Podcast: The Ride - The CityWalk Orlando Saga: Malltiverse of Madness 4 - 3 with Joe Kwaczala and Brett Boham

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Procure a spot on a steam powered airship and let the winds whisk you down to Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen! Prepare to eat wildly imaginative almond food near copper pipes and gears! What’s the secret that makes the chocolate here so delicious? Why, sadness of course!  Joe Kwaczala and Brett Boham join us to explore this restaurant birthed from Pure Imaginatien (spelled wrong to avoid copyright). Phase 4, Sector 3 contains:  Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen (Alpha & Omega) 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! That's 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. I'm Scott Gairdner. There's Mike Carlson. Yo, I'm here. There's Jason Sheridan. Chocolate!

Well, you cut right to the matter, which is what I'm trying to do. Although really quick, I want to say we are back on the main feed. We found a cosmic screen door that led us out of the paywall verse for now. So if you want to hear the three sectors you missed over the last couple of days, all of that is at patreon.com slash podcast the ride. But I want to cut to the chase because there's a lot to do, a lot to get through, a couple people to meet. And I also, I feel like, I got a feeling there's a big one coming today.

I've got a hunch that we are heading for one of the big ticket items of the series. But I don't know for sure. And the only way to know for sure to see where we are going today at CityWalk, we need to check in with our guide, the Sector Keeper. Boys, boys, phase four, sector three is Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen, Alpha and Omega. Eat up, boys. There it is. You were right.

Toothsome Chocolate Emporium. Big periods after every one of those. Well, Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen. Do it really like trailer style. Oh yeah, sure. Toothless? No! I'm already... Just when you thought you were toothless.

Yeah. It turned out. Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen. Yeah. Woo. Yes.

Savory Feast Bathroom. We'll get to the bathroom. We've got so much to discover. There's so much just in that name. That's not even all of the big words that are on the outside of the building. That's how much we have here. This is Orlando. This is Hollywood.

We have not done a toothsome episode at all. No. No episodes about the universal steampunk chocolate restaurant. And today, that all changes. We're in it, and we could not do just some ordinary episode. We needed to assemble a super group, a toothsome tribunal, and we reached out to two people

who are as fascinated by this smokestack-strewn enigma as we are, and I'm so excited to introduce them from a great podcast that I love doing, Who Cares About the Rock Hall, and a very funny album called Funny Songs and Sketches, returning to the show, Joe Quazala. Guys, I am

so deeply excited to talk for maybe four hours about Doodsome with you guys. It's possible. That's what I wanted to blast through. No tangents at the beginning. Don't want to leave this. We got to break through this wall and go meet our friends

Dr. Professor Doodsome. Don't want to leave this. We got to like break through this wall and go meet our friends. Dr. Professor. Dr. Tewsome. Professor. Dr. Penelope.

Thibaut Tinker Tewsome. Thibaut. I was going to have that question. Yeah. Thibaut. T-I-B-E-A-U-X. So however you pronounce. Thibaut. Yeah.

Well, there'll be questions. We'll need to be sure about how to say that and be sure how to say Almandine. Because we've been through that. I don't want to to say almondine now. Now we know almondine. That came up before. It'll come up again. But yes.

No, no, no. I was going to say, it sounded more like a medicine than a dinner. Right. The way I was saying it. You're severely lacking in almonds. Almondine. I need to get you some almondine. Almondine.

And if that weren't enough, also joining us today, an under-acknowledged figure in the story of Podcast The Ride, the reason we are at Forever Dog, which has been our network home for a long time, the co-founder of Forever Dog, a producer and on-mic presence on the great show Double Threat with Tom Sharpling and Julie Klausner. He's got a show called Weekend at Bergman's. He's got a show called Movies Baby. For the first time on mic with us, it's Brett Boehm. Oh, guys, it is so good to be here. You know, I love this show. You know, it's been such a joy having you on the network. I can't believe I'm finally here in the circle. This is amazing. In the building that you're always in otherwise. You came to this corner,

hopefully not avoiding any important business. Down in the boiler room of the dirigible this morning, working on the gears, making sure everything's functioning. I climbed that old steampunk staircase, and I'm here. It's good to be here. I cannot wait to talk about the greatest restaurant on God's green earth, Twosome's Chocolate Emporium. And you also were generous enough.

You cleaned out your checking account to get some Twosome artifacts. Oh, yeah. Presumably, yes. With how many items you have. I like to live on the edge financially. So I went to Twosome this morning and I've got a lot of treats here. I've got some apothecary sweets, Jacques brand coffee, some unidentified mounds of sugar and stuff. Chocolate rocks.

Chocolate rocks, truffles. I got a little bit of everything, guys. Feel free to help yourself. I can pass these around. Glad Jason's right there, though. Yeah, he needs the reach the easiest. Jason must eat that grounds of coffee alone without- I am actually running low on coffee.

Dip your finger in. Dab, dab, dab. Can you explain to us what the green one is? Yeah, so this is, and for those listening, it's like a sort of an old style, almost like a perfume or medicine bottle, and it says Penelope's Apothecary Sweets. So I think this is sort of like rock candy.

There's a lot of green, almost translucent rocks inside. So I believe this is sort of like rock candy. There's a lot of green, almost translucent rocks inside. So I believe this is like a rock candy. I'll go ahead and try one. From a distance you would think it would be filled with liquid. But then you get close and you're like, oh it's rocks. Oh yeah, that's what I thought too, until you shook them out right now.

Another mystery from Dr. Penelope. A very nice decorative glass that you will not be able to take into the theme park. No glass allowed inside Universal Studios Hollywood. Do people run into this? That they buy some of this glass bottle? Well, I think Mini Monster was running it. I think maybe now it's all plastic bottles,

but the original Mini Monster. Well, what if you buy a signed piece of glass from the Celebrity Authentics? Can you bring that into the glass from the movie Glass? I mean, you gotta put it in some of the lockers by those Greyhound bus station bathrooms that are halfway through City Walk. That's true.

You're having a problem. Okay, you got it. No, no, it was just- I want to say sort of crystallized mouthwash is kind of the- Ooh. Lovely. Sweet crystallized mouthwash is kind of the sweet crystallized mouthwash. Yeah.

We'll get the review from Joe. You know what? Like you, Joe, I thought that was going to be liquid, especially because the last time I was up there in the store, I opened a much smaller bottle. I'm sorry, not opened. I looked at a much smaller bottle that looked very similar in a similar greenish color. I just picked it up was all I did. And then I immediately had green goo on my hand. It was out in the store and the one that I picked up was dripping on me.

I'll post a photo of that. I'm experiencing some green goo myself. There's a lot of viscous in two of those. There's little candies in my palm. Hey, your hand is stained now. Yeah, whoops. It's not like I took a lot of them. I took a very normal to small amount from the perfume bottle.

I think I'm going to not. I think I'm going to focus and not be distracted by the green on my hand, although now I'm distracted by the back, where it is a story. Penelope would lock herself away, endlessly experimenting with this sweet concoction. Its possibilities seemed infinite, and she was determined to discover everything there was to learn about chocolate.

Again, what we're looking at is not chocolate. No, that's sugar candy. Penelope played by bad humors and a case of hysteria. Came up with new chocolate delights There is a deep sadness To the lore of Two Sums I'm sure we'll get into this But there is like a deep

Deep sadness at the core From the get Which is that I don't know if we just Want to jump into it But it's Yeah go for it The lore is that

Her and her robot Jock Were traveling the world And they're derisible Having adventures Discovering different recipes for chocolate and things. And then when they get back home, her parents are gone. And there's a letter that says something to the effect of like, you'll find us wherever chocolate is made or something like that. And specifically, they left because they're like, where's our daughter?

Yes. Which implies that she didn't tell her family that she was leaving. And then, so then they go to try and find her in some tragic case of miscommunication. And then it leaves, yeah, the parents leave a note that say, you know, we will be wherever there is chocolate. So then she starts a chocolate restaurant. She starts the chocolate factory. To get her parents to entice, to coax her parents back into her life.

So every time you go to twosomes and Penelope waltzes over to your table and does a little routine, that woman is desperately hoping, every day she comes to twosomes, she's hoping that her parents will walk through the door of twosomes and she'll be reunited with them. So while you're having a nice, fun little meal at Universal, this woman is desperately hoping to reunite with her parents sobbing ever happens yeah sobbing as she puts a circular brownie on top of a straw so all of the showiness of it because this place is jaw-dropping every every version of it is astounding to look at and all of that is just as if to say hey mom dad here i'm here yes and there is to be clear if you're lucky and you do enter the restaurant at a certain time penelope will be

there and i do feel like we should be sensing a little bit more of that despair i would like to see the penelope actor have a lot of excitement and then extreme disappointment every time any person walks into the restaurant. Yeah, any time. There should be a bell on the door, and every time it rings, she turns wistfully, hoping. Goes, mother? Father? And when it's not, throws a plate against the wall. You should hear from anywhere in the giant open like giant uh reverberates

through the ceiling god damn it a girl scout troop again let's let's back up to the beginning a little bit here because there's there's a ton to to unpack that this is a okay toothsome chocolate emporium which you could could and maybe should be called a factory what with its smokestacks but there might be could be some legal reasons why it's not called a factory and why they don't want to nod to other famous candy or chocolate factories out there but the idea is you are entering this world okay it's steampunk but is it supposed to be the past are you time traveling when you go there or does steampunk also does steampunk also represent now and that's just her vibe and it's 2024 and it's now this is a great question that uh i i was afraid to ask the actors i think we did say like is it now

because we did end up talking to penelope and jock for a long time when one of the times we went and we just we were we like a little a little bit overloaded them with questions about like what's going on are you am i allowed to do you know about dune 2? I know in real life, the movie theater is right outside, but in your reality, is it not? Do you know that there's anything beyond the square footage of this place? Because we asked them about Wonka. I dragged her outside.

Look, what is that? Can you see it? Screens, airplanes. Yeah, a pit bull plane. Have you seen Wonka? Are you just up to the train coming right at the screen yes it's been precisely one movie i don't know but either way yes you're entering this experimental laboratory of this fantastical professor type character, a female professor,

Professor Dr. Penelope... Damn it. Tybo? Tybo? I want to say Tybo Tinker. Tybo Tinker? Tybo? Tybo Tinker Toothsome. And she has a human-sized robot

named Jacques as well. Has is, yeah, a verb that we can try to parse out with what's going on is it her friend is it I mean sidekick is the verbiage they use in the lore yeah but what exactly

does that mean when I saw them they were holding hands what that you know implies potentially a relationship beyond sidekick. Although in the past, maybe people were holding hands with friends more often. But what about a steampunk future? Maybe they'll come back.

Well, in the future. They realize the bond that we need with others that we've been ignoring for so long. If it's the future, though, that means they're fucking. Yes. They're having sex. They spend a lot of time together, too, on the dirigible, on adventures. I mean, they're not part of some team there's not an extended cast it's really they've been alone together for a long time and they seem to get along really well which i think implies a complex

uh relationship there's one other character jason was bringing up a character oh sure well uh spot Spot the dog. Spot the dog. Do you mean latte? I'm sorry. That is the type of mechanics he is. He is a spot robot. He is a dressed. They took a spot, which is the Boston Dynamics robot dog. If this looks familiar, it is a version of the Boston Dynamics dog that they sell to armies and police departments. Police forces. It can detonate a bomb if you want it to.

Yeah. It can go into an apartment and notice if there's any explosives in there. So Latte, they include some dog ears and snout and a bunch of gears to him. Meters and clocks and all that. A little hat. And you could only,

they had a little meet and greet with him from four to six. And this was only for the month of September. I should say the month of September, 2020. So if this all feels a little apocalyptic, here's Professor Twosome in a mask. Yeah, this was in the era of outdoor masking. We all knew it was crucial for us era of outdoor masking we all knew we is crucial for

us to do outdoor masking at all times and they did this presentation and invited like theme park media to come check it out but professor toothsome was in a mask a leather brown leather mask and keeping with her vibe and also in like a little cage so that she was forced to keep her distance from everybody yeah and the vibe is so weird you're like could this not have been did this have to happen in deepest pandemic this is no it's september 2020 clock's ticking we gotta roll out latte there is no other way the stockholders are gonna be so Latte had to get back to the police force in Orlando. Yeah. They had it only for a certain amount of time. Latte had to get back to bodying jaywalkers. Throwing its full robot weight at like.

This does bring back to what I think is one of the most interesting parts of Two Sums and one of the most mysterious parts is the money and the finances of this place and how it because stuff like that does feel like they were built some bill had to get paid or there was some like they because the first time i went in there i was like how i immediately thought this is either a front or some tax shelter or something is going on here because the ratio of how much they spent on the overhead versus how many actual tables they have in the restaurant is insane. Because if you go into like Buco di Beppo, they could pack like a Titanic's worth of people in Buco di Beppo every night. So many nooks and crannies. So many nooks and crannies of people.

You could sit everywhere. Yes. Two sums, there is so much open space, so much unused space, giant staircases going up. And even though there's a second floor, there's also not that many tables up there. So I was like, how did they spend so much overhead? This place, they had this real estate for years before it opened up.

