Podcast: The Ride - The CityWalk Orlando Saga: Malltiverse of Madness 2 - 3 with Ian Riccaboni

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Ian Riccaboni (Aew, Ring of Honor) returns to PTR and adds a flavor often missing from The CityWalk Saga: earnest positivity.  How will the irony(and food) poisoned boys respond??? Phase 2, Sector 3 contains:   Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Starbucks Cold Stone Creamery Red Oven Pizza Bakery To level up your Saga experience with bonus and ad-free episodes, subscribe to Podcast: The Ride’s Club 3 at  patreon.com/podcasttheride.  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! When your town has made you frown When your square has made you swear When life gives you one more punch You need a donut soaked in Captain Grunge You need a place, a place to stroll With alcohol

A place that features part of the Berlin Wall Where steampunk robots sell chocolate snacks A place where you can tattoo your lower back So let's go take a walk Let's all go to City Walk Orlando. Tonight.

Tonight. Podcast to Ride presents the City Walk Orlando Saga. Multiverse of madness. A daily, extremely necessary series exploring the shops, restaurants,

and cosmic wonder that make up Universal CityWalk Orlando. Welcome to Podcast The Ride, the CityWalk Orlando saga, multiverse of madness. And I just want to say, folks, Mama always said, podcasting is as podcasting does. My name is Mike Carlson. joining me as always jason sheridan hi scott gerdner also here yeah and life is like a box of podcasts it sucks a box of podcasts for the worst what does that even mean you could put it in a box a box of cd roms i suppose it had a bunch of episodes on them. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Do we need to do a physical

media release at some point? The box set? Oh, could we do a high-end Jack White's whatever, Third Man Records vinyl pressing of some of our greatest episodes of all time? Well, you could do a seven-inch

one-sided CityWalk Hollywood theme and one-sided CityWalk Orlando theme. of all time well you could do like a split like a seven inch one side is city walk hollywood theme and one side is city walk orlando theme like that's true we could do that like oh we could would it be full episodes or would it just be like greatest hits would it just be like jason said no one gives a fuck about grapefruit and that's like one track is it more of like well i let's get it straight it's who gives a shit about great so let's get the profanity right. I'm sorry. But this is why we need an archivist of our own material to correct us on our own points. So whoever out there feels qualified to be our keeper of the vault, let us know. Well, maybe it's our guest. Maybe he's ready to sign up for this unpaid job that we've just created.

And he wants to do it. He's returning to the show from ring of honor from aw ian riccoboni welcome back to podcast the ride oh thanks everyone yeah i downloaded all of the city walk episodes during the pandemic and so during the first ring of honor bubble tapings i got really into podcast right i got really into podcasts to write. I got really into the program, which led to me aggressively sending Mike DMs because I confused Mike and Scott at one point about all this Beach Boys minutia.

Oh, yeah. And so, I was feeling the fever. I could feel it building up. So, we drove down to Florida over Christmas this year and I made my wife listen to most of the original City Walk saga. And she had a lot of questions about Nick Mundy, who's become a friend of mine,

and about some of the accusations levied back and forth in that episode. But it was a really good time. And I explained to her, I said, hey, we're on a mission. It's almost like the Blues Brothers who come into play in this, by the way. It's like we're on a mission from God. Yes, we're going to see my parents. Yes, we're going down for Christmas. But we got to get to CityWalk. We absolutely have to get to CityWalk. Wow, that inspires me.

By the way, Mike and I both just saw Nick Mundy for the first time since the deepest throes of pandemic uh at disneyland and and in my case uh downtown disney in uh uh wait what were the designations there it was not it was okay it's phases now what was it it was worlds so that was world one three which is that uh the napoli italian restaurant so uh so i'm happy to say that i i got to see Nick Mundy on fertile soil. And sorry to say nothing has changed. He is still a bad man. Yeah. He was rooting.

We went on Rise of the Resistance and he was rooting for Kylo Ren. Whoa. I saw him in Utah of all places. We were in Salt Lake City together and he had a Houston Astros hat on, which I thought was very disrespectful because everybody knows I'm a Philadelphia Phillies fan. And unfortunately, the Astros beat them two years ago in the World Series. So we had a little rough start, but I agreed with all of his Bo Jackson takes when it was all said and done. I'm glad you found common ground.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well, being that I myself, look, there's confusion about past profanities that we've said in past sagas. There's confusion about are we worlds or phases or what is it? Why don't we set the record straight by quickly checking in with the sector keeper and getting today's official phase and sector assignment boys boys and ian phase two sector three is bubba gump starbucks cold stone creamery and red oven pizza good luck boys and ian all right there we go uh all of these okay look on the surface some of these things are fairly perfunctory. Some of them are things that we have covered in previous sagas before. But the thing that is different here is Ian and Ian's excitement seemingly about your time in CityWalk, about past memories in CityWalk. So, Ian, if you would like to calibrate us to your feelings about CityWalk or even anything in this particular sector. Absolutely.

I think what everybody needs to know is that the sector keeper sent me here. And it was through a Beetlejuice-like function. Anytime anyone mentions Allentown or anything related to Allentown three times, I appear. And so when Jason mentioned Dorney Park and then Christine Taylor, Allentown legend, was mentioned and then Tim Heidecker was mentioned, that's what drew me

to the City Walk saga and that's why I'm here today. These are all just recent things that we've talked about. I have vague memories of some of it. The Tunnel of Love, Dorney park came up a bunch because they had a a mill shoot ride for many years that was called mill shoot and then later journey to the center of the earth but it was essentially a dark tunnel of love that ended in a shoot the shoot drop right uh and i was researching all that very late the night before and we recorded it

in the morning the next day and as i was like heading home i was like oh i should have asked ian if he had any memories about this it's sure enough when it came out i woke up to messages from ian um about the trout fishery. The trout ponds are still there. It just moved down the road. Yeah. Go ahead. When the discussion of famous rivers was happening, I was yelling at my phone,

the Lehigh River. Because that's where the trout hatchery and fishery is in Allentown, Pennsylvania. So they just kind of shifted them up the river and over into a smaller place. It's on Fish Hatchery Road, for those that would like to know. Is there anything about the fish hatchery or fishery that is themed that would warrant an episode?

There is, actually. So the Native Americans, theenape are that was a fertile ground for them to fish and it also was the site of turtles and things like that uh in lenape culture they believe that the turtle that the universe was created on the back of a turtle and so there's really cool markers along the it's called the little lehigh that feeds into the Lehigh and explains some of the Lenape culture. But it's also through a grant from PBS. So Dora the Explorer, not Dora the Explorer, one of the characters from PBS leads you through,

leads you down. Really? Yeah. A PBS intellectual property. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. And I'll try and find that. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah.

