Podcast: The Ride - The Fake Theme Park Final Four

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

Who will win in this battle of fake theme parks from television and film?! Featuring shocking twists and turns! Mickey Unrapped episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many years, this podcast has narrowed its focus to actual theme parks that exist in reality. But in a year when reality was skewed and no theme park actually existed, except in Florida, we had no choice but to flee to the theme parks of our dreams. The theme parks conjured by Hollywood's best and brightest, like Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, and Jeff Phillips, writer of the fourth Three Ninjas movie. Today, the fictitious will fight. Fake blood will spill between theme parks

from movies, television, and children's horror novels. The ultimate clash of rides we can't go on, lines we can't wait in, and parking lots we wish to God we could park in. It's the Fake Theme Park Final Four on Podcast The Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, a podcast about theme parks, and yet again, the only podcast

that does a bracket premise. I'm Scott Gairdner, joined by fellow originalists Mike Carlson. I am here. I'm feeling very innovative like I am every year. I feel very trailblazing. Absolutely. That's the way to feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Scorching trails. Yeah. Clear in the brush.

Jason Sheridan also joins us. You know, there's nothing more satisfying than being an early adopter. Absolutely. And, you know, when you're such big college basketball fans, as are we, we're merging our passions, theme parks and college basketball basketball we could go on and on listing our favorite college basketball teams but that's we don't have to do that our love is clear in this bracket format yeah we're moving lower scoring terrific why watch the nba you know knowing that they're all getting their education as well when they're not on the court tell me their majors tell me how much they're not being paid or like they have to go to weird uh dinners weird booster club dinners

to get like petty cash from weird eccentric alumni how much is this video game platform not paying them for their likeness. You can hear it. We could go on. Yes. Yeah. The list of what we love. But we also love theme parks. And an area of love within theme parks is fake theme parks.

This is an area that we essentially, we have not covered a ton, I wouldn't say. All of the many fake fictional theme parks in movies, television, and other media. This is an area we've pretty much avoided, and we realized this might be a fun way to address a bunch of stuff, hit it quickly, say some cool factoids, and maybe in the process discover which are the ones with the more meat on the bone to do an episode about, and which have very little meat on the bones at all and get tossed into the bone pile. Yes, we could do, you know, one episode on each of these. But yeah, this will tell us now. This is a Whitman sampler episode where you get to see like,

oh, yeah, that feels like they should talk about that longer. Or, hey, maybe they shouldn't talk about this one ever again. We'll see. Yes. Yeah. And it's a real interesting crop of entrants this year from all sorts of media. And what are you guys going to be looking for today,

you know, for the winners? That's a good question. I mean, there's a lot of things to analyze here since we're talking about things that appear in movies and TV. I'm trying, as usual, I try to separate myself. I try to really focus in on what we're talking about versus the things that surround

it. So last year when we did Fake Smells, I was saying I'm trying not to put in my bias toward the actual ride. I'm trying to just talk about the smell itself. Try to appraise how I feel about the smell and how it fits in. So today I'm trying to analyze the park just as a park attractions, atmosphere, that type of thing versus actually

saying, well, I like this movie that it appears in. That's what I'm going to try to do. Last year I wasn't able to completely divorce myself from the other things. But, well, I will try again in earnest this year. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Absolutely. Because it is easy to have biases. And we may still have biases. This list includes some of my favorite movies and TV shows.

So, what might be considered across the board. Just some of the greatest movies and TV shows. So what might be considered across the board, just some of the greatest movies and TV shows and certainly some of the worst, some of the worst things ever made. But that doesn't mean that they can't have a great theme park at the center or not at the center or on the side. I think it's all about innovation

in that park that they're making up itself yeah i think commitment to the uh theme park specifics is going to be a big one for me did the uh movie or tv show like use it are they just phoning in this you know the the the references that sort of thing is it almost an afterthought? Which in some of these, it kind of is. And then there were some surprises that really, like, went, might go all the way. Yeah, and here's another little thing,

and I don't know if you can always tell, and maybe some of this will just be pure guesswork. Did the people who made this, do they have some sort of legitimate affection for the material for the the rides for the theme parks or are they saying it's dumb and we hate it because i'll say i'm gonna actually have some more points i think for people that seem like they oh they know what they're talking about here with this parody that's a good point and you end up maybe with more attention to detail if you are if you really like the source

material or have strong opinions about it um you know with within that i would say that something i'll be giving bonus points to is uh original ip original characters uh not just that they make up a ride but also like do they get the details right are the shops right? Are the restrooms right? Is the entrance outside correct? Is there other weird periphery? And you'll see throughout, it's probably no surprise that there's a number of fake waltz. Maybe enough

to do a fake waltz competition. We just thought of a new one, actually. That is good. There's fake waltz out there who aren't also in a fake theme park in a movie or a TV show. Yes. But just because there's a great fake waltz doesn't necessarily mean that the park is great. So we'll see. Yeah.

So there's so many different factors, so many variables today. It's going to be really hard. This is another one where I have notes up the, you know, notes up the seat. I have tabs open on my computer. It's really, it's a lot. There's a lot here to weigh and to juggle. Yeah. If I

could give a shout out to some of the ones who just didn't make it this year. Oh, sure. Some of our ones we do know about, but did not make it, including You Are a Reptar Land from Rugrats in Paris, Wonder War from Bob's Burgers,

Adrenaline from The Fairly Oddparents, Potato Land, and often cited like, talk about Potato Land, talk about Potato Land. I'm sure we'll get to potato land at some point potato land having its moment in the sun there's a photo op at hollywood studios right now in orlando you know and we'll get there someday i'm sure yeah yeah um this this was a

topic i think i saw this a couple times people were throwing some ideas i wanted to i was trying to find like everyone who's ever thrown this idea at us, and I found one person. So if you also had suggested this, I apologize, but Kyle Edsel has thrown this out in the Facebook group. So I wanted a quick shout-out, and then shout-out to anyone I've missed that have thrown any of these type of ideas for a final four-out.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks so much. We're excited to determine definitively the answers. Though we like your suggestion, it is we who get to choose. We are the arbiters. Yes. So, you know, don't everybody get a big head and think that you get to pick.

This is not a fan-voted thing. This is the three of us. We're the experts. Our opinions are unimpeachable. Yes. And an important reminder, all three of us were born in the mid-80s, so there are some things in here

that we have a lot of affection for and are kind of maybe, I'll speak for myself at least, glued into my subconscious, and then other stuff like Fairly Oddparents, a show I liked a lot, but just kind of would catch occasionally in high school. It did not loom as large as some of the other entrants today.

Yeah, yeah, that does maybe affect who we picked. I also, I was really tempted, did you, I don't think you said this in your list, and I'm just curious to explore more. I didn't think you said this in your list. I'm just curious to explore more. I didn't really investigate the fake theme park Majestic Movie Studios, which seems to be a universal equivalent that's in the, I'm sure, fine feature film Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein. No, I have not.

Although I did, while researching one of these other topics, come across the direct-to-streaming or direct-to-DVD movie Tom and Jerry, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, where it appears Tom and Jerry go to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Yeah, there's a few of those weird movies where it's essentially just the events of the original movie, and Tom and Jerry appear and are part of it but do not drive the story. They just kind of like run around in the margins and because they don't speak so how could they really drive the story? So it's just like Willy Wonka

goes along as it would but also Tom and Jerry are there. That's like a lot like LeFou in the France Pavilion, that same movie where he is in the background the whole time. They were just stealing the idea from the Beauty and the Beast, what is it called? Sing-along?

Is there more of a time party? I thought there was some sort of a time, whatever. There might be a fancier name, I'm not sure. But Tom and Jerry might have gotten there first. So when it comes to protagonists who are not protagonists and don't change the story, Tom and Jerry are pioneers.

Yes. I have one more thing to consider. Maybe we can sort of hit this on an individual basis. But one I think one issue that we're going to find across the boards is that very often, I'd say in half of these cases or maybe even more than half, the narrative function of a theme park in a movie or show is for people to get endangered or hurt or killed. Yes. So how do we take that into account?

Do we have to assess the level of danger at the place as a reason to go or to not go? Do we have to give the place the benefit of the doubt and say that they did not intend for people to die? Although in some cases, they definitely did intend for people to die. Yes. Yes, another also ran the park from the remake of, I think, The House on Haunted Hill from the late 90s, which is different from the late 90s remake of The Haunting.

A lot of ghost remakes in the late 90s. So what do you do with that? I mean, do you just have to it's like you have to acknowledge it, and yet do you have to imagine the ideal park in which danger and death

does not occur because they're all i mean yeah so many of these the vast majority are unsafe um so i feel like you just have to i'm going to try to judge it more based on the promise of it versus the uh death reality the the reality of pain that these places are causing, have caused. That's my personal philosophy. I'm not telling you guys you have to do that. Like, sort of imagine the place before the bad stuff happened. Go to the September 10th of all of these places and imagine a better world. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, without further ado, I think we could start getting into it. Let's kick it off with some one seeds, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's good, right?

One seed, that's the like Duke and stuff. That's terminology I'm vaguely familiar with, yes. Yeah. But not to give Duke too much credit. Well, if I'm guessing, the number one is a good number. So probably being a one seat is a good thing. All right. Sounds good.

Does anybody feel like kicking it off? We could round Robin. This who says the name? That's another thing, right? All right. We're starting off hot with the Simpsons bracket. Itchy and scratchy Land versus Duff Gardens.

