Podcast: The Ride - The Disney Store

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Are you old like us? Do you remember the feeling of walking into a Disney Store? Magic was real, and somehow it existed right between a Waldenbooks and a Mrs. Fields cookie store."Marfalump" episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It's another episode about an Eisner era triumph on today's podcast, The Ride. Welcome to Podcast The Ride. Today, discussing a store in the mall that offered wonderful, magical, pure gifts, not like the gifts from that horrible Spencer. I'm Scott Gairner, joined by Mike Carlson. Oh, gosh. Why did you make me feel so yucky before we started? Yeah, I know.

I know what we're talking about is, you know, is a wonderful, a wonderful place. A lot of nostalgia wrapped up in it. And maybe it's good to just like, you know, have Spencer's gifts mentioned as a counter as everything that the Disney store is not. Is everything that we should not be as humans. Right. You've given me the ick, as they say. And I have the ick now. That's like the kind of thing.

whole episode. I'm sorry that you have the ick now. I didn't need to do that to you. And that's the kind of thing they might have on a mug in there. It might say, I want to give you the ick. Oh, but it's a thing. It's like a D. Put a D at the start of the end.

It could. Or they, you know, they might even be bold with that. They might say, I want to, I want to give you the, the asterisk, I see. It's all giving me the yick. Jason Sheridan, hello. Hi, I'm here. Mike beat me to the phrase giving

me the ick. I was fully prepared to see that. Were you really? Yeah, I absolutely was. Well, you say that all the time though. That's a thing that you do with your youth culture and your youth terminology. Well, look, just don't yuck my yum. That's what I say. Is that a kid

is that a younger person thing or is that an older person thing? I think that is a terminally online Tumblr thing. Yeah, that's an annoying. It's an annoying thing. It's annoying and In giving me the ick is also annoying.

I hate to say, but it kind of yucked my yum. It yucked my yum a little bit, which kind of gave me the ick. Yeah. Okay. Which was a little bit cringe. They're both the same era of terminology. A terrible era. An era.

The worst era. We should close the door on as soon as possible. And go back to the Jason's era, the 20s. 23 skidoo. Extra, extra. Rootin, tootin. People were saying. People were saying.

an extra extra read all about it even if they weren't selling newspapers yeah right exactly yeah that was just a way to kind of pump up a crowd like honey i got a new job extra extra extra hey extra extra they all no people don't know that i'm back from the war newspaper boy stuff but it's not it's everyone yeah um oh i forget you know i forgot i said the war and i had my my little backup thing i was going to say is like you know with that the horrible thing is that spencer's you know what he's spencer's so-called Gifts. You know, that kind of thing he's selling, they might as well call the place Hitler's Gifts.

Laundraire. Laundierre in the mall and they're getting away with it. Who wants to drink their morning Joe out of a mug that says, Give me the ick, Daddy. What is that even mean? I feel like you would have that one. I know. That's, I was about to say, what does your mug say?

You were drinking coffee, which is rare. Yeah, yeah. But a Jane's mom, one Christmas, sent us complimentary mugs that said, Complementary mugs. Well, you'll see that one says, ask me about my podcast, and the other says, ask me about my favorite podcast. I think, uh, it's cute. I think, oh, well, I was about to say,

I think maybe the contents of these mugs have, in fact, given me the ick. They may have yucked my message. Yeah. Ask me. Well, wait, well, let's do it. Ask, uh, can I ask you about your favorite podcast? I don't know I think I've talked about what a time to be alive and your Kickstarter sucks it up best show best show uh yeah did you refer to a just like gift somebody gave you as a complimentary something

i'm curious about no uh like the they were copic sad they were compliment they were complimentary okay that makes a lot more sense sorry yeah great very i thought you were just like you know santa brought me some complimentary gifts this year that's what i think thought you were saying. I'm like, well, that's an interesting way to put it. It's a nice way to think of that. I mean, it's true. They're free, yeah. Ideally, but. I mean, it'd be odd if he was getting complimentary gifts to this day from Santa. But that also, I do think that's something that he would be like, well, you know, Santa brought me a gift. Doesn't that seem like some Jason would say? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Like, Santa is still giving Jason gifts.

That's very sweet. Yeah, which is nice. He's at a better relationship with him than we did. Why wouldn't he? Well, I guess you're right. You've been good this year. Yeah, every year. Every year. Yeah, he never yucks anyone's yum. Right. Well, here's a topic that I don't think, well, I really don't think, well, yuck yum, quite, quite that. It'll yum your yuck, which is the Disney store.

I've been excited about this for a while. This is like a, it feels like a bigger one, I don't know, bigger might not be accurate, but it's something that looms large to me because, I mean, is it a theme park topic? not exactly, but is the Disney store not historically in the evolution of the company the first brick and mortar institution that brought Disney Magic to our neighborhood, where before it was only previously available behind the paywalled gate of a theme park. And now with the rapid expansion of the Disney store in the 90s and 2000s, we could go see Disney figures and hear Disney music and see Disney plush right in the comfort of our own mall.

There was a plush pile 12 minutes from home. That's the way I looked at it. Yeah. A giant plush pile. Where before it was on you at your home to create your own plush pile. Yes, but this was, yeah, multiple versions of the same character plush pile, which is always exciting. Not that we were ever going to buy like 50 goofies, but seeing 50 goofies in a plush pile is exciting. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. On any character. That is a big memory for me. of this place is like, wow, it's just, it's like the theme parks, it's fun to be in there, it's fun to walk through. Unlike the theme parks, didn't buy a thing, like, did not. Yes. Even as a kid, I knew, like, the Disney store is kind of expensive.

Yes. Oh, and then in the 90s, you felt the upshard. Even then, it was like KB Toys, where it's like, yeah, you can browse around, see what you want, and toys are across the street, and you can get. get two toys for the price of one. Oh, yes. KB Toys was more expensive than Toys R Us, but they would have a more robust clearance section often.

The clearance section. You could find some deep discount X-Men toys or something. I was not aware of this. Was it a markup just is the general brand's policy or was the thought that it, because it's in a mall, it could charge more because there's like a convenience factor. I don't, that's a good question.

I think it's that. I mean, like FYE and the wall, those CDs were always more expensive, I feel like. Yes, most CD stores in the mall felt like they were more expensive than like Tower Records. Yeah. Well, I don't know if there's a Tower Records at a mall, but it did feel like mall, there was a mall markup. Yeah. I don't know.

But at least also, at a FYE, you would get a worse selection. Oh, yeah, a lot worse. A curated selection for which to pay $28 for a CD. Yes. I mean, toys were like, at a lot of. Action figures were like $3.99 when I started buying them. Maybe the original Ninja Turtles were $3.99. Wow.

And then maybe at KB Toys, there were like $5.99 or something, which seemed like, oh, my God. That's highway robbery. Yeah, pushing 10. I remember like $5 toys or us pushing 10 at KB Toys. Pushing 10. Oh, I don't know. Maybe that's right. I don't even remember what the actual market was.

Video games would usually be the same price. What would you pay at a mall for the feature film pushing? tin in 1999. What do you think of them all markup? Oh, well, if you're going to Suncoast, you're paying an arm and a leg, I'll tell you what. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, yeah, no, go to, yeah. A freestanding, even a Barnes & Noble, might you're going to get a better deal on pushing

tin. You would definitely get cheaper pushing tin figures at Toys R Us, for sure. Okay, okay. Playmates toys pushing tin figures. So if you want a decently cheap Nick Falzone. Right. With swinging action. Swinging action.

Yes, well, he needs swinging action because, as we know, Nick Falzone in Pushington is a cocky air traffic controller. Right. So he would often, I would have met or you'd want to make it. If you bought the full air traffic control set, you want to have him at that console and kind of swinging his fist around to bang on the panel. I'm really glad you said that because I was trying to run through my head.

Is this the air traffic controller or the golfers? And that's tin cup. That's tin cup. We had a lot of tin. That's what I was confused about it. I thought it was tin cup. Your aunt, like you asked for a pushing tin action figure, and it's like, oh, great, she got a tin cup toy.

The thing I would know anything about me. The thing I would try to sort out, Mike, if I could spin off tin cup into a separate discussion, that's the Kevin Costner golf movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, there's that and there's obviously Happy Gilmore, a very different kind of golf movie, but what I would, because my, I grew up in a golf-loving house. hold and I was aware of pro golfers at the time. I would try to track which, okay, Happy Gilmore is the one that Lee Trevino does a cameo in.

Oh, yeah. But Tin Cup, I'd see, I'd have to look. Real golfers in Tin Cup because I feel like there were a few. Oh, a ton. Phil Mickelson, Freddie Couples was in it. Craig Stadler, the Walrus, Lee Janssen and Tommy Armour the Third. So if you've been waiting for more 90s golf discussion on the podcast, that list of names is sending you. And if you're judging those films purely off of real golfer content and cameo, then Ten Cup is the winner for sure.

Now, they got them with Happy Gilmore 2, which has every golfer on the face of the earth, except for Tiger Woods. Right. But every single other golfer you could possibly name. Maxwell, Jacob Friedman. Everyone is in the movie. Yeah, well, yeah, they managed. Mainly they got so many golfers because it has everyone. And by the way, I want to say, I've never gotten to tell you.

I really like both of your cameos and Happy Gomore too. And listeners, I've been meaning to tell you, everybody listening, I really liked when you popped up in Happy Gilmore too. The world's first 0.025 second cameo. Yeah, I mean, I understand. There's a lot of people to get through. They can't give you a lot of time. But I feel like you got out a good, like, you got like, yeah.

You almost got half a word. Yeah, good job picking the cut. Because they got Mike and Mai's footage when. we were recording. I'm surprised you didn't show up in it too. Yeah, yeah. Or you were in the later scene. Yes. I, uh, no, I, I, I, I just showed up in a helicopter shot. Okay. Yeah, they got rid of a, they got through a hundred thousand people in a separate. So I didn't get nearly the, but technically I'm in it. Yeah.

It was a five-year-long shoot. But the craft service was incredible. Oh, as always on the Sanger movies. Anyways, the Disney store. Okay, I mean, like, basics here opens in March, 1987, right in our neck of the woods, in Glendale, California, and the Glendale Gallery. And there's history to go into, and there's history, I think, is fun with the Disney story. But we're already doing it a little bit, and maybe we can continue down this path.

I think before the history, what emotionally do we flash to when we talk about the Disney story? Maybe you implied it a little. I think for you, maybe it is plush pile. Yeah. Like, whatever that big display in the back was usually, like there would be usually, I think, a screen behind it or somewhere near. Kind of a... Big screens.

Valuable real estate. They thought there were... Other retailers thought there were fools to sacrifice that valuable retail. Indeed. Yes, no. In a clinical Marcus Limonis, the profit type way, the square footage that was devoted to just like a fun display, that would make a kid smile.

Right. Get this out of here. Clear this out. You're not making men any money off of this. And yet, aren't they? Aren't they? In some way, aren't they? Yeah, yeah.

A friend of the pod, Andrew Warren, I told we were doing a Disney store episode and he said, should I put, should I, like, get on a betting app and throw down a guess of how many times Plush Pyle will be said in that episode? And already it's like five, I think. So I said, yeah, do it and do it in bed high. Yeah, yeah.

Plush Pile, I guess, to just reacquaint, if you don't know what we're talking about, is that in the classic mode of Disney store, at the back of the store, sort of the weenie, to use the theme park terminology, there's no room for a castle. But in the retail space of the Disney store, they kind of lure you to the back with a big screen, playing clips at Disney movies, which was also more rare at the time, you know, So in a time where it was on you to buy individual VHSs, possibly at the Disney store, bring them home in order to get Disney content, just like hearing the songs in a place, and clips in a place.

