Podcast: The Ride - The American Dream Disaster

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

The American Dream is a five billion dollar shopping and entertainment destination in New Jersey. It includes a theme park, water park, indoor ski—you know what? I don't want to run out of space here. It's been in the works for decades and may not be long for this world.  Mighty Ducks of Anaheim 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 may be only 8% complete, and that 8% may be overrun with gummy babies, profane ghosts, and Shrek fart water. The ugly-themed mall that has ruined the New Jersey skyline for decades now ruins this podcast. It's the American Dream Disaster on Podcast The Ride. welcome to podcast the ride uh for an episode that has been in the works since the first george w bush administration i'm jason sheridan are you gonna say you were george w bush was that what you were about to say have you lost your mind i mission i it's this topic maybe okay this topic maybe that's mike carlson i'm like carter is also here

george w bush i'm uh and i sky garren i'm not george w bush also but i you know the craziest thing is i think it's even further i like at least like little embers like the beginning seeds of this crazy thing i think go back to clinton a little bit oh yeah initial like pitches and stuff they go back to an era when these sorts of multi entertainment destination things were like relevant mhm and before like this thing bridges all of the giant tragedies it goes back

it covers all of them it really like and it's the most apt name the most like and most apt thing to be doing at this time, I think. I would say multiple apt names, too. Oh, yes. It went from one to another.

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, a note I had written down is how many people read about what this was and was like, I am going to go join ISIS. This is causing me... Thoseis guys might have a point uh i just learned about a big mall and it drove me insane i never really uh thought about death to america before but you know now i can kind of wrap my head around the concept yeah with an entertainment complex and shopping the the size of the scope was enough to uh drive people to extremism uh so we're talking about i correct me if i'm wrong one of the names the american dream meadowlands oh see i missed that as a name i didn't see that either is that one of the many names i thought

that's where they ended up like that's the most recent one maybe if you look them uh i think i believe now you just go to if you want to learn about this place i think it's just americandream.com if that clarifies it where the logo just says american dream and you can click around the website of this one of the biggest malls ever built but don't call it a mall in front of the people responsible because it's so much more than that it's so full of attractions why if you go to the website like i'm looking at right now you'll see all kinds of rides and slides uh and and other things that uh are not open and may never open yeah i will say we know we haven't talked we've been talking a lot about ladders lately which i'm really excited about but we haven't talked about slides that much so i'm excited to talk about slides so we've

never done an episode devoted to one single slide we've poked around various water slides but there is not one that's been enough to right uh get its soul its own episode um which are there any i mean maybe that one that killed that person but i don't really want to talk about that for a long time no i'm not interested in that one i don't we don't need to talk about that one there's one in toontown what's the where's the slide in toontown we haven't done enough about that gone though they took out yeah i don't think you can go on slides anymore there's no slide yeah that's i was like a legal cut at some point um america is getting worse i guess um this is uh yeah what we're talking about is a mall in new jersey um that it has a very long and calamitous history and that finally started opening and then there was the covet 19

outbreak and we've certainly been aware of this and we've we've texted about it but i just want to credit the the person who put it back on our radar on our facebook group i'm going to guess the the pronunciation jason fausoni uh who who posted an article on a website called six square feet and just to read because sometimes you just have to see what we saw to understand why we had to leap to it and do an episode uh the headline no reopening plans for new jersey's american dream mall as tenants flee and owner skips mortgage payments we knew right away this was deep in our wheelhouse and i just want to say when this first came up years ago on the podcast i said it's not gonna happen it's not gonna it's not going to fully open. Because I had heard about this for years and years,

just that it was a catastrophe. Chris Christie, of all people, the former governor of New Jersey, let me try and find this quote I have. He described it as quite possibly the ugliest building in new jersey and maybe america and he would know about ugly because he's a pug ugly son of a bitch oh wow jason ugly inside and out chris christie uh gee which oddly which oddly ugly inside and out is not something that he himself would say about the mall because he he made that comment people it got a lot of press and it really like damned this place for

a long time then to assuage him at some point he was given a tour and he said in the press just so you know i saw the inside and it is not as ugly as the outside i'm happy to report they like took him around to show him see not so bad and then it turns out he's being fair there you know that's an honest man that's an honest politician he was being fair you know what else he was being very wrong very incorrect no we've all been looking at photos of this place for a while um and i i'd have to agree um there's one other i don't know if this is from the the one that jason posted on the facebook or from another article called a dream deferred but let me just read this just to you know just so the press this article can do the exposition for us to explain this whole thing

after nearly two decades of construction delays new jersey's mega mall american dream partially opened last october partially and this story as we said goes back decades uh six months later the three million square foot venue was forced to close its doors because of the coronavirus pandemic now even as the state continues its gradual reopening there is still no reopening date for the five billion dollar mall amazing billion dollars and one billion supposedly taxpayer subsidies wow it's the whole thing with this and this company. It's a company that's always tried to make it, you know, public money meets other stuff.

But, you know, before we get too far into it, I mean, so Jason and the Facebook group reminded us, oh, this would be really fun to talk about. And it's current and it's relevant. And hopefully not, you know, I don't think they're going to reopen by the end of the week that we're recording this. And then it's not relevant anymore. It doesn't seem like things are going great but yeah obviously this would be fun to do but i realized wait isn't you remember at the end of the downtown disney ordeal that we were sent on all these missions by all these keepers like from various all none of them theme parks obviously all shopping centers near theme parks are related to theme parks.

And there were a lot of them. And I got to be honest, I zoned out. But wasn't one of them the keeper of the American Dream Mall? Yes, I think you're correct. I think that this was already a little bit on a radar because we were visited by one of our friend, the keeper's cousins who was the keeper of this mall that had just opened i forget when we did the downtown disney ordeal i guess it was around that same time that it partially opened yeah or was about to i don't know we didn't we didn't think it was going to be closed forever because of the pandemic i do in checking my notes here it looks like it was supposed to

be called the american dream disaster which oddly a really prophetic name right what's ended up happening yes yeah um so do you i mean like we this wasn't really i mean we're just throwing this together it's kind of an afterthought but like do you think we could like summon him do you think he's huh do you think he's summonable i mean that's let me uh let me do a little texting here let me see if i can get uh let me oh wait a minute i think i think boys boys it's me the keeper of the american dream mall in new jersey oh Even though I'm from Long Island and I hate New Jersey. I know how much you've been wanting to do my saga, the American Dream Disaster. And I said we'd do it in the summer of 2025, but I ain't sure this mall's going to be around by then.

To set my spirit free, please review the 8% of the mall that opened before the pandemic. This should be 17 episodes minimum. Good friggin' luck, boys. Huh. Well, yeah, there he is. Hey. Whoa. Hi.

Well, thanks for being here on such short notice. You just responded to a text, I guess? Yeah, I just texted uh this gentleman this ghost gentleman um and yeah so we are hey thanks he's here uh he's in a fourth window on our zoom we're doing this virtually he just popped up in the corner so he's not with any of us in particular and we all got to be distant so yeah but yeah he's piping in from from somewhere so yeah thanks thanks for joining uh i hope i hope you're excited about this this sucks whoa hey well geez what is it already give us a chance dude yeah kind of fair kind of fair yeah uh yeah hey man this is, you know, I always find this process doing records this way to be like a little stiff and a little, you know, not organic.

But he especially just seems like he's like so far, like he's not even paying attention. I just feel so, so distant from the guy. Yeah, I know. I want to assure the listeners, though, he is here live for sure. There's no anything weird, but he is here live for sure there's no anything weird but he is here it's just he's like not paying attention so it might i think probably seem like he's sort of you know not here but but he is for sure look we're all distracted checking out i mean how can you give any of these zoom records really you're all i just hope he he kind of helps us or something yeah i think boys boys you're boring the crap out of me okay okay all right all right let me get going i think i think that's sort of the the vibe here okay dude okay so i have kind of um i kind of

have a log line for this place from the website chain store age. I spent a lot of time on the website chain store age, six square feet. I'm sure we all were on there. There's a lot of articles about this place on there. Six square feet also was where I learned that Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion is up for sale. Are you going to put in a bid?

No. Well, yeah, it's got to get 88 million. That's fine. Okay. no well uh yeah it's got to get 88 million that's fine okay um does it come with all the hidden cameras that filmed all so many of our faves doing stuff that isn't our fave so okay so here is the description from chain store age and then i have uh one of the facts

that it drove me to madness i learned learned after reading a lot about this place. The American Dream, developed by Triple Five Group, is approximately three million square feet and projects 40 million visitors annually. complete the destination will include more than 400 retail food and specialty shops and more than 15 entertainment offerings including fully enclosed dreamworks water park and nickelodeon universe theme park big snow american dream kidsania live performing arts theater 300 foot tall observation wheel merlin entertainment sea life aquarium and lego land discovery center the rink an nhl regulation size ice rink and the dining terrace with over 15 full-service restaurants and a food hall so that's a log line that's a paragraph log so much it's it's so very much. And one big thing I learned is that the mall portion of this ended up being scheduled to open last.