Yes. Now, there's a thing here already that we made the assessment, and I guess nobody disagreed on not doing Krusty Land. Do we have any thoughts as to why we all felt like that was okay? Well, I think stuff was a losing point in my mind if there was a significant representation of it in three-dimensional space in our real world, which there is

a heavy reproduction of Krusty Land at the Universal Parks. That's a good rationale. It's almost not a fake theme park. It's almost like a mini area of a real theme park. Yeah, the big map of Krusty Land that appears in the queue of the Simpsons ride obviously is not

what is there, but and also then they represented this Krusty Land in the Simpsons tapped out iOS game, but there is, Jason is saying, there is a piece of it that exists. Yeah, so it is real. That's a good rationale. Yeah, yeah.

And I think there's real that's that's a good rationale yeah yeah um and i think there's maybe more variance between the two primary theme parks in simpsons lore we might be unaware they there may be like 12 more theme parks in the last uh 21 seasons that we aren't aware of but these are the ones i recall as jason said from the time that we uh grew up in uh itchy and scratchy land duffburg where to where to begin golden age simpsons episodes and the itchy and scratchy land especially looms large in my mind extremely i was so delighted that they would do this imagine what you guys don't have to imagine you're probably the same way you love theme parks the simpsons your favorite show doesn't have a big old theme park episode that is so

specific with its disney references and its visual homages to main street usa you're like oh my god they're doing the movie and there's a five and dime and a penny arcade and they're watching the the roger myers story which has bars that's that's some attention to detail not bars like rep bars bars like when you watch a movie at least you used to in a disney park and you had to support yourself on weird beams um that shows that they really paid attention yes uh that attention to detail i definitely i couldn't maybe articulate it at the time but i felt it obviously duff gardens is half disney half uh bush gardens type of a theme park like i could feel i knew there was disney parodies in it but itchy and scratchy land definitely is much more disneyland specific

yeah the whole way through disney world in a way and it's in the sort of level of intensity and the size and the the mammoth operation to get there the big drive that's part of a lot of these things is the travel to the place. They convey those experiences well. I don't know, Itchy & Scratchy is tough to beat. It is such a great episode. Thinking about just everything about it, the approach on the helicopter,

the Jurassic Park-esque giant rock shapes of Itchy and Scratchy, the bomb ticket booths on the way in. You've got your Itchy and Scratchy money. That's a real specific slice, a tribute to Disney dollars, which we should do an episode about. I don't know how we've avoided that one. That seems good and dry and up our alley. Oh, yeah.

The lands of Itchy itchy and scratchy land of course explosion land torture land uh searing gas pain land unnecessary surgery land one of the funniest theme park jail yeah we have your son and your older fatter son um board license plates board of course which they would eventually sell merchandise at Universal Studios yeah you can buy Bort stuff that's cool you can I don't know if you can at the moment

for a while they did have it at least on pins I think license plates but yeah but so itching and scratching on obviously I think in our minds is definitely and I don't want to speak for us But I feel like it's taking the lead here There's so many shiny objects

But Duff Gardens is a very First of all it's much more low key But it has some gems As far as Simpsons fans We have the seven Duffs Which I think I maybe like more than any of the characters Walk around mascot characters In Itchy and Scratchy Land.

They're so great. I'm so glad they're in the Universal, that they're in that beer garden. That's original IP. Gotta give them credit for that and a bunch of them. The Duff Beermid is wonderful. The water, the boat ride water that Lisa

is forced to drink to turn into the lizard queen um um that i mean in general that duff it's a small world i think it's called little land of duff i think that's the official name and we gotta you know we've always got to shout out specific rides here and i think like real um you know prominent e-ticket attractions will help maybe break some ties. And that's a good one. I mean, how these, all the Duff Gardens ones,

how much would you love to go on it in reality? The Little Land of Duff, which I assume never, that chorus never changes. There's not verses to that song. It is just that for, you know, 15 minutes or so.

If you were sitting in a real Duff Hall of Presidents, if you got to see what that entire presentation is where Lincoln raps and FDR is in a beer helmet, that'd be so wonderful. Just imagine the full 25 minutes of it in your head. It's hard because, again, it's not as flashy all the way around,

but that would be a really, really funny, great show to see. It's just an ad for beer using the presidents. And maybe it's a good fix, honestly, for what Disney World is feeling maybe right now where they need to do something to that Hall of Presidents to keep it from being just a booing, cheering machine for the rest of its existence. Although, you know, the idea of

including rapping, I don't know how I feel, being that there's been these Twitter rumors of some Lin-Manuel Miranda involvement. Let's not go start thinking that rapping is the way to save the Hall of Presidents. Let's be very careful. Hey, is that a false flag? Is that a CIA one? Design designed just to drive us insane?

If Lynn wants to write beer-related wraps for the presidents, I will say I'm personally on board. Okay. As long as they're like beer ad type endorsements, I'm totally on board with Lynn's writing warren g harding to pushing some sort of beer disney is selling that's fine yeah as long as it's commercials yes and you know in general um you try to take personal biases out of this competition but uh i i am the drinker of the podcast and uh and drinking is a big reason i go to theme parks. And imagine, I'm just like, if I could go to this entire beer-oriented place. There's argument we just talked about. Is Duff in reality good or not?

And I think, I don't know. I feel like it has to be, or at least you have to know the step up of Duff. You've got to know how to handle your Duff. But there's so many opportunities to drink here. You can go to the beer aquarium or a bunch of sick fish swim around. Maybe I don't want to drink... They're presumably shitting in the water. They're being live.

Fish isn't good. But people do just walk up to that thing and pour beer from a tap. And that sounds good. Those beer goggles. Selma mentions beer smoothies. That sounds fantastic. Does that exist in reality? I would like it to.

Got it. Yeah, it's like at a fair or something. Somebody has to have made that. Oh, probably. There is frozen beer you can get at a stand at Epcot, and I think Disney Springs now. Really? Yeah.

That's a way, Ali. I would also like to shout out to Duff Gardens. Hooray for Everything performs. That's very good. Which is a show I would love like to shout out to Duff Gardens. Hooray for Everything performs. That's very good. Which is a show I would love to see. Oh, yeah. Ooh, that's kind of pushing me towards... I know.

It's hard because the mundaneness of Duff Gardens is what I really like, what it really appeals to me, which Itchy and Scratchy Land is fantastic, but Itchy and Scratchy Land is fantastic but itchy and scratchy land is much more cartoonish monstrosity of a park versus duff gardens is a lot as i was saying accurate it feels accurate in so many ways it's really funny but it does feel like they nailed that a cheesy type show and if you don't know what we're talking about hooray for everything is like a bunch of like lame singers doing a politically correct version of Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side. Is that where that happens?

Is that at Duff Gardens? I believe so. Wow. At least it's in the wiki. I didn't rewatch the episode, but I've seen the episode many times. I would like to see that. Yes. Up with people is the real thing, and hooray for everything.

Now, let me tip it back the other way with my own argument. Because I was kind of going through this in my head, and I similarly landed it. Maybe it just is Duff Gardens, and largely for beer-related reasons. The Dark Horse, it might tip you to the other side parents island there is a um again very well observed pleasure island parody a place that is only for adults to go within itchy and scratchy land and now that i am a parent um going to parents island my wife and i talked about this idea how much we would love to be at Parents Island right now. And they say specifics about it. There's 100 bars and saloons at Parents Island.

Homer shouts out TV town, hammock land. Marge mentions recipe-related bumper cars. I would like to do all these things. You get to see a 70s disco which seems kind of cheesy but you know that place where it's new year's eve constantly might might be a little fun is it tgi is it tgi mix scratchy we've got another jumper at tgi mix scratch yes yeah tgm is good time food drinkery is the full yeah i mean yeah all that is like now does that just take everything that would appeal to me about Duff Gardens

like do they actually have it even more so on Parents Island yeah and is it Euro Itchy and Scratchy Land the empty park referenced at the end that's pretty good especially at that time that's a very topical

reference yeah yeah um this is tough i don't know if i know does anybody uh anybody feel like locking in okay yeah you're saying yes it's in scratchy land is a lot more like disney world in the sense it's large it's got a lot of things in it as parents island which is great but i'm trying my debate right now is that i believe right now i think i would rather go to the park itself and this is arguably we have a lot with disney world versus disneyland disneyland itself is a better park than the magic kingdom is but i understand when people say well disney world is a whole thing it's a different experience because of how large it is and how much different stuff there is to do but disneyland i keep coming back to and saying well i still think it's kind of better

because it's the experience of disneyland is just i think a superior one so duff gardens i think is a better park than the itchy and scratchy land park but i take into what you're saying about all the different things and the size of it and this is my struggle right now is do i go it's purely based on the park itself or do i take into account what you're saying this is this is struggling i didn't think i would be here this early in this final four but i am here this is where i am i genuinely don't know either this is tough are we gonna have to like take a half hour break and just edit this down? I'm feeling upset.