And they would change those out kind of frequently so you didn't know what you were going to see. So big screen that was sort of at the peak of a big pile of plush characters. Every Disney character you could imagine, or at least the ones that they were pushing at the moment. It was not everyone because I would always go in there and look for like certain characters and often I wouldn't see them. Sure, sure. So you wouldn't get everyone. It was impossible to do that, but yeah, yeah. No honest John, no rat again.

No, no friar tuck. Artful Dodger. I mean, I always wanted Oliver and Company stuff. Yeah, I love that. And I'm sure they had some of it right when it came out, but. It's one where you want the merch maybe more than you want to watch the movie. Yeah, the movie's not very good. Yeah, yeah.

So, which I think I said on one episode and then you were like, what? I could be wrong I think I really Well a couple of reasons One I think it was the first movie I ever saw in theaters It was me too I like the animation Yeah

And I really like the song Why Should I worry Well that's all that's it That's the movie Every one of those is correct I guess by some standards You might go Well you just list

You listed three compliments Does that not a good movie make How many movies exist Where you couldn't say one good thing I mean I guess that's true Well, we'll say something nice about pushing 10. I really likes the cocky. I thought, you know, he really pushed the cockiness.

John Cusack and his performance. That's a nice thing to say. That's John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton? Correct, yes. Okay, I haven't seen it. The boxmaster's a lead singer. Yes, yeah. I wouldn't have able to tell you that without a Google.

Oh, and Kate Blanchett is Connie Falzone. Okay. Wife or ex-wife of Nick Falzone? Cool. I have to watch the movie. to find out. He's got a lot of things going on in his life. Was he so cocky?

He pushed her away from the marriage. The plush pile, though. Here's something that I figured out is that there was an internal term for it, and you're not far out. They would call it Plush Mountain. That was like the specific designation if you were working at the Disney store

in the late 80s. Did you yourself say that, did you coin the term plush pile when this came up years ago on the show? I don't think I did, but it doesn't seem like it's as common as I thought. So maybe I stole it from one source. I mean, everybody knows what you're saying.

Right. And I'm just saying, I was just like, is that the internal term? And it's not far. I like that it's Plush Mountain because now we're in the Mountain realm. You know, with the Space Mountain Big Thunderbound. I should look up what the origin of Plush Pile is. I'd love to have invented a new thing like Mighty Akron. I'd love to talk about it for years.

Do you want to do one of those kind of Googles, though, where you do Plush Pile and then like minus XX, X, X, X, just to make sure you don't find out a different origin. I could do that. I don't think anybody's written about my use of the word plush pile. You do own the trademark to cuddle puddle. That is what I think, I swear I thought, Cuddle puddle in my head just like a minute ago. Oh, yeah?

Plush Pile Cuddle Puddle. Why is that? Maybe that is what you called it at the time. And when you were a child and you didn't know that, yeah. I mean, if you're a kid and you think of the phrase Cuddle Puddle, you have no context for where, how else that has been used. Yeah, the context of, like, theater kids in college being, like, weird. You know

Yeah Somebody speaks from experience Right did you ever do a cuddle puddle in college Are you sure? No I was not They I did not have much interaction Surprisingly with the theater department Besides a couple of classes

And to be clear A cuddle puddle means a bunch of people Lie on the ground and just like Hug each other Hug each other And nothing funny, no funny business I think Potentially there could be funny business

But it's not a guarantee But that's an orgy then Yeah. Okay. Well, not, hang on. No, I think the funny business is the point where it becomes a bunch of people. Yeah, that becomes an origin. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Okay. But I think cuddle puddle can be, you know, innocuous. Yeah. Well, I think if there is light, say, over-the-close stuff, happen a little bit within an otherwise non-sexual cuddle puddle. That does not an orgy make. I think there has to be full-on copulation from more than two members of the cuddle puddle. in order to kick it over the edge.

I have four things to say, I think. Good, great. All right. All right, I'll delete all my notes about. Okay. And then the children's store, delete that. One, okay, I'll just do one question here.

Does there have to be a big vote with the cuddle puddle of like, hey, I'm thinking we need to take this up a notch. Does everyone agree? Like, you would think that has to be the case where everyone has to agree. Because if like you're just like, I just want to hug somebody and lie on the ground

and all of a sudden somebody's sucking a dick. That really changes the dynamic, does it not? I think that... That's not a cuddle puddle. I think that the spirit of the cuddle puddle is organic. And if you were to formalize it and call for a vote, I think that you're kicked out of the cuddle puddle. I think you've announced what it is too much.

You're trying to drive to a destination. And the freewheeling nature of the cuddle puddle has been betrayed. But, okay, so maybe it's just like, you're like hugging someone and you go, hey, somebody's not going to dick over there. We should maybe get out. Like, let's leave. We don't want to do that, so let's leave.

So it's just an organic thing. If that's what the kind of thing you're doing, I don't think you'd end up in the cuddle puddle to begin with. I don't know. Jason said maybe that's the case, though. He knows more than we do. I think it's case by case. He knew people who were in one.

Right. He met, he met cuddle puddle participants. Right. He read stories about it. He wrote stories about it on the beat. It reminds me of the, like, acting, like, all right, everyone lined up, and you're going to, you're going to, you're going to massage the person in front of you shoulders

and then the person on you were massage you were and I'm like, oh, I hate this. I don't like this at all. Yeah, that was like just a creepy teacher though, probably wanted to get that going. I'd say, it's a theater exercise. We're all loosening up, you see. All right. Well, I'll drop my other questions. Let's continue.

Okay, sure. Okay. Well, look, as far as like, all right, so a plush pile is one thing. That phrase has already gotten us in a, dangerous territory. Yeah. But is that sort of what, like, I think my question was, do you flash, do we flash to kind of the aesthetics and the vibe of the Disney store? Do we have specific Disney store

memories or like items that we purchased or thing? I guess in Jason's case, no. No. You would mainly just walk around, which is also more my experience. Yeah, mainly vibe. Do you remember the store opening when you were young? I. Not the exact opening, probably. You were too young for that. Yes. Well, what I recall is that in my area, I would have had to go to the Northridge Fashion Center, which was a little bit far by Valley Epe standards. There was not one at the much closer promenade, RIP, or Topanga Plaza. Topanga Plaza opened mid-90s, and I was excited to have one a little closer, but it was like a destination in order to go to that Northridge one, and we didn't get there as much as I would have liked.

And it, but when we would do the longer drive to get there, like my heart would be beating faster on the way knowing we were going to a mall that was a chosen mall that had the special store, the Disney store, not like my boring, sleepy, might as well blow it up mall. Yeah, it's, I'm trying to remember. I had the same feeling when you go to Woodfield. I was like, we're going a Disney store and then eventually Warner Brothers store. Both. Like you'd hit like in KB Toil. Like there would be all these like, oh my God. We're going to go in every toy store, basically.

And it was definitely like, I'm not looking for anything other than maybe like a dark, like do they have dark wing duck? Do they have a dark wing duck plush? Something like that that I would imagine they had and they usually would not have what I imagined. But just the like the promise of it was really, I don't know if I thought I was like maybe there would be like a roller coaster in there. I don't think I thought that. Or like the possibility. It was not insane that a character meet and greet. Sure.

Right. I think those became somewhat irregular, but I think maybe in the early, early days of the Disney store, it was possible that like, Winnie the Pooh is going to be here today. Gaston's coming in. I think they did do stuff like that. Pretty rare. And then once they expand, once there's dozens of them, they can't really do that stuff. But in my mind, it was always a possibility. Yes, yeah.

So I think it was, yeah, always more about like what I was imagining I'd see or do. And then it was probably never meeting those expectations. Yeah, yeah. We're here just to like, I don't know. We're going to the mall, and some portion of that will be my mom shopping for boring school clothes for me or boring mom clothes for her, but that there might be a window where I get to hear be our guest, you know, not a movie theater, but a mini movie theater on some big speakers on a kind of bigger screen than my TV. Yeah, I wish I had a journal just year to year of going to Woodfield Mall and Schaumburg because I feel it could always change. At a certain point when I got into Star Wars at like 10 years old, there was a store that sold,

like standees, like Star Wars Standies, and I was like every, so excited to see the fucking cardboard standies in this place. To this day, I think you would prefer that to the characters walking around Galaxy's Edge. Yes, put cardboard.

But cardboard. Storm troopers. There is a way to get it to be Carrie Fisher. Just make a set up a picture of her. If they sold cardboard standies and Galaxies Edge, I feel like that's a money printer, baby. That might, as

much as it feels, and some people would be like, oh, they have ruined the culture. This is not what Doc Ondar was opened to be, and then, and then cut to the highest selling item in the parks ever. Don't need to, like, they sell the carrying case for the lightsaber. They need to, like, sell a really odd bag to, like, fold your cardboard standee up. You are going to want a standee carrying case, yes? Leather, don't, you don't want that. You don't want to just, oh, you. You don't want to just, oh, be ghost to carry out paper. This is, I have the discourse around, I real quick, of this doc under our store where they sell like more, I don't know, general public merchandise.

Regular Star Wars shit. But it's funny. People are like, this is disgraceful. They don't sell general, uh, Doc under stew spoon anymore, his wooden spoon that he in canon, this is not real, by the way. They're not buying his wooden spoon that he makes his trademark stew with. What's, what's Funko pops in there? And you're like, yeah, no one.

No one bought the stew. No one wants to act. We all, much like we were saying about the Disney store, we all went in there, we looked around. We went, whoa, wow, a stained glass amadala. Okay, time to go do something else and not buy that. Like an ugly bust of Plow Coon's head. I'm like, I love that this exists. I'm not buying it.

I prefer that it be that. I agree. Believe me, I would. But at some point, the business is going to. I don't need six Kiber crystals. In fact, that's one of the cooler things they have that I might have bought. Yeah. But it's like, could you put it on a keychain?

Well, it goes in your lightsaber. Right. Yeah. But does it work? Does it power your lightsaber? Oh, I don't know if it's, I think it's just part of the thing. And there's chases. Now I'm going to defend these Khyber crystals in my life.

Well, you've changed your two. They might still be selling them, by the way. I think we are stealing them. Yeah, they're still selling everything. It's just like, they. Not everything. Huh? They're not selling everything.

They've gotten, they've changed. change some of the stuff out. Yeah, they've changed stuff, but it's like a lot of the kind of story element merchandise they scale back on and they didn't really put the time and money into pushing them to begin with. I would love if the funco pops had a different box that looked like Galaxy's Edge or something. That would be my only note. Where you can't where it's like you you can't make out what all the shapes are, but it kind of from a distance looks like the word Funko. Sure.

You want a like 10% indescipherable language that still says Funko. You want the Funko logo in Arbush. That's correct. Like the Coke and Sprite. Yes. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Those are good. Yeah. You're still selling those. Those are good. Oh, those are great. So excited. You're like our Coke orbs. Anyway,

I, you know, just on the point of Doconde and like the immersive environments of the various shops in Galaxy's Edge, If I had to choose, if it's like, okay, do you want to, where do you want to go today? Do you want to go, you know, to these fine, like, Turkish-influenced little bizarre shop? Or do you want to go to a perfectly preserved 1987 Disney store?