They were working on this thing forever. Yeah, Hard Rock Cafe went down. This is the Hollywood one. Hard Rock Cafe went down way, way in advance. The makeover to some took forever. Yeah. And there was a lot lot at least with us a lot of hubbub when is it gonna get here when is it fine that's so much build up an important

part to the story was just like what on like what on earth is this what is it gonna be and like this real estate is like prime it's like central expensive yeah that also felt very end of the world where it's like toothsome got built, everything closed because of the pandemic. And then when CityWalk opened back up, you could just go up there any time of day and stare at like a construction site. And then in 2021, I remember going back up there because like the AMCA list was like, we're giving you three free months because of the lockdown, the shutdown. So I went up there to see the last screening of Black Widow of the night, and then I'm just watching the third shift

soldering two songs. And then one magical day, as though they were announcing a new pope, there's smoke started coming out of the one of the smoke stacks and it was like the day has finally arrived two things it's actually going to open up 2023 is that that was the timeline that it was paused due to pandemic so it ended up being like a four-year process roughly i think so it's like how there was a minions rise of grew like giant billboard at city walk for years because that

was supposed to come out in the summer of 2020 and just kept getting pushed this also seems like it's the Los Angeles Universal Orlando builds in like six months and then everything in Los Angeles seems like it takes forever the rumors like take years there were rumors this was coming believe me we were talking about it for years

we named checked it in the first saga I think yeah the rumor hard. We named checked it in the first saga, I think. Yeah. We said all the rumor hard rock's going away. It's toothsome. So whatever. But it took forever. There was also a rumor it was going to be built from scratch on the Saddle Ranch space. Was there?

I don't even remember that. I think that's what we were saying. Instead of what that ended up being, a weird lawn that's never open for anything. I got to go on that weird lawn for that Nintendo event we went to, though they opened it up for that and that's it and that's otherwise it is just vacant grass why was this added to city walk big mystery we do not know that's right because like like voodoo donuts took forever to actually open up too i remember that was a like come coming soon for at least a year or two years and that's just like a little corner yeah that spot i don't know yeah la it's like it's tougher orlando everything goes up so fast the roller coaster is being built quickly i'll say

that the fast and furious coaster they're building now that's quick but everything else come on hurry up well um the orlando one you know there's some differences there's differences in the speed at which they build things and in, I would say the vibe is kind of different at the Orlando one, which arrived in 2016. Beijing in between. This is an international brand. The smokestacks have traveled the globe. And, Brett, everything you're saying about the weird sparseness of the Hollywood one

is not true in Florida. It's so packed this is one in a place city walk orlando is nothing but two-story jam-packed yeah restaurants it's it's unreal i feel like what is the total dining capacity of the entire if every restaurant was totally full is that like 300 000 people that's my guess 300 000 it's so crazy but it is like you know whereas all these other things it's like we're there in the you know in the middle of the week it's a Thursday night nobody's there not too so toothsome line out the door every single time ever yeah um and and decor why I thought it was like better done in there it's cooler it's a little more uh you get transported

to a world a little bit more. It's dark and lantern lit. And as opposed to the Hollywood one, which is kind of like sterile, I might say. Once you get in, it's kind of gray and flat. That big open area and those tall ceilings, I think partially because there did used to be a large rotating convertible on top of the Hard Rock Cafe bar. Oh, right. Yes. That filled that big empty space pretty nicely. Yeah.

I think they just, yeah, maybe there were some budget cuts because it does seem odd. Because you guys have not been to the Orlando one. No. You should be jealous of us, first of all, number one. Number two, imagine like a 90s batman movie where they're having like a gala and it's packed and yeah everybody's maybe dressed more in their like tourist clothes regular clothes but you don't even feel that because of the way it's packed in there and the way that the lighting is and there's just so many people in there it's

like this is the coolest place everyone who's anyone is here right now, tonight at Two Soms on a Tuesday night after Orlando closes. It's entirely dignitaries and cabinet members. Right, yes. Yeah. Emissaries from other nations. Mr. DeSantis is dining at a table over by the big tube that shoots fudge.

And that's what I expected the first time I walked into the LA one. I thought I was going to be brimming with it. I was like, man, they got to start moving food if they're going to pay for this real estate. And then you go in there and you're like, is this a cloud kitchen? Can I eat here? What is this?

It's just weirdly sparse and weirdly not concerned with maximizing the space. And not exactly great sign. I didn't know they had the milkshake counter and this and the souvenir counter excuse me it's pretty you have a milkshake counter or not from from the outside i didn't really know what was but when i was inside i was like oh there's the store there's the like dessert counter but when i ate there i do have to say, in the bathrooms, you know, they have like oval brass mirrors, but then they just have these gear decals just kind of stuck on the mirror. This is the main placemaking in the bathroom.

About six stickers. That'll do it, right? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, they didn't spend the money on this Los Angeles one. Also, Jason, what you're describing, like what part of the words dessert foundry do you not understand? What the heck?

You get your milkshakes at the dessert foundry. It's clear as day. Look, I like the commitment to like old-timey language, but another little sign at eye level of like desserts to go would be helpful. I agree with you because I was going to bring up there's a bar there and I don't know what happens at that bar. I don't know what happens. It takes up a lot of space in there and there's no one there and there's often not a bartender there.

So yeah, it's just like this waste and I was like, do you go and get chocolate there? I don't know. Is it an alcohol bar or a milkshake chocolate there like i don't know is it an out is an alcohol bar or a milkshake bar i actually don't know right i don't think they serve alcohol there i think it is a dessert foundry yeah because the bar at this location used to be the center of the ground floor and now i think that's just a handful of booths yes um i i think also to the florida one benefits from two massive theme parks being lit out right behind it and then hard rock live is steps away so when concerts get out people enjoy just go right next door and i think there's some sort of like insect catching net that you could like you could you could show like a diagram

of an insect catching net and then put it up against the outflow of traffic coming out of universal studios los angeles where the stuff that is right outside the theme parks are catching the most people wanting to eat dinner and then you get all the way down they wrap all the way around by the time they get to twosome there's not many insects left and especially then when you get to margaritaville there is no insects left everyone has been caught by that point in their dinner trap and that's like sort of the principle how you can like they should have put to some overwrite when you come outside the theme park and then i think maybe it would be packed what you get is a lot of people going well at this point we're almost back to the car let's just go home i gotta go into a factory i don't have time to go to a factory

hey look yeah yeah hot up here earlier because you're close to the sun and now it's cold and the wind is burning the sunburn i've been walking around all day i can't deal with lore well and the um the in the inefficiency of the place too extends into their hiring practices because i have i have a little inside intel here which is because uh an engineer at forever dog uh dated someone who worked at twosomes for a while and so i have just been getting all the the inside intel from from her um but in order to work at twosomes you and anybody not just if you're like playing a character anybody on the floor um you have to do a three-week paid training um where you have to go

deep and learn all of the lore in addition to the menu you have to learn all the lore and then you get tested on the lore and if you don't pass you don't get hired and so on the one hand i'm very glad they are paying for that training on the other hand i don't know if everybody in the restaurant needs to be completely versed in the lore before they. And so they're literally paying for people to test and fail the lore quiz that don't become employees there. Can you take the quiz once? Is it like how when you go to the DMV, you can take that test three times in one day? Or you have to do one and then you're done? Question number one, does Jacques believe in God?

If so, who is that God? Is it chocolate? Okay, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, which God does Jacques? Do robots know fear? Trick question, yes, but Jacques does not. That's what makes Jacques special. Right. You can see into the kitchen, and I have noticed that they have to be done up

in steampunk gear. Really? Yeah, and I assume it's because you can see so easily into the kitchen, you can't break the illusion. There's like a little window to the outside. Like if you're passing by just outside at CityWalk, that's right. These poor people.

Are they using like old time copper instruments to cook the food? They're cranking an oven. Just doing all this like weird like, I guess that's steampunk. Do the burger buns have to go through a full Rube Goldberg device? Oh, yeah. Can we not just toast them with a toaster? Why do they have to go all the way through the top of the restaurant and back? Do we have to play dun-dun-dun?

Do we have to play that every shift? Definitely loud. I can't hear the orders. We're all screaming all the time. Lore quiz. I don't... God, I would love to see the lore quiz. Yeah, I know.

Please, just question 12. Can we get a leak here? Can somebody leak us the lore quiz? just any quiz just please just question 12 i don't know what can we get a leak here can somebody leak us the i think one of us could just apply yeah that's true we're done because the published lore the lore that's available online is not that like thorough extensive yeah it's it's pretty short but there must be like a second level to the lore that always- It's like Scientology. In that way, yeah. They let you in. You get to the top.

Tier by tier. And then you learn. You get the secrets. I know somebody who occasionally works there too. And the next time I see them, I'm going to be very annoying. I just want to know about the lore crit. So, lore quiz. Let's get into it.

Yeah. So, Jason, you didn't say hello. And what lore can't you scream lork was at me and expect i know what you're talking about look at me look at me don't look away okay does shock believe in god um the the lore used to be in the menus and i have gone twice uh one early on and then one later i guess we'll say a little bit of giving up perhaps yes they've scaled back and the second time it was just a one a one sheeter for the menu but the first time i went they went like in may and then i went in uh at the end of the year around december and then it was like almost like a like a booklet at first and you would open it up and you could read about the story of

Penelope and the tragic disappearance of her parents and I think there were more there were more like food options as well and then when I was there in December it was it was just no lore here's our food they gave up the it's not because this is something I was going to say, is that I went kind of early on into the run. And when they handed that book, it was like the finest engraving. I could not believe the quality. I believe that some people in history have served as Pope, and their personal copy of the Bible was not as fine as just ever any run-of-the-mill toothsome menu and my guess is they all got dirty or were stolen yeah there is it was not practical to have every menu cost $150 they were incredible I thought they were fantastic yes the other thing

I heard and this is all hearsay but the other thing I heard is, you know when you're working at a place, particularly like a day job, and you kind of start to get the sense like, I don't think this place is doing that well. Or it might be in some sort of trouble. That was the vibe I was getting from documents in the back office, but there was definitely a turn at some point where it's like, okay, we're going to start cutting costs significantly across the board here. What's the lowest budget steampunk chocolate emporium we can do? I don't know. What's the five times less cost of that? We tried the dream version. That was obviously a bad idea.

So now we're going to go with the slightly lower budget. Like all the merchandise is just going to be replaced by like Harley Quinn Funko Pop soon. It's like, I don't know. It's too much money to make this stuff and no one's buying it. Besides me and my father-in-law, I've never seen anyone buy anything

in the gift store at Twosome's. I do wonder if that stock is like the original stock that was there on day one chocolate's turning white well i have a i bought some chocolate i've bought a couple things from this i bought some chocolate a few weeks ago i brought it home i thought i was a big hero for everybody to have some of this fine toothsome chocolate and then we turned it around and the expiration date was a week from then and i was like wait what that's pretty and then i went back a week ago and then it was like a year from now was the new expiration dates on all the chocolate bars so i had gotten the last possible second you could have sold these

things into some the original pressing it's possible yes it's possible i've been there for 11 months well maybe it was seven like there was seven maybe it was october that was the new bars expiration dates so maybe let's at least just say six months so i uh the the bars were not a hit nobody liked these well uh and they've gone to ways i guess there's still some. Jason probably would eat them. Well, yeah, we'll see. We had both experiences. We got some chocolates. We got a souvenir box like Brett has some chocolates here.

We got them in Florida. And Jane was apparently the last customer of the night. And we were eating them the last couple of days. We're in Florida. And you're like, oh the last couple of days. We're in Florida. You're like, Oh, these are really good. These are good.

And when we were up there recently, we went to the Hollywood one and she ran in and got some chocolates and they gave it to her in like a wax paper sleeve, no souvenir box in sight. And we're eating them. And they're like, Ooh, these are not great. Like it was like night and day.

This downturn, what were those dates again, Joe? Because that was not a big stretch of time. Yes, I went in May and then I went in December. That is not in the same year. No, it's seven months. That seems wild. And sorry, my timeline is all thrown. This has only been open in Hollywood for like a year and a month as we record this.

Yeah. Correct? Right. How has there already been a rise and fall? How is there already like the supreme version and now they're like, I don't know, stickers. How about we laminate a piece of paper? How about that's the menu? No more Gutenberg Bibles.

You know, all I would say is that as far as drawing down the ambition, I don't think we've seen anything yet. That's exciting. I'm going to have to revisit this. I'm not saying I know anything. I'm just saying I think the possibilities of lessening the ambition is possible. It's very, very possible. Penelope's been doing some cheapening experiments. The science of cutting corners.

The Party City version of Josh is coming. It's coming sooner than you think. That kitchen you saw, Joe, will be outsourced to the Buka Ghost Kitchen. That guy Fieri is. They'll be making Mr. Beast burgers in no time. The Buka Ghost Kitchen. Can we kind of describe the experience a little bit?

First of all, just walking up to this place to either one. Both of them are so they're so humbling. They make you feel like a needle in a haystack. They're just they're unbelievable. A little more like I think both of them have, you know, big lines of like, you know old old-fashioned like early electric lights or candles or yeah and then the orlando one is these ornate like spiraling bushes the landscaping is incredible um every every banister is done beautifully like they i think they've kept up that and it's like the the facade the outside of both of these places is unreal. You can't believe you're looking at it. I still, every time I go up there, like, wow.

And that logo is mammoth. Yeah. They don't make things like that for movie. Mike, you're describing, you know, Schumacher era Batman. They don't, everything's CGI now. They wouldn't make a prop as, like, massive and incredible. And, like, you just want to give it a hug. Yeah.

Like that big, main toothsome gear. is like massive and incredible and like you just want to give it a hug. Yeah. So that big main toothsome here. And we should say that we complained for years and years that this is what we want in the world. We do want this. Yes. This is what we, so don't get us wrong listeners. It's such a throwback to the era of dive, the Steven Spielberg submarine restaurant.

It's a throwback to all these things that we've talked about on the show, but they're all ancient history lessons. And we're all combing through the three websites that bought in one blurry video. I can't believe this all is happening in the 2020s. Does this not feel like a failed premise that we'd discover from 1987? Nobody bothered to take a picture. We are so lucky to be watching this rise and presumably fall. It is.