And if that wasn't weird enough, another thing I learned is that this is located in Bergen County in New Jersey. Bergen County still has blue laws on the book meaning a lot of shops have to stay closed on sunday yeah i saw that so this was pretty common in jersey back in the day they have blue laws a lot of shops are closed shops and some restaurants are closed amusement parks are not closed is that the key for you yeah yeah he said yuck about those laws doesn't like blue laws huh it's blue laws can you elaborate what oh why don't you like them uh uh this sucks

he doesn't like them he just doesn't like them i think he's it's like a feeling he has it's not you don't have to keep going into it. Sure. Yeah. Now, supposedly the reason blue laws are still on the books for whatever reason in this one county in New Jersey is Bergen County already has a shit ton of malls and the residents have asked them to stay on the books because it's one day where there is a little bit of relief from the traffic

that's a big factor in this whole thing is the traffic traffic's very bad in this neck of the woods which is very near where the giants play correct so it like super crazy bottlenecks whenever there's a game and even if there isn't one the giants and the jets and a horse racetrack and the empty i i forget what it's even called now it used to be called the izod center where the nets and the jersey devils play they have since gone to play elsewhere so there's an empty arena close by as well visiting the empty arena and why not visit a mall that only got eight percent open and is only open uh six out of seven days of the week here's some other numbers magic kingdom attendance uh i believe this was 2017 just under 21 million universal studios florida attendance roughly 10 million this place year

this is in a year this place projects 40 million annually 40 million annually i mean that's the hubris is always usually what i think when i and also with a place where there's malls around everywhere. Yeah. It's not like this is the only mall in, you know, two states. With all these tenants that have multiple outposts really nearby. I forget what they are offhand, but I, you know, say a Target or a Macy's. I forget. But like, I know that I know I saw one major chain.

That's like the linchpin of this that has three other ones in the area so why would you also be here i don't know it's hubris it's great 40 million and it's gonna top all way to like all those theme parks combined essentially out of the gate like but why would it well because it has a ninja turtle's shell razor roller coaster in it i guess i mean i will say the the ideal version of this does sound cool yes and uh yeah and we'll i'm sure we'll jump around the history of it but the people currently responsible who resuscitated these plans after several false starts it's a company called triple five and they are responsible for the mall of

america uh which i i feel has been woefully underrepresented on on podcast the ride as has uh the west edmonton mall which was their first foray into any of this, this mega mall in, uh, uh, in Canada and Alberta, uh, that seems just bonkers. And,

and I, this all caused me to look into that a little bit. Just the fact that there were, you could see dolphin shows in this mall. There was a submarine ride. You could get on little submarines. They, um,

they called an area of it. And I believe the hotel fantasy land even though at some point disney sued them and said you can't also use fantasy land um so so both of these malls i mean they are like amazing i haven't gotten to go to west edmonton but i've just watched full half hour videos showing you everything there is to do it's crazy mall of america i have been to i loved it so this has the third in the trilogy of the mega mall of the triple five mega malls if they pulled it off it could be unbelievable yeah i mean it would be unbelievable i'm not yes we're we're gonna make some fun here today but as is common on this podcast we're making fun of something that we probably walk into and go,

this is the greatest place we've ever been to. Like I love this place so much. In a COVID free timeline where we did do this in summer 2025. Yeah. With the keeper. I think if nothing bad happened to it, I think we'd be having a ball and maybe we would do the full 17 episodes you just asked us to do. I'm not going to agree to that as it is.

I mean, barely any of this hope. I think we could fit it all into one unless you guys disagree. I think we could fit it into one, but I'm leaving the option open for another 16 episodes. Sure. That's what i'll say well now since we brought up the mall of america did anyone run into the other connection this place has to the mall of america no oh the mall of america is the collateral for this establishment and yeah okay triple five group has missed three consecutive seven million dollar uh payments on the mall of america on the mall of america yes on the mall of america so they're just like are they i wonder are they do they know they'll just hopefully get bailed out do we know this do we

know that like the intricate financial situation where it's like they probably have the money but they know that because we're in a time of covid they could potentially just get a huge government handout and not have to pay well that's made me wonder has the american dream received any of that paycheck uh protection assistance right and the answer is no i could not find any uh i could not find from like some of the more notable businesses i could not find any uh i could not find from like some of the more notable businesses i did not find any in terms of themed entertainment the walt disney family museum received ppp assistance gatorland did and something in vale colorado called margaritaville inc which i cannot figure out if it's connected to margaritaville at all. Margaritaville ink? Yes, Margaritaville ink.

So it could just be a guy. And it's not Margaritaville ink like it's a tattoo place. I-N-K. Not I-N-K. Where you can get like a parrot wearing a floppy hat on your arm. Right. Okay. The tattoo you would get with any have any options uh yeah you'd be

willing to um gilligan hat that's pretty wild you know they did they have laid off 100 people i believe the american dream itself and then amidst all that i mean you know that's that's who the mall employs but then the mall is obviously comprised of many different stores and i believe uh among places that are pulling out or trying to uh forever 21 victoria's secret the children's place um gnc i forget what that is and cmx cinemas are companies that filed bankruptcy entirely due to covet 19 and so thus are no longer opening at the mall and and again none of none of these open they did if you look on youtube they did some opening ceremonies for the theme park part but the rest of it and i think this is correct that the mall section of the mall was going to open like the week that all of the locking down oh my god i think it was the week insane what are the odds

well and because they kept shifting they kept breaking them all into phases and they're like it was phase one through four and then they're like okay change of plant phase three is coming first so you're getting the nick like what it ended up being the stuff officially open was the nickelodeon theme park and big snow the indoor ski but wait the nhl the the nhl regulation sized hockey rink did not open? No, the rink opened. I can't explain on the rink. So that was full.

That was in that phase three. I have lost track of the phases have shifted so many times. Honestly, it seems exactly the same way that the California government is going about reopening businesses out here with the switching around in phases, confusingly. Dumping around in the order yeah actually i saw some literature not calling these phases but rather calling them chapters we are opening this in chapters so just to just to iterate this is a multi-billion dollar scheme that out of the gate isn't working great that's devoted to opening things in small chapters and that also is related to dreamworks that's on the back of dreamworks characters it's all a tad equibious couldn't you say is that a is that a boo i think yeah he was booing i think he booed there why does he have a show on quibi or something yeah he loves quibi yeah he loves that he loves

they gave a show to the american dream ball keeper yeah that's right he they they heard him on the show he was in he was mixed in there with a lot of other famous keepers so they felt like he had a high q rating okay from exposure they didn't give us they didn't give us a show but they gave a show to this one ghost deep uh two hours into a podcast yeah yeah he he's got a producer credit on the most dangerous game well congrats on the emmy uh um nominations it's been a been a big week for the american dream keeper um this is really small potatoes i can see why he's he's checking his phone he's like getting congrats on the emmy stuff so that's why he's not really. Hey, Len, call me. He just said, hey, Len, call me.

He's like doing deals. With Len? I think he's talking about Len Testa from Touring Plans. And the Disney dish. Wow. He's just, yeah, I see he's on his phone. He's just like, yeah, he's wheeling and dealing right now. Well, but why?

We give him one shit. Like, what other function would there be for this guy? And he uses his time with us to be on his phone, to try to do business deals with people using our platform. Dude, listen, Mr. Keeper, happy to have you, but you're being a little disrespectful. Hey, boys, shut the fuck up he's so mean to us he's so much meaner than the sector keeper who got a little ornery with all with all the vape but this guy's like 20 times worse yeah he sector keeper was like polite he would be like oh i think maybe we should move on or whatever but he's yeah this american dream keeper right to the point god well he's probably just he

feels burnt by how long it's taken his mall namesake to open and then only to culminate in this disaster uh should we go backwards in time and talk about the the seeds of this crazy thing yeah i think so um as jason as you said uh this was not always called the american dream um you know i think there were maybe proposals for doing something like this in the new jersey area as far back as 96 but i think it didn't really kick into gear until the early 2000s uh when it was supposed to be called xanadu you and you might know xanadu as the ancient city of regal splendor or the elo song with olivia newton john or the giant castle where charles foster k Kane died alone. If, yeah,

you want to, you really want to associate your incredibly ambitious real estate project with a film that is popular because it bombed. Like, that's the, if, I love Xanadu, it's one of my favorite movies, but, like, the point is that it's a big disaster.

They might as well have called this mall the Ishtar. Or the Gigli. Synonymous with failure. Gigli. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that a New Jersey?

Or am I just conflating it with Jersey Girl? That's Jersey Girl. Jersey Girl, yeah. Well, when you're thinking of J-Lo Is that a New Jersey or am I just conflating it with Jersey? That's Jersey girl. Jersey girl. Well, when you're thinking of J-Lo and Affleck, that's the, those are the two, those are the two J-Lo Affleck films, right? That's they never completed the trilogy of that. There should have been a third. That's something they should get around to.

You should do a zoom reunion film i mean kevin smith's eventually gonna start doing sequels of the the ones that didn't work i mean he's so like you would think scraping jersey girl 2 needs to happen i think yeah sure it's time oh sorry ben affleck couldn't make it again now it's gonna be uh jason muse yeah playing he going to be Jason Mewes. Yeah. Playing the character. He happened to be available. Playing the character that we for sure know the name of. That we definitely know, and I assume you're pulling your phone out for an unrelated reason.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm just saying. Setting an alarm for later. I'm setting an alarm for the morning. But yeah, we're all, of course, talking about, okay, my phone, not. Ollie Trink. That's his character. Ben Affleck is Ollie Trink.

Is that a reference to Oliver? Is it Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow? Just because of the Oliver part? Just because Kevin Smith, I think think was writing around that he was writing green arrow around that time so it's possible ollie trink is a tribute to oliver queen i guess i mean i guess it's possible it's only half of it is the same but not still not the same but maybe i wouldn't bet everything i own on that okay anyway um the part of the reason this was called xanadu is because there had been a mega mall in madrid called madrid xanadu and an aspect of that was a huge indoor uh ice not rink what's the word a list hill an indoor hill what do you call the ski slope there sorry

thanks um that they had something called the madrid snow zone so the idea of building a big place in an urban area with a huge slope that was indoor that you could go to all year round if it worked in madrid surely it will work in new jersey yeah sure let's see why not the same climates yeah yeah yeah um so uh and and this whole project sort of came out i think the the initial people who started it uh uh was the the mills corporation and when i heard this i went oh of course i could i could smell mills stink from this uh from a mile away if you don't know mills this isn't general mills this is uh you you might in your area have a mills mall in california there's uh the ontario mill, which is home to the last remaining rainforest cafe in California. In Florida, I believe there's the Sawgrass Mills, Potomac Mills.