I know what I'm choosing. Yeah, of course. No problem. And this is a lot of what I flash to is like vibe and colors. Pink and green is a lot of, like, that is the, that's the style of the Disney store that is in my heart. And my strongest Disney store memory at this point is not a childhood one, but of an experience right before pandemic. And I think we all had that where like kind of some of the last things we did out in public

got very locked in as we stopped having experiences in public for a while. Because I went out to visit the last Rainforest Cafe in California and Ontario. And on the way back, I stopped by the, I think it's called Montclair Plaza. which is kind of like east of east of Los Angeles and that was just because I like they have like at least at the time like very old school big marquee sign that was like Montclair Entertainment District and so many swirls and lights and like just a lot about that I was really locked in time but I don't think I knew then and this is in February 2020 that they had the most preserved in Amber Disney store I've ever seen I don't think I knew that there were any left that were so old school and like it's It just gave me like shivers. It was crazy. I mean, it lets me know that I'm crazy. This is the kind of thing if I described it to people other than you guys and who's listening right now.

They're like, what? Because of a... But then, like, I was going back through the photos. Like, just a little... Look at what I took a picture of. This is a little awkward corner that is the end of a reel of film, which was part of the original design. The big film strips, that's what sticks out to me. That were sort of the borders of a lot of the old school store.

Like, not every old school Disney store, this way, but a lot of them, I think, were kind of themed after filmmaking. It's the characters all making a movie together, and then here's a film strip, and it's like, you know, it's like 24 frames a second animation, you know, if you follow

it along, it's Mickey doing a little walk cycle, but then like, vibrant pink, vibrant blue on either side of it, and then like black and white checker, and then like little weird teal yellow orange tiles. Like, this little corner, I don't know what, I can't explain why.

But the corner I'm showing you right now gives me so many feelings. And then like just in the tiles and genitals, these tiles, my God. Then we're hearing about Tom Hanks is sick and Fauci and like, oh, to be back with those just to like, just to be in a cuddle puddle with those tiles would do me well. This little display in the window really sent me. It's not even the characters. It's just two little birds. They're very like snow white birds.

in a cage. In a store, in a window of a store, in a cage. They're trapped three times. It's very cruel to the birds. But they're smiling. But they are still smiling because they're Disney birds and they're happy. And this is just so, it's like the way that they used to carve stuff. There was something about the quality.

And you can find characters like this. There's one that really sent me in the International Gateway when you're leaving Epcot. There's like Mickey's in a window that, so much this style. Like a little bit blockier, a little bit imperfect. They're not like perfectly 3D printed exactly to the model. Like you can tell that these were sculpted by a person. And just to be that I'm in Montclair, but I'm not in Montclair.

I'm in Fantasyland. These are absolutely park quality. And as malls have become more and more boring, and there aren't the attractions that we were lucky to have in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, like just to see. like quality Disney craftsmanship. And so, you know, right next to, you know, uh, uh, uh, clairs or whatever. Yeah. It's just, just really something.

And then the last one, this little TV window. This is, wow. I, and I'll try to post these, uh, yell at me if I don't post them listener, but it just so you know what I'm talking about so that you can see the stained wood in this little display. But I swear, if I could like find a carpenter who would build this for me exactly and that I could have this and like, I hesitate to use the word man cave if you have like a pink and teal TV set in it

with a little box that says we're all ears we'd love to hear from you guest comments there's a little there's a suggestion box and the TV was off when I saw it but I remember this is like probably the TV where they'd be showing you a like little Disney informational video like in order where like oh they're going around the horn they're showing Adventureland and then New Orleans Square and then Fantasyland you know what I'm talking about like just like yeah a general informer of what Disneyland is. Is that still a CRT TV in that picture? I think so.

Or it's like, or it might be, it looks to me like it might be like they had to eventually shift to a 16 by 9 TV, but like they made it as small and weird as they could find to shove this Tshiba into. Anyways, I just wonder if anybody else is this way where it's just, it's, you know, I've talked about a zillion times, but like,

travel and I was incredible to run into this thing. Now of course this Montclair store gone. They're all gone. The pandemic like ultimately final nail in the coffin of a lot of these Disney stores as so many things we encounter in our world. Time Square Times Square still got one. Okay.

Yeah that's you know that was a question I had is where are they still? And I you know it's like I think there yeah there are select stray Disney stores and I think if you ask the company they'd say no it's still a brand and And there's many Disney stores in Target. And I would say, no, no, Disney stores.

What I'm showing you guys right now, that's the Disney store. And these, sadly, are extinct. That's the same thing they're trying to pull with the Toys R Us's often. Like, oh, Toys R Us exists. It's in Macy's now. And you're like, what are you fucking talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get the fuck out of here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad you calibrated. I was worried that you would be let down by the arc of Toys R Us's back. And then when you see what it really is. There is still the one that is a store. out, I forget which place in the valley. Camarillo outlets. That's a lot further in the valley.

You got a long drive to get there. That's why I haven't gone. Yeah. It doesn't look so exciting, but there is a store still there. So I don't know. We'll see. I think they might still have a real old school Marie calendars though. Well, that's interesting.

Very interested in that. Another big one that does still, like, I think, I assume this still exists because this was like a, I think a big deal when it opened was one in Tokyo. And like, look at the exterior. this thing. Big, crazy, theme, castle where you enter through giant mouse ears. And this is three stories, I think. We spent so much in that very

Tokyo way of like, we didn't account for this. We didn't know we'd be in this Disney store for an hour and a half. We didn't know this was here. And they have just like a perfect just Andy's bedroom. This is Andy's bedroom better than it exists in the parks. It's incredible. With Rex and Ham playing

video games and just like super detailed. And there's a number of little marquies of that nature. So the kind of event ones that they've left around really are spectacular. And I'm glad they do still exist. I believe the ones in Japan sold to the Oriental Land Company. Oh, so that might be why they're still interesting. Okay, okay.

Anyways, this stuff, this is really why, because this thing is, of course, crass. And it's a way for Disney to sell a bunch of products. And it's like another line item for them to do a stuff. but just the love that they put into it. Yeah. I mean, there's this really wonderful 1992 training video. Like what you would watch. It's next level. It's so good. This did not exist online until like it's like it's like, I feel like it's within the year that this was posted and like, oh, what a tree. I like, I remember when I saw it. I was like, drop everything. Open a bottle of wine. We got entertainment. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's only like 18 minutes, but it's a glorious 18.

minutes. It's great graphics. I wrote down the phrase someone's in it says, the company gives you value and quality. And the way that is age, it's like, well, sometimes. At the time. Not a guarantee anymore. When we were kids. Yeah.

Yeah, but there's so many great things in that. And they even go into what it took to make a Disney store. And they go into how each separate one would take four to six weeks to design. Wow. And I think there was a time where all of the figures that would be in the, in the display cases in the front or up above you. There was always, there was this like second level of theming that is usually where the little, like, you know, just miniature Disney figures would be.

I think those were custom for every store, at least for a while. Wow. And often, like, based on the neighborhood that it was built for, like, if we're building a San Francisco store, it should be San Francisco themed. And I think once you start getting into like, well, how do we do a Montclair theme? All right, well, whatever. It started to become more standardized. But like the love that was put into, you could just, you, that thing that we're always chasing were, yes, Disney's crass and it's corporate, but they would empower these great designers and architects and production designers, whatever you want to call it, the Imagineers just to like make really wonderful spaces.

Would you like a historian, but would you draw like a straight line from Disneyland in animatronics to the like crazy excessive theming that we. grew up with. And I guess the animatronic boom of the like 70, late 70s or mostly 80s. With your with Chucky Cheeses and the like as well. And then like that all goes and then like it hits Apple Store. I mean, everything starts dying before that, but then hits Apple Store and then Apple Store aesthetic takes over almost everything. Oh, man.

You know, it's weird. I don't even, I feel's weird blaming Apple Store because Apple stores remain. That's what I'm saying it's dying before that. Like, like actually like they kind of are like an attraction as close as we have now. To some degree, yeah. To like a place where you can, like, go do something in a mall. But I think it's less the Apple store and I think you're like more what rips it off. Yeah, sure.

Everything becomes minimal in a way that's less the Apple well-designed minimal and more boring minimal. And also what the stores are selling too. It's like, yeah, like if you're just selling like sleek electronics, you don't need to have a big cluttered store with film strip reels. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But then everyone was like, well, that's the company. We should rip that off. I think the gap maybe

like ushers in an era of boring. I have no fondness or nostalgia for the gap. And I don't know. That to me is just like the epitome of bland. But even then in the 90s, they were selling khakis. But like the commercials were people like doing crazy swing dancing, flips and stuff. Yeah.

Well, that's not going to help. me get on board of the gap but it's like oh it's impressive on a 20 second tv commercial to see people like flipping around it's fun it's an it's turning yeah it's more interesting than just like rack of slacks your your downplaying i feel like when you saw the gap was doing swing dancing ads you were like the gap is the fucking coolest place and i and i'm in the vanguard right i was into swing dancing before it was cool Cherry Poppin Daddy CD. I didn't.

There was like swing dancing club, club and elective, I think, at college. And I was like... College still? Yeah, when I was in school and I was like, why would someone go to that? And then like years later, I'm like, oh, because everyone's just like,

you can dance with women. You can't, yeah, I can dance with a girl. Like everyone's touching each other. It's not because they want to wear fedores. You think they're all liars. They didn't even care. care about the swing dancing. They were just horny.

The swing dancing is just part one and part two. Hopefully will be a cuddle bottle. I think, by the way, I think you're right. I'm just saying that's what you're getting at. I was like, wait a minute. I'm hoarding weird too. I fucking, that should have been there. Instead of writing papers.

Jason, literally yelling that outside a window of a swing dancing class. Hey, I'm hoarding and weird too. I'm a hoarding weird. Let me in. I'll buy that hat. I have the worst fucking facial hair you've ever. seen just like that guy. I'm wearing a cabby hat.

In what year was your facial hair of particularly poor quality? It was just spotty through college and I think the first few years out here too. Yeah. Because I didn't really ever take care of it. I still don't take care of it. I've been like trying to take care of it more just with an electric razor, which I didn't know. In the tub as we figured out. He's Jason Shaves in the tub.

Sometimes it's a wet tub and it's a dry tub. It's a wet shaver and a dry shaver. So you can do whatever you want. But it's got to be like at least every three days. Okay. Yeah. Because it won't trim down longer hair. Oh, I see.

Gotcha. Yeah. No, I mean, look, I've, I try to like keep it, but not like keep my facial hair at a certain length. But you got to stay on top of it. You got to do it like at least once a week, if not twice. It comes a job. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And then I don't know. I'm starting to go a little more gray on the sides and I don't like it. Oh, yeah. You can't be, you can't be showing that off. But I can't, you can't cover that with a backwards baseball hat.

But then you go, then you know. I mean, you could. Well, yeah, you could. You love the pandemic because it covers your gray facial hair.

Yeah, that's true. Right. You know, you know, you're praying for, uh, a virus.

I know all about this virus. Believe me, I've read about it. Oh, I'm sure. Oh, God. Why did I even? All about it.

If we don't get out of this, you'll be talking for the next 45 minutes. Well, let's hear. Okay, maybe now that we've talked about just a little bit of like the emotional pull of the Disney store, let's go into the history a bit, shall we? Yeah. Because as so many great things in this world are, the Disney store was ushered in in the era of one Mr. Michael Eisner. God bless him. Another victory for the man and more proof that he was not some sort of, you know, company destroying monster.

Right. At least, you know, in that mid-80s rise, there was so much magic, and he spread magic outside of the parks into beautiful hotels, into the beautification of their very own back lot, and then into these wonderful stores. So to set the scene, before Eisner comes in, if you wanted Disney memorabilia, it was actually more difficult to come across than you might think. that's why, I don't think I clocked that if, like, if you want a Mickey Mouse sure, watch or whatever, you might have to go buy that at Disneyland. You've got to do that on your trip. Yeah. And not to see, you know, like, obviously the stores and the parks are a big area, important area today.

