people I think think that that did it. I think, and there are probably people listening who, and I don't know, I haven't gotten to do it, but like. Probably. I think that opinion is out there. Like, well, they did add stuff and I like the stuff.

I'm not saying I don't, it's something. It's certainly something. I think I like it better than what was there before but i guess all i'm saying is like i don't think what i'm saying is so wild because i think the imagineers felt it too wasn't like well this is a perfect thing and now we're adding a like is some people thought the guardians was a useless overlay because that was a perfectly fine experience before but i feel like before you be like test track does feel like it's got it needs a little something extra now yeah it has a little more slickness and color the overlay and stuff because you watched watching the first one i was like oh i like you know i always like john michael higgins

i love when he shows up and stuff but a lot of this these set pieces are easily acquired traffic cones and construction barriers and like yeah yeah yeah that's definitely true and even before you do kind of the big launch at the end you're passing by like a bunch of toolboxes yeah and it's um and i feel like i'm seeing so negative i'm really sorry i don't want to be so negative the first like the first version of it is is almost like the driest ride it can possibly be you know what i mean it's lacking any sort of whimsy or magic and now with the neon at least it's like it's like cool it feels a little cooler it's yeah um i watched a clip from some uh weird special that had a lot this seemed to be like a they they follow a group of people through a bunch of thrill attractions from

Disney world. And then they have like a neurologist watch the video of the people on the rides. And now this guy, this, the gentleman in the back is looking a little fearful. You can tell there's anticipation about, but right now I think they're just,

you know, hoping to have a good test track experience. Okay. Now the adrenaline's ramping up. This is a bunch of time-wasting nonsense. I don't know what the hell this was. Neurologist. It's like when they do the body language expert on Fox News.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. People are like, what is this? And they're like, yes, I see Barack Obama. He's clenching his fist, which means that he is lying about this policy agreement. And then they're like, oh, like Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly. We're like, yes, very good. Like, thank you for your analysis.

They do that stuff on CNN. They do that stuff. Oh, yeah, they do. Bernie is hunched here. Yeah, yeah. He's the back. You can't frist the back. Does Bernie have a gun?

That's a fake thing. They do a lot of places. Let me apologize to Fox News. Yeah, yeah. I want to say I'm so sorry, Fox News. They're a fine organization. Yeah, yeah. CNN and MSN suck, too.

Yeah, yeah. They're the ones to be mad at. Oh, okay. Well, you know, like, wait, what was I saying with that special? Oh, it was like a talking point in this special that unlike a lot of other attractions this is not about fantasy it is it is a real world experience and recreating a place that does exist right and then with that revamp they did distinctly take it into the realm of fantasy so i so hopefully you would you know it's still all based in how this company

tests road tests their cars yeah but if you were feeling that real world thing maybe the fantastical tronish element did it for you in the second yeah it's bad i mean it is better but but i your feeling of like it's not worth it and my feeling of like if i go down there and it's a fast pass i'll go on it but i'm not it's not 80 minutes i'll wait 80 minutes for the bad boys of boston and rock and roller coaster i wait 80 minutes for tower of terror you're right i don't i didn't blink at either of those but you aren't sure the reaction you're gonna get for like from a group as i was with like yeah is this the right like curation to do here yeah you're not i don't know i don't know what that that reaction well my dad reminded me a big point about this ride is that the wait line is long do you really want to risk it because it is prone to breaking down yeah even the more modern version

raider springs racers they say it's the third generation of this technology that breaks down pretty regularly too because it's just a lot of moving pieces. It's very complicated. Really complicated mechanism and everything. Well, let's go backwards. Let's tell the story of this thing a little more and maybe get excited about, like, what it could have been,

what it promised in 1999 and what I think it did deliver on when it opened. Yeah, so this is just a... It's a very blatantly General Motors-sponsored attraction that was replacing another original Epcot attraction, World of Motion, which was a slow-moving, despite being about transportation, it was very slow-moving. This was the opposite of a thrill ride.

Was it an Omnimover? I feel like it was an Omnimover or something mover something similar you know little cars that zip around uh i know that it was about the history of transportation and we will do an episode about it someday obviously but i just want to throw this out just as we're saying the thing that it replaced does anyone do you remember like a scene of world of motion yes no no not at all no jason iconic an iconic scene what's that the horse the like overturned cart and there's a horse and a car okay yeah yeah yeah the old old form chaos the old form of transit meets the new form of transit sort of yeah yeah that's i remember that that's the one that's in my head and i don't think i remember any others i don't remember that. That's the one that's in my head, and I don't think I remember any others. I don't remember that from seeing a picture of it in the last so many years. I don't actually have a memory of it from being a kid going on it.

The picture is used a lot in stuff, or a clip of going by that section is used a lot. So that makes sense. That's how it was represented. I only know from watching some test track materials that the what now is the like where you launch like where they send you out of the building when it was all enclosed that's the exact spot where there was a scene where like a bunch of uh you know well-meaning kooks in the year uh 200 pc are all trying or probably than that, are all like trying to figure out the wheel.

Do you remember that? There's like a scene where like, oh, somebody's got a triangle, you knucklehead. That's never going to work. And then maybe one has the wheel. I'm like, well, we'll see. We'll test all the options and we'll, like, once I saw that, I kind of remembered. But again, as I've said, like a lot of these Epcot dark ride scenes do merge together. They blend together.

They're all concept, big concept album, as we've said, a lot of these Epcot dark ride scenes do merge together. They blend together. They're all big concept album, as we've said before. But this was, I think people liked this. I remember liking that attraction a ton. But it was, General Motors sponsorship was winding down, I believe. And they had a poor year. Like things were, what year would this have been? Like sometime in the mid-90s, they had had a poor year. Like things were, what year would this have been? Like sometime in the mid-90s, they had a really terrible year. In the mid-90s, I think there were some economic downturns, some hiccups.

So they were weighing, should we spend money on a sponsorship? Yes. Sort of thing. And I think around this time, so Disney's weighing, well, yeah, what do we do here? And I saw it somewhere that they may have floated well look if you come back we want you to pay for something new it's got to be something new um and uh if you don't do it somebody else will probably we're gonna get another we're gonna get one of your competitors to do it so maybe think about doing it so it's a little bit of like a little bit of

a threat in a way being dangled by disney and they took it seriously and they did consider it for a year and then and in that year they had a better year so it was more and congratulations to general motors on a good year did anyone else do what i did and look at like okay so general motors was this first sponsor oh chevron took over the sponsorship and then i like double clicked on the chevron uh uh website and i was like oh a division of general motors yes of course or you mean chevrolet or chevrolet sorry i always do this i would yeah that makes sense that's the same straight um yes uh yeah i don't know what brands go with what, I think. I'm not a car.

Is anybody remote? Who's the biggest car guy of the three of us? What a question. Is there one? Is there? Because I don't know what parts are. I would fail a car parts test. I don't even know the names of the cars that the Transformers are.

I don't even know that so that would i was trying to think of like the closest thing i know like the ninja turtle vehicles i had as a kid i know the toilet taxi i know the i don't know i don't know who made a donatello made that one uh the party wagon the turtle van i don't know which car company made that but i know donatello made the party wagon so i know which turtle made vehicles but i don't know which car company made that, but I know Donatello made the party wagon. So I know which Turtle made vehicles, but I don't necessarily know. It might be you then. Maybe actually by these low standards, maybe you're the biggest car guy. I think maybe, yes.

I know the Batmobiles. I don't know which company made them, but I know Batman and Alfred made them. So I know the makers of that. Great. Jason, any competition? Nope. Yeah, no, I don't know or care. And sorry if you're expecting a real top gear kind of episode.

I guess Lucius Fox helped make a lot of that stuff too. Oh, you're right, you're right, you're right. Especially, I mean, in certain comic stories. And then, of course, the Nolan movies. And Batman's handyman Harold do you remember him from the 80s and 90s yes vaguely I think he lived in the Batcave

and did maintenance how did he know who Batman was I forget his whole story I don't think really represented too much outside the comics a lot of stories where just Alfred would be like have have grease on his face with a wrench and he would be doing stuff.

But then they figured out a different guy. They should really bring Harold back in the movies. Enough car talk, guys. You're such car nuts. I can't even keep up. When I walked into the dealership and I was like, well, so what's the base level Honda Civic, please?

Oh my God, I loved, when I got my last car, I actually now like negotiating. Oh, I did like negotiating. I did bad though. I could have gotten like another couple thousand down, I think. I could be, I'm really, next time I get a car, I'm going to be so good at negotiating. I left the table too. I did a whole power move and then they brought in a second guy. I did the thing where I like made an offer. He said, no, he came up with another offer. I

said, let me go think about it. I got it from the table, walked away. I came back. There's a different guy. They brought in like the heavy hitter negotiator i left for a week and came back well that's good too i like that um but then i said i want i said i made like a power move because he goes we're not getting any lower than this this number you want no lower and i go we'll knock 2000 off that and i'm in and he was like are you sure we shake on it i go okay you just said it was no lower and then he he went and got it done but then i was like i could have hold out more i was mad at myself because i could have done more i have a question about the jason leaving for a week was that you hearing the base price not liking the base price returning a week later and accepting the base price no no in fact in that week i found i think mike sent me

this triple a tool and it did knock like a couple thousand off. And they tried to pull a fast one on me. And they're like, oh, that one credit, that's not a rebate for you. That's a rebate for us, the dealership. You don't get that. And I was like, get the hell out of here. What do you mean? Why would it show me your rebate? Like, come on, man.