There's a whole bunch of them. And the thing uniting all of them is that they suck shit. This is I'm a mall aficionado. I love malls. The mills are uh hellscapes like if i i don't know if i did wrong in this life i think i would spend all eternity just doing an endless loop in a mills mall and it's always something mills is that how you know not every mills says mills but if it says mills then it used to be a mills now mills is defunct mills

was bought by simon right because we yes because we had a place called gurney mills that we would go to and it is of course now a simon center according to wikipedia it has become a simon so no mills is a mills anymore so no mills is a Mills anymore. And Franklin Mills in Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia, formerly owned by the Mills Corporation, and now, of course, owned by Simon Property Group. Okay, okay. Mike, was it the same deal with you? Was Gurney Mills like a...

Because the Mills that I know about are just these, like, aesthetic-free nightmares where you just walk in this big loop that never ends and it'll say like group five and group two but this and it tells you what the stores are but those aren't themed in any way it's not like here's the entertainment district it's just like i don't know group two has dsw and group five has marshalls figure it out it kind of felt my memory now this is another one where I'm going to get a phone call from my mom as soon as I say this, because she's going to dispute this and say Gurney Mills was wonderful.

We had a great time going there. But my memory of it was it was more like an out, it felt like an Outland Mall in the sense that you were kind of confused. And then you didn't like, there wasn't like these big, cool things like how Woodfield Mall used to be or how some of these other better malls used to be. That's my memory. No distinct architecture. It's like you're in a narrow airplane hangar. Yeah. It's like, I mean, the Citadel out here is the outlet mall that's outdoors.

And I'm so confused at the Citadel. And I've been there a handful of times. But it's always like you're just looking at a map five times and you don't remember where you were and it's outdoors you should know in relation to the parking lot where you are but it's like it's confusing it's it's meant it's like a it's a casino it's the casino type vibe where it's like meant to confuse you you're meant to be stuck in there all day just kind of the equivalent of doing a yard sale where you just kind of like dump a bunch of shit on your lawn

and say, I don't know, you look around, figure it out. Yeah, they really like cheat the difference between outlet mall and regular mall, but it doesn't kind of, it didn't have the like relaxing inoffensiveness of most standard like local malls. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty accurate so the fact that this is this huge unpleasant like just massive sprawling complex and that that color scheme

feels very millsy because again i'm a big i'm such a big mall fan and i i like the aesthetics of malls are often why I like them so much. I was just relooking at photos from our trip to the Woodfield Mall, which has changed modernized, gotten a little more bland, but still like crazy ceilings and crazy multi-tiered. You know, this bridge goes into this staircase and it looks very futuristic. The outside of when it was Xanadu when chris christie called it the ugliest damn building in new jersey i mean the detail i don't have a picture in front of me but just the details i wrote down is it's a lot of this there's a big stretch with brown and orange stripes and then green and blue checkerboard like like it's um it's it's like you just took

seven unrelated buildings and just smashed them together, and all their color schemes are different. And that ski slope one, which, you know, is sloped, it looks broken. It looks like Godzilla picked up a building and then threw it down, and it landed wrong. It's just, I can see why Chris T hated it so. Great choice of words, Scott, because that building back in February of 2011, there was record snowfalls in the area. And at some point,

workers were attempting to melt snow off the ski slopes roof and ice buildup caused the eastern wall to fall and suffer a partial collapse along an approximately 150 foot length of roof oh my god it collapsed because of the fake ski slope collapse due to real snow on the top yes that's right and they said you know what we don't think it's gonna affect the integrity of the building so they just filed an insurance claim to get some money to cover the damages so so it was never like super reinforced they never started over like what what people

were skiing on earlier this year is the same structure yeah it seems like it sure seems like it so if enough people were at the top waiting it might just all like tip down and down it might be sloped the other way by the end of the hour huh that is what is there's got to be a crazier thing you could put in there than a artificial ski slope right or is that the height of what's possible at this point definitely very odd it's the most this whole mall is like the most dubai-ish yes that's absolutely what it feels like a dubai feature um yeah it would be stranger if that was like um you know if you made it like a big mud run like you know if it was all recreating there was a tough Mudder in there? Tough Mudder?

Tough Mudder is one of the companies that does those mud-like challenges where you have to get in the mud. You have to crawl through electricity. You have to dive in water. You have to scale a tall wall. They used to be much cooler a couple of years... Or much more, I think, popular a couple of years ago. Oh, i don't know tough mutter i guess yeah if there was a perennial year-round tough mutter god you'd have

to get me to say i think dubai though is a very good comparison because i there's this great george saunders essay uh george saund, the author, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, he wrote a very poetic essay about going to Dubai and trying to understand it and the poetry of the ski. They have an indoor ski slope, and it's just surrounded by kids who had never seen snow. They live in the desert, and they're just amazed by it. And Bergen County gets plenty of snow. I don't know that're just amazed by it in bergen county gets plenty of snow i don't know

that anyone's amazed by this even you're you're absolutely right and there was a news report that i watched about the the ski slope that you know they like they roped lindsey vaughn into doing a run and uh you know all right i'll cash that check and you know they they had a bunch of skiers there who gave it a shot and they all finished and went like it was good it was short it was short a pretty short run but you know it's a good place to like tune up you know before you go to the real mountain that's that's the biggest praise anyone could say on television is there i mean would there be a chance that we could save them all by maybe moving just the uh winter o we could save the mall by maybe moving

just the winter olympics to the mall and have everybody in a bubble like in the nba in orlando so you'd have all the olympic skiers living at this mall and then they would just do the olympics on that ski slope maybe that's a solution i'm saying for money for the mall i guess it's a good idea for the nhl as well it could be residential too because there's plenty you know they got plenty of space that isn't used so you know every athlete gets to pit you know do you want to stay in a in a zara do you want to stay in a in a claire's like it's up to you there's so you get an entire store to yourself the higher seated skiers will get to be in the

higher level stores the more expensive stores you get a uh um blooming dales if you're if you've won a gold medal before right that makes a lot of sense yeah um before moving on from the way it looks there was that chris christie quote but another government official weighed in because this is a at some point the toronto-based architect uh behind the original style of the building was summoned to appear before state officials and quote explain himself in which case at this event state senator loretta weinberg said that's one of the ugliest buildings i've ever seen in my life it looks like something my four-year-old granddaughter might build with legos wow oh yeah the sec he thinks that's yucky yeah he said yuck all right well we're on hey

we're on the same page we've had our disagreements far, but I think as long as we talk about things you don't like, you know, we'll get plenty out of you. Hey, boys, shut the fuck up. Fair. I was being nice to you. Yeah, you were being nice, and he did shut it right down. This is the most abused and a non-Nick Mundy episode I've ever felt. Yeah.

That's the sort of frank analysis you can only really get from a true hollywood power player that's true you know doesn't pull bunches an old school type producer type really yeah yeah for sure always willing to call me oh he's still trying to get len tested to call him back why len i don't know that's what it he says he's saying it i don't have anything to do with it yeah strange uh um so anyways uh the mills corporation builds a building that's as ugly as all the mills buildings um there was a lot of back and forth of will we be able to do this you know they did build this on is it is it wetlands what kind of uh the marsh i that was the original okay the original site was going to be wetlands and

then the epa got involved in the army corps of engineers and i think they just said fuck it and made it protected like nature preserve and then they moved it like just slightly moved and that was and that was okay so all right so they fended off the epa and all these and by the way they've never had a good relationship with the new jersey sports board whatever the actual name of it is but you know the the giants and the jets have never been super psyched on this operation due to the traffic that it would bring so they've been fighting it but eventually they they punched their way through and got it going and they uh heralded their um perma fixture status in new jersey they they they had they held an event in 2004 a groundbreaking event at which they also claimed this is the beginning of a 75

year lease for xanadu we'll be here for at least 75 years again this is in 2004 meaning that the first 16 years of the 75 have uh been been vacant and many more probably will be as well wow um this event uh was a this was a one night party for which there were 410 beats and and the cost of this one single party one million dollars wow uh which honestly low honestly low by the way yeah yeah that's true what if you had 10 million dollars it would have kind of been the same reaction like that's too much but oh well i guess they have that money any amount would be in line with the waste of this thing uh um and if i if i could sort of like um you know beginning of disney special say some of the things that you would experience if you went to this party uh it's a 75 year uh groundbreaking of xanadu with your hosts christy brinkley

chris harrison from the bachelor celebrity chef todd english uh a array of fancy filet mignon and cigars a fashion show from l magazine a performance by the cast of stomp and an appearance from a governor who is in the process of resigning in disgrace which one uh this is jimmy greevey yeah oh yeah okay McGreevy uh was in a sex scandal uh which you would have to describe as being uh pulling a spacey in that he

uh did some harassing and then said well here's the thing I'm gay so you forgive me right no no one forgave him that's not an excuse and he said he said i will step down in several months between those several months he hosted a fun event with chris harrison and todd english like why was he there get out of there that's a par for the course for new jersey

politicians this project goes from the grieving scandal to Bridgegate to COVID. That's how long you can measure it in financial crisis. Don't forget. Well, we certainly won't. That definitely comes into play. Can I just say also that I went in looking up, I was not aware of this Jim McGreevy story before, but yeah,

he, he, he resigned in this shady way. But don't worry, he's doing better now. And there's actually a documentary about his redemption and all the good work that he's done since all of this and that documentary is directed by nancy pelosi's daughter what she's the one she's the one who warned about our faves that our faves

might be implicated she's the wait she's who said faves yeah i think i believe so i believe that was nancy pelosi's daughter hey wait alexandra or alessandra could you announce the director again real quick that uh what that's like as if you were just announcing it again who it's directed oh uh this is a this is a film about uh harassing governor's redemption directed by nancy pelosi's daughter wow an air horn i guess yeah the the keeper has an air horn he wanted to use he was he was like whispering into me to get you to do that again i that was his reaction to is that as he does he like nancy pelosi or yeah he likes yeah yeah he's a big he's a big contributor to the democratic party oh big big policy fan loves her costumes yeah i think that's i think you know from now maybe from now on that's when he's saying sort

of like an affirmative thing like a yes okay okay so sector keeper here let's let's test it uh american dream keeper if uh you do you want to continue using your air horn instead of saying the verbal word yes perfect there you go very long islandy cool uh um this is fun i'm coming around on this guy we're we're finding how it works yeah yeah so after uh this uh million dollar party uh they built some of the mall and then ran out of money in 2006 then a second developer took it over and in 2008 came the great recession so that they pretty quickly timed out two years seems to be that's as far as anybody made it for a little while um and in that time it was like well who then will take over xanadu this is is fertile ground. Somebody has to. And a lot of organizations looked at it, considered it. This is New York in the 2000s.