But I don't think I realized it was like, this is how you get shirts with the characters on it. And it's hard to get out in the world. Like, they had some partnerships with Sears or whatever. But Disney merch was not nearly as common. in like 83 as it soon became. Yes, that's something you take completely for granted because, yeah, what makes no sense in your mind.

It's really weird, and it's one of those where it's interesting to go back to the mentality of the pre-Eisner time, where the company was flailing, creatively, flailing financially. At the same time that they are in this weird, like, they are paralyzed with fear, and they like, well, what would Walt do?

And I don't know. and this kind of movie, and we can't make that kind of movie. We have to focus on our live action film division, which has been incredibly unpleasant for decades. Yes, yeah, yeah. I'm just, yeah, speaking of ick and yucking of yumb, a lot of the early 80s Disney movies will do that, the non-tron ones.

You can go so family-friendly, it gets weird. It gets like alien. Yeah, yeah. I think there was a time where, like, children's movies, people would like shudder at that idea of them. And they weren't funny and they were just like, yeah, icky and uncomfortable. And if you saw an actor in one,

you felt really bad for them. I think Disney got in the early 80s sort of helped seal that in. There's a new Eisner interview that just dropped. Did anybody see this? No, no, you're kidding. This guy, Brand Farron. You know this guy who worked at like, he was the head of research, I think,

in Imagineering for a long time? He has some YouTube show and he's got Eisner on. And he's looking great, sounding great. And he's dropping all this stuff. And there's something I don't like that he says, but like it makes sense. He's just talking about how much disarray the company was in when he got there. Yeah, yeah. So he is talking about stuff like that where it's just like no brainer things.

He also mentions, of course, that like we weren't charging very much for these parks to get into them. So we started charging more. Yeah, yeah. All right. So yes, he starts that along the way. But also does he not also like add value and major attractions? And then saves the whole company, basically, of course, with all of these decisions. But, like, it just sounds like the company was just a nightmare before they got in there.

And just, like, really, like, just tepid and overthinking. And the CEO at the time, who he took over from was this guy, Ron Miller, who seems well regarded as a person, but maybe not the best choice as a CEO. And this, what I'm about to read kind of helps illustrate that. This is from a book called The Disney Touch by Ron Grover. they had a consumer products division that was chomping at the bit to do more. We really think this could be a much bigger area for the company,

but the people up top were sort of like reticent to embrace that. Here's a quote, Insiders grumbled when Gold Bond ice cream even began offering frozen treats shaped like Mickey and Pluto. Quote Ron Miller, I get tired of seeing Mickey here and there and everywhere. Can you imagine the CEO of Disney said, Maybe a little less Mickey.

Wild. I mean, I guess at this point it's been so saturated that, like, you don't blink at all of just seeing Mickey literally everywhere. Yeah, yeah. But it is funny at the time when you didn't see him very often for them to go, I don't know. He's kind of annoying, isn't he? Bit overexposed. I think we can all agree, oh, that shape, the circle and the other circle and the other circle. Right.

Now, like, yeah, now Mickey is literally like on garbage bags and stuff. Like it doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah. It is the Lucas, like the Star Wars of it all. Your baby is shitting on Mickey with each poop that it takes. Oh my God. Yeah, that's exactly. Every, my daughter is shit on every Disney character.

Yeah, yeah. Shit into a diaper with a different picture of a Disney character. So I think it's mainly, I tend to see Winnie the Pooh. There's not a lot of variety in who my son is shitting on. She's shitting on that. Oh, no, she's not shitting in a diaper anymore. But I feel like there was some, like it was like a. Oh, congrats.

Yeah. while. She's been good. I feel like it was like a Disney princess, though. I can't remember. Maybe I'm wrong. That feels really wrong. The smiling face. No, we should say the characters are not inside. Yeah, it's on the back of the paper.

They're just near. Oh, bother. Ariel took the shit I wanted. Oh, bother. I was ready and eager. I called that one. Hephelumps and wuzzles are the different consistencies and colors

of the Bristol stool. I'll let you guess which is which which is soft and which is hard That was really weird That one period where it's like Oh yeah the resin's a hundred acre woods Eeyore poo Tigger The Bristol stool chart

I don't think I know this reference This is a medical The Bristol stool chart is like a medical chart of like how would you describe your feces It's showing how your feces looks and if it's healthy or not. Okay. And there's like, what, what, one to six or something?

So you guys are, you guys are fans? Well, I mean, certainly. I don't think, I think it was the, no, I think there's other charts now. I think there's other, you know, opinion. It might have changed the Bristol stool chart around. I don't know. He maybe hasn't gotten to that yet. You wanted to be rock hard.

Right. There's six levels of rock hard. Corn of our diet. You have to make sure. You have to make sure you get your five servings of stool and make sure they're different. There is some clip where like, they're all on the carnivore diet.

They're all in the carnivore diet. There's a clip of Joe Rogan being like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you won't shit very well. It's hard to shit after you doing this. You're like, well, is that a good? If you're healthy, you should, every time that you're passing a poop, you should sound like me.

I think of gruff. I got a number one on the Bristol stool chart. It's a block. Block of granite. I feel I have to say, I feel like a few years ago there was like he had a disease. And that's why he's voice like that. We shouldn't make fun of it. And then that went away so fast.

It's 2026. Because he's such an annoying freak. The rules are different in 2020. Funny about, yeah. How else, look, I don't, was that even making fun of him? I think we were illustrating who we were talking as and did we not summon the kind of voice that the man has. And I did. We're being very respectful.

I had a red panda with my car and I took it to make it into a hand puppet. Cheryl thought it was funny. I eat mouse ears very frequently. My favorite Super Bowl snack. I created McGruff in the lab with a couple dead dogs. I reanimated them. He put a trash caught up. He screams to me put down.

every 30 seconds. Okay, so set the scene there that, like, there's people in the company who know better and who know that, like, this could be a bigger area for us. When there is the turnover to Michael Eisner, he is certainly very interested, but he's, the main priorities are turning around the film unit and turning around theme parks. So he tasks Frank Wells to hear out, like, you oversee what we could do differently in consumer products. And he speaks to an eager young executive named Steve Burke,

who pitches 100 ideas, including the store. The store is one of them. And Eisner, once that's reported back to him, he sparks to that and says, that's a pretty good idea. However, I don't know, is that kind of like a small potatoes business? Like, is it worth it to us to do that? Is it even worth it for us to try that? Like, if we were sure, and Steve Burke says, well, what do we just try one?

We just test out a single location. Eisner says, well, I mean, you know, that costs money, though. like what's that going to be? And he says, I think we can get this done for under $500,000. And still people are bristling because that's a lot of money. And what if that's just an experiment that goes nowhere? This is from Eisner's book. Eisner turns to Frank Wells.

I understand all the sophisticated financial analysis that says this isn't going to work. But can't accompany our size try something every once in a while just because it feels right? What if it does fail? It's still not going to cost as much as one expensive hot movie script forever. the enthusiast Frank agreed. A couple things here. One, you can get $500,000 for a movie script in 1987. Jesus Christ.

We picked the wrong business at the wrong time. But more importantly, is that not the can-do fuck-the-noise attitude that Eisner brought to so many of the things that he set up and we love? Like, in an algorithm controlled, when executives themselves are all a kind of algorithm mind slaves

this was not Eisner shot from the hip and he's like let's give this a shot that's not that much money we feel like it we're doing great we feel like doing this let's do it yeah I mean Ted Turner just passed away and I feel like there's a lot of anecdotes in a similar vein of like I just want to do this crazy thing because I like cartoons or whatever like I feel like that's the vibe you got to credit him

with the Cartoon Network Adult Swim and yeah right Turner Classic movies, TNT, TBS, like WCW. WCW. That was on AWD dynamite. They told an anecdote of like, you know, other executives where like this is wrestling is bleeding money. And he's like, he just said, like, wrestlers keep doing what you're doing. I got deep pocket.

Like I can handle it. Wow. Wow. No, it's like we don't want to like deify. No. Ted Turner. And we don't, I mean, let's be honest, we do want to defy Michael Eisner. But if we're being realistic, you know, like, look, CEOs are all bad and they're all overpaid.

But at least, where was a time where there was like trickle down, literally like, because Ted Turner's crazy, a wrestler gets to do something crazy or an adult swim guy gets to do something crazy. Right. That's true. And this just just feels like that, all right, that's sealed up, not happening. People believed something. Like they had heat, at least the impression of humanity. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Oldman or whatever. There's no attempt to convey the miles.

There's no eyes. Yeah, yeah, the eyes are weird. So anyways, I just, so it gets greenlit. Give it a shot. Just keep that number low. Steve Burke chooses the Glendale Gallery, very close to the Disney lot and very close to us. We've certainly talked about the Glendale Gallery a bunch.

It kind of remains a little bit of a locked in time. Perennially 80s mall, it's one of those where they can't ever fully scrape the 80s out of it. And I love it. That's why it remains one of my favorite malls. And it does like, it remains a little bit of like an attraction mall, I feel. And I think we're lucky to be near. I mean, things come and go. They had that void stuff that we did for a little while.

But like, I don't know. It's more interesting than the typical mall to this day, I might say. I think we were all close to ones. The Glendale Galleria, the Woodfield Mall, the King of Prussia Mall, these are giant malls that were often used as test markets for things like Six Flags Roller Coaster Cuts. Six Flags Roller Coaster Cuts. Yeah, another shoot from the hip. We're doing great.

Let's do it. Let's turn our roller coaster brand into a child's haircut place. But now malls, of course, where we go for our climbing gyms and slime factories and churches and shady escape rooms and blind box toly stores and VR experiences that no one is doing yeah i don't even mean the void the void is i was i was at uh oh yeah very much dying uh third street promenade yesterday and just walking by like the most unpleasant one guy in a helmet who looks mad at whatever he's doing and there's room for like 60 more people all to be in various gyrosy

spheres and being turned around and no one is doing it. Which one was that? Do you remember what that one was? Was there any like IP? I don't know the brands. I'm just wondering was there like a, you know. No, just a bunch of like word soup on the wall.

Yeah, and kind of some like light lazery. Oh, Mike's going to become a gyrosphere guy. Well, they're fine. I mean, just for the health benefits. Who doesn't like a gyrosphere? Bill Maher probably uses a gyrosphere. Steve Harvey probably has it in his health. I'll be in a gyrosphere if it helps me.

You were a big, like, Boy in the Bubble, like Jake Gyllenhaal bubble boy movie. You know what I started trying to... What was that called? Was that just called? Bubble boy. Which is different than the made-for-TV movie. Boy in the plastic bubble. Boy in the plastic.

Yeah, I think that was a little more serious. Yeah. But also so funny. I hadn't watched it until recently. It's really funny. But not as good as I've, same director, I believe, Eve Plum for the Brady Bunch in Dawn Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. incredible TV movie highly recommended I started I was about to say I started having a little

like olive oil every morning because I saw Paul Anka does it you're chasing what you're looking to it past that I looked at well I go Paul Inca's doing real well he's true he's doing well so I did some research and I go you know this actually like it seems like like what is this like basically like salad dressing it's not crazy it's not like so caloric it's not so dangerous Mediterranean died those Greeks are always just I thought too, I go, well, let's see what happens. Did you go in for the bulletproof coffee trend? Do you remember that?