I came in with a coupon for you. Yeah, he went into another room and came out and went, okay, we will give you that. I went and was scolded about that maneuver. Yeah. I love it. Okay, so General Motors does agree to re-up. We want to do something more exciting.

Everybody agrees that a more thrilling attraction might be the way to go um they're not being these in epcot necessarily as jason said um so they go back in time to something that was proposed in the 70s like the world the the motion pavilion was supposed to be this sprawling dark ride but then also this bigger attraction that simulates the tests that a car goes through and this was based on an imagineer trip to the milford proving ground great i got it right before i saw it in the notes milford milford yeah and that's then that's what we're all. We're all, if you're listening to this episode, you're excited about the Milford Proving

Ground. This is where GM tests their cars. This is wait, where now? Is it Michigan? It's in Michigan, yeah. I believe the, one of the GM guys. Yeah. You can see this from space. Like it's such a big facility.

Facility and patch of black asphalt yeah i got curious about because i'm looking it up on a map like that is pretty big i wonder if that's like bigger than the theme parks it's bigger than you could fit all four of the Disney World parks and the water parks into the Milford Proving Ground. Wow. And still have plenty of room. Epcot is 300 acres. Milford Proving Ground is 4,000 acres. Insane.

Because it's miles and miles of track. And that's just for the speed stuff. I also looked in the Kevin Rafferty book. Black Lake is a part of it. Black Lake, the most sinister sounding. But then it turns out pretty, it does turn out pretty cool in that book. Like he gets to do some crazy stunt driving and stuff. Yeah, it's just like a place to, you know, whip your car around and stuff.

Seems like a lot of fun. But that's as big as 59 football fields put together wow that's massive and you and in the queue people might remember you see the overhead views of of this place and yeah it's pretty it's pretty jaw-dropping yeah and this is on top of like the global headquarters of gm i believe is a series of skyscrapers in downtown detroit like it's oh like a ton of yeah it's like a ton of skyscrapers in downtown Detroit. Oh, like a ton of downtown Detroit. Yeah, it's like a ton of interconnected things, including maybe, oh God, I'm going to get this wrong.

I think it's a Marriott that is the largest hotel in the world that is specifically just a hotel. It's some insane factoid. Wow, wow. So they own Michiganigan uh massive facility the imaginers took a trip to this place in the 70s and thought it would be a good basis for a ride because it is rides like you're you're testing cars out and you are running through these tests that are what ended up in the in in test track you know you're it's it's high speed stuff but then checking

brakes and that's thrilling and you're whipping around and you're checking heat and you're checking cold and bumps and all of that stuff so it's a pretty like keen observation from then that's that's a pretty interesting holdover idea they isolated it correctly and then it took years for everything to catch up to it yeah and it makes sense i mean there's obviously like i totally like i could see where you go this is a cool idea because yeah as you're saying it's all rides it's all just like well let's see what happens if you just crank it up to 60 and then hit the brakes really hard uh that is as long as you don't crash that's a fun crazy thing to do um i

mean they tell stories and kevin rafferty tells stories of going up to you know it's like 120 130 like they're yeah yeah i'm super cranking well i did i did now i'm thinking about it i am the car guy because i went to a bachelor party and raced cars around a track yeah yeah you did this um i did that once and we were up to like you go to go to like 100 miles an hour, and it's... And that's you in control, too. That's me. Well, maybe I told them real quick that they give you a couple, they have somebody drive you on the track before you do the track. And that person is driving like a little tiny, it's not an SUV, but it's a bigger like jeepish car and that person gets up

to 120 miles an hour and their job is to completely panic you because you're in the back seat and you've never gone that fast in your life and everyone in the car felt like they were gonna like we all looked at each other like we're gonna die we're about to die like your body is not ready to feel that yeah um and that's like 100 i think it was 120 maybe in the car and then i don't think i ever hit that because i was my body is still like you shouldn't be going this fast in a car because when i'm driving and were you shifting gears too or was it on no they have a guy there with you oh okay they have a guy next to you thank god that does some of that for you while you're doing it basically you're just,

your goal is to, and I don't remember how you like accelerate into a turn and then like turn the wheel hard to try to make the little turn. And like, and then the guy will signal to people cause you're on the track with other racers, which was the craziest thing. I thought we were going to be alone,

but you have to literally like wait for a break. And then the guy goes, all right, go. And he just shouts at you and tells you what to do basically the whole time. Because all you have to keep telling yourself when you're racing like this is, I don't know what I'm doing and I'm terrified. They have to have people like this all day, right?

Like this can't be, I can't be the worst driver here. They must have people. So you go around the track like five or six times and then they show you. And I have a video somewhere of like how fast you go around the track like five or six times and then they show you. And I have a video somewhere of like how fast you go. And yeah, they let you do 100, 110, like if you want. Like the guy was yelling me faster. He was just a guy yelling at you faster while you're going 100 miles an hour while there are other cars going 100 miles an hour on the track as well.

A bunch of people who've never done this before. Yeah. A track full of people who, people who've never done this before. Yeah. A track full of, a track full of people who, yeah, have never done this before. Uh, so. What's that facility that's in Vegas?

It's not in Vegas. It's sort of in the desert. And I don't know the name of the facility. Um, but I do, I will say you, your adrenaline has never been that high. You get out of it feeling like primal.

You get out of it feeling like, and not in out of it feeling like and not in a bad way like i was like i could do this again like there's a whole transformation that happens when you're in there because your body just shifts into this different mode where it's so heightened that like you have this extra sensory like experience uh because if because if you didn't you would crash the car and it would blow up your body is no option but to go into like oh i'm being attacked by saber tooth tigers which i don't think it lasted were around when humans were but if if they were your body is like in some bizarre primal experience where it's like i need to kill to survive it's like punching seven saber-tooth tigers yeah um making a big pile of them standing on top of it yeah yes that's all i felt after

going on a trek five times uh by the way three of us should go do this sometime oh my god i think i bet i i drove to vegas recently and i think i saw that speedway when i drove by also that drive between los angeles and las vegas the speed limit for most of the way is 70 miles an hour sure and you're often like there's no one else around for a long stretch and it's so easy to oh yeah you go 110 i'm 75 80 and that's already like a little nerve wracking i keep distracted from the topic real quick though like uh when you started to drive when both of you started to drive i'll i'll explain what my experience was i was i did not get my license right when i started when i was 16 right it took me a little like after maybe closer to 17 and i

would get made fun of by my friends for how slow i drove same yeah oh 100 same same i would get mocked and then of course my one friend who would mock me the most got into a horrible car wreck. There we go. Well, good. He demolished his family's car. Yes, I think he's fine. What did you get? But, yes, no, I got ripped, ripped if I was driving my friend somewhere because of how slow I would often go.

I remember one friend was like, well, I think the optimal speed to drive on any road is 45 miles an hour and it's like the speed limit in our town on most streets is 30 miles an hour a lot of neighborhoods don't have sidewalks people are walking on the shoulder between out and it's like why are you zipping around what first of all why are you cramming seven people seven teenagers into a five person car and then you're flooring it through like fucking Mayberry? So if you're wondering what Jason's wild teen years were like. People always wanted to go like, we can all fit.

We can all fit. It's like there's eight people in this sedan. Yeah, that happened to me once or twice. I think that's a common like, oh yeah, we can just sit on somebody's lap over there or whatever. Yeah. And I'd be like, are you sure we can just sit on somebody's lap over there yeah yeah and it'd be like and i'd be like are you sure we can it's three in the morning you have a provisional

license you were supposed to be off the road four hours ago the first time the first isn't your friend who's like having a third parent around that's right i mean i was close some of those instances it was just a bunch of theater dorks. And they're like, yeah, he's got a point. We should get hope. Finally, a voice of reason. The first car I ever rode in that was not driven by an adult was like a cooler like athlete kid that I knew. And I was in the back seat and I felt like I was doing something so illegal.

I don't even think I maybe told my parents I was doing it. But my memory is just sitting in the back and he was blasting Bob Dylan's The Hurricane. I don't know why. He was just Bob Dylan's Hurricane blasting as we're like driving down Schaumburg Road too fast. I knew it was too fast, but it was also like thrilling. Like I felt alive for the first time

in my life. That song ends well, right? That's a happy song. It's not a happy song. It is a it is not a happy song. But's not a happy song. It is not a happy song. But yeah, for whatever reason, that was the song he was playing and that is my memory of that. Wild times. Wild times from three wild

car guys. Where were we in the slow tale of Test Track? So the Imagineers at various times got to go and do the driving. Go to this facility, yeah. They went to Milford. They had Milford.

They had the true driving experience at Milford. And it makes, yes, as we were saying, it makes sense that they were like, yeah, this is a ride. Yeah. And I think that all went pretty smoothly and everybody agreed that's a great attraction. And it really is. It's very epcotty and that it is it's like maybe as exciting as an educational attraction

can be it is teaching you about a place and about the rigorous efforts that a car company puts into making sure that you're safe before the car goes on the road but then crazy things happen to you too um like it right like i don't i think to get more exciting than that in epcot you just have to bail on education entirely see guardians uh right there has to be no i mean i was trying to think about this like because obviously we've talked about some of the drier things in epcot but it's like they didn't go with like a car, like car mascot or any sort of, they really just,

cause the other stuff that was like educational would have a little more whimsy in it. And it feels like, is this the, is this of all the Epcot things? Does this have like the least whimsy about it? Cause all those original world of motion, there was still some of the magic.