So you know who's got to get involved or at least consider getting involved? Our old pal Donald Trump. Oh, of course. The Trump Organization. The Trump Organization takes a look at Xanadu. What have they got? How much have they built? Let's crunch some numbers.

You know what? This doesn't sound good. I think we're going to walk away. Trump didn't. This is a thing. This is a disaster that Trump did not get himself embroiled in. Amazing. Trump, a guy who's never not just spun right into a disaster.

If there's one near him, he's's like where he gravitates right to it he loves something that's going to just go horribly wrong and then so xanadu was too too wrong for him yes like can i take like a little match-sized fire and get a mile-long blazing inferno um yeah not not for him so then they didn't know what to do for a long time and i think it sat vacant and chris christie was mad and you know what this has been marring our skyline for so long and we don't we got we got to do something about this uh then he his administration crunched numbers and saw that it would cost them the city 50 to 100 million dollars to demolish it so they said well let's get somebody else in there then shall we

suddenly getting rid of it didn't seem so bad i could live with the ugliest building sounds good to me um so uh that is when they threw it out to some other people and then it was awarded to this company triple five this is around uh 20 no way no they i don't know what year they came on board but all right i'll go 2011 2011 um and as i said west edmonton mall uh their first hit uh they topped it even with the Mall of America. They are the kings of entertainment fused with retail. So it's a big deal they're there. If anybody can save this, it's them.

And did you guys find how they announced their arrival onto this project? No. So this is a family, I should say also. Triple five, but it's, I think, five members of a family i should say also triple five but it's it's um it's i think five members of a family who've been involved in it at various times and i if you know that pronunciation tell me but germesian it's a germesian family yeah your germesian family uh and this is straight from uh an article maybe from bloomberg or something uh the germesians announced their arrival in 2011 with a rousing news conference

soundtracked by bruce springsteen's the rising bruce was there for the rise ladies and gentlemen the gramezian, come on up. Rising at night. What had 10 years earlier been a stirring post-9-11 anthem, now is the soundtrack for five businessmen walking out of a trailer. At least Bruce wasn't playing live. Not that I saw, no. I didn't loop him into this. At least Bruce wasn't playing live. That's where... Not that I saw, no. I didn't loop him into this.

This is going to be a great mall. I just want to bless this mall with my music. We open up that ski slope. Let me tell you, I'm tearing off my shirt. I'm going straight down. Right on Bruce's belly. A lot of hardworking teens are going to be pressing the go button on the TMNT

rollercoaster the shell razor I just want to shout out to those hard working teens look it's so easy to get here from Manhattan it's just a straight shot through the Lincoln Tunnel then you go through Weehawken then through Secaucus and you're there

they should have at least gotten like weinberg max weinberg to show up or nils to just play drums yeah let's just play along to a track he could use the construction gear like he flips over the helmets and the buckets oh yeah yeah that's fun that is fun ladies and gentlemen the bruce springsteen won you know he would he would have done it too if they asked him a couple hundred bucks max will do it well if they called the mall the max weinberg mall from then on out oh yeah well put my name in the marquee then sure um so uh armed with the state's promise of financial assistance here you go germesians take money please uh they redesigned and expanded the complex renaming it american dream Meadowlands. Now, here's a weird thing. So, as I said, West Edmonton Mall, Mall of America,

they were always looking for a place to do their third. We have to close out the trilogy right. And they tried to do it all over the country, all over the world. They were way into it in Niagara Falls. Even Burbank was talked about, and I couldn't find any more info but so there was almost a world where there was a mega mall in this style uh

called uh in downtown burbank where could that yeah would have been right like in the area by the three amcs i you would have to think and um and i wonder if that because you know disney almost built there that thing that i love so much they almost built a mini MGM Studios where the Irving Hall is. Right. And there's been talk of doing a full, like, Americana thing where the Ikea is. I know. Oh, is that the discussion? I think that might be gone, though.

That was a few years ago. And now, of course, that Ikea is being used or was being used to shoot Flora's Lava. Flora's Lava. Wait, really? Yeah. That's where they shot a film yep that's where the lava is the lava is over in the abandoned not abandoned but shut down burbank ikea they the contestants that they at the end they just go out two double doors and i'm trying to figure out which entrance is if. If you could see the California Pizza Kitchen, you'll know which entrance it is. Oh, no, that's the Corner Bakery. That's the entrance on the other side.

Okay. Yeah. Are there double doors by the Macy's? I don't know. I'd have to check. Keeper, what do you think? Which entrance? North Southeaster was...

Shut the fuck up. Okay, yeah. It's a little inside burbank yeah i was playing with fire there i should have known what i was gonna get um anyway the weird thing about all this is that the gramezians um they uh in 1995 got some one of the closest that they'd gotten to to building their next mega mall in silver spring maryland in the in the in the baltimore area um and that was going to be called the american dream they have been sitting on this name we someday we will build our ultimate grand masterpiece

really it's their it's like their synecdoche new New York, right? That's like a big indoor New York area town. And it all ended very sadly. This really is a lot of illusions with Synecdoche, New York. But anyway, yeah, in 1995, they tried to build the American Dream. They've been pursuing the American Dream since 1995. And the whole story there is that they expected a lot of it to be built with public money. They thought, well, Maryland should be begging us. They should be throwing money at us. And at some point, when it didn't go that way and they realized they needed to pay for it all, they just got out of there and left. So this American Dream dream thing so long in the making yeah that's interesting i mean i guess that's just like a creative pursuit i'm trying to think of something so it's like a chinese democracy or something it's like a a title that axl rose had in his head for years i mean

they finally released it but it took decades for chinese democracy to come out the album guns and roses made i don't want to loop back around around what we've already covered, but sort of like Clerks 3, you know? When you know that the third one will be the best by far, it's going to be the most ambitious. You're excited about Clerks 3. Do you think that Clerks 3 stands

to be the best of the Clerks? Shouldn't, should've known. Yeah. Do you hope that the gang's still working at the save and stop or whatever the fuck it is quick stop do you hope that they're just back there like always

and they don't grow up and neither do we alright fair enough very good so hold on one more question do you hope they're not even supposed to be there that day wait i i mean uh the keeper didn't his he played the horn wrong sorry there we go okay that's right i watched him he was like tapping on the battery i think he was having some some trouble but everything's okay now the american dream does seem tailor-made to be this location for mall rats too oh wow yeah it's big enough i think you could film multiple mall films and in different wings simultaneously yeah yeah you could film mall rats two and three simultaneously in the mall and you never run into the cruise yeah yeah yeah um is there a good you could i mean that indoor ski slope is begging for

you could make that also a movie bubble and do kind of a 80s sex romp see school ski school sort of film um that's that's completely protected you know about teens having the wildest summer of their lives at an working at the indoor ski slope uh yeah no i think that sounds good i think yeah he thinks it sounds good as well yeah um do you have any ideas of anybody we could sort of wheel and deal with who might want to put their money into this and produce this film? Oh, this. Wait, hold on. He's got.

Please welcome the co-founder of Casamigos Tequila, Randy Gerber. Randy. Now, hey, wait a minute, keeper. You just opened your mouth and then partially a guy talking about Randy Gerber. My least favorite thing we talk about on this show. Are you? Yeah, you've confirmed. All right.

That's what you did. He's like magic, though. He's like a spirit. So he can do that. He can change his voice. But you asked the question. Yeah. He can inhabit different. can he do topical comedy

he can uh would you like to give us an example of some topical comedy or would you prefer that we moved on please welcome the co-founder of casamigos shut the fuck up that is topical though because casamigos is on the the lips of every american at the moment because they're just drinking a little more during this uh depressing time drinking that why yeah because it's one of the best it's the best tequila on the market next to terra mana the rocks tequila which i also now have a fascination with what's up with terra ma oh it's the rock oh the rock has now his own tequila which i also now have a fascination with what's up with tara ma oh it's the rock oh the rock has now his own tequila so i'm not saying i'm jumping ship from casamigos i'm still casamigos for life i'm just saying i'm a little bit intrigued but if the rocks tequila

was good enough you might not talk about casamigos anymore fingers crossed let me think huh let me think uh hey boys shut the fuck up oh yeah you know what i don't even want to think about he's right let's think about the rock i don't want to think about not talking about randy gerber anymore he's got enough irons in the fire yeah that's fine to me anyway the gramezians pursuit of the american dream that it continued for them being from Canada. I think maybe the family goes back to Iran. Then they started, you know, that they did their first mall in Canada and now arrived here with making the mall of America. Now the American dream.