And I'll try and find that. But it's PBS39. They do a lot of great stuff through the community. Yeah, they're a wonderful, wonderful organization. But yeah, they've continued to keep that fish hatchery portion alive and doing well. And my kids love to go and feed the fish so it's a family-friendly activity that's great can i ask a question jason brought i've said this we just talked about this again for the 100th time but just i did i ask you have you ever fished for

pond eels oh geez i've never i don't know what pond eels are okay never okay yeah enough said got it yeah it feels like something i should know from my journeys to bubba gump shrimp though that feels like yes it does feel like part of that world for sure yeah yeah we're in that zone uh um but you were part of why you okay so you were you were summoned here by the keeper the the sacred words were said which we didn't know christine taylor was one of them but But now we know for the future. But you had talked a little about, we were DMing about your fond memories of CityWalk Orlando. Is that a good way to weave us in?

Just like what, you know, some CityWalk glory years that you had. Because not every guest has, a lot of the guests are people who were like, please go down to this place because we don't know a lot of guests who've ever been here. But you, in fact, have a history here. Absolutely. My brothers lived in Orlando since 2003. And so as soon as I hit college age, I'd go down and visit quite a bit. And I even lived in Orlando for a summer. I was a legal resident of Florida because at one point my parents had also moved down as well. So I changed my license and everything. And my brother and I, we'd go to City Walk to Kill Time with his wife and just hang out. And I have a lot of fond memories of just walking around, hanging out. And then my association with wrestling, they used to tape total nonstop action there.

And so in addition to Ring of Honor, which we filmed a couple times there last year, I used to go down during those summers and see TNA wrestling. And now I've worked with a lot of people since that were on those TNA tapings, like Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, whether it be for prolonged periods or short periods. But I think my most embarrassing story was one of the only times I had the courage to actually talk to a woman outside of a school situation or anything like that was at the beautiful Starbucks, right? When

you walk in the nice open air area, and it would later be someone that I'd work with quite a bit. So I don't want to finish that story, but please let it be known that I asked her if she'd like to go see wrestling that night. And she said, yeah, I'll be there. And she certainly was.

She was part of the event. So. Wow. It was, it was a wrestler is who you were attempting. Yeah. It was somebody that, that ended up being on television.

She wasn't on TV at the time yet, but she would be making her debut that evening. So, yeah, I didn't get turned down, and it all worked out because I met my wife about eight weeks later. Oh, wow. All good. Jeez. Okay. All right. So it's a happy story, and you got to meet a future co-workers. This is great because the fact that you have anything

resembling a moment or a story in a Starbucks is huge for us because this is our third saga. We've had to deal with Starbucks, in some cases, several times within a series. And I don't know what else there is to say. You characterize it as

beautiful. It may have moved since the one that you this is something we have to be on the ball about too is tracking uh where the location of start because starbucks is one of those flux locations it kind of moves within city walk uh establishments yes it's go ahead i remember it being in the same place i remember it being when you walked in um as you kind of walk down um it's open air i don't remember it initially being that big and that could be the difference i think it is more real estate now than it did this would have been 2006 um i have a ton of really fond memories too

um in 2020 we needed to get out of the house and universal studios said we're opening up baby we're gonna be up baby we're gonna be the first we're gonna beat disney to the punch we have covid who cares wear a mask come on in and my brothers down in orlando my parents um my parents were probably the most at risk in terms of covid we check with them we said hey can we bring the kids down we're going crazy it's been you know four or five months they said sure my brother said sure um and then we snuck off to universal studios and i'll never forget the fun we had on that trip it was about 100 degrees because it was in july 2020 and we had a ton of fun i felt so bad for the grinch the grinch must have just been sweating profusely

i have a grinch out he doesn't. That's not the season for him. No, no. And he was out waving. And the Starbucks, I just, we taking my daughter in who just turned one, our son who's about to turn four, just the joy on their face to do something. And then they had figured out what cake pops were. And those are relatively safe out what cake pops were. And those are,

those are relatively safe, you know, for kids and good portions. So just the joy of them being able to walk around and see the Grinch wave at them as they came into the city walk area and then go into Starbucks. It felt like that's when things were kind of getting back to normal, even though in my head, I was like, do not do this.

You're going to get COVID. You're going to not be able like, do not do this. You're going to get COVID. You're going to not be able to work for Ring of Honor. You're going to get pulled off the tapings. But it was a calculated risk worth taking. And that trip in particular was so much fun. And it started with Starbucks. Wow. Geez, this is far more than I thought anybody would have to say.

Thank God you've really come through. Because I feel like we're kind of obliged to do more than 60 seconds on all of these places and speaking of obligations let me get this out because now that we've discovered at this point in the saga we've realized that we are responsible for some material about city walk hollywood that it updates things since the last time that we did it and i so this seems like probably we got to get this out for the sector keepers sake. Since the last City Walk saga, the Starbucks moved from what I think was sector 14. I could be wrong. It moved up to a part of a space up top some stairs that was formerly occupied by Carl Strauss Brewery. And it was there for a year or two.

And then it moved back to the original location where it was the first time which i believe if you're tracking it expanded the original location i think it took over part of the blaze pizza too okay yes blaze pizza is okay i knew there was something up over there all right there has been a change i i think it moved to the top of those stairs so they could redo the original space. Because I could not figure out that when it was at the top of those stairs, I'm like, you have to walk up a flight of stairs and then walk down the flight of stairs with your piping. You know how you like to get a piping hot cup of coffee

and go down a full flight of stairs surrounded by strangers? I just couldn't figure out why it moved and then when it moved back to this bigger space i was like okay this makes more sense well and jason also the word starbucks never left the original location so that was always confusing too why is there a giant, huge, empty space that says Starbucks, and then you walk up to it and nothing happens, and instead you've got to go somewhere else, walk up a flight of stairs, where you can't necessarily fully see the word Starbucks.

And as I learned one time, a stroller could not clear the aisle. I couldn't get my stroller all the way through after I took an elevator up with it. This was a very frustrating situation. Thank rectified starbucks backs back where it belongs yeah but for now for now but who knows yeah these starbucks they're they're wily in all of these outdoor malls you never know where they're gonna pop up they might show up underground they might show up in the sky we don't know toothsome could just close and become a big Starbucks. That seems like the most likely prediction ever. In Hollywood.

Orlando, I don't know. Orlando is doing perfect. Toothsome seems here to stay. Anyway, that's fantastic. And feel free, Ian, to toss in other Starbucks memories if you have them. I'm also going to maybe point the direction towards one that I'm worried about content-wise. Maybe we just need to get a bare minimum done. Cold Stone Creamery.

This is in your sector. Does anyone have anything about the fairly nondescript Cold Stone Creamery? I do. Oh, good. Thank God. I put this on the list for my wife, who's an amazing, she's a trooper. She goes through all these wacky missions. She has lived with me long enough to know that if there was a Kmart or an Ollie's

or anything on a road trip, we were likely stopping to check. Oftentimes I didn't buy anything, even if I found what I was checking for, which is my wife's least favorite thing that I do, which includes, you know, clearance out video games and action figures and things like that.