I think I'm going to go with my initial instinct and give it to Itchy and Scratchy Land. Oh, wow. I think your arguments are very passionate and valid. Thank you. I think the male functioning... Is this one of the first, um, like male functioning animatronic,

uh, things like in, in film and TV besides, um, you know, a Westworld sort of thing in, in a comedy thing. I feel like the specifics are just very good and itchy and scratchy land,

but I do appreciate what you're saying. And I think that's why it's a one seed, the Duff Garden specifics. I think I know what I'm going to say. I do know. I've made my decision. Okay, well then, I think I'm going to throw it in too,

and I'm still, I'm uneasy, but should we just toss them out at the same time? Okay, one, two, three. Itchy and Scratchy Land. And I almost wanted to be the upset and give it to Duff Gardens, but ultimately Parents Island makes the flip for me. I think that's everything that I want out of Duff Gardens, but times 10. I get that. That makes sense.

I think, though, that the whole time, because I thought going in, it was easy, Itchy and Scratchland, but I think going in, I have to assess that just because I like, I think Itchy and Scratchland, better episode, funnier episode, more references. More theme park-centric. Just because of that, though, I'm missing, I'm losing perspective, and I believe Duff Gardens should win, but that's okay. I understand. I also, another thing that made me want to give it to Duff Gardens is that that part where Homer is clearly not well and gets in the car and says, Duff Gardens, hurrah! And then lands hard on the steering. That's how I felt.

I think I relate to that moment so much. I think I felt that way the entire time during the pandemic, having this baby. I think I felt that way in disney world with you guys where we were never getting sleep and really tired all the time i felt like that homer spirit but that's not the park that's just a thing i like in the episode i'm almost like sad about this because i wanted to be like not obvious at the beginning but hopefully our struggle is clear um we're not just handing it to Itchy and Scratchyland easily. It's parents.

Parents Island did it for me. Yeah, I don't think there was a bad choice between these two, but I'm sure there'll be upsets going along. I think this second bracket, there could be an upset on this one. It's a little tough. It's a little tough. Yeah.

Well, I'll go ahead and say it i'm calling it the wacky bracket and that is this is between two we're still in animation uh and it is between happy world land from tiny tunes how i spent my summer vacation and glove world which is from spongebob squarepants factors into a lot of Spongebob Squarepants. Now, the nostalgia, we have to kind of air out, or at least I do. I did not grow up with Spongebob. It seems really great, and I think it's what I would have watched if that era lined up for me, but Tiny Toons was my era more.

But these are both pretty cool. And similar in spirit, right? I think it makes sense to pair them. Yes. I think so. Yeah, I agree with you, Scott. Happy World Land. I was always excited when How I Spent My Summer Vacation,

that episode of Tiny Toons, came on. I was not familiar with Glove World. The whole episode is on YouTube, and I was shocked. I thought that was so much fun. I think Potato Land needs to watch its ass because Glove World really nails some specifics, really nails some stuff, and I think has a lot of fun with it.

Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, the Tiny Toons, Happy, what am I saying already? Happy World Land Geez, I'm losing my mind It's very Disney

It's very, very Disney As far as a parody But they do have some rides that look fun There's some joke rides that are just It's very hurt-centric Both of these parks are kind of painful But Tiny Toons is leaning more into the painful aspects of it.

But some of them, if you escaped unscathed, would be fun. I will say that about Tiny Toons. Yes. There's one that doesn't look like it's a problem, which is the gargle. You're just in a big gargling mouth,

and then you get spit out kind of at the bottom. That seems just like a good rapid ride or something. I'm not scared of the gargle. A lot of the other ones, though. The tooth fairy, though, is fun, too. The tooth fairy, it's... So if you don't know this, it's like this pretty big,

this like epic episode of Tiny Toons that I think got released as its own mini movie. It was a tape that I rented extremely frequently, but it was broken up into episodes too. And it's very National Lampoon's Vacation-esque. The quest to get to this place. They get there. Unlike Vacation,

it's not that the park is closed. It's that Plucky has been with Hampton's family on this exhausting road trip and they get there and they just take essentially the monorail around and see all the rides and then don't go in and do anything. Thus exasperating Plucky.

The monorail that they take around is the Tooth Fairy. That's just really clever. Spelled like a boat fairy. There's two sets of teeth. One on top and one on bottom and they separate and go opposite directions and then meet back at the central point.

It reminds me a lot of Monorail at Epcot, especially, where you see so much of Epcot before you land. And that's a fun little trip when you get to do that. And a great visual. If this was in a real theme park, I think this would be very possible to do. And you'd go, oh, that looks really crazy and cool.

So I give them a lot of points for that. I go, oh, that's neat. Yes. And the Happy Centrifuge ride did eventually get built. It's Mission Space. It seems like it's just Mission Space. So they called that. They did call that.

Pouring people out like goo, moaning. Yeah. That is how i felt like goo when i came off that thing for the first time yes so that's true there's a stairway to heaven there's the bullet train to heck you don't really see what the bullet train to heck looks like no um you just imagine yeah uh pain and fire down at the bottom um i i think my exact sense of humor as a child was slap happy the ride slap happy where you get in a big hand a bunch of people load up and there's even a moment of like excitement they're all like thrilled to be here we go everyone and then a just a lever is flipped and then it just slams against the ground um I just loved the bluntness of that, the craziness of that.

I don't know that I'd go on it, but I like this general theme. I like that a lot of things are happy. I like that there's a lot of body parts. There's a feet ride, too. The happy crasher is just a ship that crashes and that's it. There's a lot of great fun designs. Now I said

there's a couple things I would like to go on that wouldn't be so bad. But yes, the majority I will say look like it hurts. It looks like they hurt really bad and would leave you very injured. Seriously injured. So I do think you have to knock some points off it for that.

I can appreciate the design, but again, if I'm assessing it from just a theme park that I would go to standpoint. A good teen, good kind of out of it teen working in the parking lot that they may take their picture. Oh, that's a good little moment. Yep, yep. Plucky's passion to ride everything

while the family is kind of indifferent as their own agenda. Very relatable. Very relatable, yes. Extremely. But Glove World commits so hard to the idea of theme parks centered around gloves

yes inexplicably so I do really like this I was just delighted the glove song the ride where you are are Spongebob and Patrick they're put in a catcher's mitt

is that right or they're put in a catcher's mitt? Is that right? Or they're put in the baseball? It's called Catch Me. You're put in a big baseball and thrown around. Yeah. And then the theme park, the founder, Hieronymus Glove. Oh, I missed that. Mr. Glove, the Walt stand-in, is pretty good.

Yeah. Hieronymus. the Walt stand in is pretty good. Yeah. Um, there, there does feel like there's more treats to love at glove world. And again, I, I back up what you're saying. I didn't grow up with glove world.

I was a tiny tunes kid for sure, but it does feel like there's more things that you can appreciate about glove world. Yeah, there's a lot they've they have original ip they have glovey glove glove that walks around um tiny teens doesn't i don't know that they establish who the guy is they all wear hats that are like their equivalent of mickey years but it's just kind of crazy eyes and i like knowing who glovey glove is um theyve Popsicles, good refreshments. That's a key one also.

A number of these places you get a sense of what the eats are and Glove Popsicles sound good. I don't know if this makes it more or I don't know if this is a good thing for our contest, but apparently there is

a Lego set for Glove World, which I got very excited about. I would have been way into that as a kid. Yeah. No kidding. I think also the plot of the main glove world episode is that glove world is going away uh and uh i guess what probably spongebob and patrick are very sad about this uh but it turns out it's just going away

because they're building glove universe a bigger better park I don't think I'm making these facts up. Well, they get, at least the one I watch, maybe there's multiple Glove World episodes, but they get locked up in Glove World jail because Patrick accidentally breaks the Mr. Glove animatronic. And then there's a lot of weird kids in the jail. And those are just funny performers performers funny voice actors funny animation I didn't see any of that that sounds good

maybe there's multiple glove world I was going to say yeah there's multiple glove world episodes as well there is a frozen they meet a frozen Hieronymus glove at the end and while I usually find that specific kind

of tiresome and annoying, I liked it in this. They seem to have fun with it in this. I do like that. I do like that. And if they're building Glove Universe, then it's on the grove. This place is popular. It's only going to be... I think you can only imagine how

great Glove Universe is going to be. Well, yes. They had to clean up the toxic waste, and then the pandemic delayed the building of Glove Universe, but they're back on track. The transit to get over there. Yeah. A lot of city infrastructural stuff to do. Right.

Glove World, too. I mean, Glove World's taken into account there's rides for kids, there's rides for older kids. I feel like it's a more well thought out park. The mitten is the ride is for like kids that they go on. I don't see that. I don't see that in the Tiny Toons episode. I don't see the thought put into, you know, different experiences for different age groups.

That's an interesting aspect of fleshing it out more fully. Yes. Making the kids happy and teens and grown-ups right yeah i i don't want to vote already but i feel like you can feel where i'm going maybe i am too i mean we don't have to belabor these um that's true i'm surprised and i you know i think the the conversations help i think what like i i want to see where everybody else is at and how joyous is the conversation or not. And I really like talking about Glove World.

Maybe I got to give it to Glove World. I think it's Glove World. I think it's Glove World. Yeah. I mean, it's different things. Different things because there's a lot of build up to Happy World Land. I think it's set up at the top of the episode and then the road trip to get there. But Glove World, they throw you right in

and they've done multiple episodes, so they do have an advantage in that sense. And it's underwater. It's in the ocean. Yeah, that's cool too. We didn't even talk about that. A young upstart. Glove World, exciting. All right. A very hip reference from us, I think.