It's this whole thing being the American dream and it slowly unraveling over the course of the early 2000s. It's like. It uh beautiful in a way really you know it's the only way it could be if there was a mall that called america's bloated corpse and that and that's the name of the mall and it and it caught on fire and it burned up that's the only way there could be something like more on the nose than this this whole story yeah it's uh it does feel like uh like there's a book like there would be a book written about and the mall is a metaphor for the country and it's like well you know this is too on the nose isn't it is this kind of maybe don't call it the american dream yeah it's like doesn't

even sound like what malls are called it doesn't make sense is america the american dream is going on a roller coaster and then buying a purse i mean i guess i guess in some ways it is but this point i'd love to do both of those things yeah i'd be i don't need a purse i'd be so happy that a mall opened i'd buy one sure i want to go out now i do want to go outside but i don't necessarily want to go back inside to a huge yeah part of the thing with this is that i said i've had so many interviews with i believe don germasian the most vocal germasian maybe the ceo and he said how well it's designed with all of the major entertainment zones very spread out here's the water park here's the amusement park here's the ski slope so on the way you have to pass through all of the shops there's no way around it so it'll encourage shopping in all of these areas but all they had opened thus far was the amusement park so they

just sent people through shuttered stores that didn't even have a sign and you see you watch like families shot by the news just walking past like white plywood after white plywood uh that has i would think like i don't i guess if the rides were good enough you would think like, I don't, I guess if the rides were good enough, you would ignore like empty storefronts and not find that strange or depressing. And they seem, they seem it, right? They seem good. They seem well, maybe. The shell razor I'm talking about is like a roller coaster.

It looks like in the middle of like some empty factory, they built a roller coaster. It looks like in the middle of some empty factory, they built a roller coaster that is lightly themed to the Ninja Turtles. I'm sure it's fun to get whipped around a little bit. If you like coasters, I'm sure it's a good coaster. Yeah. So it's not nothing. No, it's supposedly one of the steepest, and if not the steepest in America.

Something like that. It's one of those ones that kind of, you go a little behind, rather than going straight down, you like buck a little. It's an inverse drop. You go down a little more. It's a Euro fighter, they call it.

Euro fighter. Instead of, so you go straight up, I guess if you call it 90 degrees, and then you drop at 121 degrees. Yeah, so there's a little like lip. And the thing is that it raises you up into a little like cubby up at the top of the mall where you sit for a second

and it serves as kind of a temporary, a brief observatory deck where supposedly on a clear day you could see the Statue of Liberty. You like get a New York view from the top of this thing while you creepily hang in a little like greenhouse sitting in a coaster car. Yeah. greenhouse sitting in a coaster car yeah now i here's a this is a small gripe but if we're the shell razor is the name of what the turtle that then the newer cartoon the turtles cartoon what they called the uh party wagon or the turtle van which was of course their vehicle everyone knows that uh but if it's going high why is this not a turtle blimp attraction why are you not they can't buy that off the shelf. Yeah.

Okay, that's fair. But why can't you just call it the turtle blimp or turtle plane or something? I don't know. I'm just saying if you go hiding, you're going to see the Statue of Liberty. The car isn't flying up there. Maybe somebody's going to tell me that the car flies and I don't know what I'm talking about.

So anyway, that's just my... It flies now. It flies now? Yeah, it flies now yeah it flies i really wished i'm uh i wish i had a soundboard that had that right now i don't have a soundboard at the moment but if i did have a soundboard i wish it's right you would want that in there yeah um it is really if you watch a ride through of it it seems like like, you know, you're zipping and zooming around and then you get to the main climb where you go all the way on your back and you have to wait a while for the chain to get you.

You just sit. It's like a coaster with a long pause. Would you do it, Scott? No, definitely not. This is, it's a little similar to hang time to hang time that you guys did at Knott's. Yeah, the straight on your back, that wouldn't do. Do you think, though, once we get out of quarantine, whenever it is, do you think that as soon as you're back in a park,

there'll be maybe an extra energy that you would do at a crazier thing right away? Just because, like, oh, my God, I've been inside so long. It's time to do hang time at knots um or does that just mean you'll have a second glass of wine and leave oh yeah hell yeah that's it there you go i wasn't sure how to answer and then you you gave it to me okay got it got it um i at least pushed my boundaries at disneyland where now i am willing to do everything at disneyland although i wouldn't i'm still not like gonna constantly do guardians but i think now i i'd happily do it i'd very gladly do it yeah well disneyland doesn't have the uh scenic exposed industrial ceilings that

all the entertainment offerings seem to have at the american dream boys which exposed industrial ceiling is your favorite okay oh um that's actually a good relevant question i mean i i guess um towards the shell razor is preferable than the one over by the ropes course but i'd uh i'd have to you know consult with my co-hosts yeah i mean i look because the shell razor is there and it's ip that i love i think that unfortunately influences me on my appreciation of the exposed ceiling so i'm not totally unbiased when i say that that is my favorite of uh the ceilings i think mine would probably be in the ski slope and big snow because the expectation, the concept art they posted was like blue skies and like glowing, glowing wavy lines. And what you got was actually exposed industrial beams yeah you were you you sent us yeah a like cozy indoor ski lodge

background that you reach upon your landing and then instead it's just it's like a warehouse it's like a diagonal warehouse it's pure white so you so you prefer the ski pure white and we are kind of more into the shell rain shell razor neck of the woods does that answer actually what's do you have an answer American Dream Keeper do you have do you have I mean it's your mall you represent do you have a favorite let me see he does I think

he's thinking he's like scratching his head oh okay it's tough it's tough for him to would you like to answer please welcome the co-founder of tasamigos tequila randy gerber randy you gotta you gotta cut that out you know what you're doing with this you know he does he's having a good time he's having fun knows the he's he knows he knew that the way under my skin was to inhabit not Randy Gerber, but a man introducing Randy Gerber.

Yeah, that's the most, yeah, that'll dig a little knife in your back. Ladies and gentlemen, the founder of Cosmico's Tequila, Randy Gerber. Come on up for the ride, sir. Oh, he likes that yeah you know one one thing i wanted to mention about the nickelodeon universe um does they they like squeeze a lot of properties in there and some of it's kind of like evergreen like spongebob or the ninja turtles but like the ropes course was themed to Legends of the Hidden Temple and

like there's Rugrats rides and like fairly Invader Zim which I think I was in high school when Invader Zim was on I think Rugrats is coming back and I wasn't there a Quibi Legends of the Hidden Temple adult show I remember that like for adults to do the course

that's what I read and either did it air or will it never be released it's possible we could watch all of it right now it's possible they filmed it in the ikea in burbank we didn't know possible it was nominated for seven emmys today very possible yeah um i don't know i mean i i do like the idea how much how great would it be if there was a nickelodeon theme park that like properly paid tribute to everything that they have currently into their history and uh that that would be nice but this is sort of like a bunch of uh spinner rides and stuff that yeah one looks likeues. That's about as far as it goes. Which I guess I should lower my expectations for a mall, but

if this is going to get 40 million people, it should be a little more than that. There should be some dark ride, at least a simulator of some kind, right? There's no simulator even. No, they don't even play that SpongeBob movie that's everywhere. Right, yeah. That would be good.

Yeah, it's... There's got to be to be something you got to give us a little the our theming nerds you got to give us a little something it can't just be it can't just be off the rack right well they use the viacom properties and so maybe i think what they could do is have a simulator that simulates what it's like to watch mtv for 24 hours which is a ridiculousness for 23 hours in a row that is yes and i assume that is what like that's not far from what the actual truth is that i know it quite honestly yeah like anyone go look at a schedule of what MTV is playing today, and you will see no less than eight hours of ridiculousness. Guaranteed. Hey, you got to stick with what works, I guess. Yeah, you do.

Which is a giant laptop. It's a giant 2011 laptop that's open. Boys, there's an It Sugar. Make sure to talk about the It Sugar. Oh, okay. Yeah, happily. No, no, no. Thanks, we were planning on it. Yeah, hey guys. Boys, boys, don't forget

about the It Sugar. Okay, yeah. As we said, yes. And about the It Sugar, it's a shame you guys didn't get a chance to see the Oreo Cafe with the It Sugar called Oreo Twisted. Well, we're, it's a shame you guys didn't get a chance to see the oreo cafe with the it sugar called oreo twisted well we're we're would you give us some space to talk about we'd love to talk about yeah okay well it's like we can't possibly make you happy yeah i don't know he's not pleasing him

he's just in a bad mood i think geez um well yeah let's uh let's talk about the it's sugar i suppose they have an it they have an it's sugar our favorite brand that's that came up in the city walk saga it's where all the edible underwear and all that shit is and the pee and candy necklace thong you can get a candy thong that's right yeah get candy piss there i think yeah yeah we we ran into this at in the margaritaville resort orlando area sunset walk um yeah it's sugar is a perennial at all of the bizarre collapsing in front of our eyes shopping centers i was looking through comic-con photos from last year of course i went to the it's sugar that was in the gas lamp in San Diego. Yeah.

There's one in Long Beach, I think, on the pier. Sure, piers. Piers is a good place for It's Sugar. And there's a Third Street Promenade It's Sugar, I believe, as well. Chicago Pier, I think. Like a miniature one, essentially. So, yeah. But this is no mere It's Sugar that this mall was supposed to have, hypothetically.

This is the world's first candy department store. A full three stories of candy shopping. Wow. I mean, I love the hubris. This is hubris. I have to be. I enjoy. I love it.