I just need to check and see if they're there, but the cold stone, this is the thing that made my children, maybe the happiest and we had this for dessert. It also served as a refuge for my soaking wet children who decided it was going to be fun to run through the, the journey into your imagination style water shooters that they have out oh yeah we didn't have a lot to say about that either so this is actually cool how did how did those as opposed to the hollywood ones which have caused

all manner of trouble uh in our mythology uh how yeah did your kids your kids like those they did they loved them uh we my wife and i before the trip decided that we were going to be we're going to be a little less hands-on that we are too much no no no and that this was the trip where we were gonna let the kids make a little mistakes here and there um and it cost us about a hundred dollars because we had to buy them dry clothes. But they ran through the fountains. They had the time of their life. Unfortunately, the sun went down by that point, and it was maybe 45 to 50 degrees that night.

Been there, brother. Been there. We were not going to let them get sick. But the fountains were, were very cool. They were a little less predictable. It was kind of like, and this is going to be a far out reference.

The game show, press your luck. Michael Larson was the greatest press your luck competitor of all time. He figured out there were three patterns on the board to get the big bucks. And all he had to do was figure out which one it went on and he could time it. And he won $110,000 on press your luck back when the highest base was only 5,000. Right. Oh,

and the way this documentary is about that. Yeah. This is a big, this is a big story. The guy who like who gamed the system. Yeah. And he did it perfectly legally. He just figured out where the lights went.

So then they figured out how to randomize it. And so that people couldn't do it. I think that's what CityWalk did. Because when you're at imagination, you can kind of figure out the pattern. I was looking at this thing for all 10 to 15 minutes when my kids were running back and forth through it. I couldn't figure out where the water was jumping. There was more than one outcome for each fountain. It was crazy.

It was awesome. So I think maybe a kid Michael Larson did and figured it out, and they had to change it, make it completely random. Michael Larson did. Okay, so they come in soaking wet. So you're operating at a financial loss, but now cold ice cream is their reward reward we had promised them ice cream and yeah it i mean it is what it is i'll say this it was as cheap as it is in allentown um so among theme park desserts

um it ranks relatively inexpensive because the portions are still gigantic. They're still as big as I remember at Cold Stone. It was good. It was quality. And I think each of the kids' things were like $7, and I think mine was like $8. They gouge on the soda. I think the soda was like $4. Right.

Yeah. But the ice cream, we got decently sized stuff for what you'd expect to pay in the suburbs. Can I ask a quick question as far as kid preference? Because oftentimes I, Jason or I, but oftentimes myself, I choose something on a menu that might be aimed at seven, six-year-old, five-year-olds, because it has a lot of colors, sprinkles, or jimmies, as Jason might say. How do your kids do? Do they order a birthday cake remix

or do they go for something more sophisticated? Yeah, my son figured out that you don't have to color in the lines and it's dangerous because we let him at Dairy Queen, for instance, go and mix the Reese's and the Snickers. The one time he did Reese's Snickers brownie and we, and that's like,

I mean, it was almost to the point where they couldn't spin the thing because there's too much stuff in it. Uh, plus it added like an extra dollar 50 or two bucks or whatever. So, um, you know, we, we've encouraged him to, to be creative, but now that he can read, he reads well, he can figure out what's on the menu. My daughter, Nora, she just wants chocolate and sprinkles. If it's chocolate and it's got sprinkles, that's for her. So a little mix of both.

I'm a strawberry boy. If it's got strawberry, I like the strawberry shortcake. So that's usually what I get at places like Cold Stone. I am also a strawberry boy. If we're talking about the core three, the holy trinity of ice cream flavors, I am a strawberry boy, absolutely. I'm a person who thinks that strawberry shouldn't be in the trinity. I don't know why it's a primary.

It's fine. I'll have some strawberry ice cream. Jason, what do you think? Do you think that's the Trinity? I think chocolate, vanilla, strawberry is usually... If we're talking Neapolitan, that's the Trinity. I like the... What is it?

It's pistachio cherry chocolate. That's another. Is that Spumoni? Yeah, that's Spumoni. That's a different religion, Jason. That's a different religion jason that's a different but i think i prefer that um i like you know i do like chocolate ice cream i think i like you know fudge and chocolate chips more thank god you're clarifying this jason i think the audience was concerned it is different um but like so if i just like chocolate or not if i can get um a good quality vanilla um uh uh and then get some fudge

and some chocolate chunks in there you're not okay long story short you are not like ian and ian you're not a strawberry boy not Not a strawberry boy. That's okay. That's fine. I did learn recently of a fudge boy that Cold Stone Creamery, they default to the sweet cream a lot, which I saw someone making a short video working at Cold Stone, and they're like, well, sweet cream is just basically plain. Like, it's just the default ice cream, but there's no vanilla beans or vanilla extract. It's a vanilla without even vanilla in it?

That's a Greek flavor? Now, that sounds godless to me. That sounds like, I don't know how you even do that. Well, I think at Cold Stone, it's just a base to put a lot of toppings in. Oh, it's almost like they're creating their own ice cream. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Depending on the toppings, the fixin', whatever.

Sure. The fixins or whatever they call them. Jimmy's. I'm glad you're putting this in religious terms, though. You've kept that consistent, Mike. Thank you, yeah. Ice cream, the religion of the show. Well, let me see.

Now I can't decide whether to veer to, because I just feel like, you know, we should give, if we need to shortchange one, we can, but it feels like we should give ample time to the real star of the sector, which has been the previous star of a sector, and that is Bubba Gump. And you, Ian, jumped at the,

you seemed like, okay, you're in town, you're going to go do a family night. You were more than willing to have Bubba Gump be the main feature of your CityWalk evening. Absolutely. Something strange happened. My wife got really into it. And it was, you know, we were sitting at my parents who live in the middle of the Ocala National Forest, which is like, you know, 75 to 90 minutes away. And we were, we had a lot of fun and we were going to, you know, we were going to see him a lot that week. And I looked at my wife and I said, do you want to, you know, go to Universal tonight? She said, sure. And so we loaded the kids up and we we realized the city walk parking was

more than we remembered and so we made the decision to see if there's any hotels at the in the area because in my mind if i'm going to pay you know 40 or 50 bucks for parking um and the hotel is 100 or 125 might as well just do it instead of driving back you know late at night with the kids. So is that what we're talking parking wise? Why, by the way, I, we don't really know what we didn't park there. So we don't really know what we're dealing with. Yeah. It, it shot up to Disney levels.

It's pretty high and it didn't used to be. That was, that was one of the big reasons I used to see wrestling there. Cause it was a easy night out wrestling. The TNA wrestling was free and parking at city walk. Uh, I think after 5 or 6 at some point, was free. And that wasn't the case anymore. So I think maybe the free parking starts at like 9 o'clock now or 8 o'clock. It's very late. And the kids' bedtime is usually on a vacation night, it's 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock.

So we couldn't wait to have dinner until then. So we figured if we're putting 40 percent of that toward a toward a room why not so we got a room at endless summer which is this is where i segue all the beach boys talking to oh sweet yes yeah and that's a phrase in their world that they use all the time for the titles of lots of things yeah and i thought earlier it was a big parable for, using biblical terms, a parable for summer in paradise

when we were discussing all of the failed expectations and things like that in the previous conversation. But got an awesome room. Very nice premise. And I'm sure you'll go over this in the hotel section.