We're lucky to be on the planet Earth at this moment. I agree with you. To cross paths. Our Venn diagram crosses. Can I say, just because I like to say the word, can I tell the guests, do you guys know before Saddle Ranch, initially there was a place called Womp Hoppers, which was like a wagon wheelery, which was like as big as a biggest saddle. It was the same sort of outside building that Saddle Ranch had when they tore it down. So I don't think they altered it too much, but it had a narrative and it had an old wagon wheeler or whatever you'd call them.

A wheeler dealer, I think it was described as. But they had lore there as well. So like there's- Womp Humpery? Womp Hoppers is the name of it. Womp Hoppers. Yeah. And it was a wagon wheelery.

And it was a wagon wheelery. I'm going to try to make sure I get this right. Womp Hoppers, colon, a wagon wheelery. Hold on. There might be a difference. A fine wagon wheelery. Specifically, he would sell wagon wheels to everyone going through the Cahuenga Pass. Los Angeles.

Womp Hopper's Wagon Works. But I think maybe there's some wagon wheelery. But it was an old wagon factory. Yes. This was up in the 70s. So this really does, Tooth Sim does bring it right back to a restaurant with a premise. And built out of of everyone loves it. Regular people love to go to a restaurant that's built out of a something.

It used to be something else. We've, we've seen it time and time again, the fireworks factory in a pleasure Island in Florida. If you love eating somewhere that used to be a factory, everyone loves it. Yes. Yes.

That's bigger than like the Harry Potter castle. That restaurant is huge. That was next to one point in time. It was a walk away from a restaurant you could take a trolley car to. Yes. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were both up there.

A train station restaurant. Yeah. And then it was Tony Roma's for a bit. Then it was just Tony Roma's. Okay. It had no premise. Sure. I guess. We need a safe bet for a bit. Then it was just Tony Roma's and it had no premise. I guess.

We need a safe bet for a couple months. Oh, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on. I just saw this. Okay, Womp Hoppers from 81 to 86. Then it was just called Womp's from 86 to 88. That'll trick them. Tony Roma's from 88 to 94.

And then it just says Unknown 94 to 95. Then it was Country Star Restaurant from 95, which then it was country star restaurant. Oh, right. When it was a big jukebox. So yeah, country music restaurant. And then Saddle Ranch, 2003 to 2018. Interesting. It feels like, is there other lost periods in there from 2000 to 2003?

No. That one's accounted for? Or no. Well, you know, you're right. It doesn't say anything. Maybe it just sat there empty for three years until Saddle Ranch was built. That might be right. I think I do recall just a darkened building.

You left Universal Studios and walked straight up to a darkened building. Here's some pictures of Womp Hoppers with, like, a big wagon above your head. Oh, gosh. Incredible. Well, that does, because going back, I mean, Universal CityWalk, they must be partnering or like somewhat subsidizing the thing. Because if it goes down, they sort of share the shame of it. I think they own it, though. I think they own it, too.

They own the whole thing. There's some website. You have to go to Universal Studios' website to learn anything about this restaurant. Well, they've done this big, we've discussed it in the series a little bit. They have slowly bought up all the not all of them, but a lot of the spots that they were leasing to outside vendors and replaced them with fake restaurants that are things that they own. And it's these I feel that I've had the most trouble with food and such because they aren't real restaurants. Professional. Yeah. Restaurants are not taking care of that yes yeah yeah but that's the idea is that like okay you know we're like we're losing the profits to this place on our property to some other restaurant establishment we need things that

we own so all of it it's like the consolidation we're seeing with the studios it's the same idea so so they're probably taking a loss on the record itself, but the way they rationalize it is it's part of the spectacle and it's part of the we use it. I mean, it's on the billboard as you come off Lancashire to go up. So it's like it has other uses for them besides just making money off the restaurant. That must be the way that restaurant is making money on its own. I wonder if there's like an ambitious theme park person too that's like, you know what, and then we'll make the Universal movie universal movie yeah like that's maybe where we're headed like

i would assume there's some ambitious person that thinks that whether that's actually a high up decision and you think you're eating in a restaurant you're eating in an ip generation yes i think that is right i do well i don't, I hope. I mean, we're seeing, like, Universal had the biggest year. Oppenheimer's them, right? And they kind of like, you know, Mario's them. They're on a hot streak. Yeah, yeah, yeah. While, like, you know, sequels and franchises have ruined other studios.

Not ruined other studios. I saw yesterday, they were the first time since 2016 that they had the biggest, they had the biggest year at the box office. They were bigger than, it was Disney for 10 years. Yeah, right. Yeah. And then it was, this year was Universal. Wow was universal wow well one better to cool this hot streak than some delicious iced fudge then like the opening credits and like the year was 1873 i found i by when i was only two years old i had had a sweet tooth. Jared Leto is Jacques.

My friends and I did try to cast this movie and come up with different. But we also tried to do it in the least interesting way and the most typical. We were like, well, obviously, Jacques will be voiced by Keegan-Michael Key. And we were like, maybe, because we also had to create more lore just to make a story, because it's just, you know. So we were like, okay, you make Bryce Dallas Howard Professor Twosome, and then she has a rival played by Jessica Chastain,

and they're kind of like doubles for each other. So you get, America gets angry because they're like, no, I confuse these two actors all the time. And then that's on top of their additional. I feel like any time there's like a steampunk movie or like a whimsical gear like everyone's like, no, I'm going to see this. I'll see the little the little secret steampunk movie of last year was Poor Things. Poor Things, yeah. Oh, yeah. That is true.

Yeah, but not a gear in that poster. No, they don't tell you. Keep the gears hidden. Yeah, they don't tell you that's a little steampunky, and they don't tell you Wonka is a musical. Get Yorgos to direct this toothsome movie. That's what I say. He's poised. He's hot. He's gonna have to go IP

someday. He's gonna have to get ruined at some point. He'll add all the fucking in it. He'll add all the nudity in it. And the dreary net, like all the moroseness of the favorite, you can incorporate to Professor Dr. Martin. Oh, that's into her sad search for the parents.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Please indulge me as I read some Wompopper's copy real quick. I'm so sorry, but I have to do it. Wompopper's Wagon Works was inspired by C.L. Wompopper, a legendary slick-talking wagon salesman who invented wheeling and dealing. As a young man, C.L. perfected a sales pitch that could sell perfume to a buzzard. He began with horse trading, which led him to wagons, buggies, and backboards.

By the time he descended on the unsuspecting citizens of early Los Angeles, he'd taken in enough cash to open Giant Wompopper's Wagon Works, perched atop a hill overlooking the much-traveled Coanga Pass. Today, old CL is gone, but his legend lives on at Wompopper's Wagon Works restaurant, operated by his descendant, CL Wompopper IV, with the assistance and cooperation of MCA Recreation Services, a division of MCA Incorporated. Let's save the best part for the end. Let's go out with a bang. And there's more, but I really...

Why? Who would want to learn this story? Like, okay, so learn about a man. So that's whose restaurant it is? No. It's his great-grandson. An 1880s-style wagon factory and dealership. So it was a wagon dealership, like a car dealership.

You could lease a wheel, lease a wagon. So it was a slick-talking wagon salesman. Am I being stupid? Is that real? Like, is that true? Was the restaurant real? That's a real story? I don't think there was a C.L. Wampower. No, that's all K-themed.

We just read you a made-up story that isn't fantastical or fun at all. It was so boring, I was like, wait, is this... With the mca stuff at the end i was like oh wait is this just like a real let's just do was on that they incorporated the real name of the canyon into it i guess that's just what that was on this universal land i guess that's deeply boring the only justification for that if it was just a real thing they felt like legally obligated to say yeah i know i think i mean unless look this guy dressed as cl1 popper do i think he was a real guy i don't know who was an actor who also played the dream finder right sorry yeah we

found that yeah i was just uh marveling at that fake picture yeah do you think they had um wagon repo men well at that but would you buy a wagon on credit did they have credit back then because that's usually when a repo man has to go into action were you allowed to smoke and steal oh yeah of course you were they just invented putting bacon on a cheeseburger and this is like oh this is good i would kill to smoke a cigarette and see a Womp Hoppers, like, tonight. Yeah.

I would pay $500 if I could go back in time and smoke a cigarette and Womp Hoppers. Unfiltered. Breathing in everybody else's. I'll smoke a pack in there. Put me next to the smallest children. I want to smoke cigarettes in here.

I am glad. Besides the crazy backstory and the premise that Twosome has in common with Wompoppers, I think with that, it's not him. It's the fourth. Right. They've kept up that confusion as well because, all right, we've said this backstory that the whole thing is about trying to get the parents back. And what's so weird is, like you said, Joe, you get the immaculate menu and you're, okay, I'm in a steampunk chocolate emporium and I guess there's a professor who runs this place and there is a robot. I've got a lot of questions.

I'd love to know their story and how this all came to pass and then you open the menu and it's and it says the story of toothsome great this is exactly what i'm looking for first line of the story of toothsome shock landed the dirigible in front of the small cottage home in london england and then they're just straight so the story starts way past jock past Jacques. You're not even close to knowing where Jacques came from or who Jacques is or why. That's all boring. We need to get to a cottage and departed parents. Wait, but I'm just adjusting to Professor Toothsome and Penelope and Jacques. No, forget that. You now need to learn about Thomas and Violet Toothsome. Why? Am I going to meet them? No, not unless learn about Thomas and Violet Toothsome. Why?

Am I going to meet them? No. Not unless the story ends and then the restaurant will close. You will never meet Thomas and Violet Toothsome. Well, I have to know about him. You do. I'm just eating chocolate bread here, right? Yes.

The menu writer took very literally, there's a saying that kurt vonnegut used to say one of my favorite writers he would say write 15 pages and then throw out the first five and start your story there so the first five pages of twosome are in the garbage somewhere and crucial pages you noticed the vonnegut influence we gotta throw them awaynegut said it. We got to throw him away. Page number six starts with Jacques cleaning up the dirigible. And so Jacques landed the dirigible. Jacques flies dirigibles. Very Cat's Cradle. Very Breakfast of Champions. Yeah.

People know that word now because of that one, the rich people sub that imploded, I assume. That was a dirigible? A dirigible. A dirigible. Dirigible. Dirigibles can go under the sea, too. They aren't just flying. I'm looking it up, unless I'm just totally-

Is a wagon a dirigible? Oh, God. It can be steered. This is true. Is, yeah. We got a lot to learn here. I also, again, all right, you're right. The first five pages are in the garbage

and it does it leaves that those five pages contain something i think important which is like what brings us to this world at all and i okay i read i read a oh yes go ahead i'm wrong it's a summer i'm confusing dirigible and submersible. Oh, yeah. That sounds right. Yeah, yeah. I confused it. People have been thinking about dirigible because of that submarine that blew up. The BLE. I confused the BLE. The BLE was the confusable.

I almost lost faith in language because I was like, a dirigible can go underwater? This is... Well, that first definition screwed me up too. We all bought it. We all bought it right there. I'm leaving it.

I'm leaving it. I won't cut it out. We have to know the process. We aren't throwing those pages away. We're going to find out how you got to see how humble I am. You know what? I only just learned how to say Paramore correctly. We're all learning. We're all growing. We're all growing.

You read some copy of this place and the copy says it's like stepping inside a steampunk chocolate fantasy. And now let me ask, whose fantasy is that? Who has ever had that fantasy? Why? We've been talking for a while. The biggest question is why?

I mean, clearly people are into it, at least in Orlando. But how did this come about? Who thought that this would be a viable idea? It has to begin with how do we, without licensing Willy Wonka, how do we do this? Who? Wait, I'm sorry. Who is that? I don't know of this man.

Yeah. Because this came out, and I know we'll talk about the lawsuit around orlando but there was there because there was a lawsuit around the orlando one uh that had to do with sort of ip and this and that and in discovery it came out that they the original name was like the twosome chocolate factory and then that got changed to emporium and savory feast kitchen later on so they must have been i almost feel like they knew they were going to change it it's like so obvious that they're just doing a willy wonka thing without having the ip and they probably knew it was just a placeholder it's like at some point we're gonna have to change this name

but the earliest documents the playing documents all say to some chocolate factory so is steampunk a way to get out of that territory get into a different era and time is that way to justify a top hat? Oh, yeah. Why are there also top hats here? Well, it's steampunk. We had to. It's steampunk, and it goes with the goggles.

And it's a woman. Woman. Willy Wonka's not a woman. When was the last time you watched Willy Wonka? Not a woman. I can see a planning meeting like five, six, seven years ago where they were like, we need a distinguishing thing. We need something so this is clearly, like lawyer was like you need one thing that makes it clear this is not just a willy wonka ripoff and you can see 10 marketing people coming in with like 10 ideas

where somebody's like it's underwater and then some people somebody's like it's you know belongs to abraham lincoln yep one thing just says ancient rome question mark like there's tons of ideas and then somebody was like one person was like steampunk and then everybody had to be told what steampunk was and they're like let's just do that is it i like i like the lincoln idea that either it's happening concurrently like not satisfied with nearly being the president. It also operates the factory of his dreams. I would love it if she hocked the Daniel Day-Lewis Lincoln like this country.

That weird voice. Wow. Wait, I want to hear more of this. Your impression of Daniel Day-Lewis Lincoln. He's simultaneously high pitched and gravelly. I always thought Day-Lewis' Lincoln kind of sounded like Mr. Burns. Like when some of them were like,

you don't see the way that we need this country to come together? Like this sounds like Charles Montgomery. Did it sound like that or did it sound like, oh, hello, I'm Lincoln. Oh, hello. Sounds like a Julia Child. Scott Townsend's queen. Scott Townsend's queen. Scott Townsend's queen voice.