I can't. That's not enough stories for me,ris. I have to be, I enjoy, I love it. I can't. That's not enough stories for me, honestly. Five stories of candy, please. Could I read a quote from Jeff Rubin, founder and CEO of It's Sugar? Go ahead. Yeah, please, Jeff. Creating a candy department store has been a longtime dream of mine. I've been thinking about this concept for 25 years and our it sugar team is

thrilled to partner with american dream to make it a reality three-story candy department store how long if it had opened would it have lasted three stories of candy well six months i mean the oreo cafe oreo twisted alone has great views of both the dreamworks water park and the nickelodeon universe theme park that sounds pretty cool could we say how twisted is spelled is it yeah do you have it in front of you i i have i don't have a soundboard in front of me that's uh obscuring my view of my notes oh sure it's uh capital t w i s t lowercase i uh capital d we just this week talked about the about oc live with where a fucking one is an exclamation point and there it's like every letter is both uppercase and lowercase guys you gotta stop experimenting with people don't mind

spelling disneyland isn't spelled with a four this everyone thinks they're like prince or something with their naming and putting a number where there should be a letter. We are deconstructing the way spelling works. Yeah. 21st century spelling. I mean, they're deconstructionist in general. And in fact, even I copied a press release that said that it sugar is now one of the largest specialty candy retail-tainers in the world. Whoa, really?

They're one of the largest retail-tainers on the planet. I don't know what competition they have, but when you think retail-tainment. Retail-tainment. Retail-tainers. Retail-tainers. retail taners retail taners because an entertainer is a tainer who is in the field of ent so a retail tainer okay focuses on retail so there's a variety of tainers so we can all everyone can be a keeper which is what we learned at the end of the downtown disney and anyone can be a tainer as well. An entertainer, a retail tainer.

Yeah, we're pod tainers. We're pod tainers. We're pod tainers. Pod tainers, yes, that's true. When you worked at the container store, you were a container. I was a container, absolutely. Wow. No, they clunked it up.

It was contain-ainer container container yeah wow everyone can be a tainer i want everyone to remember that because i i think we don't give enough advice and like motivational uh words of uh motivation enough on the show and you can all listen to my words you can all be tainers you can all be tainers you can all be tainers reach for your right it's like you're getting louder every time

he likes it he likes the tainers he loves that tainer stuff yeah um there's bean of course this uh it's sugar must have employed multiple bean tainers with the three story replica of the statue of liberty covered in more than 1.5 million jelly belly beans 1.5 million jelly beans to make up the statue of

liberty in there yeah to cover it man now that's a that's a monument you can get behind jason oh sure i mean you stare at that statue Liberty, then you go inside and wander through the lollipop garden. A lot of people these days are really upset about monuments being torn down, but I don't think anyone would be upset if we got rid of the regular Statue of Liberty and put up the Jelly Bean Statue of Liberty. I think everybody would be fine with that. Especially seagulls. Yeah. All right. here's a compromise. We take down all the Robert E. Lee statues, but we put up jelly bean Robert E. Lee statues.

That's the compromise. It's still him. It's still him, but now it's jelly beans, and the birds will eat him. You get to watch the seagulls and crows devour this traitor, each a traitor tainer in the 1800s the country was entertained by his traitorism making him a traitor tainer jelly bean jelly bean confederate it's terrible what they're doing the birds they're eating the they're eating the lees

they're eating the trader taners these sloppy birds they eat garbage disgusting and you're hearing it more and more people are saying you're hearing it more and more um they must have also employed a poet tainer um to write that because it also it's not just a statue there's also they did the plaque and you enter under this in the store and uh and and the plaque says give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning for the sweet life and i will give you it sugar hell yes brother wow hell yes uh this time when there's there are a lot of pretty serious poor huddled masses um i it's quite a time to put that up it's a whole statue made a laffy taffy of neuro fiddling while room burns the room burning is part of the s'mores bar

oreo twisted would have been notable too because that would have been the first time something was actually made inside of its sugar because it's all pre-packaged elsewhere even the like bulk candy i remember walking through it once and i'm like they left out the garbage bag filled of sour patch kids they used to fill up the bulk well they're not to be making house-made Sour Patch Kids. No, but you could make some truffles or something, you would think. Maybe. Well, how do you know the stuff in the case? Maybe that's made somewhere close by. I guess some of them have cases, yeah.

Look, if you can open up a place that would make house-made Sour Patch Kids, I'd be interested. A kid bar. A kid bar. Customize your kid yeah and you can and and when you are like seeing a visualization of what it'll look like you call that an ultrasound maybe maybe i don't know if there's a way to candy if by that a patch of sound um an ultra sour ultra sour an ultra sour is pretty good great all right let's check the check the ultra sour. An ultra sour? An ultra sour is pretty good.

Great. Let's check the ultra sour. The doctor licks it. Tastes pretty sour. Good news. Your baby is delicious. Good news. That's good.

That would be great. People would love that. When? Choose the gender that choose the gender choose the gender yeah you go in with your spouse and make it equal parts both of us yeah look beautiful someone needs to enlist us as far as ideas for one of these monstrosities yeah help us make your candy gattaca dreams come true. It's going to happen. Probably nobody that we faced in the Downtown Disney ordeal, but somebody, somebody who wants to make an even taller candy store, please, we've got great ideas.

It involves having to hire a performer that wears a lab coat that pretends to check on your sour baby in a womb. I think he has a sour gummy mustache. I think that's fine. Maybe big eyebrows too. Let's check your ultra sour. Is it Edwin? Is it an Edwin voice? I think he talks in an Edwin voice, yes.

Oh my. I was about to do it and I started choking. The baby's sour Pretty good Yeah that would go over huge I'm Dr. Gumdrop That's a lowercase d uppercase r Lowercase o

Dr. Gumdrop How's his gummy heartbeat looking It's about concerning but stable there's a slight murmur there's a slight molasses murmur molasses coming into the left ventricle you might have sour tension the greatest thing about this too would be that like you'd get a really good performer when the thing opened when the press was there and the media was there everybody would

be like wow this performer is so great and then it would be like a disinterested teen six months later who had to deliver the same yes the professor at the m&m store yeah i'm dr gondrop there's a there's a bunch of fudge in your baby's heart. Oh, wow, look. I can see it kicking. Ripped my pocket. Okay, well, let's start this. And that would be, again, that's just as good as a great Ed Wynn impression.

Yeah. Just as entertaining. Yeah, it's opposite ends of the spectrum. They're just as good. Oh my god, the It's Sugar. What have we not talked about? DreamWorks.

Yes, alright, yeah. The DreamWorks water park. Finally, you can splish and splash with all your pals. You can swim where shrek swims you can bathe in water the trick farted in opening day scheduled for march 19th 2020 baby my god was it that not the stores maybe yeah i think i guess the water park was the water park so i

found a bunch i watched a bunch of videos there were they ran preview days they did have preview days for the water park oh and that's where i sent you guys a video where a guy uh is standing in the open retail area you can hear a fire alarm going off and he's like hey i'm here for the preview day for the dreamworks water park the fire alarm has alarm going off. And he's like, hey, I'm here for the preview day for the DreamWorks water park. The fire alarm has been going off for 10 minutes. Up to a great start. What do you think that if you had to do an impression of what that might have sounded like? Like, what is it like to be in a water park?

And then there's this like this loud sound going off. Nailed it. Yeah. Wow. Very good. You are like the genie. You can do impressions. There's a shorter one.

Yeah. Brief. Yeah. You don't want to blow out your voice. Um, some of the things that this place are the, well, you got the Far Far Bay wave pool. You got Shrek's sinkhole slammer. It's named, it's a vacant mall named after a sinkhole.

That sounds like shit, but I love that. It's a vacant mall named after a sinkhole. That sounds like shit, but I love that. Those are the only names I wrote down of sled, but mainly if you click around their website, you get to see photos like the one Jason sent us where Shrek is wearing a big scuba diving mask. And an undershirt, an A-framed tank top undershirt. Really going for the Jersey crowd with that look. Like he's in Streetcar Named Desire. Yeah.

Oh, by the way, just a side note for me personally, that image I sent you guys of Shrek with the snorkel and Kung Fu Panda with the lei, and it says, make some waves dreamworks water park i accidentally texted that to my therapist as well what was the response from that for i didn't write i just said oh haha wrong text i did you write oh haha i did yes uh yeah jason we need to talk immediately yeah emergency session yeah it'll probably get discussed um does anyone want to uh take a

guess at how much the water park tickets were how much a ticket is worth is that what you said yeah i mean they're not for sale right now right but according to the people who were at the preview day i did not see the price i'm gonna guess it was is this for a day or this is not anything yeah for a day for adults and kids uh two different price two different prices okay uh adults fifty dollars kids thirty five dollars scott um let me just in keeping with some of the other numbers That we're looking at I think one day mission Costs two million dollars No Scott

Sorry you went under one day for adults $99 and kids Kids $89 Whoa That's the most expensive water park in the country. To swim in Shrek's farts? $99?

Get in my sinkhole. The Kung Fu Panda play area looks like we keep them occupied for a while. Okay. And there's indoor cabanas that just look like the balconies of like a mid-range hotel room wait so you got people eating oreos staring down at your naked body so wait that's an upcharge for the cabana or no oh yeah oh it's an i don't know how much but i'm gonna, it's an on-charge. I don't know how much, but I'm going to assume it's an on-charge.

So you would go, you'd pay $100 for your adult self to go, and then you would upgrade like you were at a Vegas pool to get a better view of the Shrek swamp and the exposed ceilings. Well, but hold on a second. Those cabanas have a single mini fridge. What? That sort of open closet you find in dorm rooms with like the bar to hang stuff what and uh an outdoor railing so you don't fall a few stories outdoor railing this is the strangest so in a mall you're gonna like sun like why would you need a cabana indoors yeah

is there sun coming in from a skylight did i not it's more like glare it's got a glare coming in the cabana so yeah you get out of the sunlight especially in like las vegas this is so you don't get hit with the like light bulbs in the shopping mall this is so bizarre I don't I saw a video from the West Edmonton mall in the 80s where it had an open

guests in the mall could watch you tanning whatever that means in like a gazebo you just walk by there's just like planks of cedar you're just lying on so the the gremesians are all about indoor tanning not tanning beds that's not what we mean we mean indoor just you know you sit in a room and lie there and that gets you tanned hypothetically you sit on a plank of cedar, which is what they cook salmon on.