Well, this, you know, look, we clarify this in a later sector we did make the choice the uh the sector keeper made the choice right you know what it was never it was never said so we just didn't because something has to be out and hotels had to be out because this is okay we we've we don't know how long this is going to go uh and i don't know i guess if i sounded defensive ian it's because you've you've now if the audience is now wishing and hoping for a hotel sector i i don't know what to say hotels were out of downtown disney ordeal so this is in keeping with the tradition well that's i can i'll keep it quick we had a beautiful view of an abandoned hotel um

that's probably going to get demolished and bought by Universal Studios for another resort. And we had a few Dunkin' Donuts that were fully operating. But the hotel itself was actually beautiful. It was nice. It was Disney quality. It was bright colors, beautifully clean head to toe. It felt like an experience. And the kids really got a kick out of it. Super high ceilings. Awesome check-in counter. Again, something comparable to what you'd see at the Disney Resort. They were pumped up right then because they had no idea.

They didn't even care if we were going. They just love hotels. They didn't care if we were going to the park. They didn't care if we were going to CityWalk. There was a big Christmas tree because it was there after Christmas. They were jacked up. And we take them into the room. We get them kind of dressed around. We get them in some warmer clothes because we know we're going to be walking. And then we hop on the bus. The transportation is awesome.

It's like a two-minute ride. It's right outside. It's more convenient than almost any Disney resort, maybe besides Polynesian contemporary you know those magic kingdom ones like it is hop skip and a jump you're maybe a mile away entrance to entrance so already this is this is great um that by the way bodes well for the epic universe situation where there's been the concern about will the transportation be complicated sending people a little further away but if you had a good uh pretty sound situation, maybe that bodes well for the future. Yeah, and

the road design over there. So the Endless Summer used to be wet and wild. And wet and wild, you know, it was, isn't it relative, seems kind of relatively inconvenient. It's off of iDrive-ish, or was. But the way they

siphoned the traffic and created new traffic patterns actually worked out really well. So it's right off of I-4. You know, if you go left, you're at Endless Summer. If you go right, you're at Universal. You know, can't recommend it enough. And it was affordable. I think it was only, you know, for a room Christmas week, it was like you know 125 or 149 or something around there yeah and so we got the kids ready we told them we're going for dinner and i'm telling my wife

i said i don't know if they're gonna like this it's you know i i looked at the menu and there's a lot of cajun-y things and it's about the movie forrest gump and which which came out uh let me just do some quick math here i think uh uh 49 years before they were born that's right isn't it the irony of it is that i saw it in the theater in florida with with my parents and my brother so this is all coming full circle i'm having like a crazy like you know every everything's setting off a memory, even driving from my parents' house. We stopped at the, uh, Turkey Lake service Plaza, which used to have an awesome kind of retro Burger King that has since been remodeled to Wendy's and a Dunkin' Donuts, but it's still there. So all those memories, like the time I shot my dad with ketchup and I thought I was going to die because it's the maddest I've ever seen him. Uh, so I'm so i'm just like this is beyond belief and everything's going wonderful um so we get there

and they couldn't have been nicer and you walk in and it it feels like you're in the movie. I can't stress enough the attention to detail within Bubba Gump Shrimp. Now, is anybody going to talk about the parking garage? Because I have some fond memories of that as well. I believe that is the plan. The sector keeper hasn't divined it all for us, but I think it's uh i think it's worth mentioning here i yeah i you were alluding to this like the the the fond feelings just in the build-up of the garage i say go for it yeah it's again i didn't know this was kind of in me but i i kind of flashed back to when i was the first time i went to universal was 1995 uh sort of an eight And I just remember seeing all the different monster movie characters and Jaws. And they just started to put up like a Jurassic Park parking section. If it wasn't that trip, it was the trip after.

But you start to hear all the scores from the different Universal movies. So they drop you off on the bus just under the parking garage and you take an escalator up to the garage where they do security and your ticketing and stuff like that um so you go through security and then there it is the beauty of that city walk and bubba gump is on the left and i'm still feeling this i have endorphins and nostalgia and stuff i haven't felt in years which i didn't know i had for universal i knew i i'm addicted to disney like i i have it for disney absolutely but so this this experience unlocked it i'm almost i'm sitting here thinking like uh you do there must be like years and years of built up but it's almost yeah they'd like unlocked it yeah because we only as a family went to universal maybe two or three times i mean 95

2000 and you know i've gone i've gone with my wife on kind of a solo trip, like 2013 or 14. So yeah, with the kids, and then 2020. So yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of memories, but this time it was just like, there it is. And it was really cool, but I'd never eaten a single Bubba Gump shrimp. I'd lived in New York City for four years. I'd never went to the one in Times Square. I'd always been kind of curious. But Bubba Gump's the kind of place where you can't really say like,

hey, guys, you want to go to that hot new restaurant, Bubba Gump? It's never something that could be suggested. But now I had an excuse, and I'm so glad I did. You have to. You could tell your family a ghost child's life depends on it yeah and they they were fully understanding they from the jump when they heard the sector keeper uh was involved they knew and so we walked down we went to the left and it's right there it's one of the one of if not the first things you see and it's i think physically the first thing you can choose to do it's right on the aisle it is a dramatic it's like

it's a prime position in in this city walk for sure yeah it is this whole stretch is like stuff tempting you like early in the day it's starbucks and bubba gump and then when you're leaving it's like oh do we need another meal should we go to bubba gump and then when you're leaving it's like oh do we need another meal should we go to bubba gump or should we get ice cream on the way out like you know yeah in a lot of ways these are like the sirens on the cliff calling to the sailors now are there dangers that lie in these places sometimes yes yes yeah it and there was nothing no danger involved in bubba gump i mean we walked in um you know there it had the cool i don't know if you guys remember the old school long john silvers that used to have oh yeah yeah so it was that it was that but better um you know the wood floors wood panels the ropes um the uh the safety buoys

on the wall the pictures of a forest with different folks um license plates across the walls from the different spots that he was in the movie uh there was just left and right everything was detailed uh pictures of jenny everywhere um so you know what i'd forgotten about was like the the folks It was just left and right. Everything was detailed. Pictures of Jenny everywhere. You know what I'd forgotten about was the folksiness. I'm looking at photos where there's a lot of grandma knickknacks, pots and little ceramics and whatever, those metal platters or whatever that you put up on the wall, things reminiscent of Mama. You know, whatever those like metal or those platters or whatever that you put up on the wall.