They're like kind of feeling of like ah and look at this isn't this like a special thing and this is very dry this is very much well i might say that the boat ride where you look at hydroponic plants is the driest but there's magic on maybe i'm out of my mind i'm not saying it's not dry, but there's a magic on living. You're saying the test track is drier than the boat ride. 100% living with the land has more magic. Jason, back me up here. You don't have to agree with me. I don't know.

I hadn't really ever given it very much thought. There's some dark ride elements of living with the land, and there's some ambiance and dark. It's like the dusty house. Two scenes, and then. Well, but that's more than the dryness of Test Track. I'm not saying it's the most special. But I would also say that going 65 miles an hour is not dry.

Okay, well, I'm saying dry... And more exciting. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know living with the land is scripture now, but it is more exciting. I was a moderate about living with the land. I'm just saying that some of that little whimsy and specialness i'm not saying exciting of course it's the 64 miles an hour that are growing in the air or plants you know there's stuff that you don't

see every day the fish tanks you know there's a cozy there's a disney especially old epcot there's a cozy little feeling you get on these rides and that's missing from test track that's what i'm saying i'm not saying exciting i'm not even saying better i'm just saying test track to me feels like old Epcot, there's a cozy little feeling you get on these rides. And that's missing from Test Track. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying exciting. I'm not even saying better. I'm just saying Test Track to me feels like it's the bare bones-y. It doesn't have like, especially the first version doesn't have like a, and then there was a car and the car was tested. Like there's not that little like, we're going to tell you a little story now.

It's very much like what you did at the start of the show. Living Seas is pretty dry, I would say. But the early Living Seas was much more like. I think that's an extremely functional. I think it is facts and placards and here's how we take care of this animal. Well, there used to be the whole fictional, like, Sea Base Alpha. They did take away some of that. But I guess, yeah, look, I wanted to feel

there's a little warmness in your little belly when you go on and you see all those old Epcot things. And I just think it's missing from, especially that first version of Test Track. It's very bare bone. Here you go. This is how we do it. Here we go.

Isn't this fun? Oh, no, look at this thing. Like, it's just, that's straight ahead. I'm not saying it's even bad. I'm just saying that. Test track kind of of its time, the first version, or back me up,

or maybe I'm crazy on this one, but like, I feel like the nineties and I think they start in the eighties, but I feel like there was a big trend in both car commercials and car, uh, culture. And, and certainly those crash test dummy PSA, there was a big trend in both car commercials and car culture and certainly those crash test dummy PSAs. There was a lot of cars being crashed to show they were safe, and the crash test dummies had PSAs and cartoons and toys.

Yes, that's true. And that color, that aesthetic, the orange and yellow and the caution, all of that I feel like is very prevalent in the first version of test track. And it was also very prevalent on a lot of like advertising and TV. There was something in the air. Like this was, that's true. It was a little like the little, uh, the circles divided into the four, the little like, yeah, whatever those yellow and black. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is bizarre now that you're saying this. Cause like,

why was there a cartoon based on the dummies that would test to make sure cars wouldn't kill people it is weird yeah i don't know and yeah and there was that's the back to the future line video also that's the safety video yes yes crash system yeah why was this in the culture that's really weird now that i think about I mean, I remember all that stuff. I mean, every now and then there's like an advertising thing that kind of breaks through, like becomes more than the advertising, like California Raisins or the Geico Cavemen. We were all thinking it. We were all thinking it.

Huh. Yeah. And I kind of like those Crash Test dummies characters i recall liking all that yeah i do like i like them but i mean the toys were fun i don't think i had a lot of them but i would play with them oh you had some toys i had one or two but i definitely remember playing with with them and you get the car right yeah the bit was you would just put them in the car and you'd throw it at a wall and then they would pop apart? Like, yeah. Man, that is strange. I have not even thought about that since it happened, I don't think.

You guys are both scolding the dummies, too. Like, if you go more than 30, this thing's going to crash. Oh, yeah. You're likely to lose a hand. Jason never made them crash, probably. He just had them on a nice 25 miles an hour and then they would get to their destination safely. Well, if I did, I would then did i would then like lay like a commemorative

like i would make a wreath and lay it like on the ottoman that they crashed into as everywhere in the house yeah make a little family for them a little crash test baby that morning at the funeral yeah the baby on board i put a a baby on board like window hanger and it was a little crash test dummy baby oh it looked like shit i was terrible at drawing can my baby be um or a leader of the pack uh uh this does bring up a good question why wasn't there more like hey i'm brian the test dummy like good to see you like why wasn't why don't we get a little of that yeah there's one or two jokes in here that are a

little like almost universal like you go by the corrosion robots and he goes like hey do we remember to turn those robots off like that feels like a little you know that's some of that uh yeah some of that uh real uh not body that's really uh that's not a body doesn't apply to everything but it's the word it's down the tip of my tongue at every moment. I know this is jumping around. However, if you've never been on Test Track, but you have been on Radiator Springs, it's similar where there's a big thrilling finale, but you go through little rooms at first. And kind of the equivalent in Radiator Springs Racer, you know,

there's the fork in the road and you either get the car painted or you get the new tires. And that felt very, like a very similar beat to what happens in Test Track where you go through these little smaller rooms and one is extreme heat. The car is being tested for extreme heat. One is extreme cold. And then after there is the corrosion uh center and let me be real here i until doing this episode i had no idea what that is about what's that supposed to be what is the corrosion what's happening there you mean what are they simulating testing yes what's coming up because then there's these two robots as jason said like hey did we remember to turn those robots off and they're spraying something at you what oh good question what is it like what what um

like caustic stuff that would hit a so i think like hard water um uh salt water you know stuff that would cause the outside of a car to corrode to corrode or like i don't know what it's supposed to be definitely mild chemical like whatever would be regularly splashing on a car and could cause corrosion. I mean, like cars wear a lot different in a warmer climate than they do like on the East Coast. You know, all that salt can really eat away at stuff. I don't actually know. They don't say like, oh, we're spraying them with like bug spray or something. Exactly.

It doesn't say. There's not a very clear what it is. Poison gas. Like we're spraying them with poison gas. Yeah. And it's kind of alluded. I almost missed it as even being a problem. You bringing it up.

I just kind of like accept it. Oh, they're testing it so it doesn't get, the metal doesn't get corroded. But yeah, I never thought about what it is they're testing it so it doesn't get the metal doesn't get corroded but yeah i never thought about what it is they're because that's also the payoff of the thing in the pre-ride video where he pulls up the different like let's try uh two five and nine and she says nine with a little bit of trepidation he's like nine with a slight smile and i like i remember that scaring me when i was in the line like what is nine what is that gonna be yeah and until thinking about this ride for a while like in the last couple days i'm like what was that what was i supposed to be scared of in nine and is it that you're getting sprayed

at that with salt water well i mean if they obviously so there's numbers then there's different types of things they're spraying and they never say what yeah well i think two if you look at what's coming up as as those are pulled up on a computer you know two is cold and five is heat and nine is like the wild card and then what that ends up being is robots spraying a mist at you that I'm still confused why it's a problem. I think I didn't hone in on that because I clocked the robot spraying the mist and I went, oh, that gag is in Radiator Springs

Racers in the paint. And so is the Mack truck is also reused in Radiator Springs Racers in a different way. But it, yeah. But it must be yeah, what would it what would be the worst thing you could spray what would it be the worst thing they're spraying at people like on a test track on an actual in milford what are they spraying on these cars

like it would be some like chemical warfare oh acid rain sure yeah acid rain that's not bad test is something yeah i think you got to be a little more clear about it. Yeah. Doesn't that help you? Because then, yeah, then it gives you a little extra danger. Obviously, they're misting you with water and you're smelling one of their, you know, smell canisters. Or if it's like ahead of you and then, wait, stop the acid rain test right now and then it parts and then you go through. Stop the biological warfare gas. Like, yeah, then you're more like scared. The car germs. car those germs from attacking

the car stop them like uh nanobyte particles that are supposed to infect people's brains or something i don't know yeah yeah a little more of a threat and a little more clarity i think I agree I I'm so lost in terms of where we what where we are in with the story I mean like we land on they land on this attraction idea I liked the story in the Kevin Rafferty book about how

they always called it test track and then GM was like ah we have a process for this and they flew a bunch of geniuses quote unquote to a fancy la hotel conference room all to like throw out names the way they do on cars and some like like some woman who he compared to like devil wears prada is like all right i want animals that invoke speed. And people are yelling gazelle. Yes, good gazelle.

And they're building a list of like a hundred, a thousand words. And it's all, and Kevin, and it's all people in like slick suits. And then it's like dopey imagineer, Kevin Rafferty in a Hawaiian shirt, listening to all this. And like, I don't know.

I've named a lot of things in this, in these parks. I think probably just want to call it Test Trek. And then I don't, he doesn't even really follow up on what happened because it is called Test Trek. Yeah. They had an extremely clear name. It's just a funny window into like corporate overthink.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was really great. And the comparison he makes is when they're like, hey, we need a name for a lunch shack at Blizzard Beach. And he goes, Avalanche. And they're like, great, thank you. He didn't even get up from his chair.