We got into... We're up to like 2003 or so, and I think our coolness is showing. Is there a theme park on Riverdale yet? Oh, that's a great question. I think, you know, they just did the classic trope of an alien corpse preserved

in a barrel of Blossom Family maple syrup, but I don't know that there's really been a theme park yet huh all right well that'll be the hipper well if we have do this one again in five years that'll be the hippest reference if they do do that yeah um so uh that that leaves that uh we'll come back around to itchy and scratchy land versus glove world that's pretty exciting. Okay, next up. This is called the Crichton Bracket.

Both Michael Crichton stories and movies slash TV show. Jurassic Park versus Westworld. Big one. This is big. This is a big one. Stresses me out to even think about it.

There's multiple versions of these. There's books, movies, newer versions. Obviously, we're saying Jurassic Park, though, not Jurassic World. That's a separate park. Yes. Though I almost had the question. Again, removing the parks from the films. I think if I had to venture a guess, I'd say that we all prefer Jurassic Park to Jurassic World, the movie.

However, Jurassic World does have a city walk and i was like the main thing that makes me want to like the movie and i really like that it's this big battle at the end where they're crashing into starbucks and brookstones and pandoras um i i almost want to hang out there is similar to parents island i I'm getting away from rides. I'm not even talking about dinosaurs. There's a Margaritaville at Jurassic World. Yeah, I know. Yes, and Jurassic World seemed to operate without a hitch for a while there. It seems like it's open for a bit.

Which Jurassic Park did not. There's a part of me that thought, should this just be Jurassic Park versus Jurassic World? Can we call an audible? It's tough because, yes, Jurassic Park obviously is the better movie. I don't think that's a controversial statement to make. But if you really think about the experience that all the characters were having testing out the park. Dinosaurs, you couldn't see them.

The T-Rex isn't there. Where's the raptor? Where's the triceratops? Triceratops is sick. Huh? And when they break out of the ride, when they get out and go into the medical unit, so the safety functionality isn't working right from the get go

bathrooms collapse immediately as evidenced by the lawyer Jurassic vs Jurassic World where it's like that cool ball is very cool like that would be amazing to go into something like that and get to go in the actual habitat of the dinosaurs so you could actually go

directly where they are hanging out you don't have to lure T-Rex over with a goad or something to the side because that isn't even you're just getting to see it like kill an animal I mean I don't know it's just kind of limited the Jimmy Fallon the very accurate Jimmy Fallon video yes very accurate

yeah that's exactly like what a little theme park skit would be that's essentially what he does on the tram right the big water show? Are we heading to a controversial one right now? Or do we make this like this is three. This becomes

Jurassic Park versus Jurassic. Like the battle at the end between the Indominus and the T-Rex and the Raptor. I think Westworld beats Jurassic Park. I will say that right now. Really? Oh, I wasn't sure about that. Jurassic Park, but I don't

know that it beats Jurassic World. That's what I'm going to say. So what are we doing here? Are we making this a three for all? I think this should be a three for all. I do think the NCAA tournament should have wrestling style run-ins where it's suddenly like this is now a triple threat match.

Three teams, three basketball teams competing against each other at the same time. I agree. Let's shake it up. Okay, great. So they're all in. They add a third basket to the one side. Yeah. So Jurassic Park, Westworld versus the hardy boys uh they're at the

back and tom and jerry are running around and tom and jerry are here and rob delaney is running in with a chair uh okay so i'm on record saying i think jurassic world beats Jurassic Park, but I don't know about Jurassic World versus Westworld yet. Okay. Westworld seems to be begrudgingly, from the little bits and pieces I've seen of the Yul Brynner movie and of the HBO show, it seems like it's like, we got to set it up before we can show all the cool stuff goes wrong

I don't know I you're just not in I guess I mean I the reviews on the TV show where everyone was like this is so much work watching this I was like you're not really selling me on I mean I like

I think Ed Brubaker was on the writing staff the comic book writer i like him a lot i like jeffrey wright but you're not talking about i'm not talking about the show but it's gonna eventually you think about this stuff the movie kind of hooks me up with this too because like how cool is yule brenner look i just like all those dudes i like the like it's the first crichton it's uh yeah uh it's so like 70s sci-fi in that Logan's run Vane but then I sort of drift off With it I don't like I don't love that movie

I love the first act and then I kind of like Veer away But is this are we letting The film the products We are These are both probably the two most unique Experiences on This whole list on this whole bracket on these

brackets and stuff yeah i uh yeah so i think just the experiences we have to try to think of versus the actual movies because like westworld is like putting you in a scenario this is like westworld is like what they want to do with that star wars hotel but like much more like 100 times 100 you're living a completely like different life for however long it is for a couple days for a week or i don't remember what here's that's absolutely right here's my issue i don't want to do that and when i realized that galaxy's edge was not really going to have like people bugging you at the cantina because you flew the Falcon bad. Or that they weren't going to do the Bright Suns for more than the first five days.

I was like, great. Now I can just drink that milk and go to the bar and go on the rides. I don't think I'm equipped for Westworld. I don't want to kill anybody. I don't know. Sexually, maybe I shouldn't get into into it that's a big part of the appeal is the sex um i don't think that i uh want to go uh have sex with saloon girl robots i don't think so but so i guess is this still too much personal bias it's very impressive i just don't think that i i to do it. And mainly, Westworld has no rides. That's what I'm after.

Yeah, that's true. It's very immersive. It's practically like glorified dinner theater. And there is a veneer of sleaze involved. Yeah. That's part of the sex thing. Maybe it'd be interesting to have sex with one of these robots. But then the next day, the day before, some other guys around like i like that's weird right i'm like

you mean that sharing these robots oh yeah you've said a different man has had sex with the robot as well well yeah that'd be in my head i agree that that is a that is a problem that is certainly a problem now i don't think you don't have to have sex with a robot no but you can murder the like it's i i don't know that the mistreating robots thing like i feel like it's a moral it's a moral quandary for sure yeah i don't think i'm murdering or having sex with any other robots if i go to westworld i mean that i don't think i am i don't think i am i don't think i am either and i guess you know um an abomination in the eyes of God is kind of through line through Michael Crichton stuff. Because, yeah, there's a lot of discussion like, should these dinosaurs really exist? Like, should we do this, you know, in both Jurassic, in all the Jurassic movies, you know?

Now, let me bring this up. Westworld is obviously like Old West. If this was a different time period, would you feel differently? If this was a different time period or different genre, where you could go? I think they get to that in later seasons of the show. We do have to take into account that it is part of Delos destinations in which there are multiple. So it's almost like, I don't know how much you see of them but there's shogun world there's war world that's world war ii is a medieval fantasy uh the raj which is colonial india if any of those

jesus christ yeah that's now let's see the thing is i don't think i want to do any of those things those i don't want to do i don't know i'm not sure what i would west world it for i don't know what i want to be in an immersive... I mean, it's like... Oga's Cantina is as close as I want to get. I want to have a blue wine and I want to watch my favorite robot DJ. So my Westworld exists already. See, I think, Jason,

you need to think about this, because we did this very interactive experience that Eva Anderson invited us to, and I'm already forgetting the name of it. Delusion. The Blue Blade. experience that Eva Anderson invited us to and I'm already forgetting the name of it uh delusion delusion the blue blade that was our production that year the blue blade and it's a very live interactive kind of theater thing where you go through rooms and there's elaborate sets and performers and there's a huge there's a very like a narrative that ties the whole thing together and you go back in time blah blah Jason Sheridan of the whole group was trying to interact with the performers more than any of us.

Doing so much so that he threw the performers off because... I got too into it. He got too into it. He called somebody Mac. He was trying to talk like an old gangster. We were blown away because I didn't do that. I was just like, oh, let's let these performers go jason turned into a different character i think he's forgetting what happens when he goes into a scenario like this he enjoys himself he'd love to say mac he'd love to say like

hey you lousy dame he'd love to say something like that well hold on fun pretend way he's not saying that in real life but it's a fantasy i mostly antagonized like a sleazy like uh like pickpocket or con man and then i got a nazi upset at me and in real life i got a kayfabe nazi upset at me and then in real life the actor said i was a challenge yes she stopped afterward and said you were a challenge. I don't know. So I'm saying you don't even know what you're capable of. When you're in Westworld, you're going to be doing your old-timey

detective slang. You're going to be loving it. It's going to be the most fun you've ever had. And right now you're acting like, oh, I don't think I would like it. A detective from the future came to the Old West. Well, I got payback because then I had to swing on a rope over a moat, like an actual moat. I was not prepared.

They told us there might be some climbing and stuff, but it's just like, I don't want to land at this children's pool. Me and Jason Wollner, me and golden winner Jason Wollner, director of Borat 2. Swinging out of mine. I just think Jason's not thinking about him in a scenario where he gets to use old detective slang. I think he'd love it. That's fair.

Yeah, I think I would like the acting part of it. I don't know about the murder part of it or like the abuse a robot part of it. You don't have to abuse or murder it's your choose your own adventure you could solve the murder I guess that's fair this is so choose your own adventure this is not my kind of deal and I have to say

maybe the trashier aspects of Jurassic World are what I want to do more which is embarrassing it's you know it's not the the smart person's way to view things i guess hey dude maybe we need to parse jurassic park versus juror did we do it already because you gotta you also like okay you got the jeep ride you got the there is that like mr dna but mr dna is a jur World, too. Again, it's not the movie. The movie's a little tough, but going there, I mean, aesthetically, I almost just wanted

different stuff to happen in the movie, but for me to be able to stare at these settings, because I think they're great. Right. I have thought about us in the continuity of Jurassic World. We would be like, well, we're excited to see what this new dinosaur, it's like they've really been coasting on that, you know, the water dinosaur, the megalodon kind of dinosaur.