I am the president of Clole Cinnamon's Power. Oh, the theater. Don't mind if I do. It's me, Jacques Penelope. Get your hysteria under control. We've got milkshakes to make. The Google Now's concert just got out um let's uh let's talk about this lawsuit a little bit more because that's if you all right

so it's it's it's in the air it's maybe something people know about and haven't looked into that in the backstory of this establishment there was a lawsuit that threatened the entire thing and you hear that and you go oh so wonka probably probablyie wonka people or weren't brothers who was it not the case uh brett you've talked about this on double threat a little bit and i've had info about it but if you but if you feel like you want to yeah it's pretty simple there was a guy in ohio who apparently had a couple meetings with Universal, Orlando Universal, and they sound like very general meetings, but he was basically pitching them on a chocolate factory restaurant.

So he was pitching them on kind of the general concept of this. He does admit in the lawsuit that he got the idea from a drawing that his young daughter had made in elementary school his young daughter had made some sort of like fantastical world sort of sketch and there was like you know a cotton candy bridge and this and that and there was a chocolate factory he seemed weirdly unaware of willy wonka and so and i think that explains a lot of this is that he saw apparently saw this his daughter had done this and it gave him ideas like a chocolate factory that's a brilliant idea why didn't everyone ever

think of this why isn't there's no such thing in the world as a chocolate factory and so he apparently had a couple like generals with universal where he was pitching them on this and i guess showing them his daughter's drawing and being like you do this and pay me i don't know how the meetings went but uh uh then years later they come out with twosomes and you could you know you can see him in ohio finding out about this and it's just his head exploding he's like they did my idea and they're not paying me and so he sued universal it went to court it was a trial that that people had to show up for and like and there was a jury and an attempt at $40 million. to the sort of level of the law that that there was that they had directly um taken the idea from

him he also didn't you know he didn't uh give them any sort of like you know he didn't make universal sign anything or do an nda or like there was just it was just yeah there was no there was no paper trail and i've even seen in googling the case i've seen it on the website of a florida lawyer who specializes in copyright as a k i I don't think even taking a side in it, but just saying, well, the ruling went this way because even if he did, they did take his idea.

There was not one way that he locked that idea down. Yeah. Which stinks. Cause I mean like, you know, I feel like copyright law is, is it's very easy for big corporations to win cause they have huge legal departments and they always dot their,

you know, eyes and cross their T's. But this stuff, it's so hard for people like that to win a copyright case it was something like this because it's just like they had a couple meetings and maybe that at some point percolated and became twosomes there might be some legitimacy to it right but he just had no way of proving it in a way that he was going to win the case but uh um but there's also is the specter of willie wonka over all of this that like this is neither of you's idea. This idea.

Both of you. So yeah sad story that that guy had to pay Universal's which feels like salt in the wound. Just call it a day. Comcast can afford it. There's another bizarre aspect of that which is that the drawing that his daughter did

came from another business he was trying to do called 1-800-Santa-Claus. There's no further details about that, but just hey, draw me a map of the North Pole. And then she drew such a map, which included a small building called the Chocolate Factory. He said, what is that? And she said, that is where the elves eat.

And then that became the whole... I'd like to know more about what 1-800-SANTA-CLAUS was. I mean, there's a number we could call. It's gonna go to the law office. You may as well try, yeah. Universal bought that too. That just reruns to booking a hotel

for them. The number you've dialed has been disconnected. All right, let's find out. You want to try it? Let's try it. Let's find out. 1-800-SANTA-CLOSED. Please leave your message after the tone followed by the pound key. Hi, is this Santa?

Just curious. Thanks. Goodbye. Bye. All right. Guess they'll call back yeah don't leave the phone on silent make sure they can call back during the podcast well if it's Santa

he will know well yeah that's a good point does this answer your question hello Joe you've been very good this year but not when you were nine question. Hello. Hello, Joe. You've been very good this year. But not when you were nine. How did you forget my personal number? Are you being mean about

Toothsome on a podcast? That's not very nice. I do have such a soft spot for people like that, though. This guy's clearly just trying to come up with something. Dreaming big. He's trying he got a meeting with universal you know he's i was gonna say who is the guy guy in ohio no he's in

ohio yeah i don't understand what he is he's an entrepreneur of some kind and now he just has the he has the facebook group the chocolate factory which is mostly pictures of like three chocolates next to each other and then also the full legal affidavit explaining this entire case. What I just read about when I entered Santa Claus is from his Facebook, which has a lot of hashtags like justice for so-and-so, whoever it was,

to some chocolate emporium, to some chocolate factory, chocolate factory. Like maybe people will use the hashtag of what it was supposed to be called and that will prove me right. Does it have any like punny hashtags like to some chocolate like fraud

or anything. It feels like there's a missed opportunity. He should. He needed a punch up guide. Yeah. Truthless. If he's listening we'll do the documentary. We'll do truthless the truth about tooth some. if you're watching this

you assuredly have been to and enjoyed the worldwide phenomenon do some what if i told you it's not everything you think it is oh man i do you think anyone ever sued over wampoppers that they felt like that they had the idea for- Yeah, C.L. Wompopper III. Oh, yeah. Got cut out of the story. Was like, what about me? I don't think-

I went to culinary school. Yeah. All this backstory, mythology, and now we know legal troubles that they've had. I think we should, maybe for a little bit boil it down to the basics, which is the experience of going there. We touched on that with you, Joe, a little bit about a perceived lack of, or a lapse in quality between the first and second. But in either one, is there like anything you want to tell us about your specific uh toothsome absolutely um yeah so i've got i've gone twice uh for dinner and then of course dessert which is a mistake i

think um you know which part i would i would say that the dinner part and i've okay and i've done it with a group of friends and going twice in the same calendar year is a way to test the patience of your close your close close friends and loved ones and you went for dinner because the pasta menu is not available at lunch from what I've seen online the the first time I went I was disappointed that I didn't Penelope and Jacques were not around it's just like well what's the point here can I say I've never been to any of these with them there

you have seen them? I've got a picture with them they were there you know asked them a couple questions they did their whole routine but it's I think just once they've been there it's really random whether they're there or not I have a picture with them. Oh, there you go.

I have a number of pictures and an extended video. Oh, wow. With Penelope and Jacques. Send it my way. We'll post it. We went to a group of friends. We're all on the A-list for AMC. And when we can, we like to pair a restaurant with a movie.

And we were crossing our fingers fingers that toothsome would make it to wonka because it was like this place seems like it's not long for this world like is it still going to be around and we got lucky and it so we went and saw we went to wonka after we went to toothsome uh and we spent some time uh more time in the restaurant than i would have expected because uh we had wanted to go in the theme park but it was a it was like a thursday that was a blackout date so my past didn't work uh around the holidays there were more blackout dates i think at the park so we just had to like kill a lot of time at city walk so we just ended up going to the restaurant sitting near the dessert foundry

and but penelope and jock were there and they're making the rounds uh together holding hands uh at each table just kind of you know saying hello or whatever people seem to not really be engaging maybe are a little confused as to why these freaks are joining their table. But we essentially engaged in a four-minute improv scene with these two characters as they're talking in character. And they seem to be like kind of into it because it was like, oh, people actually want to talk to us. They're not like eating and kind of, you know, shooing us away. So we got to talk to them and uh jacques is essentially c-3po okay he he like you know he he kind of talks like this he

has one of these uh dandy british accents i didn't know until right now that he talked yeah and it's uh i wondered if he just made like clank clank clong. No, he talks. There's like a bit of a filter on the microphone to make him sound exactly robotic, but like mechanical. Yeah, he has one of those speaker boxes. Yes, yes. And you can see like 20 sets behind them. It's usually a universal person with an iPad controlling it. I didn't see that. So it's not the person in the suit. I don't think so. Somebody a little steps away. I didn't see that. So it's not the person in the suit.

I don't think so. I didn't know this. Wait, did you feel like they weren't responding with real sentences? No, they were just, I think, doing the levels on the mic box. I think the person inside is

responding. They're talking. The hand-holding just clicked for me, too. As someone who's tried to navigate a horror convention while wearing a mask, Jacques has no visibility. He can't see. Oh, right. That's great. Practical thing, yeah. But yeah, we asked them a lot of questions.

We asked them what do they recommend on the menu, which I got to have you know, I got to have the wonderful moment of Jacques going, well, I quite like the flatbread barbecue chicken. Oh, and yes, the ackee tuna. Isn't that good? Oh, yes, it's wonderful, Jacques. Like getting them, because at first she was like, oh, the chocolate almond bread is a very popular. And it's like, okay, that fits with the theme.

But then when they started just going towards like, hey, when the Brussels sprouts are... Our Napa cabbage is very fresh. That's better than like everything is good. Yeah, it's true. I hate that when you ask, like, hey, what should I get? I'm like, oh, the almond is good. You can't go wrong.

I don't want to I don't want to sidetrack but like okay if the whole thing is about your parents we will find you wherever chocolate

can be found and then they make a what is obligating Toothsome to make ahi tuna salads available if chocolate

is what is to lure her parents she should not be wasting energy and time making anything from this savory feast kitchen side of this restaurant it should exclusively be about chocolate production and like she should be expanding more like if we need to cover the spread here to find her parents we don't need, every one of these should not be four businesses at once. Focus on the one.

Also, because non-canonically, the savory feasts are shitty feasts. So, don't even bother. What if they created the savory to just feed Penelope? Because if she, because she can't,

she can't leave. She can't leave because she doesn't know if one of the, if she leaves, they might come when she's gone. She has to eat her meals in there. If she eats only sweets, she's going to die. Penelope quite likes dog food. Yeah, that's a good point.

That's a very good point. I didn't think about that. Girl's got to eat. Professor's got to eat. But yeah, it was very stupid. And Jock eats. Well, I will tell you... Because he recommended the pizza, I'm just saying.

He's powered by the savory. Well, we asked it. We had said... We were, you know, like... I forget how we got to it, but we said something about like you know, like, we'll give you a little bit of oil if you're good or whatever it is. And then Penelope had to go, oh he runs on chocolate because oh yes i run on chocolate and so we learned that this is a robot whose oil is liquid chocolate oh okay that is part of the

law why do you have to i mean i guess leaving some mystery is good that you had to like engage in a conversation to figure out but that's number one thing I want to know in the story. I don't want to learn about the parents yet. Jacques, it should be chocolate powered robot, comma Jacques. These are things we should be getting in line one of the exposition. It's interesting though that Penelope intervened to say that. It almost, you know sometimes in sci-fi where like a character thinks one thing is like i wonder if they tell jock he's like jock thinks he's powered by chocolate and you can't like ruin the myth that if you ever saw like a rear mirror or something and he saw

what's going on inside you know so like there might be some like maybe they tell jock i don't know i'm thinking way too deeply but but it's no i know what you're saying yeah right they don't want they don't want to tell him that he's powered by battery parts that have to be mined from impoverished countries that destroy the planet as you harvest them. Jacques, your chocolate comes from

Boston Dynamics. By the way, we're having the powered by discussion. I believe Latte the Dog is powered by coffee. That is part of his. If you were wondering. Coffee milkshake.

Okay, this makes sense. Why limited, though? Huh? Why limited? I don't know. It sounded really good. Oh, yeah. We do have some of Jacques' coffee here.

Jacques has coffee, too. Cookies and cream coffee? But not latte. It's not latte coffee They're coffee concoctions Does that mean it's Is it just beans? Just

It's just beans in here But the dude The language always makes you think Something else is going on It's gonna be like Coffee flavored candy or something Is it ground or whole beans? This smells like coffee

It smells like sweet coffee Okay And it's beans It says here on the back Jacques engineers his coffee concoctions Using the finest beans in the universe, fused with the Emporium's most toothsome flavors. The most toothsome of all the flavors. That's a last name. That means nothing to me as an adjective.

We're all baffled. Interesting. Jason, would you eat a bean raw? Well, I love chocolate-covered espresso beans, but I feel like those are specifically made to be eaten. That's true. They're still roasted. That's true. Yeah, you don't want to do a raw one.

Do we miss anything about your experience? You had a great conversation. Oh, yeah. The barbecue chicken flatbread was bad. Surprise, surprise. Jacques led me astray. He has no taste buds, though. The barbecue chicken flatbread was bad. Surprise, surprise. Jacques led me astray. He has no taste buds, though. No, I know.

I guess humans like different things. It quite tastes like chocolate. It's because you run on chocolate. Just chocolate with a little bit of metal. That's what I like. Ah, yes. Perfect. It just goes straight through him.

It just hits the floor. It's going through a mouth, but it just like, yeah. We did ask them, we were like, are you pro or anti Wonka? And that did make them break character and like immediately like laugh because I think they were not expecting such a kind of complicated question for them. Wait, they did trivia with me. Whoa. They asked like asked like oh what was first company to make a chocolate bar and the answer is cadbury i already knew that did you actually

it's toothsome of course hit me with a hard one one of the questions did reference willie wonka really so i i don't remember the others so loose. The official response was that it's healthy competition and it's good for both brands to be happening. Uprising tide lifts all shits. Lifts all dirigibles. So this was addressed in meetings then. That feels like an answer that was somewhat prepared or rehearsed. Maybe, because I'm kind of watching her, Penelope,

she took the question, watching her laugh and then you kind of see the actor, and then you see the gears turning. It felt like an actual improv moment of like, I think this seems like the right answer to this. Yeah. Because I don't think she would have been as shocked if she was prepared for that kind of question. Very political. Yeah. Yes, um and then also a friend of ours brought had bought steampunk goggles on amazon to bring them and then put them on as we saw them walking by and they they laughed at that i think we were giving them a good time especially compared

to like these families who are just maybe maybe some of them don't speak English or like they're just like not interested. Whatever it is that they're just kind of like, okay, hi, hello, goodbye. They might think that people are coming around to do one of those like take a picture things where they charge you $20. Yeah. And you usually just kind of go like, no, I don't, no thanks. We look them in the eye. Yeah, we're getting soaked. In most restaurants, yeah, if someone's coming to your table, that's about, if they're not your waiter, that's what's kind of go like uh no i don't no thanks we look them in the eye yeah we're getting soaked in most restaurants yeah if someone's coming to your table that's about yeah they're not your waiter that's what's gonna happen yeah yeah does bucca do that

yes they do the photo yeah bucca does do that this robot is gonna sell me the most expensive and crappiest rose of my life and the only other thing from my toothsome experience is just i don't know that we have fully like given the proper explanation to how expansive the gift shop is like there are just so many knickknacks and and you know brett brought some stuff but and also we haven't mentioned that there's wardrobe that you can buy goggles hats i forgot that one of my friends bought me a hat that I have in my home. You have a top hat? It's not a top hat, though.