From like 10, 15 years ago? Not really. I mean, I started drinking coffee probably like six years ago, and now I've basically stopped. I'll have one once in a while. This was like coffee with grass-fed butter and coconut oil. Sounds good to me. He doesn't to me.

I think it's awful. I think this. Butter and anything is good. Those are flavors I want in coffee. Yes, you do. I don't. No, I don't. I think it also really made you shit your brains out. So if you do it with the carnivore diet, you would end up a normal person, maybe.

What's the name of the chart? How high are we getting on that chart? The Bristol chart? How high of a Bristol are we getting when it's butter coffee? Negative two. It grows arms and legs, puts on a fedora, picks up a suitcase, and starts walking away. walks to the doctor walks to the doctor thanks for pooping me into existence uh well good luck on the anchor diet um i anyways uh uh i you know when i go to the glendale gallery i do still feel it

because i know the spot oh yeah was i believe it is now an anthropology yeah but it's a corner of the mall i think i do still feel the magic a little bit knowing that this was the site of the first disney store that this is where like eisener would literally come in and disguise in a hoodie and walk around and do kind of like spot checking and his life at that time where he works in a building that is held up by the seven dwarves yeah and then he and then walks through a bunch of giant pillars gets in his car and goes to like you know see how the how the carpets looking at the Glendale gallery uh before having to go call like make sure bet middler's happy on the set of down and out in beverly hills oh to be eisner at this time uh uh um

But anyways, I, did it move? Sorry, did it move the Disney store? Was it always in the same spot? So like when it closed, because like I went to the one there before it closed. Like I was going there and I would pop in there before it closed in the gallery. It's possible that it downsized and moved to a different because that's a pretty, it's a pretty like wide location. It's a spot I like in the mall because it's right above a little escalate. Like we have a tiniest little escalators to like a mini floor to a being John Malkovich seven and a half floor.

So just fun little like a little mall nook that I liked. Steve Burke brings this thing in under budget. He gets done for like 450. So they're looking, all right, oh, this is good. You got this done efficiently under budget. There was Eisner and Wells, March 28, 1987. The day before they went to Paris to sign the final agreement with John, Jacques Chirac to build Euro-Disniland.

So big Paris announcement, not the one where they were pelted by eggs and vegetables. I think this one went well. But like historic announcement of we are planting a new park in Paris. Then they fly all night to be in Glendale, Superior City to Paris. Of course. Yeah. At 10 in the morning for the opening of the Disney store. So crazy.

Yeah, yeah. Again, his life, his life at this time. I'm hopping on the Concord to go to the Glendale Caleria. Oh, man. This is why he's the ultimate man. He lived the ultimate life. He did everything. He created our childhoods and lived it and appreciated it.

This is why we can't not deify him. Yeah, yeah, of course. Steve Burke, who set this whole thing up, a lot is on his shoulders. He talks about this in the training video. He's like, I was tossing and turning all night. I got no sleep. I'm driving to Glendale. paranoid, like what disaster have I wrought?

And he gets there and there's a gigantic line. And he says, what's this for? And he doesn't even know that it is excitement for the Disney store. Huge extravaganza, massive upon arrival. There's footage in this great, it's called Welcome to the Disney Store, 1992 introduction training video. And you can see footage from the opening where, like, yeah, huge crowd and great footage. Like, I mean, just all the signage is so great.

And a great figure of Donald just doing like a loop of a wheelie and a Hawaiian on a skateboard and Hawaiian shirt and helmet and pads. Donald is being safe. It's just and there's the Mickey Ear balloons. It's just so grand. And I think this was the case for a little while. They'd like put on little musical shows when they would open these places. It was insane. Yeah.

Any of the footage of that stuff is, I guess really what I was saying before, where you're like, it felt like the world, anything was possible, it felt like you were going into Mickey's house in some ways. In the same way, it felt like you were like, maybe it was more like a portal in some ways.

If you had been to Disney World. Yeah. You almost felt like this is like a satellite thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, because it's not only the characters, but that stuff I was fixated on to like little pink TV. That's more important, honestly. Yeah, because that's actually like the texture.

Right. That fills the hotel. and the transportation and all the other. There's parts of the Disney store that felt like you're on the monorail or something. Yes, right. And that's, you probably couldn't articulate it as a kid. As a kid, you would say, oh, I like seeing the plush. I like seeing the toys.

Yeah. But you don't know that you actually just like being surrounded by that aesthetic. Yeah. And for a while, you could buy Disney dollars there. Yes. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think I ever realized that as a kid.

Would you have done it is what you're saying? Maybe one or two bucks. Every day going and get a couple. I mean, I needed those U.S. dollars for comic books and arcade games, so. Yeah, and you couldn't pay in Disney dollars in your comic store. Couldn't pay in Disney dollars at Aladdin's Castle or the comic store. That was been fun if you could. Not transferable.

You could also buy Disneyland tickets. And that was a great feeling. Like, sure you could go do it at the ticket booth. But the feeling of, and I do remember doing that once and how excited I felt, like, how thoughtful of my mom. And we're going to go. I get the. little experience, the little preview that I go there and we buy the tickets and now I have the tickets. And if we aren't going for another month, I know these are in the house. This is a guarantor

that I will be going to Disneyland soon enough. Did you use the video kiosk to get them? Could you get them with a video? Is that what I was just looking at even? Well, that later on, I think of the 2000s they installed like a video kiosk, a touchscreen, early video, early touchscreen kind of like, oh, you can go. Because, there were multiple, there were so many phases of the Disney store. Like at some point they had a high tech version. And then at some point, oh, Steve Jobs is going to redesign these stores. Oh, right, right.

In the 2009, 2010. And it didn't look cool and sleek like the Apple store. It just looked very cold and sterile. Yeah. And then Donald's there, Donald and Mickey are. The whole gang's there. but like it's kind of harsh lighting. There's like a castle inside, but kind of like a more functional, like a bland castle.

Oh, invisible shelves, cool. You can get those at Hakea. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I guess he was part of the demise of this in a way. But at the height when things were good, this specific, the one Glendale Gallery store within a year was generating $1,000 per square foot, which is about three times the industry average. the equivalent of about $2 million annually. And is some of this because Eisner is around spot checking,

making sure that the details are right? I think would, I think 1,000%. He picked the style of uniform that the cast members. That's another thing. They're cast members too. Just like in the park and they have to do a lot of the same training that the park employees do. And they wore very like, it was like college like a cappella group type.

like sweaters, a very like Mickey Mouse Club, but with 80s colors and that was Eisner's doing. He picked the uniform. Another brilliant move. Also, from that original gallery location, just a few miles from the Imagineering headquarters.

So not only are the executives in Burbank keeping an eye on it, but the Imagineers are right there. And just in that too, imagining like the greats who are building the attractions that will shape our childhoods and then they're also like running over to the beautiful brick, the glorious, newish Glendale Galleria.

You mentioned pandemic lockdown era, and that was a regular. We would get in the car and just drive around the machineering just to see if there was anything going on. There was, you know, probably 2021 or late 2020. You could see the like safety netting where they would, clearly probably be the Spider-Man launching the animatronic. Where they were testing the robotics. That was right off the road. Yeah, yeah.

And it was nice knowing that like, well, something's going on in there. And when all this is over, we get to go see that. And hopefully, fingers crossed, fly to a wall one day. Do you think Eisner ever popped into the Spencer's Gifts after he was done looking at the Disney store? Just for a chuckle? He had teenage sons with crude taste. That's right. Maybe buy something for them.

Breck, I got you this, who shard it? Teachers. They all had a good laugh. He gave notes about everything. At one point he complained about dirty carpets he saw in a store, and he half joked, this is the army. And he's right, because the carpets were this, like, this, like, great 80s color, confetti carpet, basically,

like very old movie theater style. And that's got to be sparkling. And that's going to wear down instantly. He's absolutely right. This is the army and we're his loyal soldiers. And we, yes, we self-enlisted. Hi, I, sir. Voluntarily enlisted.

I do, you know, you were asking if, like, you go from animatronics to, like, all these themed experiences and stuff. It was, you know, talking about the statues in all the Disney stores did remind me of the, like, handmade animal stools at the rainforest cafe. Yes, yeah, yeah. And that, like, oh, it's weird. As malls started get shittier, people stopped going to them. Huh, that's strange. Yeah. How did that?

Why did that occur? Yes, yeah, yeah. No, and, yes, but more, everything's generic and everything's the same. And, yeah, there's not, like, yeah, the human touch. Yeah. Things. It was so excited. I realized I'd never sat in one of those until this past October.

And what a thrill. We've talked about, you know, if you had, like, I mean, at this point, maybe it's impossible to ever have like a nice big house in Los Angeles. But if you did have a little room, would it now be more of Disney store aesthetic versus some other kind of like little themed room that you could create? I do think like old school TV within a box like this. I think if I could find somebody to help to like select the exact colors and bring to life just this little little panel of the Disney stuff.

Those like CRT, good quality CRTV TVs are getting it. spend the fees you are like there is this trend a lot of place covered the trend of like stuff people craving analog you know and craving physical media yeah yeah yeah understandably no if i could if i just had like a parks loop going on that thing yeah suggestion box i guess just i guess that'll be for me to read right visitors have any suggestions sure uh anyways um just as as far as side note i guess about, you know, this immediate smash success of the Disney store. Steve Burke, I don't think I had put together, goes on to become one of the most successful executives ever.

He went from this to running Euro-Disney and is kind of credited with, like, helping to steady the ship there. He goes on to become president of ABC, then is not picked. People are, I think he maybe thought he could run parks. He's not picked in favor of Paul Pressler, who was his successor at the Disney stores. weirdly, who then goes on to a pretty odd and battled era that nobody's very fond of in the parks.

Instead, Burke bails and goes to Comcast, becomes the president of Comcast, eventually CEO of NBC Universal, and he is the CEO who buys out Blackstone's stake in the Universal parks, thus bringing them under full control of NBC

Universal. Steve Burke, basically, they got all of the recent expansion, new hotels in Orlando, buying the land that becomes Epic Universe, down on Harry Potter all this guy, all the guy who like literally thought of the Disney store. Wow. Yeah. And he's still, what is he right now? Is he still involved? I think he now is retired, but like advises on on a lot. And, uh, um, yeah. But I like, I mean, like, we all, we remember the, like, kind of, uh, odd era of universal where it keeps changing hands and like, is this just

like a small part of a liquor enterprise now? Like, does anyone care about these? And I guess it does feel like his era of Universal is where it becomes, no, they are a big part of our corporation and we are going to do a lot with theme parks. A lot of mixed emotions going out round on Universal News. About what?

Well, Hot Talk Hall of Famous Closing. I had a Nerd Hall of Famous Closing, but it's being replaced with Joey Fetone's fat ones. Hot dogs. Another hot dog store. Hot dogs and Italian Isis. So I'm sad to see

Hot Talk Hall of Fame go away because I really liked it. Yeah, I know. We gave it a good review. But I'm curious about these Italian ice is. Right. And then Mythos closing at some point in 2027. Yeah, you must be heartbroken. I did say to Jade, I was like, do I take a trip to eat at Mythos and try fat ones?

Much to consider. Oh, yeah. Yes, there's the Muppets roller coaster, but also, but I'm kind of laser focused here. When do those open? When do we know? When does Mithos close? When does fat ones open? Meth those, they, I think it's just some point in 2027.

I don't know when fat ones open. I think Hotterall Call of Fame is closing maybe in the summer. There's a lot of infrastructure probably to install. Yeah, I don't, I don't think we're going to see a lot of changes. So, but we'll see. I mean, I like the stadium, you know, the ballpark stadium aesthetic, too. Is he the one who was, he was like the wolfman and the Beetlejuice show or whatever? I do think he's like an Orlando guy.