And, you know, much like Disney coasted on DCA 2.0 for a number of years before building a new attraction. Yeah. Yeah, Jurassic Net, the message boards on Jurassic net are saying that there's this new they're doing a new it's like a t-rex but like times five and it's going to be sponsored i mean that's crazy and the gym and land covering like jurassic world news yeah i would love to i would love it hearing about the the the and outs, like the hourly capacity of the little triceratops

that children ride on. And they get about 60 people an hour through that. Yeah, Len was just standing outside the triceratops ride, counting. They've been doing a visitor poll, and would you like it more or less if it were four minutes or six minutes? And the results, I think, are very interesting.

It is a good, I like to think about this. I like this. So, hmm, it's tough this stuff i'm just arguing i was just trying to save west world from being a total blow out here i'm not saying no i think you're right i think that's a good call uh that you know in all fairness though even with all their ills um the evil corporation in gen at least would have had the sense to let Gina Carano go. So, you know. That's true. Do we want to vote? Do we know what we're

going to say? I think Scott does. I think Jason does. Yeah, I do. How do we do this? All at the same time? All at the same time. Okay. One, two, three. Jurassic World.

Wow. It's funny we three. Jurassic World. Wow. Wow. Unbelievable. What a shock. It's funny we didn't talk about this before. People are going to hate this. I think it's just going to feel right to people that it should be Jurassic Park. Easily one of the best movies.

I've read a lot of articles during the pandemic that tell me that Jurassic Park holds up. A surprise to me. I wouldn't have believed that i'm glad people keep writing this article over and over again but it is it's a it's a wonderful film i will always watch it i will watch it so much more than i will watch jurassic world but i what would i rather like have a screensaver of on my desktop where would i i think i want to like see some dinosaurs in a park that actually got up and running and have a margarita next to jimmy while i do it i get that believe me i get that if jurassic world were against and almost and maybe half of the rest of the bracket i think it would be jurassic world i just think west world there's a lot of options, and I'd like to see what it's like.

I may hate it. I may absolutely hate it. There's a possibility of that. But I am interested in it, and it's not my repressed sexuality or anything. I don't think. I don't think the whole thing is like, I got to get there to get those saloon lady robots or anything. I don't think that's it. Wow.

It's just such a different type of experience. That's all. Yeah, yeah. So Jurassic World comes out of nowhere. Not even on the initial list and comes out of nowhere. Jurassic World cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcase and went all the way. I'm so excited.

This is the kind of thing I wanted. I don't think that I wanted it to be just a cruise through, an easy cruise for the best movies and shows that I wanted it to be just a cruise through, an easy cruise for the best movies and shows. I wanted it to be a little chaotic. And it's the city walk in us. What can I say? They have a city walk.

You can't deny that. That's why Parents Island got it for me. That's why Jurassic World got it for me. Man, oh man. Okay, so where does that take us? That leads us to the next one. I kind of, if we're grouping the pairs, we did the animation one,

and now we're kind of in the sci-fi one, a little loosely, and that takes us to the next one. Jason, you want to do the honors? Sure. This is what we refer to as the space bracket. Luna Park from Futurama versus Moron Mountain from Space Jam.

Yes. Love it. I feel like this one's kind of a quick one for me. I kind of think so. That's exactly what I was thinking. Well, now why is that? Because I'm not, I think I get it, but let's parse this out a little bit.

Sure, of course, of course. Sure. Well, Moron Mountain, of course, in Space Jam is what, you know, the Monstars, of course, the characters who eventually go up against the looney tunes in a basketball game they start out here working at moron mountain and you know they're trying to think of things to boost interest uh and the theme park of moron mountain is similar i feel like to the tiny tunes idea of like it's stuff that breaks down or stuff that looks like it hurts you, I guess.

Maybe not breaks down. If something does break down. But it is an unpopular park is really where I'm going with it. It is on the down slope or whatever. You don't really get to know that much about it. There is a ride called Sludge Summit. You don't really see what Sludge Summit is. And there's also a sort of astro jets, like a bunch of rockets fly around

while a cat with a cigar fires fire or lasers at you. I don't recall. Which makes one of the rockets fall off the thing. Hey, there's a Waltz. You gotta give it that. Mr. Swackhammer. Yeah, yeah.

And I think it's Swackhammer's face that's. Oh, it's not a cat. Okay. I believe. Yeah, I think. That makes more sense. Because he's got a cigar and he's shooting it. So yeah, Swackhammer has his face on the ride.

Okay. And it's, you know, there's a part of me that would like something to make it a little far that looks like an N64 game. I like that. When you land in Moron Mountain in the movie and you're kind of in a style of graphics and animation that is only in that part of the movie. Yes.

I like that. But, you know, they don't get the Looney Tunes. They don't successfully achieve their plan, which is enslaving the actual creatures, the Looney Tunes. They don't successfully achieve their plan, which is enslaving the actual creatures, the Looney Tunes, locking them up like Dumbo and making them perform. That'd be a whole other thing.

We often complain about the lack of solid Looney Tunes presence in a lot of the parks, and this would certainly be if there was a planet that you could go to and it's the real Daffy Duck chained up against his will, doing jokes for you every day. Pretty good. I wanted, I mean, yes, we've been lamenting this.

I saw that maybe Bugs Bunny was featured for some people on their drive-thru tour of Six Flags and not mine, not my personal one. And I was furious. So yes, I guess it would have bugs be handcuffed to something in Six Flags while I drove my car through it during the Christmas season. That would have been nice. Handing you fudge against his will. Yes, handing me two pounds of fudge.

That would have been a dream. I also wanted to say quickly I've learned some of the names of the characters. Well, that could change everything. So yes, let's hear the names. There were the Nerdlux, which I honestly I've watched Space Jam a bunch. I have

the nostalgia for it, but I didn't know the Nerdlux. Did you guys know the Nerdlux? No, I kind of forgot the setup of he was trying to mindlessly get a new you know thing for his horrific park like I did not recall that at all really that's the stakes the

bath the if the basketball game doesn't go well the Looney Tunes have to live in a theme park in space forever yeah it's a little convoluted a little bit it's very clean as will the next one be it's we're gonna get we're gonna put all the time warner properties together in one film in all fairness this is how eiger

acquired part of the murdoch empire the pickup the disney pickup basketball team bit beat the 20th century fox pickup basketball team right yes because they stole nba players powers briefly so that week that kevin durant couldn't like up out of bed, that's what was happening. That's exactly right. He was on a basketball court at Davos. Real quick, though, the Nerdlucks have... So there's Nerdluck Bupkis, Nerdluck Bang, Nerdluck Blanco, Nerdluck Pound. nerd luck bang nerd luck blanco uh nerd luck pound those are the four i see i think there might be one more i'm missing and i apologize but i just i didn't even know oh nerd luck not

well so those are the five nerd luck characters the little dweeby characters then turn into the monsters i mean now knowing that it's Nerdlock not, I don't know. Maybe we have to give it to Moron Mountain? Based off of that fact only? Maybe. Maybe. Or what's the real answer? Because if we say the real answer, we could deal with the other one later.

Oh, I see what you're saying. If you're saying, am I going to vote against Moron Mountain, the answer is yes. Yeah, that's it. It's Luna Park. So we'll against Moran Mountain, the answer is yes. Yeah, it's Luna Park. Good call. It's Luna Park. So we'll talk about that later, the theme park in Futurama. That works out nicely.

We can save a little time here. So which would take us, wait, we're halfway through now. So that takes us over to what I'm calling the scary division. And within the scary division we have oh i guess okay we're gonna start with now this here these are uh these are pretty like new to me these are things that i i have no nostalgia um interrupt in my my thought process here because we thought we wanted to represent the horror area with the horror bracket and uh that is horror land from goosebumps from various goosebumps books and goosebumps uh media and what i realized is called

mckinley park where most of the action takes place i don't actually know that some important action takes place in final destination three which is the one with a roller coaster that kills some people. A horror bracket. What do we think? Well, I will say I, as a kid, read the first Horrorland book and loved it. I was a Goosebumps kid, hardcore for like two years.

It's like the most reading I've ever done non-comic book related. It's when I was at my best reading and I wasn't an idiot with no attention span like I am now who can barely finish a book. Me too. After about a year or two, my friends and I who read Goosebumps, we started realizing this stuff isn't as good as we maybe thought it was. It feels like he's using a lot of the same phrases and tropes over and over again. And then we stopped reading the books.

But Horrorland, I was a big one. Very excited as a little kid theme park fan. So again, it's going to be tough for me to take my bias out of this one. I also, I had wondered if there was any bias within your household because of Lindsay and her podcast Teen Creeps. And then I discovered that you were on an episode about Horrorland. You've talked Horrorland extensively. I don't know about extensively. I don't know that I'm an expert about the Goosebumps series.