Like, you know, things reminiscent of Mama. I think Mama's spirit is especially strong in this location. Yeah, I would I would have to agree with that. And it was I'm trying to put my finger on it. It's almost this is going to sound like the craziest thing that's ever come out of my mouth. It's almost indescribable. It's it just it made me really happy to be there um they treated and i think it was you know they treated my kids really nice um they made a big deal about making sure that they were taken care of well uh there was there's this cool thing it's it's almost like phovo to show um where instead of

where they have the green and the red for the meat they have a thing you can flip over if you need service or if you need help, which made it really convenient, especially with kids, because you didn't have to flag anybody down and chase them down. And my kids really got a kick out of just everything involved. They had a menu, and I'm going through my pictures now, where you could draw yourself next to Forrest Gump. And for some reason, both my son and my daughter just gravitated. They wanted to put themselves next to Forrest. What is Forrest to them though? Did you have to explain? And is the

explanation, because the explanation is complicated. Well, he sort of, he's this like cipher who appears in all of history and uh you know and you got to be careful with certain aspects of it given that it's an actor playing a type of person that he is not which we don't see as much these days i was was there any difficulty in explaining to children what what the hell this franchise did you just say like you remember the polar express like is that where you start from? Is it an easier explanation? Well, he's kind of that guy.

We explained Forrest as a nice character from the movies that really wanted to help his friend, and he made a restaurant in the movie to commemorate his friend that he had a boat with. And that was... That's really sweet that is yeah you didn't have to get in the hole like well he kind of journeys through the second half of the 20th century and represents a lot and encounters a lot uh yeah there's a see there's a weird sequel book where he meets tom hanks and it's kind of a metathagas that's that's not a that's not an important thing to tell your children at all there's a script there's a weird sequel book where he meets Tom Hanks, and it's kind of a meta-thag. I guess that's not an important thing to tell your children at all. There's a script.

There was a script. They were going to make a sequel, and then some events occur that kind of made it inappropriate. People kind of agree it probably should have been Pulp Fiction, so history doesn't look too kindly on it, because that was like the new daring movie. But it's still, I don't know. Wait, did it really get

delayed because the 9-11 supposedly uh the the legend now is that like oh yeah we had a script ready to go and then we were gonna go of meeting about it on september 11 2001 oh my goodness but who knows how much that's apocryphal like how much that's like it just seems a little too perfect well this is i'm seeing it eric roth screenwriter did say yeah he turned it in the day before 9-11 and that it had wait i saw what happens in it like oj's in it oh my god jesus he had forest in the back of oj's no wait what what do you mean it was in there ojrest in the back of OJ's Bronco. What do you mean? He was in there. OJ's in the back.

Does he? He can't be in the back. That's where OJ is. Al Cowlings is driving. AC, yeah. Yeah. Does he meet the Ayatollah or something? Does he like?

We're getting close because I think he may have been in the federal building in Oklahoma City before. No! That's what, this is bonkers. This is so nuts. Oh, now we gotta read this book. He danced with Princess Diana. Not on the night of.

Why? It's all tragedies. It's all, Far is wandering in the tragedy. So is the first. Everybody dies in the first. That's true. Everyone has topical illnesses. So is the first. Everybody dies in the first. That's true. Everyone has topical illnesses. Illnesses or wars, yeah.

Boy, OJ's Bronco makes no sense, though. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, hang on. I had Forrest in the back of OJ's Bronco. He would look up occasionally, but they didn't see him in the rear view mirror, and then he'd pop down. He was back there, and they didn't know? What events would possibly transpire and they were gonna play a murder as a sight gag like it's like uh yeah

he was taking a gun to his head in that moment right oh my god he misfired he's like okay i won't kill myself accidentally pulls trigger while putting gun down goes right through the seat into forest gump skull wow was what was that was he hanging out with oj that night then like why was he there or he like just stumbled into the car maybe he knew kato do you think he i think he was friends with kato caleb oh i could see that yeah maybe he's trying to start an acting or modeling career. Yeah. And his buddy has like, I'm staying in this guest house right now. Okay. What are the odds? Do they cast Kato or do they get an actor to play Kato?

Hmm. I think if you have Kato, you take him. I think if his price is right, you just get the real guy. It seems like nothing has ever had a lot of trouble getting kato kalin if they want him if you irishman kato kalin so he's more era appropriate i think it would be fine since you age him down at this point yeah dial of destiny face thing to kato kalin and i think you use him i think it's because it's the technology is perfect now so you may as well this is so nuts i'm really glad i know about this now i just don't i feel

like we could spend the rest of the time trying to figure out what possible what logical way forrest gump could end up in this car but we can't do that we've now distracted from what was a nice meal yeah i know sorry no it's what we do on the show it's wonderful i didn't explain, I haven't yet approached the topic of OJ with my kids or Jenny's untimely demise. And it's crazy because as I get older, I appreciate my parents for things like that because they did take me to see Forrest Gump when it came out. And they did give me reasonable explanations that weren't outright lies and so i think one of the parenting skills over time i think that is super valuable is the ability to not not lie to children in you don't have to tell them everything but if you start to explain something and give them enough like this was a man who was in the army with someone and

they had a shrimp boat and then his friend passed away and he started a restaurant like that's you can kind of leave it there and and and my dad always seemed to be really good at that you know just giving you just enough information um and the one thing i couldn't explain was why they gave my kids light up flashing glasses uh because they ordered they ordered the kids' drinks. But by the end of the trip, which was only a day and a half, we ended up doing the park the next day, we ended up with six total light-up glasses.

Wow. Wow, that's like Mike's kitchen. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, my kitchen five to seven years ago, maybe. Yeah, because now you have more, right? You have a lot of catching up to do is what I'm saying. What's the latest in your kitchen? Mine?

You're talking about me? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I don't actually know. I think we have two Spaghetti Factory glasses from San Diego that are fairly recent. They're kind of nice glasses, too. They're not plastic, but they don't light up. They don't light up. Sorry, but they are novelty restaurant glasses.

We just got some nice Disney on Ice ones when we saw the number two Calypso artist of all time, Sebastian, perform his song, Kiss the Girl. Oh, what a callback. Buffett number one. Sebastian the crab number two.

That's why you're the archivist. That's right let me ask you when you went to Bubba Gum did you guys meet the mascot I wish if you go through my

Instagram pictures at any length you will see that it is either me and my family with mascots, me and my family with mascots, me and my family at theme parks, or me at a wrestling event. Those are your three choices. And unfortunately, we did not meet the mascot. I was aware of the mascot existing.

We did meet Bumblebee, the Transformer, the next day. Oh, wow. That's pretty good. Yeah, we met the Blues Brothers. How do you begin to explain that to your children? That's tougher than 9-11. There are two guys that came

out of jail and they hated Nazis. Then they had to raise money. I don't think I could simplify that. No, it's too complicated. Daddy, did they think this was funny or cool? Well, both kids. Well, it's like when you do get around to explaining OJ, you do it gradually and you start with the dancing Eidos.