Oh, yeah, he lives in Orlando. Well, what a, could you even have dreamed? You're working in the parks. I know. And then you've got your own restaurant. For approximately two years in change, you will have your own restaurant at CityWalk. Yeah, until another hot dog. replaces it.

Different celebrity hot dog. Jason Sheridan's hot dog roundup or something. There's some condos backstage at Universal where it's like, oh, Joey Faton lives there and those two twins

from the Harry Potter movies live there and they just wheel them out every now and that. They're here so often. Yeah. Yeah. Marty Gras coming up and we got a ribbon cut

like a new, I don't know, pants store that's not going to last. City Walk or something. Hey, bring out the twins, you know. Who are the most getable celebrities? Who don't we have to fly in? Anyways, Disney Store, hugely successful out of the gate.

They opened a second one on Pier 39 in San Francisco. Third one at Main Place Santa Ana. A mall still, a mall that's kind of a weird disappearing mall, but one that's in my rotation that I'll visit every once in a while. Didn't realize it was the site of the third Disney. store. That's pretty close to Disneyland. And there was a question at the time, a question that was posed to Eisner of like, well, do you think that's like conflict? Will it like cut into the merch sales at Disneyland or vice versa?

Is it weird at a Disney store so close to Disneyland? How successful do you see Orange County being? And he said this in an interview. Let me put it this way. The other stores are the Star Wars or the ET or the Raiders of the Lost Ark of the Retails. They are successful beyond any of the estimates we had projected. So, and then they, and then they say a figure of like, is it making $130 per square foot? How are these doing?

And he says, it's over that by leaps and bounds when we're like five or six times that. He is, so he's as cocky as pushington himself. And that's cocky. And that's, that's the water, the high benchmark of cocky. So, anyways, huge, they expands to, they, they, finally go outside of California. Bridgewater, New Jersey is the first outside of the state. You ever go to that one? I don't know that I have. I'm not, I can't quite picture where Bridgewater is. Okay. But then they start

expanding across the country. They go to London and Tokyo by 1990. There's 78 of them. At the peak in 1997, there's 749 Disney stores worldwide. At some point in this run, we get yours, Mike and Schaumbar, which is one of the two, the other being Montclair, the one that I visited, one of the two, to attempt the Mickey's Kitchen, fast food enterprise next door. Maybe its own story, maybe its own thing to go into. But I forget, did you go during the Mickey's Kitchen era? Yes, for sure. And that was a big deal.

That we were going there for that. Yeah. We were going to eat. I think we went with my mom's friend and her kids. And it was a whole, yeah, it was a whole thing. And we went, we ate there at absolutely like once. And that was it. Boy, yeah.

Well, seems like that was the deal. And I know it wasn't there so long, but it felt like, yes. No one was so impressed with the experience. Sure, sure. They pulled this pretty fat. This is like what Eisner said of like, can't we just try it with the Disney store? That's, again, what happened with Mickey's Kitchen. But in that case, the trying was not good and didn't work.

It is also funny. I don't know if it's like just the food being bad is why that didn't work. It seems like it. But like, how hard was that? I don't know. That just seems weird. Yeah. You can make a pretty delicious grilled cheese by using butter.

Doesn't have to be grass fed, but just using a bunch of butter. And I feel like our grilled cheese was bad. It's no more complicated than making a coffee. Just put a bunch of butter in there. No mayonnaise. Mayonnaise? That's the diner's secret to, like, good grilled cheese. Maynate burns more evenly and spreads evenly in butter.

I'm just saying, like, why was the food bad? What did they mess up? I don't know. Or did they go to like the Robert Earl school? of food. They knew. Oh, I've got a suggestion for you. You make the food bad.

It's going to be shite. Terrible. Because that was, I, you make a good point, because I remember all our maws seem to have Burger Kings on them. They were always packed. Like, how could they not just

do that? The level of Burger King. Well, maybe because that's, those are companies that that's what they do. I guess they'd come out of the gate and say. By the way, do you remember a few years ago, I've probably talked about this, that perfectly preserved, like, 80s, 90s, Burger King, they found behind some construction walls in a mall.

Wow, wow. Oh, yeah. That was in one of my, that was in the Concord Mall in Delaware. That was like 15 minutes from the house I grew up. Did you eat Whoppers there? I ate there all the time. Wow, really? And when I saw the footage, I was like, looks like the one that used to be at the Concord,

because it was. Wow, really? Wow. I remember getting the Woody and Bulldogs. like Happy Meal or the Burger King Pants Club toys. Or 95. I never had full-sized ones, but I was like, yeah, there's a good enough. Buzz has a button and you push it and his wings pop out.

What was your order as a kid at Burger King? That's good. Well, I liked their chicken nuggets a lot. They're like kind of long chicken nuggets. And I would douse them in that terrible honey. The bad honey dipping cups. Like poo bear? Yeah, basically.

And then I would eventually graduate to Wopper Jr.'s, which I think is still my preferred burger thing. A Wopper Jr. You did not graduate one further time. You were held back at Wopper Jr. It's too big. I don't like a false-sized whopper. I'm a little guy.

I can't handle it. This has all been said before. You cannot eat a big Wopper because you are a little guy. I'm a little guy. And it's also weird. Because of height? You can't have a... Mike's got room.

There's a little with his taller spine. There's only so many places. He's got room up in his big tall head. To put it... Oh, he was getting triple quarter pounders or something. What was your... Well, I think you're recalling that I, for a certain point, thought that as you just got older, you would always just add an extra patty every couple of years.

So there was a point where McDonald's was like doing a triple cheeseburger. I think you probably still can get it, but it's not on the menu anymore. And I was just like, well, I guess, you know, I'm 15 or 16. It's time to eat a triple cheeseburger. That's just the way things go. With every decade you graduate up, you know, if you're Paul Anka, you're in your 80s, then you do an octuple. Of course. That would only make sense.

Just math. Also, let's say it's weird the wopper doesn't default come with cheese. That's really strange. Big Mac comes with cheese. What are you doing? This is precisely one of these. What has just happened is a comment that. I just fuzzed out and have no opinions about cut to many, many comments.

Jason has spoken out finally. It has been said. You'll go to a doughboys entirely about the statement you just made. I also, I'm saying that as I gently have placed a hand on this Captain Cacal plush. Who's just sitting next to you on the couch. One of Jane's clients who was also a listener sent this for me because when we were there, they were all sold out. and now they're everywhere at University of Orlando. Yes.

We're under the impression that this would be popular. Yeah, I bought Captain Kekau for my daughter, and Captain Kekau has not taken off with her. I'll say this, unfortunately. Should have brought it back for me. Well, I guess I could take it from her now and give you so you have two. I have one. You got a second in command over there.

You could have a plush pile of Captain Kaka. Over on the SS Jason's couch. Do you ever make a plush pile for your daughter? Of course. Yeah, of course. We do it all the time. Yeah. We dump them all out of the stuffy basket and she just dives in.

Yeah, of course. She loves diving that you mentioned. Oh, my God. She tried to climb the bookcase two days ago. Diving off the things. Mom leaves to do something for work or something. She gets like very frustrated and she takes it out on me and just does a bunch of crazy stuff around the house.

I turn around. She's like halfway up the bookcase. I'm like, what are you doing? She knows she can mess with daddy. She's trained. Of course she can. Yeah. She's trying to get as tall as you.

She can fit all those whoppers inside her. Sure. She loves, yeah, she loves cheeseburgers. She's winging Christopher Pike books at your head. She loves to get on top of the bed, our bedrooms, the headboard on our bed, which is a very thin piece of wood or whatever. She likes to get on top of it and hurl herself off on the bed. Sounds like you've got a professional wrestler in the main king. Yeah.

Well, she yelled, I'm a jacked wrestler the other day. Wow. Wow. She does, she goes, let's a wrestle. I'm not showing her a lot of wrestling either. I just make that clear. I'm not like making her violent. Sure, sure. She just has aggression she has to get out.

No, the forced content absorption is not wrestling. It's like making her listen to fastball or whatever. There's a wide variety. This is what all people like, not just daddy, you understand? A wide variety of crap that she listens to. A wide variety. All the kids at school are just singing K. pop demon hunters and she's in there going like can you put on 311?

Come original. That's what, 311. I'm raising a little sparks fan so I'm no one to talk. He loves getting the swing. Other stuff as far as like the boom of, I'm trying to think of like notable stores or, well I say, you know, there was one at the Century City Mall one that's come up here and there, home of dive in some of our little expeditions, why Ronald Reagan was in that Disney store in 1989,

his first Christmas shopping trip post-presidency. Wow. First time he could finally get out of that stuffy building and go buy a couple of mice. A major moment in U.S. history. Yeah, that should be taught in the history books. There should be a plaque. I had never heard that.

Even though it's not a... Yep, now you know. Yeah. Did, if you were ever ever... wondering, did Ronald Reagan go to a Disney store? Yes, he did. By 1990, they were opening two new stores every month. Every one of them at a million visitors a year. And they would do these, like, huge over there.

They opened one at another Orange County Mall, South Coast Plaza. In that one, like, goofy cruised the parking lot in a 1959 pink Cadillac. Mickey and Minnie were sock hop dancing in 50s outfits. These were extravaganzas. Yeah. Sock hop dancing. There were, I feel like when I was in middle. school. There were multiple sock-hop themed school dances for 10 and 11-year-olds.

Yeah, for sure. Boomer teachers and parents loved the safe theming of sock-hops. So-cops needed to be pushed. But did you not care for the sock-hops? Uh-huh. No, I liked it. I just didn't have a leather jacket and made me really anxious that I didn't have one. Ten-year-old sized. We got it. We got it to these kids, we'll get the sock-ops. Otherwise, you're going to be listening. to NWA and we can't play that at school dances. In 1995. Yeah. I was going to talk about the Pound Puppie's song.

That's a parody of the hop, the song The Hop. You know what I'm talking about? Well, you've already talked about it. The Pound Puppies cartoon had like a parody, you know, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-that song at the hop. and this one was at the Pound. They remember there was a parody and I knew that. Perfect.

As a child, I knew. is a parody of that song. So I knew the reference to like a sock hop. You had a leg up on that pound puppies ad. You had an end that the other children did not have. I did, yeah. It made me better than them. It made me smarter and cooler.

Sorry. This was confirmed by a teacher. I just want to point out to everybody something that Michael told me. He understands the reference in the pound puppies ad. Do any of you? Raise your hand if you do. All right. Well, Michael is the king of the class for the rest of the semester.

I remember, oh, now I'm thinking about it. I don't think I've ever said this. In seventh grade, we were talking about like lay mis, which I had never, I didn't know anything about lay miss at seventh grade. And they were talking about like Jean Valjean. And I knew the reference because there was some reference to it on Star Trek Voyager. And I had to tell the teacher this. And I remember just that she could have cared less.

I can remember, I don't even know that I would have told you at the time she didn't care about it. But my memory now is that she just had no reaction. It's like, okay. Well, thank you. whatever like thank you for that and I remember feeling like satisfied with myself but totally waste of time to even bring it up who cares that that kind of happened to me in fifth grade because there's a step-by-step episode episode that's a parody of old detective movies and i knew i love the parodies and then eventually got to the old detective movies but we had to do a creative writing exercise and i think

I just wrote a summary of that step-by-step episode. You just described? Just described and changed a few names. And I don't think anyone cared. Yeah. They had fun with that one. You know, anytime you can get out of the house. When you can do a little, you know, I think any, right,

if any sitcom gets to comment on how the film noir's would have narration, and then somebody would say, like, who you're talking to or something? Like the meta comments on the... Sure. And now we're having fun. This is a comedy writer's dream. They're making $500,000 an episode as per in Eiseners era to write great film noir parody shows.