He didn't break his amen. I'd have turned around. That rules. Avalanche. Yeah, sometimes you just go by your gut. But yeah, I like all these slick madmen guys in suits like screaming about jaguar cheetah oh did he yeah did he have like was it gonna be like cheetah racers like what do they think like he has a joke about about like what word soup it was possibly gonna be um but yeah i mean and also

you you do just you know you you have to sort of explain what the attraction is with these titles and be clear. So, yeah, they start building this thing. World of Motion is evicted officially early 97, I think. They start building it. I think I forgot that it's the same building. It's a pretty cavernous building where the Dark Ride was. And they just gutted it and used it in that industrial warehouse kind of where it's a pretty cavernous building where the dark ride was and they just gutted it and used it in that industrial warehouse kind of where it's a it's a huge open space now there's space to

do a climb and go you know up three stories to start the thing um and i guess that's where you start getting into like well the well the ride vehicle itself this is, as we've said, kind of the big headline. What came out of Test Track is this great ride mechanism that became Radiator Springs, among other things. I think also interesting in the Rafferty book is when he explains, they brought GM people out to the Indiana Jones adventure. You got to check this out. Look what we're able to do with a vehicle at this point. They said that's great. However, is there a way to make it a little more practical

and have it be more of a real car? And that's sort of... They clearly cracked something really interesting with electric vehicles, simulating a lot with Indy. But with this, they wanted it to be real in terms of surfaces, that it is real tires and they are going over bumps and the things really are happening to you as opposed to Indy where it's entirely simulated for the most part.

Right. Yeah. It's crazy because the Indiana Jones feels so real when you're on it, but really, if you really are conscious, conscious while you're like on that ride you're like oh yeah this actually feels like we're bouncing yeah going over a bridge is not real at all that's entirely that's something that like a star tours type vehicle could do in theory

right as well but when you go on a bunch of you know stones or bricks on a ride like this, you really are going over it. Yeah, you feel that, like, bump. Yeah. Oh, that's what a bump actually feels like. Do you guys have a grasp on how these work exactly? We've established the level of car people that we are, so we might be flailing here. But, like, the fact that they call it a slot car and it's like those toys

they're like real cars and real tires um but it's electricity powered so that that the imagine radiator springs or or this like that big open part of the track in the middle that is feeding electricity and signals into the car. Is there like a stick almost attached to the car? That's what I'm not sure about. Yeah. You mean like similar to like the ultimate extension of a bumper car where it has the stick on top and it's getting the electric sparks from the roof. Is it like the opposite version of that?

That's what. Where the power is coming from below. That's the way I understand it. But now that you're saying it, I'm like going to sound stupid if that's wrong. I think it is because the Spider-Man vehicles, like there's a thingy underneath. Isn't there? And that's how they, you know, move it in multiple directions. Yes.

Is it not on a track? Spider-Man you're talking about? Yeah. Well, it's got to be a track of something. Yeah, it has to be a track. Aman you're talking about yeah well it's gotta be a track of some track yeah it has to be a track track but but that's my understanding it was like a slot because the slot car if you've not done that it's like a old i guess kids are still doing it but it's an old school kind of toy where it was like the car is not the car doesn't have a motor itself but the car is on a thing that's connected to basically like the track has what we're saying is like just a like a line what would you call i don't know not a uh on a thing that's connected to basically like the track has what we're saying

is like just a like a line what would you call i don't know not a uh like a line there's a space for uh something to i can't look at them we're screwed here and this is i know i can picture my mind's eye the production and creation of this ride like the tires kept like going haywire and their tires wouldn't make it through a day they'd blow tires every day and like for optimal like x number of riders per hour it's like we need 20 plus cars running at any time and the ride is tapping out in the single digits they had totally redo the software yes they were using an outside group for the software that powered all these cars there were like three on board computers on all of them and they had to scrap it and just make something from scratch i think it was around the time that they were putting in sort of a

similar experimental uh we've never done this kind of thing before the rocket rods one of the biggest ride disasters ever at disneyland and that was flailing in the entire production of it it opened and flayed it just truly did not work like there's i think a very short history of attractions that did not work at all right and they never when they came out fixed it really yeah it just sort of destroyed the track just like ran it sputtered for a few years and then they bailed on the whole thing and that was that um so they did not like they this cannot happen like they're watching the worst case scenario play out in reality in an open park in disneyland this cannot happen so they keep kicking it down the grid there's a big mural that they put up outside of the facility that says coming 98 and

then they bail on it and just says coming soon they're not committing to the time and that's what i think i went to disney world in this era i don't know if you guys did too where you you go and admire that building and the scope of it and boy that looks looks exciting but is this ever going to open right exactly i just thought here's a better way to say what a slot car is there's a mechanism under the track that the car connects into and the mechanism under the track is the thing that's propelling the car not internally in the little car wow i sound so much smarter now yeah that's good yeah before i sounded like i was about to have a like a stroke and pass out my brain was working we're saying thing my brain was working so hard and it

sounded dumb it's it's uh not it's not not our area of uh certainly not again i know how donatello made the turtle blimp. But it's an interesting ride mechanism in general. The combination of it is a real car. There are things that it can do, and they have to be tuned up like a real car. I think one of those Disney Plus behind the scenes at the parks kind of featurettes is about the garage at Radiator Springs and how complicated that is. And that's like every bit as complicated

as Alfred with the with all the oil on his face. And Harold Harold? Harold Allnut. Was that his name? Yes. Harold Allnut? Yes. He was, I think he was a henchman that Batman rescued. Oh he sort of rehabbed him.

Yeah. Wow that's nice of Batman. He usually just beats the shit out of guys and throws them in jail. This guy he liked. That gives us one case, a second chance. Oh, that's nice. He does rehabbing. One out of a hundred, or a hundred of a thousand maybe. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, so it's just really prickly. This thing gets delayed forever. I didn't realize that there was a preview center outside of it. They pulled a bunch of cars up. They were playing videos. One thing I like about all this, I think you feel the late 90s of that original test track. And I can't tell if I like it or I don't like it. Let me play an ad that they put out.

I don't know if this was a television ad. But this is certainly the vibe. And you can tell that maybe they know that Universal's getting a little more extreme down the road. Soon they're going to have Hulk open and Doctor Doom and all that stuff, and we've got to start saying, well,

we've got thrills at Disney World, too. So you end up with this ad here. Compared to other activities, riding Test Track leads to a decidedly prominent increase in endorphin manufacture in the basal ganglia. In other words, Test Track rocks! Brace yourself. I mean, that's the 90s.

And then the most, like, Test Track! Yeah, that cute, sort of, like, poor man's rave-y, the kind of font where there's one font, but then a ghostly version of the same word shoots through into the back, like, haunting the word. Test Track! Test Track rocks!

That is not a dopey Epcot scientist. No, that's like a Nickelodeon. That's not the tone of that ride either. No, ultimately not. No, there's nothing in it. Yes. If that was Rock and Roller Coaster, which is another car, it is a car vehicle. That's fine.

Okay. Yeah. That's a very in your face type of ride. But yeah, no, test track is not. No, the thing is extremely dry and you have to you're you're right about the dryness when and i guess when i because like the opposite of that is what you get in the pre-ride video which i was alluding to at the beginning right right which is you're just like in a you're in a facility with a guy in a polo shirt and a headset, like, spouting all of this lingo.

And that he doesn't, John Michael Higgins does not break and go, like, all right, so we're gonna check the suspension and the chassis, and then, I don't know, in other words, it rocks! There's no shift in that way. Exactly.

Also doesn't slip into his late shift David Letterman impression either. No, he does not. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Yeah. Okay. John Michael Higgins,

the great John Michael Higgins. You know, we've talked about late shift ad nauseum episode coming soon, I think. Yeah, sure. This is probably the first

he was on people's radar was the was the late shift uh this i think admirable performance as david letterman like what a tall order oh yeah possible thing to do to like a guy who's on tv all the time then and play him like not as a caricature in a movie that has caricatures i'd say almost everyone else is so how do you play dramatic scenes as david letterman i mean it's insane how would you yeah he manages to do it i remember thinking about john michael higgins well this guy is like a novelty impressionist guy he's like rich little rich little's in the late in the late so then when he starts appearing in other things, probably

most prominently Best in Show is what really blew up the career seemingly. I was like, him? They're letting the Letterman guy? And then you watch the movie of Court and you're like, oh, he's great. He's so good. He's so good in Mighty Wind. He's the rest of development. So good in everything. I'm very

fond of the guy because I got to work with him on this pretty long shoot, this thing Tween Fest for Funny or Die with past guests and now Tonight Show All-Stars, Brad Evans and Nick Cirelli. He was the star of the thing, like top of call sheet, and so nervous to work with the guy. And, oh, my God, the greatest guy. I'm so happy to say, like, the nicest, coolest guy,

like imparting lessons all the time and not like a preachy way just like the the the way that a star of something needs to behave invested making everything better this guy's so great he's also on the set doing the thing that you want the most which is telling stories from his oh yeah storied career uh there was a day where he um it was extremely tense like running out of light the worst like uh uh like i need to be focused and then i hear him start to talk about like like well you know i was in this letterman movie and i'm like oh man what do i do like it took till day 13 for him to uh i want to, I think I bounced back and forth.

I got to hear some of it. But we got into Test Track. You had to get into Test Track. And he told a story about making this video. And at first I was like, am I telling this story out of school? But he did tell it on this other podcast. We've cited this thing, the Tierra podcast. It's weird.