Oh, jeez. I'd forgotten about that. Yeah. What led to this? So what inspired this for this classic sketch dad okay i'm gonna jump to one of the naked gun movies as i buy some time to think about how to explain this um i do need to jump in i when reading about public i figured out i had once again convinced myself of something incorrect the mascot's name is not scampi it is shrimp louis it is a different dish that i was confusing with shrimp scampi whoa okay scampi uh yeah i know i it came up it's

come up recently how we couldn't remember it and then we all believed it. Scampi. Yeah, I know. It came up. It's come up recently how we couldn't remember it. And then we all believed it was Scampi. And look, maybe you might hear episodes where different names are used in different sectors, depending on when these come out. So I guess the confusion about this is never going to end, obviously. Yeah, yeah. Let's just keep making up names for him, too. Let's just change it every

time and then never mention it from here on out yeah because he's in he's in a top hat so you know i would what is that you know um the fancy lad our old friend fra diavolo uh everyone everyone loves it call him call him Pinky I guess his name's Pinky it is surprising Pinky is simpler than Shrimp Louie oh wait maybe like Hat and Tails you know

these fancies got both the top hat but he brings the tail no matter what yeah that's good alright from here on out we'll just try to add more confusion yeah no different name every time that's the rules of uh a name i already shrimp shrimp louis you're saying but we may bail on louis huh it's really for that it's i it's an impossible mythology to find really like nobody's i don't know maybe there's maybe there were some like coloring pages for kids that clarify.

But I think there's a reason they have not hammered this into our heads. Yeah, I'm looking at, I've just blown up on my screen a picture of my son coloring in the coloring guide. He colored in forest and he put himself, they have a box of chocolates that you can color in, which is pretty neat. You can circle the Bubba Gumps that you've been to on the map in the United States. That's pretty neat. Then it has all the locations from the movie,

which is pretty cool. What was neat about that, we like to drive down. It's cheaper, but also it's fun. The kids play their switches and tablets. That map was kind of cool too. My son realized what the states looked like on the map.

And so he said, Daddy, when you said Georgia, where is it? And so I pointed to Georgia. And so we had a brief geography lesson about some of the states that we just strove through earlier that week. Oh, wow. Geez. An educational manual. Wow, wow. That's great. Yeah. about some of the states that we just strove through earlier that week oh wow an educational menu wow wow that's that's great uh yeah so this is informative and fun what did everybody think

of the food because you had the risk of like cajun does that not make any sense right so the kids thankfully and i again we had a server that was terrific on top of the kids' drinks and everything. And they got the special drink, which was kind of a Shirley Temple thing, but not really. I think they did it custom that night. It went in the collectible cup. So I think what they did, they put the cherry icy with Sprite and did like a little mixer thing that wasn't on the menu. So we got like a secret menu item. Wow.

Yeah. mixer thing that wasn't on the menu. So we got like a secret menu item. And yeah. And they got, Zach got the chicken strips and Nora got the, I'm sorry. Let me look here. Nora got the chicken, Zach got the mac and cheese which is fine. Like no Cajun seasoning.

What you default to. That's the parents bread and butter right there. And our literal bread and butter also. Can't go wrong with that. And I got the, what was it called? Of course we have Scampi, I think is the official name of it. I wrote it down here and I called the menu. But not of course the character's name is Scampi.

Right. That one's not an of course. Yeah. Yep, it's called of course we have Scampi and my wife got the Jambalaya. So we both really liked it. Um, we, again, it was, it was crowd, it was busy. Um, but we were able to kind of eat at our own pace. We didn't feel rushed. Um, the service was great. Everything about it. I took a picture of... So this is how to the detail this restaurant is.

I took a picture of an Ed Hardy thing to send to my brother and laugh. Because Ed Hardy is objectively hilarious at this point in 2024. However, I didn't realize that Ed Hardy designs were in the Forrest Gump movie because of the year Ed Hardy started designing things. Wow. What? Oh. Yeah. So if you look up Ed Hardy, Ed Hardy design stuff came out.

Where is it? 70s and it would have been around the time that Forrest Gump was in was doing his thing coming out of the armed services and there was Ed Hardy stuff and Ed Hardy tattoos and things in the movie and like there's little easter eggs like that throughout the restaurant

where seemingly untied together things the attention to detail is so great that if you look at the license plates, they're all from places that he was at. If you look at the Ed Hardy stuff, it's all from something that was tied in the movie. If you were a super fan of AEW

and you had an AEW restaurant, you'd want this level of detail. I'm sure there is a forest gump super fan somewhere um and i don't think they'd be disappointed uh it just every like everywhere you went in this place um was just little easter eggs and if if i'd seen the movie within the last 10 years um i probably would have picked up even more it was it was nuts it's really weird that there's there's just not any equivalent to like you know it's it is a it was a huge movie and an oscar-winning movie and a big box office

box office success too but there isn't like it's not a franchise and franchises are like the only thing that inspire any physical spaces so it's so unique because there isn't like i'm trying to think of like an equivalent hit like this is weird it's similar tonally but of course it wouldn't make a good restaurant like i'm thinking about the shawshank redemption right there's no maybe it would i don't know it might be interesting being shawshank but like it just if if you were just totally again there's this whole chain and they uh yeah i don't know. It's like you're in a prison, but it's fun, though. There's facts about making the movie, and Tim Robbins' shirt and whatever. It's just like you buy that almost as much.

It's so singular and strange, the existence of this place. Yeah. Yeah. It's really wild. It's like I'm a big Joe's Ce's crab shack fan and this is like basically you could it's like a more detailed joe's crab shack now i haven't been to every joe's crab shack but the one in san diego it it feels like oh like joe's crab shack is the unlicensed forrest gump restaurant they just don't have the they don't have the attention to detail.

They don't have the little touches. Who's Joe? We don't know anything about him. Did Joe ever meet any presidents or inspire any famous rock stars moves? Right. Joe is no one and nothing. So yeah, I guess my point is just that it's so weird because it's the movie

and then it also just feels like it's almost like a better version of an existing chain restaurant or a more specific version of it i should say yeah i think the only time in history that's happened was was rb's and roy rogers right i think we all agree rb's is the the punched out version of roy rogers oh i don't know about roy rogers to weigh in i've never had roy rogers it's good but in my opinion, Arby's is better. Really? Jason, what do you think? There used to be a Roy Rogers

up the street from where I grew up that eventually flipped to a McDonald's, and then Roy Rogers became only present at East Coast rest stops, much like the famous Allentown pennsylvania rest stop

uh very centrally located off of i-95 is that right 476 476 okay yeah so um i was always excited to eat at roy rogers because it was like a white elk. You'd only see them at rest stops. Right, right. Interesting. What do you think about it versus Arby's? I think Arby's is probably more consistent. Sure. I know Roy Rogers has gotten me

sick a few times. Oh my god, more fondness about places that get you sick. I don't think Arby's has. I think I've been okay. I've not eaten Arby's in a long time, but definitely at the end, I was eating the chicken strips a lot more than the roast beef,

which I always liked. At the end. At the end of your Arby's? At the end of my Arby's run. Towards the end. That's when you're talking about a parent. And at the end, there were some rough times, but also a lot of perspective.