It's almost like a bowler. So they have different styles. That's the thing. It's really expansive, the different things that no one will buy. Add to some different types of hats and goggles

and this type of chocolate and shot glasses and mugs and shirts. There's even high- glasses, and mugs, and shirts. High-level stuff you'll see in glass cases, like figurine. I have pictures of that. Expensive.

Big price tag on it. You can buy, and I'll read some of them, you can buy, it says, Owl with Top Hat on Bookstack, and it's like a, I don't know if it's bronze, like a bronze statue for real, and it's like a I don't know if it's bronze like a bronze statue for real and it's $54.95 you can buy

octopus secret trinket box for $94.95 I'm not going to lie they're not bad look your trinkets are just everywhere and you're trying to get a handle on them octopus magnifying glass, $40.

Is octopus a pre-agreed steampunk animal? That's a great question that I don't know the answer to. Does it tie? I mean, it feels right because of, like, 20,000 leagues under the sea. Steampunk octopus spirit decanter, $89.95. But we've also established Dirigibles do not go in the water

I guess Submersibles Submersibles do Yeah, they do Yeah, dirigibles do not And yet, all this octopus merch Yeah Right

Is there an underground 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Like, Biodome is sort of Steampunky, isn't it? The video game series That's all underwater Bioshock Bioshock I Bioshock.

I was like, the Pauly Shore movie? I don't think so, but I'll hear you out. The posters really hit the steampunk elements. I think underwater is in universe. Yeah, because there's another fish. There's another fish statue for $105. Then there's owl with goggles and Jetpack, $34.95. Who is buying owls with jetpacks at this disappointing restaurant?

You know, as a reminder, when Julia Prescott was on, I forget whether she told us this in the episode or after, her husband and her, when they went to some Play-Doh game where they would cover the price tag and say, how much is this? And then when they would reveal it, they would just laugh and tag and say how much is this and then when they would reveal it they would just laugh and laugh they're okay two more real quick skull on gear stand 120 skull on gear stand what are the odds that this is inventory from somewhere else a high high chance that that's right uh but then there's also steampunk decorative skull with movable jaw, which is for some reason $69.

So, yeah, you can have it talk, I guess. Maybe these were all props that were built for one of the Dark Universe movies. For the Dark Universe. Maybe. They got ahead of themselves, and now they got to move them. Well, you know, Russell Crowe's Dr. Jekyll character was in charge of a S.H.I.E.L.D.-like agency, so maybe these are some of the artifacts

he's captured of the supernatural realm. The whole series is gonna culminate in a big fight with an octopus. That's where the dark universe is all heading. Brett, do you have the Packaging still on the hat or anything or no No Because you've been wearing them

I've actually worn this I understand Where has that worked for you On double threat One live stream I had to smash a geode As part of the live stream And for some reason it just felt right to be in steampunk gear while you're smashing a geode.

So is it Gallagher-esque to wear that type of hat and smash something? That might have been the connection I was making in my head. So, yeah, I had already gotten these for fun, but then I've actually worn them, yeah. Well, I didn't mean to shame you. What I was headed with is the manufacturer of this. Oh, oh. And I don't know, there's not a ton there,

but I just wanted to say, so it's a company called Elope, E-L-O-P-E. Oh, it says it in there. Okay, great. But I just want to say what that stands for. Oh, I see. Does it say it in there? Uh-oh.

I never noticed that. It stands for Everybody is laughing on planet earth check out this asshole sure yeah all right yeah everybody is laughing on planet earth wow that is i think that takes the crown of dumbest acronym from Moe's Southwest Grill, a.k.a. musicians, outlaws, and entertainers. Also, I've got a hashtag laugh with a lope here. And it's with an E-I-L.

It's E-L-O-P-E. E-L-O-P-E. Just make it everyone's. Put an apostrophe. Yeah. What are they doing? I don't know What a brand

You can buy monocles there too I don't think we've addressed that I was also We were in the store With an upcoming guest Who I don't want to spoil Our guest for phase 6 Sector 1

Who pointed out When we got in a detail that i've missed for as art directed as this place is if you look on the the railings like on the second floor level um that there's like basically there's still guitars it's guitars they just painted them gold it's hard rock cafe, and they never changed that. So catch that detail next time you go in. That's actually an OSHA. Like, oh, the mysterious organization. Do you think those are any famous guitars or less famous guitars?

They were just like, let's just paint over them instead of- Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's thousands of guitar shapes. There's a Steve Vai signature under there. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's thousands of guitar shapes. There's a Steve Vai signature under there. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We can either try to find a buyer or just paint over them. Can I talk about my experience at Two Sub?

So I went to the Hollywood one about a month ago for a lunch on a Saturday with Jane, and I had only been to the florida one a couple times i went in 2017 a year after it opened and i just kind of walked through the restaurant and the uh smell of like garlic parmesan fries and cocoa was not a combination it made me a little queasy but i went to the takeout counter and i ordered like a brownie sundae and they handed me like a clear plastic dinner plate with a sundae on it so then i'm like oh i guess i'll just sit by the water and eat my dinner plate someday. It wasn't bronze or they didn't serve it inside a big goggle.

It wasn't even a bowl or a cup. Except to do some experiment. Ice cream on a plate, perhaps. Pretty quickly. Have an open mind. I mean, it was night, but pretty quickly on August night in Florida, it started kind of sloshing around. It transforms into an ice cream soup. An experiment. So a little

easier this time. So we ate a full meal. I had to try one of the baked milkshakes. So I got a brownie milkshake, and here you can see me looking at it lovingly. Chocolate is your god. Yeah. yeah yeah and then we got a pineapple upside down cake milkshake which is in theory vegan they were out of soy milk and or the vegan

ice cream so we didn't quite get it vegan um and then uh gene got the avocado toast and i mostly uh was the one who ate the chocolate bread uh which i only ate a slice of and then ate it uh for breakfast like three days in a row you took it home and ate it three days later i i could only like eat one slice of it um i got you had two milkshakes to have we were sharing them i got these super foods chocolate yeah well it comes with uh caramel butter okay and this is like this is like the you have to pay for it but like the bread they bring to your table like the italian restaurant they would, is essentially cake, right? It's so sweet and soft. It's like the first thing they bring you is a large chocolate cake.

It's sweet. It's like a breakfast cake. Chocolate almond bread with salted caramel butter. I didn't like this. I'm glad you had a good time eating it for three days in a row at home, but I'm like, this at my meal was like, okay, well at least

this will be great. I thought it was really bland. If we're fusing savory and chocolate, that's the point. I know they're going to mess it up with like it's on chicken wings or whatever, but the bread's going to be good, right? I didn't like it. Am I crazy, Jason?

I thought it was fine. He didn't like it either. I didn't love it. i didn't love it normally another day normally i love that kind of uh almond flavoring and i thought it was just like not enough chocolate too much of that almond extract flavoring um so knowing i was gonna have a lot of chocolate i went like light meal i got a superfood salad and it was pretty good the reveal there it's like arugula and scared us with that really showed it romaine and avocado and quinoa like i thought this was pretty good uh g they told her she was uh she's like i'm a vegetarian what can i what do you recommend and they're like

oh any of the burgers you can get a beyond burger uh patty so she got the beyond burger patty on the teriyaki burger teriyaki glaze grilled pineapple chutney shiitake mushroom asian slaw sesame seed bun. Pretty quickly, she took a bite and really made like a sour face. Like she did not, she was like, oh. And then I ate some and I'm like, yeah, this is not good. Like, I don't know how you mess up a Beyond Burger. You took it home and ate it for three days.

Third day is really breaking me down. It was really overcooked. Again, I don't know how you overcook lab-grown fake meat. Was it tough when you're chewing? It was tough and it was like- Was it chocolatey? Did they- I wish it was like- Was it chocolatey? Did they- I wish it was chocolatey.

No, like the teriyaki, like nothing tasted right. And I don't think we have- Can I say- We have never done this before. We sent this back. Can I say, with the exception of Jason's salad, my thesis for twosome is nothing tastes right. No. Nothing tastes right.'s sure everyone's stories

absolutely everyone has the same story down to the candy down to the the savory meals down to the sugary meals nothing tastes right and i don't know why like because every other you know we've said this before on the show you know margaritaville you give a bet get a bad meal, you go back next time and you get an okay meal. Like, you're always rolling the dice a little bit. But for some reason, no matter what coast it is, nothing tastes right here. It's funny you say that because, yeah, Jane got the avocado toast appetizer,

and it just looks off. I don't know what I'm looking. I couldn't have guessed what you're showing us. It's so busy. It looks like avocado, chopped tomatoes, but then crispy onions, a crema, end ball sauce. There's too much stuff on it. I intellectually understand what you're saying, but really all I know is the feeling of what you're saying is that it just didn't taste.

Nothing was right. The only exception I I think, for me when I've been there is I think the milkshakes all taste like very good, fun milkshakes. Yeah, my milkshake was great. The brownie was – I find a lot of places brownies are like really stale or dry. But shouldn't the milkshake be better? I think the milkshake is fine. But that's what they do there. And I go, oh, this is fine, but you put a throw a brownie in a McDonald's milkshake

and I think it would taste the same. At least there's thought put in. It doesn't make you throw up or something. It feels like a milkshake stand that doesn't necessarily build out a bigger menu. I would say the what's

a black tap is better down at downtown disney at least it was a year or two ago when we had our crazy milkshakes down there i think so i mean they're both trying to do the like instagram heavy like crazy better that you got the one with the big jay's got a full uh slice of cake say something we've been i think for about five, six, seven years, the whole time we've been doing this podcast, we've been talking about, well, it's the Instagrammable. Of course, yes. Whose Instagram feed in 2024 is still like a milkshake in a jar,

not a glass, and with a Rice Krispie treat on top. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. A dessert on top of a dessert. I need to save this i need to follow whoever this is i need to know everything about them i need to know where to get that like who's still who's getting knocked out of their chairs by a tall milkshake in the year of our lord 2024 good question i don't know quit i'm not alienating your i know No, no, no. And you're right. That is the copy that they all say. A lot of people shut off this podcast.

I'm just deconstructing the notion that this would be the coolest post. They're so common now. Yeah. No, they're really common. And then you run into times. I think Mike got one with Nerds Rope and the rappers still have on. I didn't like that. Ice cream rapper. Mike got one with Nerds Rope and the wrappers still have on. I didn't like that.

Ice cream wrapper. I did not like the wrapper in the thing still because I don't know if they sanitized that wrapper. I was trying to find something. There's a burger place in Dubai that is so grotesque in their different Instagrammable attempts where it's just like it's piled this high and it's just cheese. And then there's like a firecracker in like a life a full firecracker that would like you would see at the hollywood bowl or something it's that big to the equivalent of like fashion week when you see people walk the runway and you're like well that's obviously not meant to be worn yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's just like they're getting this point where it's like this is just an art piece at a point or some weird item like like

kitsch or something but surely someone can't sit down and eat that. I don't even know where you would begin. Right. The milkshakes, honestly, are kind of arduous to get through. They're kind of, there's a lot. Well, I didn't finish mine. Yeah. Mine was figure out the architecture of it and make sure you don't spill it.

Well, they actually. My mouth was bleeding and Jason still drank from my straw. Hey. By the way, by the way, since we talked about that a couple days ago video proof that jason did drink from your straw it's in the video jason i bit my mouth there's so much blood in my mouth you probably don't want to do this you only live once um i the best milkshakes I've ever had, it's usually, you know, there was a place, someone asked about this on Twitter lately where I was talking about Delaware. There's a place called Charcoal Pit, Wilmington, Delaware. It's been there since the 1940s or 50s at least.

They have these amazing milkshakes. They're literally just the metal mixing cup and they give you a glass and you pour it in glass that's the best tasting milkshake yeah sure i don't think these crazy milkshakes it's never as good at least here they were like oh do you want us to rinse out the souvenir glass and put it in a paper cup for you with a lid and we're like yeah please well this is they give you or to go you get the plastic toothsome cup and then you have it is a struggle because you're like once i'm done with this walking around i gotta go in a bathroom and rinse it out so i can transport it without getting like just liquid milkshake all over my car that happened at at the Epcot Food Festival. I had the crazy pickled plastic cup,

and I'm like, I have to rinse this out in a bathroom because I promised the level keeper could have this cup. And if you get the mint one, which is my favorite, it's like entrusted with chocolate around the rim.

Well, right. You don't have to wash it out. You have to figure out how to scrub the entrusted chocolate off. There's several milkshakes that are like that, where they have the adhesive-style stuff around it with sprinkles. That's right. Because I got a seasonal milkshake when I was there in December

that had gingerbread and stuff, and it was just encrusted with this. And I was like, am I supposed to attempt to eat this? I think you are. But then's like sometimes with that stuff i feel like it's uh decorative like it's like it's a shame like at christmas because when i was a kid i learned that you're not supposed to eat a gingerbread house because like the i mean most of them at least the ones you buy like a store-bought kit it's like actually the frosting is glued don't eat that because frosting won't keep the house up and that really ruined the whole thing it's not for eating

it's for instagramming that post is gonna blow people's minds yeah like i wonder what if i just posted a picture of a just a picture of a milkshake with a brownie on top and there's sprinkled there's like birthday cake sprinkles and a candle or something. And my caption was just like, holy moly. For the win. Would that perform well? I think it's worth a try. Maybe I just gotta do that.