But yes, I did talk about it. I don't remember much about that episode because my brain is getting older. And information's leaving it at a rapid rate. So, yes, but I will say I early give the edge to Horrorland just because of that fact. Sure. Well, then maybe we need to shine a light on McKinley Park before we make any official decisions. Yes. You know, I didn't really know about i don't know

if you guys knew this this movie uh i'm a scaredy cat and i avoid these i've never seen uh the final destination films perhaps i'm missing out you does anyone have any pre-standing affection for uh this film or the franchise in general? No, I don't. I am trying to get better at watching scary things. I've talked on the podcast about trying to watch Hell. I watched Hellraiser. I watched some things that I thought were just snuff films when I was a kid just to see what they're like.

And I like some of them. I don't like others. But with Final Destination, I have not seen the movie, but I did watch clips of just the theme park. this is gonna be easier for me to just look at the theme park aspects taking out um any sort of nostalgia i have for the actual property i think this is actually beneficial to this exercise that we're doing here today yeah i i mean, the main clip, the premonition, a... Okay, so Final Destination 3 is about... This time they avoid death.

Some people outsmart death by not getting on a derailing roller coaster, but then some people do. So it's kind of the spurring, the action of the movie. And that footage of the derailing coaster is simultaneously gruesome and very corny, making it a perfect summation of the mid-2000s.

It's a perfect piece of meat. A lot of handy cams, a lot of digital cameras in this sequence. A little like mini Blair Witches. We're going to pepper like mini Blair Witches. We're going to pepper it with Blair Witchiness. Yeah. Devil's Flight is the name of the coaster.

The coaster in real life is called the Corkscrew. It's at Playland in Vancouver, Canada. Much of American entertainment shot in Canada, of course. Yeah, I don't know. This one just kind of seems like shitty. Like Final Destination 3 stuff. The Playland, or McKinley Park, the fictional name. I don't know.

It just seems kind of lame. Horrorland 2 is like a massive franchise within Goosebumps. There's Horrorland, One Day at Horrorland, Return to Horrorland. A multi-book, multi-part series. No longer self-contained stories.

Horrorland series. Two Horrorland video games. It's kind of really, really grown out. And I believe... On the show. What's that? The Goosebumps show Oh, and I believe on the show, what's that? The Goosebumps show on the show. And I think that that multi-book series involves different Goosebumps characters from different books,

like continuity, like characters meeting from like all the different Goosebumps. Yeah. Final Destination, it doesn't have the amount of stuff that's packed in now. It just didn't have, you know, there weren't multiple Final Destination 3. Final

Destination 3 Part 2, Part 3. Yeah, yeah. 3C, 3D. No, no. You pretty much have this one ride, which does have a cool devil on the outside of it. And I think Q looks cool. He got some torches and some

scary medieval-y stuff. I also wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything and I did find a big list of the stuff that they have. I don't know if this was just they were just saying what's at the actual place Playland. They might be. There's something called Mr. Ken's Donut Factory. You want to go there?

They have something called the Fudge Factory. You want to check out the Fudge Factory at McKinley Park. Calm down after some of your friends die um something called electric city i don't know what that is but i like the name um but then you know like i didn't even have time to do the deep dive on horror land i didn't grow up with this but there's like the wikipedia is massive just every like phrase you see sounds really great. And I did watch an episode of the show, as you said, Mike. I didn't realize this isn't even just the horror bracket.

This is the shot in Canada bracket, because that is a Toronto production as opposed to the Vancouver production. And you get a good sense of the park there there's all these you know there's a lot of creepy monsters who work there and like work the admission but they still like have an admission booth despite it being like monsters and trying to kill you they still have a guy show up in the booth he tells you admission is free so that's plus even though bad things happen even though you have to get once you get in you have to be in a demented game show but hey it's free um and there's monsters working refreshment booths there's uh and you can yeah i i try to do some

freeze framing throughout this competition and see like what's the rest of that menu or what are the rides we don't get to see and uh you do see the family get monster punch, which is topped with dinosaurs for some reason, which are considered monsters, I guess. But you don't get to see ordering of toenail tacos or crunchy cockroaches. That sounds good. Toenail tacos is a good creepy what the Green Goblin would say. And they have a, like Six Flags, they have a coffin challenge,

which is like a regular ride. The ride is you get in a coffin, and they push you down a river in it, and then the people in the show seem surprised that then that is scary to do. They willingly get in the coffin. All right, what's the worst that could happen? And they're relaxed and enjoying this coffin ride down a river

until the door slams and there's a spider in there. But you gotta like that it has something like six flags. So just by virtue of the list of specifics, I feel like we know where we're going yeah i mean bad stuff's gonna happen at both of these choices but the creativity of the bad stuff is so much better and cooler at horror land i mean yeah you go through the wikipedia and there's so much there's like different lands there's different there's creative ways i mean roller coaster and final destination it's like it just derails.

I mean, there's some blood dripping. I mean, there's some whatever creative stuff, but there's monsters running a theme park. That's great. That's just fun. Working the jobs. Working the jobs. They're fully staffed up. Right.

That's what we want Disneyland to be more of, or at least I did as a kid. I wanted Mickey to be taking tickets at the front of the park. I wanted all characters, no humans. I bet also that Horrorland hasn't had to do layoffs, unlike other theme parks during all this, because monsters love COVID. They thrive on it, and it makes them grow. And the CEOs cut their pay for the whole pandemic as well,

and they're still fine. They didn't do it for just a month like Disney did. Monsters are bad to us us but they support each other so you got a lot of them for that um well i think that's clear i think we can lock it in yeah you advance congratulations horror land which uh takes us to uh we we stay scary here. We're staying scary. Is it me? Is it me? Yeah. Evil Island bracket. This is Pleasure Island versus Spooky

Island. Pleasure Island, of course, from Pinocchio, not the Disney World defunct island. Yes. Parents Island type. Yes. So this is... spooky island from 2002 scooby-doo thank you which what a what a great treat to in preparation for this have an excuse to watch 2002 scooby-doo i think kind of a kind of a sleep think sometimes I like, boy, movies have gotten so insane and awful at times that now

I'm like, wow, Scooby-Doo from 2002 really had it together. Great performance and wonderful actors, top to bottom. Great aesthetics. At the time, I was all like, I was trying to get into my Wes Anderson's and like this commercial filth. No, thank you. But now I'm like, I'd love love to i had a great time watching scooby-doo i felt the same way both of those live action scooby-doos on hbo max uh i believe along with the more recent scoob which was directed by the guy who uh worked on tom and jerry will Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Oh, weird. Oh, interesting.

So, the director, though, of the live-action Scooby-Doo, of course, loses points because it's written by Hollywood sicko James Gunn, but directed by a guy named Raja Gosnell, who also

directed Never Been Kissed, Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Smurfs and Smurf Smurfs 2 what a lineup filmography am I correct I think he

I think his film debut possibly was Home Alone 3 I believe you're correct a perennial masterpiece I think that his career is that he was the editor of the first two Home Alones he's like one of those odd cases

that was in a non-directorial position and then worked his way up to direct a lot of crazy crap but you do have to give him credit i guess for the aesthetics of this place which how do you even describe it i don't it's it's why there's like choices with there's a vibe with spooky island yeah i don't even hmm it is like it is very imagineered i will say like more

than a lot of things on this list, I feel like a lot of time and thought have been put into the design of this. It's vaguely, I don't know why I want to say Mortal Kombat-ish, which that's not really true, but it feels like a video game evil. Yeah. I think that's vague because it's a cgi-ish but kind of good kind of a good example of early 2000 cgi i find this sometimes scooby himself is kind of awful to look at but the the place i mean like do you guys all have in front of you the or the the main vista that you see when you

arrive it's really all about this. I saw it, yeah. That's the shot. Admittedly, they don't really go into a lot of detail about what the rides are, but when you land on Spooky Island from Spooky Airlines, set to a very lazy,

also-ran outcast song called Land of a Million Drums, there is... lazy also ran outcast song called Land of a Million Drums. Sorry if you really love that particular song. There's just like this beautiful tropical island. Australia I think is where they shot all these

because then there was a crossover with the theme park down there. Just like crazy studded skull with water slides bursting out of both of its eyes and then sort of a i mean lots of big skeleton kind of stuff there's a huge um i mean just like amazing fake rock work you got to give it up for that this big like yes fat mountain head thing um The coaster looks fantastic. It's like a little Burning Man-y.

You almost feel the Raleigh Crump individual. Maybe there was one art director who designed all of Spooky Island in its shows. Yeah, and it has that kind of... It's laid out really well, which is something... You know how we talk about, especially like a Tokyo DisneySea, where like every angle of the park is very impressive. You could be in the, you know, in the back right corner of it and look and go, oh, wow, this looks like it was perfectly framed. And it's not maybe quite as good as that, but this does look like some thought was put into it from a design standpoint where like you would go, oh, see how this would be so impressive you know standing here at the at the front gate this

image if you arrive via a boat which is cool very cool in and of itself if you arrived and saw this main establishing shot you'd be so excited for all the fun you did this this frame might be the best frame of anything that we're we're. I think it's so impressive. Yeah. I agree. Love to be there. But do you dock at points because you don't really get to. You kind of go around like this one spooky castle ride that is broken.