And a lot of roast beef. Arby's would go on to open up up the street from where I lived. And so in high school, it was often a quick go-to spot. Right, right. The glory days um i let me um let me bring up something that i've learned about bubba gump that we didn't get into the first time we did it in in the first sector and that is the founder of the person who we have to thank for this chain

do you mean tom hanks or robert zemeckis i mean on in some way yes but no i'm talking about uh environmentalist entrepreneur consultant author motivational speaker and of course restaurant founder anthony zalezi i'm gonna share my screen and show you this this all this info is all courtesy of friend of the show bug main buzz buzz here i'm to share my screen. And you will see something from his website. And there's a picture of him putting his finger to his temple next to a Bubba Gump sign. As if to say, I thought of it. I thought it up. Anthony Zalesi worked in food in all manner.

Like packaged food, frozen food. And then he got a job for something called Meridian Products, the world's largest shrimp, lobster, and crab consolidation company. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Meridian Products fortunes were dwindling. Their sales and margins were declining. So they brought in Zalesi, a genius from other companies, to help them find new growth vehicles. And he had seven months of very little traction or change. Things were not working out at Meridian.

And then one day he put on the movie Forrest Gump and had the aha moment as seen in that picture. This is where his own website gets confusing. When he saw the character nicknamed Bubba Gump reciting a list of, well, that's not true. No, Bubba Gump is the two names. Even he doesn't get it right on his site. Anyway, the part where Bubba is doing the big list of all the ways that you can cook shrimp, reminiscent of what Jason did the other day with hot dogs when Sector Keeper put him on the spot. Anyway, that big list happened, and he's like wait a minute we could do all those kinds of shrimp and the next morning he headed straight to paramount pictures where he's i assume he just

walked up to the gate and knocked on it anthony's aussie here but he did secure uh the licensing deal for both shrimp and chocolates, all of it. So for a while, and I don't remember this era, that Bubba Gump was frozen shrimp. It was a grocery item first. And then the California restaurant, the Rusty Pelican, he worked with them to create the brick and mortar establishment, which was a tremendous success. So now we know. We have a guy here. I think this is a guy,

but a guy for good. Wow. Thank you, Mr. Zalessi. Now we know who specifically to thank. For your nice meal, you can thank Zalessi. I have a lot of respect for his tan, but also his apparent care for eye care because he has a tremendous tan,

but he has like the aviator blockout around his eyes. So that tells me this is a man that he knows how to look sharp, but then also got to protect those eyes. Got to protect the eyes. Yeah. Yeah, he needs those to approve future product development notions. Maybe he was pointing to his eyes in that photo, actually. Oh. I'm protecting these. Get them checked. They're good that photo actually saying i'm protecting get them checked good once or twice a year get them checked um we can all take a cue from zalezi

his creativity his self-care um in telling that story we missed before we move on to the last restaurant of the sector do we miss anything about your your very your wonderful experience sounds really nice yeah yeah i I can't stress enough. Again, this was also reasonable. We got the big sampler. Let me look up the official name here. It is the... And it was plenty of food for

all four of us. Run Across America. It had shrimp, hush puppies, chicken tenders, Bubba's Far Out dip, chips, sauce. And it was really good. And, I mean, it was what you'd expect from that level of restaurant. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I have an idea of what it would be like. Yeah. And then the kids' meals came in boats, in little paper boats. Wow. Yeah. That's great. So it was really neat.

Again, if you have kids, the kids stuff in particular was very reasonably priced. It helps really balance out the meal. The portions were pretty gigantic. So don't go on anything but an empty stomach because you will get a lot of food. And it just overall,

yeah, just a really, really great time. And that was the point where my wife and i looked at each other and said we we have to take the kids to the park tomorrow because we thought that by walking around city walk they realized there was a giant theme park but they didn't because they got too into the water fountain so we probably could have let we probably went to the hotel and just drove back but i think it was my wife and i at that point that were like, yeah, we're in for tomorrow. We better make sure there's tickets available.

Wow. You, like us, had a whole world of fun not even involving the theme park. And the main thing is there's a recurring thing with guests of this saga. A lot of guests have been having trouble with food and or getting sick yesterday was eva who uh we haven't revealed what happened to her and where yet but there's a real bad pattern forming so ian please tell me that you and your family made it through your city walk experience without our curse oh yeah it was yeah we were fine um yeah yeah we we ended up stopping at turkey lake back on the way home from the theme park the next day again we got dunkin donuts there um it was just every everything went well

we got to see my brother briefly even before we you know uh before we left orlando he came down to ocala uh it was a great trip but really the the exclamation the kicking it off at city walk uh with the convenient transportation um just the the nicely priced and and good food uh yeah that really set the tone wow that's great wow it's well that's beautiful and this this might provide rationale of why uh this this fact i'm about to say is true and i don't know if everybody realizes this bubba gump is the only restaurant that is present at every single city walk across the globe oh wow only thing there's a lot of things are a lot of establishments are at three but bubba gump's the only one which is at hollywood Orlando, Osaka, and Beijing. So it's really,

this is kind, this is our, this restaurant has been our gift to the world, our gift to Asia, and it has to serve as an ambassador of American culture. And it seems like Ian thinks that that is justified. Yeah, absolutely. And I do. It did leave me with some regrets, though. You know, you reflect on your life as you get older. Like I said, I lived in New York for four years. I had bad meals at the TGI Fridays in Times Square. I had bad meals at Hard Rock. Bubba Gump was there the whole time i could have just went to bubba gump and and saved myself

uh the gastroenterologist you know the gastropain that came from the other meals and probably saved some money too damn i mean you could that's that's something that will haunt you but i don't want you to beat yourself up too badly about it just a little bit bit. I appreciate that. A lot of it was resolved by good memories going to the Toys R Us across the way in Times Square and checking the wrestling action figures. Those were never on discount

though, were they? Not in the Times Square. That was not a discount-heavy location. No, they clearanced out GameCube games though right as i got to college so i had a big score of uh a couple of games for for four dollars there but wow that's pretty good yeah something huh all right those are bad memories that outweigh the

the years of loss of bubba gump yeah um well you know probably the nice thing would have been to like you know go soaring out on this high note of Bubba Gump. We do have to address red oven pizza. Let's put at least a minute on the clock. Red oven pizza. I've been there on two trips and it has been fine. It's fine. And you know what?

Fine is saying a lot, given some of the other things that we experienced during this saga. I've had pizza there, salad there. It is fine. Jason, agree? Yeah yeah i ate a mushroom pizza it's like a larger personal pizza um i don't know i like 12 inches across i ate here i was heading to the airport i ate some of it there and then i took some of it with me and ate at the gate wow oh you took it through security you took took a pizza through security? Took it through security. Well, it was in like a tiny box at that point.

We might have to bump up the rating. I don't... Fine is my delineation whether or not I pack it in the bag to go through security. I think that's probably better than fine. I bet you and Jason, though, have a different scale when it comes to saving food if it's based on how good it is. Yeah.

Well, this was pretty good. I mean, the Orlando airport, it's certainly not lacking in culinary options. But I was like, this was good. And it was pretty easy on the stomach. So good for flying. Ian, I have a question. This is actually, I don't know if I've ever done this. Have you ever taken leftovers on a plane?

Yes. Because you travel a lot. I do. So I've snuck things out of AEW Catering. Oh. And others have as well. So I've taken some cookies. They have these nice boxes.