And you get tan from special lights they've installed. It looked like kind of brighter yellow lights than we would have in our houses. We got to look into what these lights are. I'll go back into that video. I mean, after all this, obviously we have, obviously, we have to do the trilogy. We have to do Mall of America and West Edmonton. Right. West Edmonton's unbelievable.

It's so crazy. We're going the opposite way with our trilogy. This is our preferred order, like Star Wars, where we have some, well, you got to go, you got to do it this way and this way. Yeah. Yeah. Backwards. Huh. Back to the ones that actually did open this is wild that is so much more expensive than blizzard beach which is 73

dollars which is a immersive themed like with a premise and characters yeah yeah i mean maybe it's a real place i think it's more expensive than like um the uh great wolf lodges like the other the big chain of indoor water parks yeah and that at least like i think they loop lodging and tickets in together you know i would assume i mean this is this is wild i don't know who's gonna go sit as Scott said, almost naked in a shopping mall all day for $100. Well, Oreo eaters stare down at you, and I don't think they can see you, but this is all right next to a freeway. Yeah. Either way.

So you can honk at people as you're driving by and know that there's like a person like in a speedo inside mere feet away getting tan over the course of a 10-hour day spent at this mall somebody just fell asleep they finally are dozing a little bit and then the relentless traffic of new jersey that that unless unless it was a sunday which of course you wouldn't be nobody would be in there but the traffic oh yeah gridlock yeah the turnpike is so great on sundays uh it's so much easier the jersey turnpike um so part of this thing also related to the traffic issue is that you know all right it's going to be know, we're going to put up some money, but so is the city. And it's great.

It'll work all in tandem. And, you know, it's great if you if for anybody, you know, look, if you have kids in New York City, eventually this is all from the guy Don Grimesian. His justification was your kids are going to get bored at some point. New York City is more for adults. If you think about it and you know, what are kids going to want to do? Well, come over to the American Dream. Why, we have a direct bus that gets you right there

that we did not pay for or start ourselves. There is a bus that New York has and it'll take you. So just put your kid on the bus and go do indoor tanning. And then I watched it. I couldn't believe this was available to of course they grilled more politicians this way there was a video where a reporter is like now

you know it's this mall is going to create terrible traffic in this area and even you know local politicians are saying you know it's going to require some public transit would you triple five ever put money into uh would you ever put money into you know paying for public transit to uh you know get people to back and forth especially because people are going to be coming from all over new jersey not just new york so would you ever like help facilitate public transit and he goes um that is something to be discussed. And that is his answer. No, he's not.

I'm not going to give any money to improve public trend. No fucking way. He's so, he like gets the sweats and nervous laughs. It's crazy. If the question was, would you add another story to your candy department story? Yes, of course help transportation we gotta talk about it we don't have the butterscotch bar i mean that can't possibly fit in the first three floors that was always a seventh floor idea yeah look it's it's

not like we're competing with um six flags in new jersey north jersey shore towns south jersey Six Flags in New Jersey, North Jersey Shore Towns, South Jersey Shore Towns, casinos in South Jersey. There's no entertainment in this state, you know? Times Square, the, like, many multi-store, the lots of multi-story candy stores in Times Square, the place where you're staying with your children, undoubtedly. You would think that the way to open this would have been like like disney usually does open a thing and you

have room for expansion would it like yes that would make sense you've opened some stores and you have you know you have all this land here and that's going to slowly expand and they went all of it at once and got fucked. But you know that's where, you know they say if you're going through hell, keep going and that's why they announced in

April of 2020 the percentages have changed. It is now going to be 70% entertainment and 30% retail, which means more entertainment venues like a trampoline park, eight more rides to Nickelodeon universe, interactive museums with elaborate props and backdrops, which I think are total bullshit.

And plans were in the works for several hotels that could connect to the mall via skybridge that's right they've got the zoning for 3 000 hotel rooms several hotels interactive museums i well no guys they announced this during the pandemic yeah like you know six atriums that will serve as an entertainment hub including like you know one with a bunch of gardens filled with bird-filled aviaries and rabbit fields and a 60-foot fashion fountain that could be converted into a catwalk in seconds you know a fashion fountain fashion fountain is that yeah i hate to be i hate to be so modern comedy about it but is that a thing is that a thing this is this is the mall that dares to ask is that a thing if the answer is no they make it yes that so there's a fashion

fountain that can turn into a runway for a full fashion show it's probably by the secret garden a tree-like sculpture consisting of more than 75 000 led lights and 25 000 leaves that play music i tell you what i this is sounding better honestly to me that they're gonna pivot more towards this i think this is a better idea quite frankly i watched a video i don't know if this is a better idea, quite frankly. I watched a video. I don't know if this is one of the museums you're talking about, but they've at some point announced that they were going to be the permanent home of something called the New Jersey Hall of Fame,

which up until now has been a trailer that drove around. It's a museum on wheels. And they put the museum in the parking lot of this for a long time. The party they did it a year ago before anything was open there. So you could go to a parking lot next to an abandoned stadium and go to the New Jersey Hall of Fame. And I watched a news report about it. And the interview with the owner of this this trailer museum spends a lot of it saying how now if you were just born in new jersey that's not enough

it doesn't count paul simon was born in new jersey but he was only here for three weeks as a baby and then he left he moved away so he's not in the hall of fame really get out of here simon get out of here simon hit the road so like south so like southside johnny and the asbury jukes would be in oh yeah but paul simon would not and my uh my friend's dad jim mcgreevy gets it somehow you're the star of the documentary we got to put him in then this this is from new jersey tv news this is the strangest news report ever it keeps going and they they say oh there's going to be you know because some of the people in the hall of fame are still living so if you're still living in all and you're in the hall of fame they're gonna make a hologram of you who is going to

i swear the news report said encourage kids to follow their dreams or give them advice so a hologram from new jersey is going to talk to you and then it says you know living new jerseyans will talk to your kids you know like former mlb player al lighter and then they interview this baseball player for a while so al lighter is a hologram is gonna say kids hey you know once i didn't want to pick up a bat and then i did and then i was playing mlb so you do the same thing wow i think they were kind of tainer we're previewing this at the newark airport where there was just a box where a very sleepy seeming steven van zandt hologram would just tell you some stuff. He got in in 2017, I'm reading

here. Little Stephen. Oh, he's in it. Oh, good. Oh, Southside Johnny got in 2018. Yay! Alright. Along with Jason Alexander. Oh, what? Now, are there holograms of any of these?

It doesn't say on here. It doesn't say on here, but oh, George R.R. Martin got in in 2018 as well. That's right. He's from Bayonne. Wow. I mention it on the best show a lot. He's from Bayonne. Ray Liotta.

As the sign says, it's New Jersey. Wait, no, I forget what it is. Keep going. I just gave Ray Liotta 2016. Boy, you know, it's really, it's fun, like, thinking about all the people in the New Jersey Hall of Fame and all, like, who might be in it, who they might make a hologram. I find this all very fascinating. And I personally could talk about this the whole rest of the episode.

But is that, but i don't know if everyone else well i also agree that i think we should just keep talking about the new jersey hall of fame especially specifically south side johnny and his music career boys boys you're boring the crap out of me boring boring boring move on already boys he's doing like an annoying nerd voice now all right he made a boing but with the word boring yeah i mean you did you're here you uh right that was that was weird what you did um okay look it's easy i think with all of this stuff to say in hindsight in po you know they they didn't create the pandemic i don't think maybe you never know it's possible it was triple five they did it uh to try to get out of ever having to open this thing fully but um you

know it's easy in hindsight to say this was a bad idea uh but it's the things that were in the mall that i think make you go yeah it was always kind of weird and the weird like shouldn't they have gotten the message for many decades one of the articles i read had the quote from a retail consultant kate newland it was probably a good idea 20 years ago but i don't think it was a good idea pre-covid and i really think it's crazy now and that's what i think what it boils down to i feel like plenty of people did say this was a bad idea they had so many chances how many like this is the this is the fourth developer that's still sinking money into this shrek single i uh yes and i don't think it'll be the last i feel like this is what trump

does if he gets out of office yeah it goes straight to this yeah i think so and then all the yeah all of his uh voters will can live there with him they still have to open the kidsania family entertainment center the lucky strike bowling alley lego land discovery center sea life aquarium climb zone indoor rock climbing facility mirror maze i look i love the sound of all of this mirror maze trampoline park sign me up I like all of that I don't what is mirror maze like a house of mirrors like a new cutting edge house of mirrors for 2020 angry birds miniature golf course now that may have gotten open and the clue that I'm not sure the jury's out on that one huh can you drink is there are there bars in this mall do we know

nope it's dry you have to have morals you have to have standards blue laws if you could walk around like in vegas with a drink i think this would make the mall much better certainly but i don't know if you'll be... I don't... You know, again, it's going to be COVID world, and you can't walk around with a drink at Disney now, so who knows when that'll be possible.

Partner with companies like The Rocks, Terramana, and a different company, and then as soon as it opens again, you'll have a big celebration. Please welcome the co-founder of Casamigos Tequila, Randy Gerber. Randy! Yeah!

And then that'll happen. Come on up for the rising! We're all in the New Jersey Hall of Fame! Randy Gerber gets in the New Jersey Hall of Fame also. And then that brings everything back, and everybody gets excited again because they can get hammered in a giant mall with a mirror maze.