They don't stress the rides at all. You don't really have a sense of what the rides are. No, they really stress the resort aspect. There's mention of Emil Mondavarius, the head of the park, Rowan Atkinson's character, antagonizing the creatures that supposedly inhabit

the park, and you never want to antagonize the locals when you build a park. You want to reach out. It's tough because while they don't get into the rides you can tell what kind of what the rides are you know it's like despite the fact that they don't like go over how it works or they don't ride some of the things you see i can still kind of tell what this crazy roller coaster in the background or the the eye thing i can kind of imagine what

it would be like so is that hmm i don't know we're running up into a situation here where i haven't even thought about it is my imagination of what the rides are is that valid in this competition sure if they don't take the time to show you and what they do show you is a cool hotel a fun spring break vibe lots of energetic youths hanging around in very inventive pants i think this is a place that you want to be it's it's really like a um a place for teens is what it what it feels like this is a cool spring break park for teens as opposed to the the competitor that we haven't even talked about, which is entirely for children. So we don't even have the option to go there at this point.

There's not one adult around. Even though I live my life saying, hi, diddle-dee-dee-dee. Hi, diddle-dee-dee, an actor's life for me. That's a real tongue twister. Is that what Walt really thought of actors? Like, well, these vagabond scumbags. These nasty little creeps.

I'd like to think he did, but I don't know that to be a fact. Easily manipulated. There is a great... I started listening to the audiobook of Disney War about the ousting of the Eisner regime. And it, there's so many within the first 30 minutes, there's so many great details,

but there is an anecdote about like Walt and his family watching to kill a mockingbird and him going, I wish I could make, they were all very moved. And he goes like, I wish I could make a movie like that. But unfortunately, the public has this idea of Walt Disney. That's not me.

I drink, I smoke. I can't make movies like this. I never heard this anecdote before. This is like all the secret movies Lucas makes that we'll never get to see. Oh, yeah. In the garage. That are so experimental. What are they? Are they just

colors bleeding into each other? Is there a lot of nudity in them? Would you throw up if you watched one of these secret Lucas movies? Is it a snuff movie or is it just Stan Brakhage paint on film sort of thing? Or is it

just him playing all the parts in his episode 7, the one that he had in his mind. He's making the whole two hour movie and he's playing all the characters. I'm a Will. I'm Willie Will. I'm nerd

luck Will. It's part of the Space Jam-iverse too. These are voices that George Lucas is doing. Let's talk about Pleasure Island. Yes. I, look, again. You love it. Personal biases.

You love the little puppet boy. Have you seen this new Coke Zero commercial with a horrifying Pinocchio in it? No. I'll send it to you later. Yeah, it's a real nightmare. I think there's a couple of them. This is, all right, another evil island.

You get on a boat that has too many people on it, and then you run across a bridge that has too many people on it, and then you get in a Ferris wheel that has too many people on it. There's like 12 kids in a car. They're all exploding out. People are going to fall. This is overcapacity to begin with on Pleasure Island. They've overbooked this,

I guess knowing that there'll be a lot of turnover, that these kids aren't going to be kids for long. No. There's a... The character... There are some... What would you say the Walt of Pleasure Island is? Is it Honest John or is it that other guy?

Stromboli? Stromboli? No, are they just thugs? Maybe they don't actually... I don't know that we... Who's really profiting? Maybe it is that boat guy Honest John It's that other guy

That like sort of blonde haired I'm looking at the Wikipedia and I apologize We know the riots better than we know the movies folks But Jay Worthington Fowlfellow Is the fox Is Honest John And it is Implied to be an illegal or extremely notorious

Place as hinted by Jay Wor Worthington Falfa. So I don't think he owns it, but he is the fox. That's the same guy. The coachman is the owner of the island. The coachman does own it? Yeah, the coachman is the owner of the island. The guy in the big red smock, essentially? God, well, why do they work for it?

There's enough in it for them, this fox, to just steal children, just funnel children. This is a child trafficking ring. This is scarcely a theme park as I think about it. I guess now that you put it like that, I feel like nobody can vote for it. Honest John and Gideon work for him. And I'm remembering, Scott, your story of when you were sat on by Gideon, right? Yep.

So that's working against. Maybe that's why I'm being so severe about this and the world of Pinocchio in general. Right. As much as I think that Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Jiminy Cricket will make my spirits sore and make me want to wish upon a star as I did when I was young. But we haven't seen him yet. He's not in this. He's not in this creepy 1940s version full of tobacco and houses being vandalized. Yes.

The Rough House. There's an attraction called The Rough House, which is a tent where boys can fight and causes the scenes where children go to fight. The character Lampwick, who Pinocchio meets, goes, oh boy, a scrap. I would love to be Lampwick in this live action Pinocchio. Would love to... Oh, Jason for Lampwick, please.

Oh, please. I, of course, will get yelled at by the food stylist people. They have to prepare, as a disembodied voice yells, get your cake, pie, dill, pickles, and ice cream. All the things children love to indulge in. What is up with that? Did Walt consider dill pickles a major vice at the time? Only the worst children would salivate over dill pickles.

Well, and he would go on to sell it. A lot of this stuff that they're like, ooh, look at all this disgusting stuff, looks like attractions he would go on to build. Yeah. But there is some fun to be had. The design of it I find very enticing. I like the look of it in the cartoon

i think it looks very cool yeah um and i guess it's hard you know these are good animators or great animators who put this stuff together so i do as well say is despite the fact that i would if i was a little boy i would come out the other end being a donkey i would be excited to go there i might be uncomfortable because when i found out exactly like, oh, smoking and tobacco and scraps. But as a kid, it would appeal to me just aesthetically. Yeah. Yeah, boy, you'd really like, maybe you'd jump off and try to swim home

and either die on the way, but also avoid being a donkey forever. Maybe, yeah, the fear of scraps might save both of us, but condemn Jason to donkeyhood. Alright, yeah, that's fine.

I guess that's my lot. You becoming a donkey? Yeah. Maybe you might still have access to unfinished unfinished pickles and like full chickens there's some crust in that pie tin give it a year give it a year lampy um so this is tough this is difficult except i guess the donkey part is the yeah that is what that is what happens this is not a good thing that they're

doing I mean it's easy for me but maybe it's less easy I don't want to sway it I mean yeah as far as an imagineered place yeah I I think

I think I'm gonna have to vote against Pleasure Island I think Spooky Island has to win. Okay, I'll give it to Spooky Island. It is very intriguing. Wasn't sure. Wasn't sure if the pies would have enough sway, but there's probably pies on Spooky Island too, I think. Teens like pies.

That's true, yeah. So there's got to be yeah there's got to be elements there and just the rides look cool the brides do look cool it's spooky island i can't deny that yeah yeah um okay so now we get unscary thankfully and uh we move on to it's it's it's uh it's all comedy it's all it's all it's kind of a live action realm from here on out. Jason, you want to take this next one? I think I got myself turned around as I do at least once. Hold on.

I got it. Maybe I should do it also because I do have some splaining to do. I crafted this particular bracket to be the actually magic mountain bracket. Oh, yes. Foul. Foul on the court on this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm heading there. I'm going to admit it.

And this is a competition between Wally World from National Lampoon's Vacation and Mega Mountain from Three Ninjas High Noon at Mega Mountain. So, I had that category. Makes sense.

They were both actually filmed at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Makes sense. Pair them up. I start watching the movie and I'm halfway in and realize this is not... I thought maybe just some of it was not at Magic Mountain, but they're gonna get there. I don't know why I always thought this was filmed at Magic Mountain. Is it just because it's called Mega Mountain?

Did the coaster just look like Colossus? You see where I was going with it. By the way, we can't call it that. It's not the actually Magic Mountain bracket. It's the technically a Six Flags bracket, if you add a few asterisks and explain yourself. Because Mega Mountain, Three Ninjas at Mega Mountain, bracket uh if you add a few asterisks and explain yourself because mega mountain uh three ninjas uh mega mountain was filmed at colorado's elitch gardens which was owned and operated by six flags

from 1999 to 2006 until it was sold off during the last couple of years as the home to Meow Wolf's Kaleidoscope attraction. Really? Oh, wow. Oh, that's cool. We should learn more about this place. And a lot of YouTubers call it shitty. It's what I've learned.

All right. So I am interested. I think it looks nice a smaller park but um yeah interesting hmm um but yeah i mean there's similar feels to these things there's a big white roller coaster a wooden roller coaster that's kind of central to it um you know a bias about the products is going to factor in here and ashland poons vacation one of my favorite comedies for sure one of my favorite moviesies for sure, one of my favorite movies. Always love it, still love it. Things

still make me laugh really hard in it. If you can believe it, Three Ninjas, High Noon, and Mega Mountain is a lesser film, I might go so far as to say. Yes, I would agree with that. I had to brush up on my Three Ninjas, High Noon, and Mega Mountain

and I was looking at YouTube. One of the first videos that pops up is three ninjas high noon at mega mountain 1998 leather compilation Lonnie Anderson is villainous Medusa and sexy leather outfit someone has compiled all of Lonnie Anderson scenes or I guess the best scenes into one clip that seems to be maybe what the most popular aspect of this movie is i guess and you already had that you had that on your watch later playlist so that was very convenient you just went to the top of your list and right up um lonnie in leather that's funny when that happens when you are looking for a clip from something and then you realize and you find it and you're like wait this is framed in some fetish way what happened here someone there are let me say this I got

I watch a lot of clips of old late night talk shows as I'm assuming we all do old style likewise I said before I like watching Desi Arnaz bore everybody on the Tonight Show with a story about Charo and Xavier Cougat but i now have been getting recommended david letterman flirting compilations or craig ferguson flirting compilations 25 minute videos part 1 through 50

of david letterman flirting with women like who is making these who is tape who has the entire library of late night hosts and remembers catalogs moments where david letterman's like smiling a little i it's weird wild so yes finding leather. And it's all in lowercase letters. Leather compilation, too. It's just very, very funny. The podcast, The Ride, flirting with guests compilation would be zero minutes long. We are very tame, even with our own significant others. Hear every host say, I'm sorry. We love your rides.