Because at AEWW you could be there just to have an interview and then you might be able to just sit back and watch the show for the night. You might be there to have a match. It might not be later or earlier. They have these nice boxes that as they're putting the catering away, they'll give the last call. You can fill up

a box to take back to your room or to hang out and watch the rest of the event. When I'm there for dynamite or for anything like that i will normally fill up a box because i don't know if i'm done but at the time for dynamite or if i have to go on for ring of honor or whatnot so i'll have something um and there there's good enough desserts where i've snuck the not snuck but i've taken the desserts back on checked it through um not checked it through had it on my carry-on got it through security and would this food be accessible if like i don't know a friend

or podcaster came to visit you you shared fond memories of allentown uh would that would that particular person maybe be able to also sneak away with a box or two or five. Or could you say, Ian, could you just say, like, I need an intern. It doesn't have to be college age. I just need a guy to help me out. And then he's just going to kind of come with me backstage and have access to all the areas, especially the areas sort of with all the layout, the food and stuff. Are we trying to get Jason to smuggle some food out?

Look, I'm just saying hypothetically. I don't want to say who specifically. I'm just saying, is that a possibility? Sometimes in wrestling, getting stuck in catering, that's a negative connotation. I'm begging. Just drop me in catering. I also like Jason Sheridan, food smuggler,

an Indiana Jones-type adventure. Yeah, that's cool. With the plane line going from dot to dot internationally, freeing food to its rightful owner, him. Smugglers run. Jason Sheridan, smugglers run. Some of my coolest wrestling memories have been in AEW catering. That's how I met Ric Flair and talked to Ric Flair,

who, by the way, is the most amazing-smelling person you'll ever meet. What? Okay. He smells like a – it's kind of like a fireplace mango, and it's wonderful. And I, I don't have the nerve. I didn't have the nerve to ask him,

Hey, where'd you get that cologne? Cause I don't wear cologne, but I'd wear that. Cause it was, it was pleasant. It was welcoming, but it was also like, it had like a,

it had like a, Hey, I'm here. The kind of vibe to it. So, okay. Yeah. But you know,

I've, I've gotten to, you know, I've sat and I don't want to drop too many names. Paul White has become a friend of mine when we've done commentary together, the big show.

It's fun to sit and have some more private moments with folks that otherwise I just work with here and there and move on. The AEW catering room is a fun place to be. And, yeah, I've stole a lot of cookies, I'll be honest. That's come clean.

I've stole cookies and brownies, cheesecake. Yeah. Wow. They got a full cheese. How many cheesecakes are back there? Oh, geez. These are people that can eat a lot. These are very strong people that can consume a lot of calories, I assume.

Absolutely, yeah. And then they watch what they eat in a lot of ways. But at other times, depending on where you are in your diet, you want carbohydrates to make you look more vascular. Sure. Yeah. There's a lot of cheese. When there's cheesecake, there's a lot of it.

This is the place to be you gotta get in there god i'm in i don't want to brag i'm in a web aew web series i play a dog's agent uh i'm johnny loves kaya i want to plug that right well you haven't plugged that properly you may as well get me back i may as well be back there i'm basically on the roster let's well let's throw that plug at the at the end too after just tag that on so people i know people can find that sure uh but for now we probably should head head to that point especially because oh my god now the stone is appearing there it is my god it's it's incredible well this one looks like wait okay i think it's OJ Simpson, but he's wearing an Ed Hardy shirt and light-up flashing glasses.

Wow. Well, he seems so much more fun that way. Wow. What a great tribute to the great time that you had, Ian. It's a beautiful tribute. And Ian Riccoboni, oh my God, you survived Podcast The Ride, The CityWalk Orlando Saga, Multiverse of Madness. Let's exit through the plug portal. Is there anything you'd like to plug?

Yeah, Mike mentioned Johnny TV, who was recently on Ring of Honor. He's been on AW, he's been on Ring of Honor. He recently won custody of Dalton Castle's boys. It was one of the most heartbreaking moments that we've ever seen in Ring of Honor history. So we have a big, huge event called Supercard of Honor. It's on April the 5th. It's at the Leah Cora Center.

It's going to be that Friday night. There's a big weekend that weekend, and we're a part of it. It's on Temple University's campus. Tickets are moving real fast. Mike, you were able to come to last year's version in Hollywood. Jason and I actually did. Oh, yeah. Jason, yeah. Great time.

So this year, tickets are moving just as fast. So if you go to rohtix.com, you can get your tickets there. And I have a feeling that Johnny TV is not going to be let off the hook and that Mr. Castle might be willing to try and punch his face in again. Seems likely. And any details released about the catering

situation back there? What's the access going to be like? What's the cheesecake scenario? Yeah. Strawberries on the top of the cheesecake? Oh yeah, for the strawberry boys? Yeah, we've had that. Hell yeah. Hell yes. Screw Oh, yeah, for the Strawberry Boys? Yeah, we've had that. Oh, yes. Hell yeah. Hell yes. Screw

Jason. I'm doing the internship. All right. Strawberry Boy. I had the idea. It's my idea. It's going to be a blast, though. And then, yeah, every Thursday, myself, Caprice Coleman, we're the voices of Ring of Honor. I pop up on

AEW from time to time. Little Mad at Excalibur, he beat me again in the Wrestling Observer newsletter voting for announcer of the year but that's all in good fun until I steal his mask and then he won't be able to do it anymore that's right, I'm coming for you Excalibur but yeah

we have a blast and I hope everyone can join us on, uh, for super card of honor. It's going to be live on honor club. So if you've got the honor club subscription, it's only nine 99.

It's yeah. It's one of our biggest events of the year. Jeez. Fantastic. Uh, well, uh, that,

that sounds great. And, uh, so glad you could join us for this. Somebody with some true, uh, city walk affection and nostalgia and recent memories seeming like the best ones. That's great.

And I'm happy we didn't make your family sick. Okay. Thanks to Aaron Gardner for the art, our own Mike Carlson and Zach Reno for the theme music, Multiverse of Madness merch in our TeePublic store. For the full saga experience, subscribe to Podcast the Ride, the second gate, or get every sector ad-free

and an exclusive bonus sector on Club 3. That's all at patreon.com slash podcasttheride. I believe this closes out this phase. We'll see where we end up going tomorrow as we head into, I believe, the seventh of these. We're almost at the full week. Mark, I hope you're keeping up with us. And not to throw more stuff at you, but again, what is the web series, Mike? Oh, Johnny Loves Taya.

It's on the official AEW YouTube channel. It's a faux reality show, but I play Johnny and Taya's dog's agent. Wow. In the show. We should somehow tie our universe to that universe so that the next episode only makes sense if you go watch that. Oh, that's smart. Yeah. Mitch is on an episode as well.

Mike Mitchell from Doughboys is on an episode as well. Wow. Wow. Sweet. Okay. Head there. Check it. Do that.

And then come back to us tomorrow because we got more coming in for a lot of days still. So see you then. Forever. Dog. This has then. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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