Whoops. Oh, fuck. Ow. Bonk. Ouch. Oh, my leg. I tore my knee open. Just breaking glass left and right.

People just crashing into a mirror. Day two with the mirror maze. Like like they're just writing calmly on a white board okay so new regulation no alcohol in the mirror maze the uh uh the sequel to us takes place in this mall we are proud to partner with jordan peel to bring you the us mirror mall experience yeah here to open it officially hologram jordan peel and hologram south side johnny and the asbury dukes oh god i don't are we i mean i've got other details but i'm i'm exhausted i don't exhausted i need to sit back put on some south side johnny and relax um i'm so happy i get to say south side johnny so much in this episode i said my for my friends uh the my friend who did all the music

for movie city her dad was in the band yeah oh wow yeah yeah uh anyways um this is this is insane as we said there's no reopening date um even with with the gramezians they were they said all right 2014 and then they did two more that didn't come to pass then they were saying fall 2018 this has been delayed so many times they got eight percent of it open for six months and then covid no not even when was it november fuck um like five months of that that was the good today they missed those days those were the glory days of xanadu yeah there's just so much coverage in these trade magazines and nj.com of like coming spring 2020 like it's it's like an ohm feels like something the witches in Macbeth

told you like oreo twisted come 2020 you know it all does feel like threats especially when they they are saying that still in the work supposedly are plans for american dream miami oh yeah they're trying to do it again please and this one is supposed to have sea lions that live there it would be it would in theory be the biggest mall in north america taking a title that the edmonton mall used to have though they're getting revenge and they would bring back something that hasn't been at their west edmonton mall in many many years submarines go to miami drive a submarine around yes Yes. Oh, my God. How about a candy store in a submarine? That's a good idea. Jeff Rubin, for many years, has dreamed of the world's first subterranean floating candy store.

And for 25 years, to be exact. And now that dream's a reality. Tossing and turning, sleepless nights. Like, where will the sour patch the store within a store go is it by the reese's store store within a store what about a sour patch wedding chapel where you can marry a giant sour patch man or woman do you take this candy to be your bride? Just consult my Twix Bible.

Do you take Denise the Candy Woman to be your awfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, as long as you should live. The power invested in me by the United States of Candy and the National Retail Detainment Association. You may kiss the sour bride. Kiss her sour lips. This is Ro walking out of It Sugar throwing nerds at the newlyweds. Oh, God, I want that at my wedding for real well sure yeah that's fucking good um well well wait a minute does that mean we're we're getting towards the end this is the part we haven't done this in so long we haven't

had one of these daily series but But I think that we did it. I think we covered all 8% of this mall that opened. And doesn't that now mean that the Keeper spirit is free? Oh, that's right. That must be what happens now. Boys, boys, your journey is over. You have failed. What?

My soul was used as collateral and is now owned by the banks i'm toast boys fuck you what you didn't say the rules really yeah we didn't get a good explanation of what we were even supposed to do how are we gonna stop the banks if this mall couldn't fend off the banks, how are us three idiots going to do it? Yeah, I don't know. I guess, well, before you get taken from the banks, do you have anything else you want to say? Hey, let's exit through the miles of unopened gift shops.

Yeah. And American Dream Keeper, you survived Podcast to Ride. Is there anything you'd like to plug? I just want to remind all you listeners about a man named Matt Cardona his podcast wink wink my podcast is called the major wrestling figure podcast

it drops every Friday wherever you find your podcasts we have a patreon just like these guys um we do more bonus stuff though alright that's it Keep listening I like this podcast Podcast the ride

Pretty cool And every Friday the major wrestling figure podcast It's by Hey Len Call me Okay It's very canny We still shouldn't get Len Testa on the phone.

Promoting some other guy's podcast. Matt Cardona. I know. Yes, he must be friends with him. He said it was me. I don't know. He must have been joking about that, but yes. I guess it's a wrestling podcast. If you like wrestling figures and action figures and collectibles,

certainly check that out. That's nice of him to plug. I also like how he did kind of a Don Rickles thing there he kind of praised us at the end after kind of roasting us yeah that was nice but what don't we do enough bonuses he said they do bonuses on

their Patreon he was trying to get one up and say that the major wrestling figure Matt Cardona aka formerly Zack Ryder of WWE on his Patreon they uh do more bonuses i don't know that that's true that's just what the ghost was saying the spirit all right where's it been long lately you know we need we need the time to talk to other human beings yes the bonuses are in the episode they're always bonuses but you know what i think he's right and that's why i think let's do more

than just an audio bonus i say that we build an entire bonus kingdom uh i'm on google maps and i found a bunch of protected marshland um that's uh just uh just off the coast of Staten Island. Okay. And I propose we will, I propose we will build this. The pockets are at the third gate will be an actual place. It's going to be three million square feet. And I promise it will be a pandemic or no pandemic. It'll be open by the end of 2021. So what you can do is pay us the money now

we'll start the the third tier uh and that will cost five thousand dollars and then you will have exclusive access to millions of square feet of entertainment i'm very excited about this because i think i'd like to you know immediately announce some of the partnerships that we're we have ready for this endeavor so real quick uh this is somebody I think everybody knows and is going to be very excited about that is on board with us. Oh, really? Oh, great. Yeah, here we go.

Hi, Choco. Oh, it's Choco the birthday clown. He's now finally in business with us officially, and we'll be able to license his image, and we'll be able to do some sort of a Choco experience. Maybe sort of a hall of mirrors with Choco, sort of a fun house. I think it's very exciting.

Dreamkeeper, you shut your mouth. Stop this song at once. I don't want to hear one other verse of that song, sir. After you dig us, then you play that. Yeah, well, look, he was just helping me out because of the different partnership we have. Yeah, we did not discuss this. There's plenty of IP.

We always talk about buying IP that we want and enjoy and it's up for grabs. And yet the one that we choose is the one scary clown. I might have to pull out of this and start my own and start the scott gardner dream that will be in uh the city of uh uramo which i believe is on the way to vegas and it's going to be six million square feet and no chuccos allowed uh okay we'll talk about that off here but uh unless anybody has anything else uh just to salute to American Dream, do you think maybe there is a Choco song where he salutes America that I may have found earlier today

and that we should go out playing that? No, I don't think that. That would be great. I mean, that would be really good if that, I mean, by perchance that can happen. Well, it can't be real. It doesn't exist, does it? Well, I think it does exist but you know rate and review us on apple podcasts and you know check us out on twitter and instagram

i was forgetting to podcast the ride on instagram podcast around on twitter um do the second gate go to this three bonus episodes every month which apparently isn't enough at podcast the ride this second gate at patreon.com slash podcast the ride i've been beaten up by this keeper and now i've got to be have some fucking song shoved down my throat uh yes that's true but uh look we're in partnership with choco now he's part of our uh universe so unfortunately he's gonna have to sing a salute to america to take us out i'd kill for randy a partnership with Randy Gerber. No, Randy's out. He's not partnering with us.

What's Choco going to give me a briefcase full of? Seltzer. All right, let me, well, you know what? I put our differences aside and I'm so excited to be in league. Oh, briefcase, huh?

This must be a very valuable thing. Bib juice. No. Would have been a better joke, you're right. Briefcase full of bib juice! I only barely remembered what it was. Would have been a better joke. It's not even in bottles, it's loose in a leather briefcase.

And then this song that starts playing is, of course... Happy birthday to our country The United States of America Let's light a candle in every heart For the greatest land of all Happy birthday to our country Hail to all the 48 Jesus This is two and a half minutes long.

Jesus. Eddie, Scott, Choco's got a premiere. They deserve everything that's going to us. The American dream is dead. That is a big birthday to remember. This is what he sounds like. July 4th, 1776. That's Choco. Mamas?

This is our partner in business. Scott, this is our partner in business. What's happening? Right here in America. You know, a long, long time ago, our forefathers signed This is shut down by throw. We had an agreement. It was three of us. That means that everybody born in America

be able to live in freedom. Yeah. To eat and sleep, work and play. You hit your D's too hard and you have a list. Without anybody telling us how to do it. That's right hard and you have a list. That's right. Thank you, Chuck. Did you put your head in a microwave?

What's wrong with you? Microwaves were different back then. Right. He's breaking it down for us. Breaking it down. That's a birthday that we'll never forget. Yes, sir. This will be the theme

of our new mall we're building, by the way. This will be playing like Main Street's theme as you're coming onto the mall. Let's never be heard. And in the tapes,

there'll be Choco's statue like the Walt statue in Town Square at Disneyland. It was part of his. And in the tapes. There'll be Choco's statue like the Walt statue in Town Square at Disneyland. It was part of his contract. And he actually, he has 26%. Yeah. The rest of, he has one more percent. Also, I'd like to announce that Choco is officially alive again.

Happy birthday to you. It's true. Happy birthday. Happy birthday To the U.S.A. Happy birthday Happy birthday To our future mall We must reopen the country Let's give Don't get those kids back in school

Don't wear a mask Masks aren't real But hydro-coxychlorine Is the hoot If you put a corpse best aren't real but hydro coxacorin is the hoot if you put a corpse in the wet lens and restruth the furticons back to life and that's

how I'm a you like the Lazarus Pitt from Batman oh I said that I think I said that the Mr. Six episode was the weirdest episode and now I change to this one. One snuck in there. Yeah, that Choco the Clown

was revived to sing an American song because of toxic waste found at the site of Xanadu. Yep. This sucks. This is not canon. This is not podcast to ride canon. It's main feed, Scott. It has to be.

It's main feed. And I'm sure next week will be even more normal. I can only assume. Back to regular, fun, pleasant stuff. We're really coming apart, aren't we? Yep. Let's get a break. We deserve one.

I agree. Bye-bye, kids. Bye. Go outside. Get coughed on. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson,

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