Well, no one will ever see it because the algorithm will just bury it under. Unless I can catch the tailwinds of fancy cake milkshake Instagram, that algorithm, which is seemingly thriving. I might end up with 100,000 new subscribers. We have our own Dr. Toothsome on the show, and it's Jason Sheridan. And I think that if he gets in the lab, he could concoct something that would blow the socks off everyone on Instagram as far as a crazy contraption of a milkshake. Hot dog. Hot dog. Hot dog straw.

Maybe it's like... Here we go. Maybe it's like a big two-gallon bucket full of milkshake and then there's a full pizza and then there's another milkshake on top of it with a hot dog straw.

Is the pizza touching the milkshake? It's soaking in the milkshake, yeah. Could it at least have a nasty plastic wrapper still on it? The pizza's wrapped? The pizza is wrapped. The pizza is a tombstone pizza with its wrapper still on. It's soaking in the milkshake. Can the milkshake cup be a bunch of pressed together pepperonis?

Yes, it can be that, yes. It's like a volcano rising up from the pizza ground. Well, now, hold on a minute. There's no need to pay trust. I can't even get it out. I think we could do it. I think we could actually up the arms race that is Instagrammable milkshakes.

I don't like this stuff that much. I want it to taste good. That's not what this is about. No, no. That's what the world is in 2024. I don't know if anybody's looked around and realized it. Seems like everybody's crazy for likes

as of about a year or so ago. Breaking news. You know, it's, yeah, Scott, if you posted a milkshake, I don't think it would necessarily blow things up, but the key is you have to start an account called LA Dessert Dude. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's only like graphic, super close shots of overflowing ice cream sandwiches and milkshakes and then you would get to yeah yeah and those like labels like the captions that never move that like okay so there's this place in sherman oaks yes and they do an incredible yeah because you always see these things and you're like is this an expert or is it somebody who started doing this six days ago? Oh, it's that. It's usually that. I followed a couple of those and I thought it's like, oh, I'll get to see some places that have been here forever.

And they spend so little time on that and so much time getting their cheese pole correct. Yeah, right. This is a phrase I've learned recently. You got to get the cheese pull. That's like a Pizza Hut commercial. Is that like the fondue? That's like if like- I've seen if like a fondue, like they have a big cheese wheel or like they do like at an Italian restaurant, they do it live, table side cheese.

A lot of those are like indistinguishable from body horror. Yeah, it is. It's like there's so much like biscuits and goo and like- There's a lot of goo, yeah. And stretching. I do click on it though. Yeah, I do. And I do follow some of those accounts. Oh,'s a lot of goo, yeah. Stretching. I do click on it, though. And I do follow some of those accounts. Oh, I watch all the goo, yeah.

And that's what my Discover page on Instagram tends to be, like pizza and weird chips and ice cream. You got a goo freak. You start feeding me goo. Give me the goo. What's up, LA goo freak here? Wow, that grilled cheese was cut in half, and they very slowly separated it. I'm trying to think of what the copy is for this type of video,

because it's like, I've been hearing a lot about Toothsome Chocolate Emporium, and I decided I had to go and check it out for myself. It's on Universal CityWalk, which is by the theme park, but I decided not to go today. So instead, I went and got the seasonal gingerbread milkshake, and then I got a flatbread pizza with barbecue chicken on it.

The flatbread pizza was bomb, and so was the gingerbread milkshake. Pretty good. I think I'll maybe come here again, and I'll maybe try some of the Brussels sprouts. I got to see a robot. Joe, that was so good. We can just pull that out of here. Let's just start this account

and start raking in the money. Do these things make money? I think so. How? I've seen some of these places. Suddenly they're like, I decided to go to BJ's to try one of their famous pizookies. And I was like, wait a second. What are you going to BJ's?

You don't go to BJ's. You go to taco shops. And you look and it says Adam. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm here at Dubai's first Shake Shack to see. Because there are – restaurants, too, have started to utilize this strategy. Because there's – I'm not going to say the name of it, but there's a burger place right up the block here, a Smash Burger place, that has – they started doing – it was just sort of run of the mill. And they started doing some crazy social media, like viral marketing.

If you drive by it, that place has a line down the block. And I used to eat there before they had the lines. Totally fine run-of-the-mill burgers. But you would think this place is burning up. Something special is going on in there. And it's because they started working with these influencers and stuff. And they are packed every day of the week. It's crazy. There's a brunch place in the area too and uh guillermo

del toro posted a picture of it and we we had been there a couple times similarly like yeah it was a nice breakfast lunch place and then it got more crowded and we even we said as we were walking in with that it's like oh you see gear enough to her posted a plate from here he did not do that video though where he was like I'm in the valley and I went to the model shop with Steven Spielberg Guillermo del Toro is LA brunch bro yeah I was done writing this the sequel to nightmare alley and I decided I needed to get some brunch. What I encountered was anything but a nightmare. I'm with a paradise, and I said, oh, I'm hungry.

You mentioned body horror, and some of these do have, like, David Cronenberg-style editing tricks and stuff. I'm like, I'm dizzy. Like, I feel unnerved watching. That's how they keep you. And I have to eat it. And it's like an 80-year-old man scooping chili into a bowl. It's nothing out of the ordinary, but something like, whoa, look at that dump.

Look at that scoop. Let me hit my tooth some meal a little bit. I went a while back, a future podcaster, I guess Van Robeshow got a group together. And I was like, oh, I'll pop up. Well, you know, I'm going to be up there, I'm sure, for research. But, you know, I'll do one that's where I'm not absorbing every detail, one that's just for... And then the meal was such that I was like, well, that'll

do it. I won't be going back here again, because I got... Okay, we haven't talked about dessert cocktails, which don't work. Chocolate old-fashioned, bad. That's cool in your head, but I hated what i got i feel like people maybe somebody likes the the pb cup old-fashioned better but do you remember what you did i did not i did not get any alcohol some people in my party did and i forget i think

it was chocolate martinis or something yeah and uh maybe maybe some of it was like chocolate coffee kind of thing but i i stayed away from that part of the menu. Didn't work. Didn't blend at all. Can I ask, has anyone here had an espresso martini? I hear those are popular nowadays. Do those work? Do you like those?

Yeah, I like espresso martinis. Okay. Yeah. It's nice, too, particularly if you have agreed to go out and drink with someone and you go and you're like, it's been a long day, and you're very tired. Oh, okay. It's the perfect cocktail to get to give you a little bit of a... Because there's typically some sort of espresso-based liqueur in it.

It's like having coffee in a drink. Okay, that sounds nice, because any time I've had a similar drink, a Red Bull vodka, I feel insane. Espresso martinis tend to be pretty good. A little more mild. Is there a root beer old-fashioned on that menu? I could have swore I had a root beer old-fashioned.

What did you think of that? Not great. What's the Irish pub in Universal? Finnick. They do a Guinness old-fashioned, which I really like. We did an episode about that on Second Gate. We call that the Irish bar where you can get hammered. That's part of my core is I take Sandy over to Minions.

I stop off at the Irish pub, get a Guinness Old Fashioned, and then we go to Minions. So I like the Guinness Old Fashioned. It feels more like it's more just sort of in. There's no risk to that. Too sweet. Too sweet just doesn't blend. Unless it's fully a dessert with a little bit of alcohol yeah I was not a fan

the thing that I ate was the oh sorry what did you want to say I was just going to say I was looking through my pictures from this outing and I did find I think what is a chocolate martini with a like full biscotti on top and so they're doing that for the

alcoholic drinks too just like piling a dessert on top. And so they're doing that for the alcoholic drinks too, just like piling a dessert on top of it. Instagram that, hurry! That's just been in your pocket and you're not profiting off of it? Hurry up! So I heard they were putting biscottis on top of martinis. That's one of those things that you do not want to get if you're not planning on eating.

If I did not order a biscotti, I don't want you to bring me just the thickest, densest... That needs to be on me. I need to know that I'm getting it. I have to account for that in my plans. order a biscotti, I don't want you to bring me just the thickest, densest. That needs to be on me. I need to know that I'm getting it. I have to account for that in my plans. Also, biscotti meant to be dipped to soften it a little. Yeah, in gin. Not meant to be put sideways.

It's just like all of it is wet now. A little drink bridge. I did want to get something where there was a chocolate component stupid me i was it had never until i until i took my first sip of that drink and my first bite of that not good chocolate almond bread it did not occur to me until that second oh this place could be bad in all those years we're waiting and how am i not trained at this point from all this time on this podcast and all this time but this this one I was like, it's impossible. It just never even entered my head that it could be.

And by that point, it was too late. I had ordered the cocoa pork tenderloin, which they describe as an innovative dish featuring a chocolate crust and reduction along with sweet potato mash and vegetables. And I'm like, oh, that sounds, oh, you know, because we're in that area of like, what's the savor? Like mole. It'll probably be like mole influenced. And then it comes. You don't taste the chocolate whatsoever, which thank God, because we're in that area of like, wait, what's the savor? Like mole. It'll probably be like mole influenced. And then it comes, you don't taste the chocolate whatsoever, which thank God because that would have fought. But also, these are just the blandest pork tenderloins.

There were less on my plate than there were in the picture I saw on the website earlier in the day. This was wedding food. Sometimes wedding food is great, but sometimes you go to a wedding and it's like, well, that wasn't that good, but they had to rush it all out and make a lot of me and you know i'm here for the party and it doesn't matter i'm just glad i ate something that it was that but you forgive it at a wedding you don't forgive when you're paying 30 40 for it yeah and you're and you realize all the money went to you know the the uh embroidering on the book menu that's in

front of you um so that was insane and um mike i want to make sure you get a little bit of time several days ago we talked about some of your meal experience but i don't but joe and brett don't know about this and i i we are gonna have to go backwards a little bit but there's some stuff you didn't say about it either yeah okay uh let me just pull up my pictures here uh so i wanted to order. Most people say they want to go and have the restaurant experience. I decided to test what it's like to go as far as what it's like to take a meal and to go. Not to go to the restaurant. What it's like to take out.

What it's like to go with to go. So, right. And this, of course, was in Orlando, not here in Los Angeles. Where I'm sure your meal would have been. Which I'm sure, yeah, they got it down because there's easier parking spots right by the restaurant where you could go for an Uber Eats or a DoorDash. People are Uber Eats-ing to some left and right, I'm sure. And, of course, you told me the name of it because they took it off the menu, I believe.

You have to say it. That's the rule. Is it floundered? Is that what I ate? Yes. Flounder almondine. Oh, brother. To go flounder almondine.

To go to the other side of the lagoon. I have a buka de pepo with almondine now where I'm worried I'm going to say it wrong. Welcome, brother. On the edge. Yeah. So it's really, it scares me going to say it wrong. Welcome, brother. On the edge. Yeah, so it's really, it scares me when to say it. So this food, this was like, once it was opened, this was like dry flounder. I want to show them a photo of it because it's hideous. Well, the sector keeper the other day described it as looking down into an open trash

can. Now, of course, they didn't. Like, just because it was in a to-go container, it's not going to have the presentation, of course. I get that. Why are you apologizing for them still? But I would say that you would... I will say this. Confusion is probably what you would think

when you see it. Almond slivers. It's just like almond slivers. It's like the bag you get at Trader Joe's that maybe goes on top of your oatmeal. They just open that bag and like, Yeah. And so like half, like,

I don't think it's, I think it might be an accident that half of the fish is burned one side and then the other is not. It's like, oh, is it blackened trout or something? And you're like, well, why would, why would half of it fish is burned one side and then the other is not? Is that just the skin? Sometimes you're like, oh, is it blackened trout or something? And you're like, well, why would half of it be blackened and the other half wouldn't be? So that was a slant that day. They had one of the legs collapsed. Yeah, and I don't know.

I'm not always having almondine of any kind. So I don't know. Maybe I don't know. Almondine standards in 2024. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But I bit into it and it was just, it was disgusting. It was so gross. And I really, I love fish.

I'm not a picky eater. I will eat okay shit constantly. I don't care. This was really gross. And it was only, I would say, like we had some, do we, I forget, do we say the mix up even? No, no, no, no. We save that for this. Sorry, sorry, we had some, do we, oh, I forgot, did we do say the mix-up even? No, no, no, no. That's what you're talking about. We saved that for this.

Sorry, sorry, you're right. So we had to go, there was the question of how do you do to-go orders at Toothsome in Orlando. And I tried. You went to the host stand, you realized that you had to go upstairs and order at the bar. I was on the phone with Toothsome walking through CityWalk trying to, like, operator, get me to go counter it. Well, they still haven't assembled the phone from Gears, and they still say, ahoy, ahoy. Is the answering message in-universe? Is it like Penelope or Jacques?

I was having a tough time finding the number for it. And then I think I did call it, and they were like, you cannot order on the phone. Like, you cannot. We will not do that. And I said, okay. And they said, you can come in and do it and they were like, you cannot order on the phone. Like you cannot, we will not do that. And I said, okay. And they said, you can come in, come in and do it. And I said, okay. And you go in and like I was saying, it's packed in there.

Who's who of Orlando is just, and you can't, you can't stand. It's uncomfortable if you were to stand. So somebody finally directs me and goes, you have to go upstairs to the bar to order a to-go thing. And I go, okay. So you go upstairs and again, it have to go upstairs to the bar to order a to-go thing. And I go, okay. So you go upstairs, and again, it's packed everywhere. And I go up to the bartender and I take... Like a majestic spiral staircase?