Was that Cal David, the voice of Sunny Eclipse was on this? The voice of Sunny Eclipse was on it. John Michael Higgins was on it. So he told this story. So that means I'm allowed to tell it. If you think about what that video is like, you're sort of watching a live feed in this laboratory space. What are they?

They're in the control center. They're in the control center. We're in the control center. Bill McKim. He's, of course, the iconic character Bill McKim. And it's sort of a big, you might not even realize this while watching it,

but it's sort of a big unbroken take. Yes. As a lot of things are. I mean, it's not dissimilar from the Avatar move your arms around. Like, it's definitely in that world where, like like we're not watching a pre-produced video like there's a live feed

here and this guy's talking to you um so he gets this job he's excited to do it and he's reading through the thing and thinking well there's a lot of this is nothing but carb jargon and he also not a car person i don't believe so he's trying to decipher like like well how am i going to fit all this in and uh uh and he i think he starts talking to the director like so what are the cut points here like where how much do i have to have and he's the director's like uh there are no you got to do it all you have to do all of it and if you watch a video of this on youtube it is like four minutes long and it's a it's not a four minutes where there's like a long part where you just emote and there's not memorization to do it is full memorization i don't think cards were an option for some reason like he had to have all this and if you like watch the

video and know that this guy had to memorize this it's insane this is like one of the greatest acting challenges yeah i can imagine yeah uh par for the course if you're doing a play um unusual if you're doing something in front of the cameras that's like a thing that everyone's like all right everyone get on your game this is a four minute unbroken take yes yeah um which like so he i mean he is uh like a super theater trained actor which is maybe why they asked him to do it and that he leaned on that to get it done like i do have those powers of memorization however he walked also a play you would know that and prepare for that. I think he walked onto the set

and was not aware of the approach. And I think he was going, there has to be something, right? Even within this format. And they were very firm. No, no, no, it's got to be this. And also, if you watch the video, like, beyond...

He has to go do all that stuff, but then also, like, go mill around in the back. And when it's over, he leaves and goes and talks to gestures at a map to somebody and then comes back and he forgot his clipboard and so there's all this there's a ton of silent business yeah that he had to repeat every time basically this seemed like the craziest day of shooting ever where it has to be perfect 100 so he'll make 80% of the way through and then miss one little thing and they'll go cut, stop, and he does not even like time to recover. It's just, no, keep going.

Oh, sorry, I got to hit it again. No bounce back. Maybe you're getting here and I'm cutting you. I apologize if I'm cutting you off. But it also feels like the people putting it together maybe weren't the most well thought out in some aspects of it too, because with a ride video, with a pre-ride video, it's like if there's a cut or two, there's not a single dad in line who's like, what the hell?

That's not an unbroken take. Like no one cares. It's not like a. Throw up a graphic. It's not a Paul Thomas Anderson movie or something where it's like one single shot and it's an important monologue and you got to get it all in one like that's not what it is obviously you can put up you could put several edits it almost feels like with people maybe that didn't weren't thinking about all the practical things when they were shooting that day yeah is it people who are not filmmaking minded even like because you imagine they would hire people who are but you never know

like we think of these things as the grandest for oh my god if i could be part of a ride video but i think they're oddly they're they're afterthought they're one component of this massive multimedia project look there was a funny or die commercial i've told the story i think before on the show where i was like it was a page monologue and they and i was like everyone if this is 30 seconds i'm not getting all this out it's not it's gonna get cut down and they were like no no no we'll learn all of it so i learned this entire monologue and then we got there and they were like this isn't 30 seconds so we want to cut out this line and then four lines down this line and then two lines down this line and i was like oh shit i learned the whole thing yeah that's not really how memorization works unless you're like i was awful so so

sometimes even even the best intentions are people they're like oh you know what never uh well and there's the assumption that actors are maybe i don't know is it like at its base is it the assumption that acting is easy sure like they'll be able to do that no problem like there's no adjustment and there's no amount of like throwing people well there's a lot that's easy but not necessarily like taking like 16 lines and then taking out three strategic lines with one oral words here and there and then having it perfect after that like that's a different skill i mean i've shown up to sets and they've been like we're what we're gonna walk you to set here's your lines by the way and that's because it's two line it's

like oh this is 10 to 15 seconds long right this shot or like the whole commercial or short or whatever and it's like yeah occasionally they forget like oh yeah i guess we do need to tell you what your lines are but it's like for 20 seconds you can learn that real quick you know you can learn like yeah for commercials leave spider-man alone uh you know i wish i got to be a leaf spider you mess with one of us you mess with all of us like i could know that on the day you could tell me on the day new york city pal you York City, pal. You know? Yeah. We would know. We would have been perfect as those New Yorkers.

I hope, by the way, I hope with this new Spider-Man, they bring the New Yorkers back if they're bringing all the old Spider-Men back. Oh, from the train? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, from the bridge from the first Spider-Man. Oh, the first one. Oh, I thought you meant where they're, like, carrying.

They're chucking trash at the Green Goblin, and they go, you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. I want those guys. Like, all New Yorkers? Is that what they're saying? Yes. Yeah. And they go, you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. I want those guys. Like all New Yorkers, is that what they're saying? Yes. Yeah. So, yeah. It's powerful.

So, I hope they're back when we have this live action Spider-Verse. Sure. But, yeah, like this is, I have the script in front of me and he has to remember, this is like, you know, two minutes in. Not such a good feeling, but hang in there because we're going to do the test one more time. This time with the ABS or anti-luck breaks like how and how are you like after a bunch of environmental tests put up two five and seven and corrosive condition like it's all such it's massive blocks it's such jargon but he's getting through it like it's just all they need to do is get it once but it takes all day to do that and they did slot all day to do it but at the end

he feels like a champion like a true champion like that is one of the greatest acting challenges i've ever faced and we did it and we pulled it off and i you know hey disney that's cool i want disney to be happy um about a year goes by and he gets a call from his agent saying hey so the disney job they need you to go in and plug in a couple of parts of this and uh like do some uh um adr additional dialogue recording uh and he says oh okay so just like we're just gonna pick up a couple of lines yeah that sounds fine and he goes into a studio and he sits down with the script and he asked him like all right so what are we picking up here and they're like all of it i'm sorry all of it yeah there was a sound problem when we were recording so we need to

redo the entire thing so now we're he is at a completely different juncture of difficult acting again what you said about picking up a couple lines or two or you can fake it adr is tough it's like you know because you're watching and trying to dub over yourself and hit the right timing and it's got to be exactly that amount of time but imagine doing that with paragraph after paragraph of car jargon like that's one of the most complex ADR jobs that has ever existed. Oh, my gosh. So, again, he's got a long, exhaustive day ironing through it, ironing through it.

Damn it, shit, start again. That's why I said, because I knew that part was coming, and that's why I was like, maybe it wasn't, like, the most professional crew. I mean, that's crazy. There's no usable audio from the set of something that is entirely a guy talking

yeah what happened exactly it does seem like this attraction was a little cursed with how much wrong building the first version i guess so yes you would think the only like we would be enough for experimental ride vehicles to have major but the boom mic was too much apparently you know what the general motors corporation i know for sure has shelves and shelves of footage of stock stock footage of car parts working like anti-lock brakes like breaking you know cars screeching to a stop yeah i'm saying like yeah you can easily like fix that like i this is how i would fix it if i was like editing or directing it's like okay we'll use the best stuff uh because again that is insane like it's it's already hard enough to go like okay we're gonna play you what you. Try to say it in the cadence,

in the time you said it. So we can try to sync it with your mouth. So it looks a little natural. Four minutes of that is, that's wild. How would that be the plan to begin with? You may as well just reshoot it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. Like, why not? Well, how are they ever going to get like an office building again? Fiveo shirts yeah that's impossible how would it happen um I so I mean like I I always liked this video and I liked him in it I was always a fan of him even before

meeting him uh I've met him and he's such a great guy I like truly like if you watch a video of this go back and realize it was a long, unbroken takes and dubbed over. This is an act, a true acting feat by John Michael Higgins, topped only by his appearance in The Late Shift. Great performer. And yeah, I yeah, it's a lot of levels to appreciate it. That is so stressful. Oh, and also like this is before we were doing the podcast, but I, you know, like, theme park obsessive, obviously.

So I do remember telling him, like, yeah, I've watched that thing. There's cuts. Like, they do still do cuts. They cut to, like, people getting into the car. It's deep into it. But I was like, I hate to tell you this. They for sure still did cuts. And he said, I wouldn't know.

I've never been. He never made it. And this thing retired. On this podcast, they told him, oh, it's not you anymore. And he was like, oh, really? He didn't know. There is still a presence of him, weirdly, in the parks, though, and in a similar ride. Because I didn't realize, I don't think I've ever thought about who this is. When you're heading to Radiator Springs

Racers, there's a statue of an old car and that is apparently the founder of Radiator Springs. Stanley? Stanley. Yeah. And that character is voiced in one short by John Michael Higgins. Wow, interesting.

Did he know? Does he know that? Well, I learned that from hearing him say that on this podcast. Okay, so he does know that. And he's been on that, interesting. Yeah. Kind of weird. Did he know? Does he know that? Well, I learned that from hearing him say that on this podcast. Okay, so he does know that. He does know that. And he's been on that, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe not. Could be no.