Also, there's like three or four that happened every. Like, it was not. They just honed in on that. Yeah, that's one of those. I'd be curious, the actual entomology. Yeah, yeah. What did this year? She had gam so tall.

Boy, you could fit 60 woppers in. in those things. That was with Jason's inner monologue. You're describing it. She looked like her legs were as tall as the wappas. The games could pack a bunch of woppas. Any number of Wapper juniors.

The girl from the Burger King Kids Club walked in the room. And wowsers. Anyways, I mean, you know, so then it's just like early 90s are just like glory days for these. They expand.

The one that eventually shows up at a lot of malls, including the one close to me, It's like, do you remember this other brand where it's like a, it's not the film strip style, but it's like a red ribbon and a big, like, Mickey Star and I don't think I ever experienced it. It was okay. And it still had characters on top, you know, Mickey's still got a bullhorn or whatever and flounders in the whole scene. It wasn't as, as good, but I still have fond memories about those. They branch in all this other stuff, too. There's the Walt Disney Gallery, which is its own thing for like, if you want like complicated ties in China, uh, that absolutely. abstractly represent Mickey Mouse.

Yeah. Go to the Walt Disney Gallery. A lot of touch screens happening in those, very like factory pomo aesthetic. So like, and then beyond that, just extra like ESPN stores are happening. Like there was a time where it felt like this is a big part of the business or these, these brick and mortar stores. There was, I think there was one called Disney Play. Disney Kids, Disney Play. Okay.

In India, I was trying to find it earlier. I don't know if it was successful or if it closed. There was a change just called Disney jeans. Really? And that is the most generic phrase. So it's impossible to search because you just keep ending up with jeans that have Mickey Mouse patches. Sure. But the, ooh, well, if anyone weirdly knows about that, please tell us where to find more information about Disney jeans.

Disney jeans. Was this store? One store, you think? I don't know. There was not a lot about it from what I could find. Bizarre. Okay, we'd love to know more about Disney Jeans. You know, and obviously they inspire all these other plays. You know, Warner Brothers does a story. Hannah Barbera did one for a bit. There was a Sesame Street General store for a while.

This really, like, kicked off a trend. And some might say, you know, started the notion that malls could have sort of odd, more heavily themed stuff. I feel like it has to influence, you know, the places like the rainforest. cafe and you know malls being a little more experiential but then they start kind of declining just for the reason everything declined it's just it's online like the fall the fall quote unquote of the disney store is not terribly interesting or unique i wouldn't say like you know it's the things you've said a thousand times it's like uh yeah just everything goes online and then you know the movies aren't super hits oh that's true yeah i guess prior to the caribbean gets a

little traction and it got Disney dollars. Sure, sure. They were still around when the movie started back on the upswing, though. Yeah. They didn't close too long ago. And they still existed. There just maybe wasn't that particular magic of the 80s, 90s. I'm sure it was all doing fine.

At some point, they sold the entire thing to the brand, the Children's Place, who had just, that's in 2004, and Disney had so many, like, strict rules operationally, and they were just at odds all the time. It was just not a fit for who. who to run it and the stores stopped feeling like the stores. And in 2008, I think the children's place folded entirely. And then Disney bought the brand back at a discount. And then Steve Jobs fiddling with it, as you were saying. But it just never, it just, it was never the same. It never went back to the confetti carpet glory days. Yeah. I guess it can't. I mean,

that's is one of those things where like we always lament like, can't something be the way it was. And I guess, I guess it's hard to do that to like, it feels like you could do like a like, oh, it's like a nostalgia pop up for it, but I guess it probably wouldn't just work if they did it again. There would have to be changes to it, but I don't want to accept that. Yeah. I just wish it could be. I really wish, like, if we wish hard enough, could it be? That's what I'm getting at.

Disney themselves have taught us that if we wish hard enough for anything, it will come true. Yeah. I mean, I wonder if there's a way, like, I don't know, like Pop Martin, all these other different toy stores that, but like, was there a way where, like, consumer products at Disney, like, figured out tricks, like, blind boxes and stuff and, like, figured out like a Luboo for Disney that you would get at a Disney store that could like fund the retail space again and at least give us like a fun place to look at in the mall. But at this point are they not just like selling that in other places?

Oh, I have Pop Mart Disney stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like it's like it's kind of like better, more savvy partnerships with other. It's smarter, but it's not as fun. Like a lot of the decisions the CEOs make these days. Yeah, licensing is not as fun. Yeah, yeah.

But if I could backtrack a little bit in the history, this was always something that was an issue when trying to develop the Disney store. Was the notion of, like, do we run it ourselves or do we pass this off to somebody else, people who know what they're doing in the retails? Do we strengthen partnerships? Like, even with the success of the Disney store, then it became, all right, we're going to keep opening these. We want to have, like, you know, maybe we could have dozens of these things. But at that point, Eisner starts asking the question, who's going to run it? Like, who's qualified to run? Like, if this becomes a true big wing of the company, do we do this ourselves?

Or is this a smart time to pass it off to people who know what they're doing? Yeah. And at this point, and this is all from Eisner's book, Work in Progress, I believe. He has a conversation with somebody who is like a giant in the retail space, who owns many of the, you know, the biggest stores that we'd all recognize the names. And he asks the opinion of this guy, maybe even feeling out, like, is this something that you would be interested in? And here's what this big retail bigwig says. When you've got a good concept, you can run it on enthusiasm and energy for the first couple of years.

But once you hit 50 stores or so, it becomes a science. Unless you've got those skills, it will fail. Why don't you let us run them? And Eisner thinks about it, but he goes back to what happened with the hotels, where maybe Marriott should run the Disney World hotels. And he's like, no, but what they're proposing is boring. And I think we could do this ourselves and do it better and more unique. And that's how you get your, you know, your Yadden Beach clubs and your board watch. And, you know, they're a really great era for hotels.

So he goes, you know what? I think we are going to keep this in-house. And Steve Burke, I think, has shown enough promise that he can run this himself. And, you know, we can grow this into a brand and do it the right way. I want to see the other 99 ideas he came up with. Yes, yeah, yeah. Some of them might have been implemented. Yeah, that's true.

Totally different stores. Yeah, yeah. But what I just read, I left out that person's name who Eisner consulted with. The person who he talked to and considered handing the brand over to is the person who, among the stores, this person ran, the limited, Abercrombie, Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works. And these were all under the brand umbrella of a guy named Les Wexner. That is who Eisner spoke to about taking over the Disney store. Now, if you don't know Les Wexner, besides that he is known for running those companies,

that I just said, he was the first billionaire client of an ultimately quite prominent New York financier Jeffrey Epstein goes by the name of Jeffrey Epstein. He gave, like, he signed his whole like money to Jeffrey Epstein to manage. He gave this millions of billions of dollars. gave him the power of attorney at some point, which I think is a rare thing for like a financial advisor to be given. Basically, and I don't know, all the ins and outs of this, but when you look into the rise of Jeffrey Epstein, the entire empire was the seed money where he truly skyrocketed and the wealth grew. And he was able to expand his brand in the various ways that he expanded the Epstein brand.

all on the back of less Wexner's money. And now flashback to if you ever shopped at the Limited or Victoria's Secret or raised bodyworks in the 90s, just think about that. But now add this component. This all, he took over Wexner's finances right around 1987. That's when the Disney store began. This conversation probably happened a few years into the growth of the Disney store, probably in like 89 or something.

So by this point, Epstein firmly entrenched as this is where Wexner's money goes. If Eisner had taken this phone call, if he had gone a different way with this advice, this could have been an absolute fire hose of money straight from the Walt Disney company to the pockets of Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, it's a crazy, like cross-road moment. Yeah. Yes. To where today we would be, well, maybe today we wouldn't be talking about any of it because Disney would have made some calls and made it all go away.

But if not, yeah, there could be depositions we could be looking at like his Eisner on the stand or whatever. There's, I mean, this is such a, I don't, we can't talk about all this stuff that I've read over these years about all this stuff because it would be a different podcast. So the whole thing is wild and like this Les Wexner guy who's still alive, by the way. Uh-huh. Yes. And he's the guy, if anybody caught this clip or if he didn't catch the clip, where he finally has had to like actually talk to some people.

Somebody finally decided to ask him a question. Maybe this guy might know something, even though he said like, oh, I got real mad when I found out. I fired him right away. Cut the emails two years later. They're still chatting all the time. So he was on the stand a couple months ago. And he's, I don't know what he was.

He was going on and on with some question. And then his lawyer says, give me a minute. And he brings them over and whispers in his ear. But of course, the mic is strong enough to pick. it up. He whispers in Les Wexner's ear, I will fucking kill you. I will fucking kill you if you answer more questions with more than five words. And then they both turn back to the, whatever the guy running the deposition with big smiles as if that didn't happen. And as if we didn't hear every bit of it because it didn't turn away from the mic enough.

It's insane. It's insane. But just, yeah, truly a pivotal Disney moment. Like this is, and, you know, we can't, again, don't want to deify Eisner too much. I don't think he what he was doing in this moment. But accidentally, he like, you know, like Bell at the fork in the road, where do I go on the horse? He like avoids this is an entirely, and think about how much faster Epstein's empire could have risen. I mean, with like if buoyed by the financial support of the Disney store and the Walt Disney Company. Our nice, our wonderful, innocent, confetti carpet pink and blue stores could have absolutely like tripled the rise of the greatest criminal mastermind. Anyway, congratulations to Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown who just received a Pulitzer for her Epstein investigations.

Okay. Well, what specifically did she uncover? I think all of it. He's a bad guy. I agree. Yeah, wrote a book about it. Worse than Radigan, she said.

Well, that illustrates it perfectly. Now, Eiser could have cut Weinstein on earlier. That would have been the good. Yeah, but he might have been aware of something. It seems like if you were like next to him ever, you were probably aware of something. But this is a very good decision he makes here. Maybe accidentally. Accidentally, but yeah, truly correct.

How much worse could the world have been if he had just handed the Disney stores over to the limited? That advice sounded pretty good from Mr. Wexter. Sure, yeah. Also, Wexters made some not good decisions, and it's a good thing that Eisner went another way with it. However, I think it is important at this juncture, as we've, the theme of this episode has been deifying Eisner, not doing it, whatever you want to do. I think we have to ask ourselves a difficult question, an uncomfortable question.

And that question is this. Is Michael Eisner in the Epstein files? What is the question? You know, I don't know I did not look it up. He has to appear. Well, I have the answer. Yeah. I decided I did the homework here.

Because as you, you know, if you don't know, you can like go to a website and put a person's name in. Yes, put any name that you're interested in or your own name. Put Robin Leach's name in, for instance. That'd be an interesting one to do. Probably a lot of people who've come up on the show over the years. But Michael Eisner, this would be how inconvenient of a truth. Would this be if he was in the Epstein Files? Now, being in the Epstein Files is a very open-ended thing.

Right. And I can say that he is in them. He is referenced in them. But how? This is an important step. I don't know the answer to this. There are two major ways in which he is referenced in the Epstein Files. One is in the year 2013, there is a studio lot in Culver City in Los Angeles called the Culver Studios.

A historic lot where lots of crazy stuff has been shot. from original King Kong and Citizen Kane to a little bit of 60s Batman. Baywatch ended up there. Many of the finest pieces of entertainment ever made. This was open in like the 20s or the 30s. Thomas, I'm going to say it wrong. I'm going to say that. Inky.