Yeah, kind of. I mean, the lamps. The lamps are unbelievable. And then there's animations. We haven't talked about that. They did custom CGI animation. Yes, on the ceiling, on the walls. They flesh out this whole world of conveyor belts and lots of boxes going by. It's wild. The animation. Yes, on the ceiling, on the walls, they flesh out this whole world of conveyor belts and lots of boxes going by.

It's wild. The animation, all the money, 95% of the money went to the wrong things. I mean, the right thing's for us. And I also believe, and I say this on the show, that I kind of believe that they also are stealing some Harry Potter aesthetic as well.

Especially that one especially especially that one they're they're it's a feeling of like being in some of the harry potter shops so i kind of feel like they were like well let's uh make people feel as comfortable here as they are when they're in the harry potter land and but we own this so like we're slowly transit like transitioning them into our owned place so they can uh spend as much money on flounder almond beans. The casinos that are like 30 minutes away from Las Vegas, like before you get. It's like if you don't want to go all the way to Harry Potter World. Yes.

Don't come in here. We have our fun treats as well, which I would also say like all the treats at Harry Potter and stuff and ice cream and everything is pretty like top notch for fast service. That thing in a theme park. They really really nail it and it's been consistently good uh and not the case here but so i went upstairs i finally flagged down a bar it's packed to the bar flagged the guy down one comes over i order a milkshake and i order this meal and he he's like, oh, yeah, okay. Like, I was expecting him to go, what are you talking about? Why would you ever do this? You're leaving this restaurant with something? I don't have those buttons on my computer.

I can't do that. Right. It's impossible. You could maybe steal a plate and I'll look the other way. But that's the only way you're getting out of here with a piece of fish from the orlando twosome hey can you just buy a chocolate bar and fuck off pal yeah right right right i got an hour left to my shift you're killing me so uh so uh scott eventually joined me up there and it took a long time enough for me to have a full glass of wine at the bar chocolate uh so finally finally i see the guy and i like because i think i even

asked him like are you still doing it are you still working on it like oh yeah yeah don't worry and then finally he goes oh yeah there it points to me or whatever and he hands me this big bag and i go okay great and we we both leave and all the way down the staircase all the way down you're now you have a to-go bag and merch from earlier. Yes. And you're not only holding the milkshake, but drinking the milkshake while walking down the stairs. Yes. Because I filmed a lot of this.

I'll do a video. We have video of it. So I sit down. All the way out of Toothsome. Keep walking over to much closer to the entry to Islands of Adventure. Now we're in front of the theme park to find somewhere calm to sit and start eating your flounder. It feels like it takes forever to get from that bar to the front of Islands of Adventure. Sizable walk.

It's not that far in reality. I open the bag to take a look at the fish and I have a massive brownie sundae in a to-go container. I do not have the meal. Do not have the fish. I was wondering. I was like, well, I didn't get

any brownies Sunday. Where did that go? It's huge. You returned it? Well, I was hoping. You had a hungry boy, your same age, essentially, waiting. He could have had that thing. They're like, the fish is under the brownie.

It's possible the fish is under the brownie. With all our entrees, we do put a layer of dessert above everything. You came to choose some above. Under the brownie. Unadvertised, like the martini biscotti. So you went back on the stairs for fish.

I'm just weighing what to do and I'm like, I could just keep this and eat this. I go, but I really want to try the fish i want to see how they're doing fish down here and i was hoping that i'd get up there and they would let me keep the like i was hoping that would happen i wasn't gonna i wasn't gonna suggest it but sometimes especially mcdonald's fast food whatever sometimes they hand you something you look through it and maybe you open it or something, and they go, yeah, just keep it or whatever.

Well, maybe make it for the other person. One time at McDonald's, really quickly, I ordered a kid's chicken nuggets or like a small four-piece chicken nuggets. And I happened to open it up because my kid was starving. So I'm opening it up as my my kid was starving so i'm opening up as i'm leaving the parking lot i kid you not it is a it is a box full of pickles not like like a large quantity of pickles i can even tell as i was opening up i was like the weight here is not that was like doesn't feel quite right and then so i had to i had go back. I had to part go back inside. And as I'm walking up, I'm like, I was like, I don't even know how to have this conversation.

They're going to think I'm making this up. I was just like, I ordered chicken nuggets and I got this. And she's like, okay. It was like that happens all the time. That's filling pickle orders so constantly. Was it the one? So many questions. Was it the one close here?

It's the terrible one up there. Because I've had a weird thing too where I forget if I ordered... I ordered something that should have an egg on it and they gave me a big fish patty. Like it was a crazy substitution. I've had a weird trickster in the back.

It's very low level pranks on anonymous people. If I could see their face and I can't because they'll be miles away. Because I had mistakes there. You were saying where I'm like, I'll just live with this. This is why we're fine. Yeah, I don't care. It's food.

It'll be fine. But the pickles, I was like, I got to. Yeah, that's not a deal. Son, can I cut you a deal? How would you like many, many pickles? How would you like a stomachache? That McDonald's I went to, I put in a mobile order once when they were doing breakfast pastries

and I was like, I'll take the cheese Danish and I went and they were running a little behind and they're like, what was your order? I was like, it was an iced coffee and a cheese Danish and they went,

okay. And it was a cheese danish and it was pretty good but i still felt like a lunatic going to mcdonald's wait i don't understand this what happened so this story is just you ordered a danish and god and i got it but some stories can be nice yeah i just had to wait a little while reputation is an establishment but it felt really weird when they're like we have apple fritters and blueberry muffins and cheese. What do you mean it felt weird, though? It was just odd because it was McDonald's.

You didn't know Cheese Days was on the menu. Yeah, I didn't know it was on the menu. It's not on the menu anymore. Okay. There was one day where it was on the menu. After Jason Gate. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. So we went all the way back up there And he's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah All the way back up the stairs Past the whizzing and whirring and the lamps There was ice cream involved too So that was melting already I couldn't see if he handed that to somebody else

That's why I was hoping he would just say Well, you can keep this Because we've got to put fresh ice cream on this but no no offer was made so i took the bag went all the way back down and then i was drinking the milk chick the whole time and again the milk shake was fine i mean fine to good but it's one of those where you're like this is what you do this should be some transcendent experience uh drinking a sweet a sweet thing um so yeah we walk all the way on the other side of city walk and uh we post up in like uh uh up this ramp that's like in there we never figured out an official name for this area the weird stairs and ramps lombard street

yeah there's up a weird there's a ramps and stairs and that's where they're like phase three fast food uh a balcony is where burger king whopper bar is and a place called bread boxes where you can get a some tomato soup and a sandwich uh uh that's fine honestly one of my better meals i had here fine i liked it it was good um so yeah so then i'm i'm there's some tattoo parlor antics happening if you're listening to the, you've heard it already. And I'm eating and trying to figure out what's going on. And again, take a bite. This is awful. I hate this.

And I'm trying to push through it. Maybe I'm being negative. But every aspect about it, these like potatoes, just like they look sick. The potatoes look kind of sick. Were they potato croquettes? Well, that's in there. That's here as well. Those are pretty good. That's here too. Now, Jason

finished so much of this for me. I love a croquette. Despite Mike bleeding profusely. And they were fine. So, yeah. That does not look like one of the things that Brett brought. Brett brought potato croquettes. Chocolate croquettes. Yeah. So, basically what happened, in the middle

of all this chaos that was happening at this tattoo parlor i bit into the left side of my mouth harder than i almost ever had and drew severe like pretty good blood and so i'm eating this fish and drinking this milkshake with blood accumulating in my mouth and it's one of those where like i'm like you can't like i can't put the napkin there because it'll stop. But I'm eating my own blood. And I'm eating fish. To go styrofoam flounder covered in almonds.

Yeah. And having made the walk twice. This wasn't the dessert you ordered? No, no, no. I didn't order dessert at all. I ordered the flounder. And you probably would not have bit yourself on the cheek if you had not had all that duress leading up to it. It was like a stress reaction.

There was a lot of duress. I completely agree. You should have just eaten the brownie sundae. I should have just eaten it. This is my dinner. Yum, yum, yum. I'm a little treat boy. Yeah.

And I think I maybe have been the least negative about the food on this saga in general. But I will say, bar none, this is the worst meal I had. No question about it. Yeah. The worst thing ever. And I understand maybe I was, I don't know, I was going to say it's a little, it wasn't fresh fresh, but maybe that delay is what made it so bad. Maybe it would have been perfect like five minutes later after it was cooked. And for listeners

keeping track, this is still not the food poisoning. That's still coming. No, I didn't have a weird shit or throw up or anything. But there's still there are situations. Slap that on the side of two. Yeah, yeah. No weird shit. No throw up. Testimonial. It's like when there's people

who aren't technically cancelled, but are still awful people for other reasons. That's kind of the territory we're in with some of these places. I believe there is something strange in the air. We've all talked about the McDonald's pickle thing. Things like that happen here a lot. I started going through the one-star Yelp reviews. And I do that a lot for establishments on the show. And often it's people who have a bone to pick with the staff.

And they're like, it was just like, they were rude. And some, you know, just there was some confrontation on that level. But that's not what these are. That's not what these are ever. These are things that are amiss. Like where there's just like, almost like aliens are putting the food. Is that the secret story of Toothsome? But you think it's about a robot and a lady, but it's about aliens.

Because like, you know, somebody went in several months after opening. They're out of chocolate ice cream. Chocolate ice cream at Toothsome. What? The vegan ice cream mentioned by Jason. They haven't had that for months. That's been gone for a long time. Somebody ordered French toast, and when it came out, it was covered in cheese and a burger patty.

What? That's like the McDonald's thing I just said. That's a new way to deconstruct. How does that one happen? I'm sorry. I need more information. Like, surely it's not what I'm imagining in my head. Maybe just a full powdered french toast yeah and

then blanket of cheese and i don't know why i can't help you the why much like juice some and the dirigible and the and the parents i don't there's no why here it must have dropped the it must have been on its way to a burger and then just fell onto the wrong thing and it was jacques who was delivering the food, so he can't see. Right, yeah. He doesn't know what people food is anyway, as far as he knows.

Sure. This very much reminds me of an early Twitter, I don't know if it was a bit or if it was a joke, but it's still a very funny image where someone says, I went to Walmart and I bought a router. When I opened it up inside, there was no computer parts. It was just a bag of dirt that said puto

and that that kind of reminds me of like yeah french toast with cheese and a burger patty on it is very alien yeah it's like ratatouille like if the rats didn't know how to cook like if it's like the kids very good yeah realistic ratatouille which is a good movie what actually happens when you put rats on your head this is sorry this pasta is just a bunch of forks in a bowl that's not what pasta is um somebody went and uh got chocolate milk for their daughter and they they're like, huh? Like, mommy, this is weird, huh? What, they drink it? Yeah, this is warm. Why is it warm?

And then the waiter comes and they tell him about it. And he says, oh, I think the person who made it probably poured hot water in it. The chocolate milk, as far as I know, has one ingredient. I mean, at the factory, they do the ingredients. Once you open it at the restaurant, there's no further preparation. Better warm it up.

Phrases you don't want to hear from your waiter. Person who made it and probably. Are the two like, ah. Everything about that is terrible. The human being who made it. Similar to your thing, Mike, the fish. The only one that seemed cooked instead of microwaved was salmon, and it was burnt.

And then they're sitting, and then they're finishing it, and people come down the stairs right next to where they're sitting, and the people coming down the stairs loudly say, that food was weird, man. That's such a good way to describe it. That just boils it down. Even if it's not fully bad, it's just weird. And then there's one more step of this that jason alluded to maybe but this still

might be a separate thing uh here's a review the cookie jar shake tasted like cookies cookies and cream honestly it was pretty good but nothing special presentation it smelled bad like rotting cheese or meat that had been left out the place itself looked nice but it was kind of hard to eat anyway because of the rotting smell. Is this Orlando? This one's Hollywood. Now we're dealing, yes, I believe that this issue I'm getting into is a Hollywood exclusive. A different review. Upon walking in, my grouponized eyes watered from the stench.

It was unexplainable. What could possibly cause that smell? And then I'm like, all right, these people all seem very reasonable, but Yelp reviewers, of course, you know, they're angry or they're trying to, you know, pump up their stats

or amount of reviews or whatever. I need a, but separate, actually before I read all this, I had spoken to a friend of the show, Bug Main, Buzz Buzz, and he said he tried to go here. He sat waiting for a table like he checked in with a host oh one second then he's sitting in the lobby and the smell was

so horrible he had to get out i think this is and this doesn't start appearing in the reviews until like december maybe even after when you went joe because you didn't experience the stench there was no stench but it makes me think like, was it a weather thing? Because it was like raining a lot. Like did that, was it not equipped for that amount of precipitation? Interesting. Because it's Southern California.

And like it- Dr. Doose have never did rain experiments. Yeah. I mean, I'm wondering- You think that's the only thing I can think of. That's the only thing I can think of. Older mildew getting in. Yeah, yeah.

Those comical steam pipes. It's exposed. I mean, that's- if that's the only thing I can think of. You think there's mold or mildew getting in. Yeah. Those comical steam pipes. It's exposed. I mean, that's, yeah, it's a big building and that's directly. There should not be a stench. A stench long before you get to the food. What do you mean the stench? What's happening? Why are burgers going on stage?