I love, and I don't say this facetiously, I like when anyone does something for a nerdy thing I like and has no love for it. I like that. Or investment in it. I know. It's cool. It's really cool.

It is a cool move and i don't mean that i'm not being facetious like an actor is in a superhero movie or comic book movie and they're just like yeah i don't know what and like they don't know answers to questions about the care like i just showed up by whatever i like it i don't know why i remember hearing an interview once with the guy who did the music this is much more specific and in our realm he did the music for marvel superhero island oh yeah you talk about late 90s marvel music um i think the podcast i'm not i think it's the unofficial universal orlando podcast um i i'm not sure if they're still going but they had an interview with him and he was explaining you know how complicated it was at the time it was like all

the stuff on mini discs and all and he was like i'm glad people like it um i really should get down there sometimes my kids are getting older yeah i think they'd like that park i think they'd like i really should get down there and see it and i just thought that was so funny because i'm like man you're me yeah it's everywhere the music rock, it's everywhere in that part of the park. Yeah. Well, and God knows if I was ever part of a theme park attraction, I would be down there so desperately. I would be outside

telling people about it. I would be like, it's me in there. Like, it would be the smallest role. It wouldn't matter. And I would be, yes, I would be so embarrassing, shamelessly telling people that I have something to do with it. Yeah, for sure. Like if I was at the, you know, like if I got to be, I don't know,

an astronaut in the last two days of an electronics store being open, I would probably go in there in a costume, make a bunch of people come to and clap for me. That's probably how I would play it. Sure, yeah, that makes sense. So anyway, so that being said, maybe some of my fondness for this attraction is that video. I do remember that being part of a really good cluster

where they were using really great character actors. I like Wallace Langham in Dinosaur. I like John Michael Higgins in this, and of course Patrick War warburton uh in soren there's just like a neat quality to those things at that time even if they were kind of like aesthetic free and this and i do like the video i like the part that i said where you know there's the sly nod about that test even though it doesn't pay off the way you want it to right um and like when she gets, he also gives her a little, you know, as his assistant,

she gets a little free reign to pick a test and then she pulls one up and he keeps talking and then a big crash happens and they don't even acknowledge it. Like, we're going to give you a test that might crash you like a crash test dummy and that gets a big laugh, I remember. We're going to give you a test that might crash you like a crash test dummy. And that gets a big laugh, I remember.

I watch videos where that part gets a laugh. You're right. I am discounting that 90s intro video-ness of it. That is, yes. There's that specific era whimsy. It's not what I'm talking about that, or I was talking about before, it being like that There's a coziness to what we're doing That John Denver-esque

Listen to the Lamb song Sure, sure, sure So there is some fun 90s nostalgia Of just that vibe It's no wonder What you're describing is a wonder There you go But that's gone from All describing, yes, there you go. There's none of that. But that's been, that's gone from like all media, I think, by this time and replaced by Deathstrike rocks.

Like that for sure is the, that is what happened in the late 90s. Yeah. I mean, obviously like Tower of Terror has like some spooky wonder. And then yeah, Rock and Roller Coaster is Coaster doesn't have any wonder in it. But, yeah, it's extremely industrial, and while I like that video section, I remember thinking the line is unpleasant. I have a recollection of, like, because in that queue,

you're with a bunch of test gear, and there's, like, not sirens going off, but, oh, I guess sirens, not audibly, but, like, you you know lights flashing and uh and a bunch of tape everywhere i i realized the vibe of it that q is like a home depot you're in just a big open like and it's not you're not there for aesthetics it's you go there to get stuff done and a lot of it is orange a lot of it is orange yeah no that's yeah you're completely right that line is a home depot and i also remember a part i remember getting stuck in the A lot of it is orange. A lot of it is orange. Yeah. No, that's, yeah, you're completely right.

That line is a Home Depot. And I also remember a part, I remember getting stuck in the line. Maybe there was a breakdown that I had to wait through the first time I did it. And I remember there was some test dummy or something that just kept getting hit over and over again by a giant weight or a giant cinder block. You remember this? Yeah, I remember that. Okay, so I'm not making that up and if you're stuck there for a while boy oh boy is that a grating sound to hear over and over again somebody getting pummeled dummy getting pummeled yeah well i'll tell you i talking about getting stuck at places i was always deathly afraid uh here and at uh hershey's chocolate world at the chocolate world ride um there is a

like an oven there's a heating section of that and there's a heat lamp section of test track ride and i think maybe like an aunt or an uncle told a story about oh we broke down the heat light and i was just like oh thank god you survived like i was just so scared of getting stuck there fake heat lamp you thought people get stuck there and melt get cooked yeah that's fine even in chocolate world though you were worried about that i mean i were you worried about the chocolate mildly uncomfortable yeah yeah that works you get mildly uncomfortable but like every now and then is like a kid like too smart for his own good i would like work myself into like oh god what if we get stuck here we're screwed we're fucked the red lights the red lights the gentle red lights i mean if you were stuck for

eight hours yeah maybe yeah that would be too much. Yeah, you might know. Cast members just standing outside. We're sorry. There's nothing we can do. There's nothing to be done. This is the one spot we can't evacuate. It's a test track. You knew what you were getting into. Oh, man.

Yeah. So the ride itself, let's talk about a little bit. You go through various tests. Do we have a favorite test oh that's a good question something you thought they pulled off well i mean as a kid i liked that breaking test because it's fast i mean it scared me though it definitely yeah right as a kid i was a little scared of until the i mean yeah i hate i mean there's nothing worse than swerving in a car or like fishtailing in a car so like to be able to do it in a controlled

environment is a little sure to do that exciting drift yeah yeah that's that's an interesting little simulation it feels pretty crazy like and again that educational part it's pretty dry and i read the point that um anti-lock brakes became not like an uncommon feature so why are we pointing this out all day every day right this is just what cars have now but i guess i didn't realize that they didn't have them and truly if that's what would happen to you in a skidding situation it's sort of an interesting it is interesting in hindsight but it's yes i did not know what the difference in brakes were i mean i can i what the the explanation when okay here let's sound stupid again anti-lock brakes are oh okay so i do know this because when i did driver's ed in high school and again i was

like mike i was late getting my license um so there was the driving portion of driver's ed. And then there was like the classroom portion of driver's ed. And the videos and handouts still a little out of date. And so all of the handouts were like, don't slam on your brakes. They will lock up and not work. Doesn't apply in the year 2002, 2003. If you were driving a car made within the last 10 years of that, because yeah, anti-lock brakes became standard

and you can slam on the brakes. Okay. Gotcha. And so, but before you would have to pump the brakes. You didn't want to slam on the brakes. Right. The difference is you'd have to like, yes, as you're saying pump to get it to stop versus just, yes,

one big movement. But your knee jerk would be to just slam. Right. And that would be bad. The same class when we had the final exam were like, hey, there's like 10 questions about car insurance and we didn't have a car insurance chapter. And they're like, oh, yeah, just leave that blank. I'll make sure to cross it out. And I was like, why are we doing the doing the what is this what are we doing here um i think one of the driest things admittedly in any attraction

is the john michael higgins technician bill mckim approving going through what kind of blocks that you want to use let's go with the german and the belgian and i thought what is that about and i guess what it is is that i guess belgian blocks this is a real test that they did that however the streets were paved uh in belgium in world war ii tore up the tank treads so hard that they got the reputation for being the worst blocks, the worst blocks you build a street with. So this was a test that they ran at this facility in the 70s. But, like, what a, boy, that's a leap. Who's in there knowing about Belgian blocks?

And then cut to, like, one grandfather who, like, I'll never forget the Belgian blocks. They blew out my treads i was captured that was a little something just come off the beaches at normandy and a little something for grandpa although that might have been like he would might have been like not like that because it reminded him no no no yeah yeah it's a it was bad he gets off the ride screaming this is also like car culture i mean car magazines fixing up like that could be uh a just a term that could be like plus it up that could be an industry term and there's like you know gear heads listening to this going like you mother of course i know

what a goddamn belgium block is how many cars stupid i was gonna say how many car heads are listening to podcasts to ride i bet there's some cross i mean there has to be some i would assume but maybe i'm wrong and well we've lost them all today they're mad they're very mad at us yep they're out forever they might have like liked every other episode but this episode oh my goodness yeah yeah boys these knuckleheads get to talk on a microphone like they know something. These dweebs. They wouldn't be wrong. We've gotten a lot wrong.

You know, then you start going through, like, the painted hills, the very, like, plywood. And this is where, you know, that and the, you're watching a ride through of how the original one was. And we're weaving in and out of like, yeah, plywood painted green. And we're going through these little rooms. It's a heat test and a cold test. And you're just going, well, this is like escaping from the tractor,

but not as good in Radiator Strait. I know that is. This is like they go to the paint or the tire room, but not as good. And unfortunately, that just is where it's at. This is like a big example of a ride that got topped. It just like, and there wouldn't be Radiator Springs Racers without it. So we thank this ride. We bless this ride. But it's like almost impossible at this point to watch it and not just think,

I'd rather be thinking about the other one. Well, in the second generation of this technology, which I haven't seen, the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride. And it is Journey to the Center of the Earth, my favorite attraction in Tokyo DisneySea. I mean, like, that's another. That's applying the same technology in this unreal, magical, I'd say more thrilling

more beautiful for sure yeah years later is that 2002 right i believe now you do take this now that as i do still like test track and if you think about this type of attraction like here this slot car variety and the rides that use it are radiator springs journey to the center of the earth and test track that's that's a pretty all-star group of attractions for sure and i do well that's i guess that's really maybe what i was getting at when i was being so negative at the start where i was like back in the old days i would have said wow this is great but now my interest is waned so severely but i guess it is because there's just a much better version of it. Yeah.