Thomas Inkey, I bet. I'll just go with that. He could be probably more likely. Ince. Either way. He owns the studio a lot until he has to give it up because he suspiciously dies

on William Randolph Hearst's yacht. Probably fine. Probably, yeah, no, nothing to look into. Was Robert Wagner on the yacht? A young... He was a baby. It's where he learned. Anyway, then it gets bought by Cecil B. DeMille.

Just interesting history in general for a studio that today isn't terribly interesting. I've only been there once, and it's because I did a day as an extra on a deal or no deal. So I associate this with being extremely bored. But, you know, still like a good piece of property. And in 2013, it was up for sale.

A chance to be in the great lineage of the guy who died on Hearst's yacht. And a bunch of people were bidding on it and some people were advising Epstein. This might be a good investment for you. You should get in the game. There's only a few other bidders. One of them is Michael Eisner. Perhaps with the right offer. you could beat Michael Eisner and own this historic Hollywood site.

Ultimately, there's later an email saying that, oh, you know, it didn't work out. This other group, the rally group that owns a lot of studios in L.A. They paid $90 million. And they said, like, you know, we were going more low 80s. And I think they overpaid for it. So I think that was a smart booth. And just to reiterate, the other bidders were such and such and such and such. And Michael Eisner.

So that is one way in which Michael Isner. Yeah. They bid against each other for a little Hollywood studio lot. The other one is a little minor, but interesting nonetheless. Long story short, it's some, like, a guy who's trying to raise some capital, some funds to, like, run for office or it's some kind of like political group or pack or something. And he's trying to get, like, big Hollywood money as part of it. And he writes an email to Epstein personally and says, like, you know, I'm wondering if you know anybody who'd be interested in getting involved in this. Perhaps, for instance, Michael Eisner, you remember you introduced me to him at that TED talk?

So that is proof that Eisner and Epstein have met. Right. Doesn't mean that he knew anything, you know, might have just been like, this is a guy who I see at rich people things. Right. So do we feel comfortable now? Still deifying Michael Eisner? Yeah.

Yeah. Just even with that, yeah, even with that information, just knowing that those two did speak, that he did, that at some point Michael Eisner did say, Hello, I'm Michael Eisner, former chairman of the Walt Disney Company, and your name is? Oh, island, huh? Interesting. We own some.

I opened a castaway key for the Disney cruise line. Look, he's so... I think I plotted the islands once. I think I had Google Maps of like, okay, Little St. James Musu Key, Castaway Key, lighthouse point...

Because that's all... That's another thing we know now is that like Copperfield and that they were all like assessing the same islands at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. And Cobberfield might appear a few times. You could see the name David Copperfield. He wasn't able to make that vanish.

Yeah. Was a few photos. Abraka jabra make it disappear. There's a lot of that. But yeah, I don't know. Michael, so far, I mean, like, I don't think that's, we don't have much proof of anything. Could be worse. I don't think it's anything.

And it's, boy, he's, you know what, he's really lucky that he didn't. Nobody said, can I get a picture of you two? Well, that's true. Like I did with him last year. Epstein loved being in pictures. Right. He loved hamming it up for the cam.

And he meant his old Steve Bannon. Yeah. No Chomsky. No Chomsky. That was the name I was trying to. Michael Jackson. We found that one. Yeah.

Did not slow the rise of the incredibly successful movie. Soon Ye is like emailing Epstein a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's really wild.

It really expanded out this cozy crew. And yet the main one that you see of him and Glein remains. It's the two of them, I believe, at the premiere of Batman Forever in New York. Is that what that is? There's one where she is dressed like fucking Sergeant Pepper. She's got like a bunch of little shoulder dangle. She looks like Captain Cacao next to Jason. Oh, yeah.

No. No, he's a good bear. He's a good bear. They made their fashion decisions separate from each other. Anyway, sunlight has destroyed all this, and now only good people are involved in the entertainment industry. Now to take a big sip of coffee and read this story that says, Gina Carrano claims she had a call with Lucasfilm about returning to straw. If that's the number one thing you're worried about, though, I'll tell you.

Oh, there's Sarah Semore. That Carrano-Rowsy fight is coming up. So first time I've ever rooted for the cage in an MMA fund. I've got Calci Betts on the chain link. I'm rooting for the cage. You got like your monologue here prepared. That's right. No, I'm running for the cage.

No. Anyways, but it is just interesting to know that they spoke. But he was able, I think you got to give Eisener a lot of credit that he lives. He's in billionaire world and that he didn't get more involved with this guy. And it was just like a chance meeting at a TED talk apparently. So good for him. It gave me another question, though, because there is a similar figure. And I was like, it would be really interesting.

If there was a little more dirt on this guy, later an enemy of Eisner, is Jeffrey Katzenberg. That's a good question. In the Epstein files. Speed round of this one, there is a exchange where somebody similarly is like, can you introduce me to Jeffrey Epstein? Some assistant says, oh, actually, don't have his contact. info. And the person writes back, it says, oh, I thought you were, I thought you introduced. Okay, well, never mind. We'll leave that alone. So, few. All right. He made it out of that one. Later, though, this is 2012. Somebody's assessing Jeffrey's interest in coming to a movie screening.

He writes back very bluntly, what movie sent from my BlackBerry? Most of the recurring catchphrase of the Epstein Files. Unnamed, redacted person, Trump could be Trump, writes back and says, it's Rise of the Guardian, an amazing animated. Fated film. Jeffrey Katzenberg is positioning for an Oscar. 5 p.m. at Dolby Screening Room Avenue of America's blah, blah, blah, blah. 630 casual dinner at the monkey bar for Katzenberg. If can't make film and want to see Jeffrey K, come XOXOXX, Peg. Is that the name?

I wonder who Peg is. They forgot to redact that one, sent via Blackberry by AT&T. So that implies friendly enough that like, come say hi to Jeff. Do you want to see Jeffrey K? Come see Jeffrey K. Jeffrey E. Meet Jeffrey K. Yeah. Is that the Ows of Gahoul? This was my exact question, Jason.

That's the Rise of the Guardianses, I think. I think that's, let me guess before I look it up. I think that movie is called Legend of the Guardians, the Owls of Gahul. Yeah, I think you see if I'm correct. Yes, that is the Zach Snyder film, Legend of the Guardians, Owls of Gahoole. Oh. The, this other film, what was it, Rise? And this, keep in mind that he's positioning it for an Oscar.

I don't remember how the Oscars played out in 2013. Did Rise of the Guardian cleanup? Did it win like two or more like eight? I don't know. Jason, you know the award season, acclaimings for the movie? I think one battle after another finally unseated the Guardian media.

Oh, for a word's one. Yeah, for awards one. Wow. This is a movie, I believe. The tagline is Legends Unite. Okay. The tagline, not the title. This is Jack Frost.

Yeah. We had, you got, remember when we used to do improv rehearsals and you would come in with Happy Mail toys? Yeah, yeah. There was a Jack Frost. There was a Jack Frost toy from the Rise of the Guardians. Wow. Sitting in my house for the longest time. Wow.

And I think I. What did you do with it? I gave that to you. I gave it away. No, you did it. You left it and forgot about it. No, I gave it to you. I wanted you to have it.

No. It meant a lot to me. To cherish it forever. Rise of the Guardians, and it's like Jack Frost and other mythical creatures. The Guardians themselves are like all of the big, you know, it's about Santa. It's about Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy. Oh, yeah, yeah. And they're all, so like, yeah, there's some kind of like Jedi Council.

They're the wise, but then it's mainly about Jack Frost featuring Alec Baldwin as the voice of Nicholas St. North, aka Santa Claus. I don't think I knew there was an Alec Baldwin. I didn't know that. Well, we live in a Red One world now, and Santa is not a guardian. He's part of the security panopticon hell we live in. He is himself a government asset. Also, Hugh Jackman plays the character E. Astor Bunny Mund. Okay.

But we know him as the Easter Bunny. Yeah, well, you know, it was nominated for Golden Globes, but didn't get, didn't get its Oscar wishes. Perhaps if Jeffrey E. had come to support Jeffrey K. He might have whispered in the ear of, you know, some people hold some sway at the Oscars. Like, I don't know, Sun Yi, they could have helped butter things up and they could have gotten that out. So Jeffrey E really let Jeffrey K. down by not coming out that night. That's too bad. I mean, not really, but too bad. But I feel very thrilled and validated that Mike. Michael E. did not get involved in Jeffrey.

And while we are not happy with the current standing of the Disney store, things could have played out a lot worse. That's true. So thank God we were able to just fondly recall our TV screens and our plush piles and our 50s singer sweaters that the employees wore at Michael E's behest. I mean, it's just nice memories. Is there anything we want to say on the way out the door? The director of Rise of the Guardians, Peter Ramsey,

co-directed into the Spider-verse. Oh. And directed... Maybe the movie's good. Yeah, directed BB's kids. Oh. Remember that? It's like one of the first big

African-American animation directors. That's cool. Okay. Well, there you go. Well, we got to watch the movie then, I guess. Yeah. Well, because it also has the character Sanderson Man Snoozy.

A.K.A. the Sandman. Maybe Razzle-Dazzle Jason gives it a little review. perhaps after he sees it. Rise of the Guardians? Yes. Is that lost media? Is that? I have to go to that vintage VHS and DVD store in Burbank.

Chris Pine embodies the spirit of winter like no other. You know what I realized is I was going to, I said that I'm going to save this for the show. Now this is a good opportunity. My new favorite podcast, not new, but Jonathan Franks Brent Spiner of a podcast. Oh, yeah, I was going to say, I was going to ask, like the mug says, I was going to ask about your favorite podcast. And that's it right now for sure. Dropping names with Brent and Johnny, of course.

And you know who does razzle dazzle, Jonathan Franks? They'll bring up, like, Olivia Coleman, he'll go, she's fabulous. He'll give a real, like, a lot of juice on that word. She is terrific. The favorite? The favorite was so funny. I agree with you, but he'll use the phrase when he's talking about, like, showbiz people he likes or a movie.

That's fabulous or something. He'll use these, tremendous. He'll use these sort of very simple, like kind of, I don't know, it feels like a throwback. review or so he's doing a lot of razzle dazzle Jason too on that show jeez okay well razzle dazzling is spreading yeah um look i know we probably all have mixed feelings about the man but i think you can separate the art from the artist i would love if jason could do just one bit of razzle dazzle about something in the body of work of alec baldwin of course let's hear it give him give him some

give him his flowers he is so we all like him and so he's amazing at thirty rock's in the heart of men, Alec Baldwin in the shadow. And he brought back that famous radio character for a whole new generation in the 1990s. And it was a great fine to get that shadow action figure at a KB Toys clearance aisle. Oh, wow. That's good. But I didn't hear a praise. I didn't hear praising of Alec in his performance in that.

That was just a recap of the movie. We were all enjoying his star-studded performance in the unsubed. We're a humble cast of State Maine. Okay, that's closer, yeah. Call them a star, I guess that's a... Yeah, that's true. That's a nice thing. It's a compliment.

Okay, okay. I'll take it. I think it's close enough. I tied it back to KB. I feel good about it. You survived Podcast the Ride. For three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast the Ride the Second Gate

or get one more bonus episode on our VIP Tier Club three. Share your local Disney store memories. If there's something you were fond of, if it did something unique, if it had a unique figure. We'd love to hear about it. And if you go searching for some of your favorite stars in the razzled dazzled, dazzliest place of them all,

the Epstein Files, let us know your findings. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gerdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Silio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcast, please visit foreverdog podcasts.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

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