This all goes back to my initial feeling when I walked in. I was like, this is a front for something. Whatever Two Sums is, it's not a restaurant. The food is not the game. There's like a game behind the game for Two Sums and I don't know what it is. But the restaurant feels like

held together with tape and like barely thought out. Always in danger of just falling apart. There's something else going on with twosomes. We sent that burger back, and they were like, oh, we'll send a manager. I remember the manager was very nice,

and it's like, oh, we'll take it off your bill. So sorry, it was bad. Let me just, how about a flatbread? You can take it with you. And it's like oh yeah sure and then we you know get into the car and just kind of eating that we're like okay yeah this is uh kind of nothing um eating it in the car fine like eat it in the car and then when we got home so it's like all right it's a little cold but yeah it really doesn't taste uh great

and then you had it for breakfast three days later, and it was still just okay. You know, I just thought the almond taste got a little cloying after a while. There's more almonds? Oh, on the chocolate bread. It's chocolate almond bread. I don't know if they made the crust with almonds. I don't know. It's weird, because it's like...

Chuck is the first robot almondine. He's powered by almonds. I know what you mean. Like, when we went, everyone was very nice. But there's so many reviews and other experiences where it's like, it's not working as a basic restaurant. Was your burger not good? Oh, we'll be happy to take that off the bill.

Can we offer you a free glass of stench? This restaurant is like a perfect representation of what my brain is like post-pandemic. It's like the perfect pandemic restaurant where you're like, everything is wrong. Everything's off. I should be eating here every week. What are you doing to make me not want to be here? Why do I feel so bad? Why does it smell so bad?

And why can't it be fixed in a simple way? I want to be up there every day if I could. Yes, you're the audience. I think we'd all be there. We've all still been multiple times despite all of this. I'll go back. Yeah, I will give it another chance. You guys probably will as soon as we're done recording, if I had to guess.

I have a hunger for it after talking about it. Knowing it's so close to me, I kind of want to do it. Are we going to eat Brett's coquettes? Of course. As soon as this is done. We're supposed to record after this, but I'd like to cancel it. Are we going to finish that weird green jar that Brett brought us? Definitely.

I've been eyeing the green jar the whole time. Are we going to ground it up and free it'll go straight up our noses. I want to order a Danish from this McDonald's up the street, but we can't. By the way, I might be more averse to confectionery extracts. That is

I believe meant to be watermelon flavor. What did you just declare about yourself? You're more averse. I'm more averse to... No, I'm more versed in like candy, like ruts and stuff. I can tell what's fake and the fact that it's green. Are you saying you're better at

telling what fake watermelon is than I am? Not than you. No, no. You're the best. Okay, alright. That's what I thought. I was trying to relate to you. Sivako. Don't use the word more. Say it's a tie. Thank you for relating to me.

I feel that I tie in the watermelon runt sciences with you, Michael. I do not tie. No, Mike's the expert. But as soon as I bit into it, I was like, oh, yeah, it's watermelon. That's interesting. I don't know if I've had watermelon raw candy, but I don't know that was $20 to get that bottle. That is probably $2 at Michael's Chris. Guys, closing theories about what it is.

Brett, you brought up the front theory. We kind of corrected it with the Universal owns it, but I don't think that fixes the front. Is it something to do with that they want to make a movie? But if so, then why would they make the food so bad that it could drive it all out of business? What are we missing? We have a flow chart up here, and this goes to here to here and this goes to here but there's a ton of question marks what are the question marks yeah it's because it's it's ip yeah it is definitively ip yes yes but like when there's ip that is like confusing attached to nothing has no real consistent like visuals like there's penelope and

jock but like penelope is acted there's several actors who have portrayed penelope and when it's so deeply derivative of something we already have and discussed, a genre that if made into a film would be avoided at all costs by the American public. Yes. Yes. I don't know. I don't know. It's like, it seems like it's a real estate play.

Like, it's just like... Yeah. Like, we need to gain this space back before... Because the other one was something called NBA City. I don't know how NBA City, which is undocumented at this point, filled the space. That's what Orlando was. The original one had a giant

statue, a giant fake stone statue of a basketball player. A nondescript basketball player. Yeah, I found articles that referred to him as jersey man i guess that was the unofficial name somehow it was a giant and then so is it just universal saying like we need to get something in there that maybe gets a lot of quick attention and if

it rots away then it does but now we own the building we have kicked out the nba we've kicked out these hard rock people who have made money on our land for too long. Things that feel sort of analogous to this. There's things like, you know, I don't know. There's Warren Beatty doing Dick Tracy every 10 years so he can maintain the IP. There's little games that are played. And the economy is so weird right now. There's always a value in big companies like Universal

losing lots of money in specific ways. There's always a value for companies in terms of taxes and this and that. So it feels like there's some... I feel like behind the scenes this all works fine for Universal and they're getting what they want out of it. But I want to know what that is. Is it they need to take a loss for taxes? Is it they're trying to build IP?

Is it they have some weird competitive thing with Wonka? They knew Wonka was coming out, so they're going to have, well, if Wonka breaks, then we'll have a sort of derivative IP. We can sort of move around. But there's some play, and it has nothing to do with food i well my only theory is if it if it anything food-based talking about instagram because black tap comes to downtown disney in 2018 or 2019 yeah it's around when they're starting to put this together i kind of think maybe they started from the fact of like let's put a rice crispy treat on top of a milkshake and then let's let that creative run wild with the narrative that's my guess okay where maybe it starts because they're like we want we obviously nba city isn't doing so well and then

we'll we'll try to come up with something that's big and flashy that will get people and then they start adding all their stuff in and we already have what two candy stores on city walk like two like exclusively candy? It's sugar. It's sugar. And there's like the Sparkies. There's Sparkies. Sparkies has a lot of candy and donuts.

There's donuts in Sparkies and there's donuts in Voodoo Donuts, of course. Milkshakes, I guess, is not a covered area. Johnny Rockets probably has milkshakes. That is true. But you're going for the music. I mean, yeah. You're not going for the Bill Haley. You're going for the hear a stray cat song in there.

You know, I think what we saw down in Florida, CityWalk during the day is a ghost town, but when the park slows, it is packed, and I don't know what the routine is here because city walk always seems like a ghost town yes the questions we're asking could be questions about the entire thing just the hollywood one yeah it's the the twosome is really a microcosm of the entire thing but i'm wondering if that period when people are leaving the theme park or going into the theme park at lunch or later in the day is that uh spending enough is that enough to

account for the emptiness i think i feel like you're thinking too practically i i think there's something more nefarious going on here and And something just occurred to me. Is it that we'll introduce the walk-around robot character first. Then we introduce Latte the dog. And Latte the dog is how we will get people used to seeing weird robotic dogs in their town and in friendly places. Is the whole. Yes. Psy-up. Psy-up.

All paid for. And it's the police or the government or the military or something but we start with latte the sheriff's substation yeah yeah that's right at city what yeah yeah mirror steps away proximity we don't know what's in there that's not a place in city walk you can access you might open a door and see 1 000 robot dogs 1 000 spots all like gnawing and like getting ready to just ready to just dive forth at 120 miles per hour and tackle the next person stealing from the sock store they see. It's the best explanation I've heard yet.

The Two Sons is a sigh up to make the public comfortable with their eventual robot overlords. Right. They knew they fucked it up. They knew that people started saying, Boston Dynamics, this video is like, wow, is like wow that's a little scary right i don't know this is a little intense this is a little popular okay start over start from scratch stop posting those videos we need to put a little hat on him put a little hat on him and now people will be fine and then they won't blink when they see three of them marching on the street and then 20 and then 100 and then 10 000 stay in your homes or you'll be mauled the The guy runs into the room. He's like, I got this drawing

from some kid in Ohio. Is this anything? Go with it. Don't look into the legality of it. Start making the dogs. Throughout Southern California, a lot of military bases, military contractors,

companies on the west side, like Venice and Santa Monica. Well, what happens when the military unleashes Project Jacques on the public? An army of Jacques. Chocolate-fueled robots. The perfect soldier. The perfect soldier. Oh, you know what I would recommend is you come with me and go into one of our camps.

Oh, Jock runs on chocolate, not the military industrial complex. Sweet, sweet chocolate. Don't you see? Well, I think we made some progress. Can I say, hold on, I'm going to cut you off real quick. Yes, yeah, yeah. And any closing thoughts or stray observations, God knows there's a ton here they also have like they have art that would make you think they're also working on toothsome babies where they have art like like on different um products they have where the characters are like little baby versions of themselves a little

octopus and there is a little octopus with a monocle uh but then there is also like kind of like baby toothsome drawing as well and they don't have this branding officially like toothsome babies, but it kind of feels also like maybe they're soft launching the idea that these characters are all going to be kids. Well, that's in case Penelope's parents wander in

and they go like, why that looks like our lost child. Oh, because then they don't recognize her as an adult. They haven't shown up here yet despite the present chocolate. It's all these avocado toast fried chicken sandwiches. The savory feast kitchen. You know what?

I think that answers the question that she's a Gen Z or millennial because of this avocado toast. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I think we all should make an agreement here. When Twosomes eventually does is about to go of business, and they're having their final weekend, one of us needs to dress up, get a beard, and sort of dress age up and wander in in a daze. We'll see Penelope.

Penelope? My daughter! I was looking at you. I was looking for you where cocoa is grown, the hotter climates, and you were here this whole time. Mother didn't make it. Mother. She got consumption and went down

in the Amazon. She got dizzy and fell out of the dirigible. I was trying to find you, but I looked up the most highly rated chocolate establishments in Orlando and Los Angeles, and this wasn't even in the top 100. I was trying to enjoy some opium, but my spark caught the hydrogen of the original, just went up in flames, and I was thrown far. Well, absolutely. And between all of us, somebody can pick father, but we can flesh out there's uncles and cousins.

There can be, I think, a ton of toothsome characters. I hate to contradict you here. I think we should all play father. No, I'm the one. No, I'm the one. A real Mamma Mia situation with Penelope. I fell into the prestige machine, and there's even more of me under the restaurant. All right. This is a good plan and like oh wait oh my god i think we've made it to the end because i see i see the sector stone

that shows that we could we've completed our mission there it is oh my god it looks like is it a little owl but it's not it's no ordinary owl i think that's an almondine owl wow it's not, it's no ordinary owl. I think that's an almondine owl. Wow, it's an owl with a jet pack, and it's covered in little slices of almond and Mike's blood. Yeah. And it's got a little price tag on it that says $900. Hey, and Jason's licking it. I think there might be some fudge on this, fanboys.

No, there's my blood. That's why you're licking it. He's got a taste for it now. That's what happened. Yeah, yeah. This is an interview with a vampire starting. Well, there it is. We'll keep this in our hearts forever. And, oh, my God, Joe and Brett, you have both survived Podcast The Ride,

the CityWalk Orlando Saga, Multiverse of Madness. Let's exit through the plug portal. Joe, we'll start with you. Anything you'd like to plug? Yeah. So I have this podcast about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame called Who Cares About the Rock Hall. We are in nomination season, so it's the most exciting part of the year for us. The ballot's out. We're talking to voters on our Patreon, a newly established Patreon. And yeah, we're going through the artists on the ballot. There's a lot to talk about.

And the inductees will be revealed at the end of April. So jump in now. See what's going on. Also, I do have an album out called Funny Songs and Sketches that the title is explanatory. I think you understand what that means, listeners. But it has a lot of people on it as well that I bet the listeners

here would enjoy whether that's david cross or patten oswald or iowa debris nick kroll al madrigal a lot of very funny people so you can check that out wherever you get uh albums absolutely album's great and the the podcast does it like you ask the question who cares about the rock hall and i think if you start listening suddenly the then the induction ceremony will become the World Series and you'll feel like you're following the whole season. Yes. Suddenly it will become sports. I think it'll transform if you listen to your show.

Absolutely. I like that framing of it. Start caring about every round and the All-Star game and now the playoffs. You do make every piece of it exciting. I never cared about any of it and I do make every piece of it exciting i never cared about any of it and it's uh i do now uh uh brett uh anything you'd like to yeah um we've got a lot of great podcasts on the forever dog network in addition to podcast the ride um uh the best show

with tom sharpling double threat office hours live with tim heidecker just to name a few uh and then my buddy joe and i do two movie podcasts on Forever Dog. Weekend at Bergman's where we compare an arthouse movie and a mainstream movie that share a theme. Such as Weekend at Bernie's and the Seventh Seal was the very first episode we did until it gave the show its name. And then we also have a show called Movies Baby that's just like a weekly rundown of movie news, reviews of the latest movies, etc. We live stream those back toback on Thursday nights on YouTube, on the Movies Baby YouTube, or you can get them as a podcast, and then we have a Patreon, patreon.com slash Movies Baby with

Five Wise. Movies Baby, hmm. Five Wise. That is good to remind people of. Other people have done three and seven. You don't want to end up in a toothsome lawsuit situation. Smart. Well, thanks for doing it. So happy to have you, Brett, and a good opportunity to say thanks for everything overall and 7. You don't want to end up in a two-some lawsuit situation. Well, thanks for doing it. So happy to have you, Brett, and a good opportunity

to say thanks for everything over all these years. This has been a great home for us. It's been a blast. Love the show. Thank you. To release way too many episodes. Which, speaking of, they're still coming. We thank Aaron Gairdner for the art, our own Mike Carlson and Zach Reno for the theme music, Multiverse of Madness merch in our Tee Public 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. All of that at patreon.com slash podcasttheride. And be sure to follow LADessertDude on Instagram. Organic content. Sure, there's ads in there, but he would never do an ad for something that he doesn't really care about so i decided i was going to finally check out podcast the ride so i went to the apple of tunes and i checked out i said where can i find out a podcast that talks

about theme parks but also has guys exploring their friendship and so i went to i found podcast the ride and enjoy their patreon and i love that they're putting out episodes every day about city walk i don't think i'm gonna go to city walk maybe put my earpods in and listen to podcast I found Podcast The Ride and enjoy their Patreon, and I love that they're putting out episodes every day about CityWalk. I don't think I'm going to go to CityWalk, maybe put my AirPods in and listen to Podcast The Ride there. It's absolutely worth thousands of dollars. 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.