And that includes the end, the speed run. It is, I think, undeniably better in Radiator Springs. Now, it's not as fast. I was curious about that. Radiator Springs only gets up to 40. 40, yeah. And this gets right at the cusp of 65.

So there's more thrill to it in that final run, which is where you're on the outside of it. You kind of leave the park and go back into the park and right at the end there, kind of where you're passing by the people getting in line. It really creates like, I remember liking that too.

You're intimidated getting on it because you walk on it how fast it goes. And now it really creates like i remember liking that too you're intimidated getting on it because you you walk oh yeah and now it rattles like crazy it feels like that thing's coming apart every time the car goes i don't remember if it was rattling back in the old days or that's just because it's because it's older now but yes now it feels like there's an effect i like um and i really notice it in the second version. I couldn't, I can't remember if it was in the first version or not, but as they're like,

you're about to sort of launch, like the doors open, like it's seemingly at the very last minute as you're on that speed run. And in the video I watched, I don't think I've ever tried this, but the, I think it was Att't think I've ever tried this, but the, the, uh,

I think it was attractions three 60 had posted this video. They were riding it as at like twilight when the sky is very blue and it almost like compliments the inside of like the, the neon blue grid. And then as you are really hitting the speed, like the footage, the blue and orange lights outside, they all start to blur a little. And I was like, oh, this looks pretty cool. Like it looks a lot more of a piece of the indoor section than as if you were riding it at like noon in the Orlando sun.

You know what I mean? Yeah, that is weird like the the test track 1.0 then you like you're in this ride building and that's all industrial and then you're like in a parking lot was less weird it's kind of similar right now that you're in magical tron world going through laser mountains yeah like then you're just in a parking lot it is odd so maybe it is maybe yeah maybe night or twilight is the optimal time to do it. Yeah, like a gray, overcast Orlando afternoon. It's not quite the thrilling setting for the finale.

Right. That's cool. Yeah. In the newer version, there's a lot of the Easter eggs that theme park fans like. There's a reference to Wed. There's a nod to Cars. There is a couple nods to World of Motion. Oh, really?

So the newer version since the end of 2012. I mean, how do you guys feel about the general aesthetic, general design? Because I think at best it does kind of look like a cool Tron sort of glowing. And at worst it kind of looks like a winamp skin like it looks like a zune aesthetic you know you're right so when things are flowing when it's just like yeah trippy shapes yeah yeah you're totally right but also when i look at modern video games i'm like oh still doing this huh still doing this for for like start screens and like all of that it's like still still sticking with this huh well yeah as i said before like i like cosmic bowling the cosmic

bowling aesthetic but yeah it doesn't feel like when you watch those videos of tron where it feels like a purpose like it's neon for a reason it feels like it's just like oh yeah it looks connected like yeah why do these things go together right and it's the whole yeah the whole new narrative with the different rides and we'll talk about that or with different cars excuse me that you can build like it kind of makes sense but it doesn't feel so right on the money it feels a little bit more like just it's a cooler atmosphere but we just kind of slapped some neon here the big shift that happened is that in the first version you're essentially a crash test dummy a test is happening to you what's that going to be like now you are designing a car a sim car to go on the sim track on the sim track now entering the sim

track yeah so you're yeah you're you're basically like going to do your own test of an experimental car. You help design. You help design. It's more, like, thinky in a way. And you tap your magic band or your ticket, and then, like, after you design it, and then you tap it when you get in the car, and then you can see your results at the end. I think a thing I do like in this, and there's a few different, like like youtube channels or game channels where they do stuff like this is you can design some truly horrific cars like very small body very big

wheels the homer vice versa yeah yeah yes you're right you can you can really as a kid i would have gone nuts for that i would have loved this part of it because it is fun to make the craziest looking car with like different colors and yeah something that would not be practical on the road is how does this play out in the attraction though like the car that you just like you're sharing the car still with five other people you see some stats i think you see stats at different times yeah but it's it's nothing it's look they had i was worried about it's nothing i mean as a kid it would have been like whoa you get to design your own car and then you get to ride in it and that's not what's

happening it's the exact same ride nothing changes different and they obviously like they would have to do a lot to the ride to make it i don't yeah as you're saying everybody has their own car so it would be very hard to do it unless everybody collectively designed the car but yeah you're just learning at the end how well that car would have done on the track that you just rode on. So it's like nothing about that affects your actual ride. It's literally just you do a cool thing at the start. And then at the end, you get like numbers that would have like how your car would have responded. Okay.

So it's not, again, as a kid, I would have liked it. But as a kid, when you design your own car and then you get in the car, you would be like, oh, it's going to do something. I affected it somehow. And I'm sure if they were building it from the ground up, that's what they would do. But they were just trying to come up with a cool narrative that made sense in like this new cyber world

and then just trying to come up with another element to it that makes it seem fun and interactive. Yeah, in the 2010s in late 2000 late aughts um you know i think this is when you started to see more like people talking about like gamification in theme park rides and there's some stuff that where it's like directly in the ride like men in black or more recently uh web slingers um and then there's like all right we're gonna try to put game stuff in the queues like we're gonna make them interactive and that'll keep people entertained before they wait on the ride and stop them from looking at their phones and then a shift happened very

quickly where they're like we're putting it in apps we're not building anything else in the queue we want to look now we want them to look at their phone. Yeah, look at your phones now because you're going to have to do that for food reservations, FastPass reservations, MagicPant, you know. Yeah. So that was, yeah, the philosophy. And I think there's probably something to the idea of like maybe say you all got around like the whole car gathered around a console and everybody got to choose an element of the ride or something fun that it could do or it could spin around or something and then

you could each sort of influence the actual journey i think that would actually feel more i don't know exactly how you would do it but then that would feel like different and feel like you actually affected the ride and i'm sure they would do that if they were building from the ground up but it's sort of yeah they had to just mod out what was yeah they just had to do a little extra thing because obviously like spaceship earth they added the whole jib jab sequence and is that really related to the ride it's age better than jib jab it certainly has age better than jib jab spaceship earth uh that's a weird thing too so strange um get into that yes and especially like it was your floating like backwards down spaceship earth and it's kind of like peaceful and magical

and you're like well we would have had like your greeting card your e-greeting card version and yourself living in the jetson's house you're like what is this? It looks like Lisa at the caricature artist. Cuts off your head horribly. Yeah. I have six black spots in my face. Yeah, your forehead is pitch black. The other is totally washed out from the flash. It's fun to see the worst photo of you ever taken.

Right, yes. Wow, I've never looked worse than this. Yeah, the future is bright. Maybe. They shot it future is bright. Maybe. They shot it on a Game Boy camera. Look, this would have been replaced by the spirit of storytelling or whatever, but unfortunately, COVID. Oh, that's right.

Yeah. COVID got rid of that. It saved JibJab. It saved JibJab. We got like 12 more years of it, at least. Yeah. You know what I like are the way that the mountains are rendered. I really, it's that like vapor wave outrun.

Yeah, no, I agree. And you see like a lightning strike on those. And, you know, and kind of a weird retro future city. Retro future city. You know, I dig all that. I think you're right, Jason. You're correct that some of it is just trippy lights and it's a little lazy. But when they get the aesthetic right it's really cool and

more aesthetically pleasing obviously than what was there before which was you know drawers and desks it's like you see they're restricted by still i think they were still restricted by the like the mission statement of epcot at the time because if i was pitching on it i would have been like let's just add some like characters let's let's add like in johnny neon who's uh trying to make the big race at the end like he's trying to win his girl back at the big race or something but you can't do that it's still gotta kind of be like learning at least at this point now i guess it doesn't have to be maybe if they were redoing it now it would they would just it would uh cruella's racing through something,

and it doesn't matter. Well, they have the Cruella overlay within the year, I'm sure. Well, I mean, it's a miracle that GM is stuck with this pavilion for as long as they have, when so many others have, like, jumped ship. And it has worked in the way the original, like, Epcot, you know, it's like, well, we're going to get sponsors to help cover the cost of these pavilions, and then they will help us upgrade them every so often and gm kind of has wow yeah it happened the thing that never happened it happened they actually put more money yeah that's true yeah uh

mike you did mention like getting some characters in there and in merchandising they did oh get some characters in there i'm of course talking about crash test dummy Goofy. Right. And so this is a more pleasant version of him. But at one point in time, they were also showing Scott, because you mentioned it, the eyes, Goofy crash test dummy Goofy with the circular yellow and black crash test eyes.

Real scary. Really disturbing. Industrial sticker eyes. Yeah. Is he dead? Did they put those over his eyes because they were shot out? This seems like something that came from the twisted mind of Mr. Banksy. Oh, yeah. Is that from Dismaland?

That's true. Theme parks plus caution tape equals Dmal land oh yeah wow yeah that's from the twisted twisted mind um i was thinking scott if you had still some of from the comic-con installation how would you overlay a moonbeam city onto this test track oh boy well that's just i was thinking that's that was my uh that was my biggest fuck up with the show is not having a mountain range that was like that. Oh, right, right. If you leave the city, it just looks like that.

It just becomes a laser grid. You could change it to being a cityscape. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that cityscape, that's pretty right on. I think I wasn't even aware they were doing this when we were making the show. Well, we're recording this next to my garage where I have every element of the two-day. Oh, you still have all of it? Yeah, yeah. Oh, garage where i have every element of the oh you sell all of it today yeah yeah oh yeah i have every every part of it uh no send that back to me please thank you because if you don't know what we're talking about it at comic-con 2014

there was a jesus christ yeah yeah a long time ago now there was a a small laser tag activation of my show moonbeam city and i got to essentially have a themed experience for two wonderful days and i have all of every bit of black light the characters we can put it back up um i what's oh yeah no oh that's true yeah we could just do it do it for fans uh wow you know we talked about i don't know if i'm leaking another idea of mine here but uh what eventually doing like some sort of horror like maze halloween maze but maybe part of it that's true you know what there's something this has been a long episode but there's something i want to say about that uh that element i'll i'll bring it in quick at the end here sure sure um but uh yeah what do you do well there were you

know we did have cars i forget uh you know dazzled Dazzle Novak's car. I forget what it was. I know that Rad, the Will Forte character, drove a car called the Girth 150. So if there was a way, it was a big Hummer that had, I think, I was like, it should have not just truck nuts. It's like seven. And they should be not symmetrical. They're just like all of it's they aren't lined up nicely they're just kind of like a couple over there and these are too close together uh so you know yeah it'd be a movie city experience if it was a race between

the girth 150 and um the glit was it like the the glitterati the glitter i don't even how do i not know this about my own thing gl Glimmer was in it. God damn, what was it? But you know, if it's, yeah, you're in Red's Girth 150. And that's what could have happened if the show ran for 10 years and Disney purchased Viacom, which they would have, I think, to get after that Sweet Movie City property so that they could do this overlay. Sure. Yeah, would have been a whole other world right so wow um so i do yeah hey look it it has an aesthetic that i

i really really love and it and it is a a step towards it's the thing we talk about with tomorrow land all the time lasers are always the future neon is always the future yes don't overthink it they figure it out with the Tron coaster and with this. And it's kind of a lazy iteration of it in some regards, but more aesthetically pleasing than it was. I do miss Bill McKim. If there was a hologram of Bill McKim, or if you had to rescue Bill McKim in a Tron-type fashion,

he's stuck in the sim track. I would like that. Yeah, I think there's a way. I think there's some sort of overlay, actually, that takes this thing to another level. I do think that. I know it's controversial. Mission Space, bye-bye, as far as I'm concerned.

Get rid of it. And I've seen some people really reject that idea lately. But no, I don't like it. I do not like it. But yeah, the test track, I feel like there's something to do. You can do something with it. I think it's savable. I think there's one more. There's like a final form. You tune those things up, you make them

squeal a little less. Yeah, maybe it involves some changing of the track outside, and it's adding some things, I don't know, something to outside, but I bet there's something, final form for test track that could take it to the level I'm looking for. I'm sure if Charon Legacy had been a big hit, they may have tried going full Charon with it.

But they also have the limitation of, well, GM wants to, Chevrolet wants to show off their nice cars. Well, that's true. Maybe you got to kick Chevrolet. Maybe you got to kick them out. Maybe you have no sponsor. Take it purely into the realm of fantasy. Can you just put the cars in there? Is that okay?

Maybe. Maybe put the cars in. Doesn't really fit if God so well. I don't know. Who gives a shit? It's all of their, it's like the future of cars worlds. It's like all of their Jetsons. You know, it's Mater 5000.

Oh, yes. But he looks like shit still. But like chrome, dad. Now he's rusty chrome. Okay. That's good. Yeah. And he's got like some like future sunglasses on.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just put the, yeah, cars. Lightning McQueen, the 12th. It's all of their ancestors. Laser McQueen. Laser McQueen. Laser McQueen.

Yeah. Ka-chow. Future Ka-chow. He would have to say something similar, but like future-y. Ka-chow-a-tron. Ka-chow-a-tron. Yeah. So that's, but like future-y. Kachowatron. Kachowatron, yeah. So that's, yes, you're right. The cars is the answer.

Yeah. Just put the cars on. Cars 5000. Cars 5000. Who wouldn't like that? Oh, yeah, it's cool. It's like kind of the future of cars. Wow, that's neat.

Yeah, and it's just, it's the exact same track. You don't even do anything to it. It's just full of animatronic cars wearing future sunglasses and like future like silvery jumpsuit stuff like like they're all wearing like all the same models yeah exactly slow down you're not cyber racing yet yeah perfect perfect this is easy this is drag and drop that script is done in an hour yeah uh and then they're playing tequila when they're souping you up but it's like got a a beat it's like a techno version or what another they're not playing tequila are they playing what are they playing what song am i thinking of they're playing the wars it's uh

oh low rider low rider sorry why did I think it was tequila? That's too fun. That's not the right song. Yeah, it's Lowrider. Yeah, Laser Rider. Yeah, just replace that with pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. It's laser sounds. Yeah, perfect.

All right. Yeah, it's done, honestly. Throw the cars in there. It's the future of the cars. I think we cracked it. Yeah, you're right. You survived podcast the done. Honestly. Throw the cars in there. It's the future of the cars. I think we cracked it. Yeah, you're right. You survived podcast the ride. It is cracked.

Test track edition. And just before the plugs, what you just said about, I think, us doing some sort of themed activation, I do feel inspired. I feel like the game has been upped by something that I just came from this weekend. I came, I'll keep this quick. I came from the event BugCon. If you know BugMain, if you know Bugsy the gangster, imagine an event

where you could swim in the aesthetics of BugMain and Bugsy. The people out there, however you feel about Bugsy on our show, imagine just living in Bugsy for two straight days. And that's what this is. There are some listeners, I think, who went to BugCon and who I met at BugCon.

There was an experience that was there briefly, and I tweeted about it. It was called the Tomorrow War Operation Rescue. And this was everything you want out of a themed experience. It expanded the world of the film. It imagined a scenario where Cohen, the character played by Mike Mitchell has guest of the show where he his spoiler alert things don't work out so well

for Cohen but in the attraction Operation Rescue what if it went a little differently and what if after you yourself do battle with the white spikes you have to face the white spikes with laser guns and then you round you round a corner and there is Cowan himself. And I'm still not even sure how they did this.

Was it an animatronic? Was it a very realistic wax figure whose mouth moved? Was it Mitch being made to humiliate himself for three straight hours and stand and act like a robot over and over again as group after group went by it's hard to say but i feel like i got to wit i witnessed a very spirited themed attraction uh i couldn't believe how well they pulled it it was like it was so scrappy it hadn't even come together in the morning and then and then by 2, it was thrilling everyone. People were making the jump to the future, to 2050 Miami.

It was the hit of BugCon. And it made me think maybe there is some PTR-themed attraction. Maybe it's not outside of the realm of possibility. Yes. I think we could do it. If they could do it, I think credit to, I believe, Jack Allison and Charles Ingram pulled this together. True aspiring Imagineers.

They should send a video to Imagineering. Get hired. That would be great. This was very quality. So I'm so amped from that. And I want to say one more thing because I have this right here. I met some listeners to the show. And I think I'm going to fuck up their names.

I know one is Kyler and the other is, is it Emmy? Is it Ellie? Is it Effie? It's a name like that. And I might not have gotten it still. And I'm going to fuck up their names. I know one is Kyler and the other is, is it Emmy? Is it Ellie? Is it Effie? It's a name like that. And I might not have gotten it still. And I'm so sorry. And I owe you better than that because I got the best listener gift that I've ever received.

And this is not anything that I expect from the audience of the show. The audience is great. You don't need to bring us things, but I couldn't not mention it even in a long episode. Gentlemen, look what is in my possession now oh my god wait this is a hold it by your computer with with light light it up a little boy do you recognize it uh oh i do the peach boys this is a sign that says the peach boys wow and from the aforementioned the fries experience that I talked about in this episode, a long time ago I talked about Fries Electronics and how they had a smoothie stand with only two themed options for their smoothies. And one of them is the Peach Boys.

So I have the like the slat from the Sacramento fries. This was really there. This is from Fries in Sacramento. They went to like a liquidation thing and got this. And I think there was another smoothie that they were fond of and they got their tab. And then they said, you know what? We should bring this one, the Peach Boys, back to Scott Gairdner. If we ever run into Scott Gairdner.

And they did. They did it at BugCon. So nice. I was so moved. And the best part, it is actually a magnet, so I can put this up on my fridge. Wow. As I have. They also got me a Charlie Chip pin, the famous mascot of Fry's Electronics.

Yeah, of course. I mean, this has given me such joy every time I've seen it. I've only been with it for not even 48 hours. I'm still getting used to being with the Peach Boys, the Sacramento smoothie sign. So thank you guys so much. I'm sorry I fucked up your names. Yeah, so thrilled.

Thank you guys so much. That's great. So, all right. All that is a little postscript. Thanks so much for listening. You know, visit BugCon 2022 and friends for us. Check us out on all the socials, merchant,

our T public store and three bonus episodes every month. The podcast, the second gate at patrion.com slash podcast, the ride. What else? That's a lot. Oh yeah. That's a lot.

You know, I'm just, you know, I'm just going to, everybody dream of peach, banana, pineapple juice and apple juice ingredients of a delicious peach boys. Done says Jason.

Yeah, it sounds great. Great. 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.

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