Figment. That's my friend. So well, so high leather content, but that's not Medusa. Medusa takes over the park. She's not supposed to be there. We gotta think

about the park itself, and I don't know that you find out a lot i think the mega mountain is the most generic theme park there is yeah um other than that they are briefly featuring you know what happens when a guy wraps up his 15 season long stunt show and then to commemorate the show being canceled does a weekend of live performances next to a roller coaster, which is what Hulk Hogan's character does in this movie, and then gets himself embroiled in a real mess. Fine Hulk performance. Fine Lonnie Anderson. Fine Jim Varney performance.

Oh, Jim Varney. Fantastic performance. I love seeing a non-Earnest from Jim Varney. There's very few of them, but boy, anytime he's not... Even in the Ernest movies, when he's other characters, when he's that mean prisoner who steals Ernest's identity, that's great. Love Jim Varney.

Yeah, he's like Lonnie Anderson's number two. He's Lothar Zogg. That is his character's name. Lothar Zogg. Z-O-G-G. It's a's name. Lothar. Zogg. Z-O-G-G. It's a good name. I gotta tell you, this movie sticks out in my mind because I remember going and seeing Three Ninjas in Theater

with my dad and brother. Had a great time. Saw the sequel, Three Ninjas Kick Back. Same thing. Had a nice time. Don't remember the third movie, the prequel. This is the fourth movie. I remember seeing boxes and blockbuster video,

and it's one of my early memories of going like, ugh, what the hell? Like, just being disgusted by this. And I don't know if it's just like, they're still churning it out. That's clearly none of the original three kids. And Hulk Hogan has the weirdest hair and just that poster that box like i don't know i was just like ew i don't know even as a a kid i guess i would have been like

seventh or eighth grade when this got released on video but like yeah i don't know the el elitch garden seems very generic they did change a lot of the signs. Apparently there are shots where you can see Elitch Garden signs they missed. Yeah, I don't think they're... I mean, Wally World, this is another early live action. Okay, Disneyland's been around long enough. It's universal enough that we can make fun of it in a big comedy release.

Chevy Chase, a star at the time and a comedy movie that has like held up i'm sure there's some dated stuff in it but like yeah there's still very funny performances and stuff in it and yeah and probably the best like comedy set piece involving a theme park i'd have to think think. Yeah. Just like... Yeah. Yeah, it being sort of taken hostage by this angry dad, and John Candy's so great. All reshoots, I found out. I think there was an original ending

where they got to Wally World, it was closed, and then they go to Roy Wally's house, the Walt of this movie. They go to his mansion and bother him there. So none of that John Candy stuff, none of the park is in it. So they made the

right move because, boy, that park sequence is so fun. Marty Moose? I was going to say, like, Roy Wally and Marty Moose, you don't have a ton of, like, it doesn't seem like it was made by theme park nerds, but just Roy Wally and Marty Moose

go so far. Yes. Just as far as specifics and characters you enjoy. So, I mean, it's not a contest, unfortunately. Yeah, pretty easy. We could pick up the pace. I think we could call this one for Wally World. Makes sense to me.

I enjoyed watching Mega Mountain. That I will say. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, there's so much leather in it scott how could you not enjoy it and jim varney lothar and leather not yeah i'm a lothar fan i'm a leather fan i'm a leather head like george clooney did we say jason was a leather daddy in one of the episodes like two years ago i mean it's entirely likely. Don't remember why we would have. Don't remember.

Seems like us. Well, so yeah, if you're a leather daddy, then High Noon is the, yeah, and that YouTube clip's the clip for you. That's good because I think we need to get to this one because this is a pretty meaty one. Jason, do you want to take this? I do.

This is the wildcard bracket, the 1994 comedy bracket. Wonder World from Beverly Hills Cop 3 versus Dinosaur World from the much panned but now cult classic film Clifford. Yep. Yep. Both films from 1994. I was really hoping. And then like, is the other one?

And it was. Clifford, I don't think, wanted to be from 1994. I think this is a film that's set on the shelf for some time. This is a maligned movie. Now, I gotta tell you though, I learned about the existence of Clifford from The Best Show because Tom Shartling is a

big proponent of this movie. And I think I got it from Netflix like, mail you DVD Netflix movie and I think I got it from Netflix like Mail.U.D.V.D. Netflix and I think it's so fun. Like Martin Short, Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen. It's hard to beat.

Dabney Coleman and it's weird. It is so weird. Martin Short plays a 10 year old. Charles Grodin is one of the angriest characters in film, and they're just at the top of their game. Folks, if you haven't,

check out Clifford. Also on HBO Max, an odd amount of these things are. Yeah, it's something. I feel like I didn't dig it a lot, and it's aired on Comedy Central all the time, but there's something about it like I didn't dig it a lot. And it's like aired on Comedy Central all the time. Yeah, day.

But there's something about it now, again, in in hindsight. And being that we've sort of like lost the bizarre character at the center of the movie comedy. I like I miss it a lot. I miss this kind of thing. And yeah, it's insane and things don't work about it. But it's it's pretty interesting and bizarre and then you know so are we now are we just taking like odd affection for the movie uh into consideration here maybe but the rock the the park and the ride i mean

yeah are we all coming in as enthusiastic about Dinosaur World? Dinosaur World. Yeah. Commits so hard, I feel like. It's really built like a track for its ride. It's crazy, the scene in the movie. You get a full sense of this entire ride. It's maybe a rare case where they invent a whole ride

and show you every bit of it. You completely know what the ride is because Clifford Charles Grodin is not his uncle or something? Yes, his Uncle Martin. It's his

dream, it's Clifford's dream to go to Dinosaur World. Uncle Martin worked on Dinosaur World so he has access to it and eventually he's dream to go to dinosaur world uncle martin worked on dinosaur world so he has access to it and eventually he's pushed to the brink so much that he does take clifford dinosaur world but in sort of a kidnapping way takes him on the ride but then takes him on the ride again in double speed and then again and again uh and so the ride is kind of used as a torture device until uh uh things work out but um in setting that up, oh, my God, you get to go. This is just, I think, one of the best ride sequences there's ever been.

Oh, yes. Yeah, and he's just so excited to go. He's lying. I believe that Dinosaur World is the only place that a boy like me can be happy. Like, it's great. It's great. He's right. He's right he's right this ride is so good and you see it and you see it from all angles of it i don't think there's another

ride in any of the things we've talked about that is is fleshed out and has shown you almost all parts of it as this like this is like a ride through video of this ride yeah yeah essentially and you get with beautiful coverage and beautiful uh matte paintings i think you have to give it up for matte paintings throughout this thing because it's matte paintings that make the entrance to wally world look so cool it kind of there's other ones of these that use matte paintings to great effect and uh oh my god there's just beautiful painting work to set this up. When the Uncle Martin absconds with Clifford in the middle of the night, so it's kind of like crack of dawn that you're arriving at Dinosaur World, and you see the sun rise above it just a little bit.

And I'm like, this is DisneySea. This is Tokyo DisneySea. Yes. Ornate fake rocks. A whole rich environment. And within that, I think this ride, which is called Larry the Scary Rex, is Journey to the

Center of the Earth. It's in a similar environment. It's in a volcano type setting. There's magma. There's lava. And it's incredible animatronics.'s it's a works as a gentle dark ride but then it's really thrilling um mike this uh issue of uh intimacy with characters and animatronics you get intimacy big time you get long moments with it's unbelievable oh yeah you haven't seen it if you're listening to this

right now i actually suggest pausing this and just going there's a youtube video i think it's called clifford rides larry the scary rex it is it'll blow your mind if you're like us like you will go oh it i it feels like this ride exists This is how much work went into this movie that like they didn't. Nobody wanted to come out. And it like isn't like it's an incredible sequence, but it's also one of those 90s like just kind of becomes like action and stuff. And it's not funny per se. I remember thinking this sequence is like unpleasant as a comedy ending of a movie that already has problems and yet taking all that away just watching it as like a ride through i want this to exist so badly

there's a shooting element there's so many elements to this right it was it feels like it was made by an imagineer like there's so much thought put into it there are moods there are different scott was saying with his journey to Center of the Earth, it feels like there's... They have so many different things that the ride does. There's thrills. There's robots. There's intimacy. There's a shooting aspect of it. It's a shooter ride, too. It's interactive.

Yes. You have to fire a laser at... It's not just you pass by the titular Larry the Scary Rex. You have to kill him. You pull out a laser gun that you don't know is there suddenly surprise drops in your lap and you have to uh you have to bring him to the ground it's crazy meanwhile here is what eddie murphy had to say uh before beverly hill cop 3 was made if i do Cop 3, you can safely say,

oh, he must have got a lot of money. Because... And then... Here's what I learned about this movie. A lot of people involved in it have disowned it. I want nothing to do with it.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, don't forget that before the film was made that we're all thinking about coming to America a little bit because the sequel is out and both

these films were Eddie Murphy and directed by John Landis. Eddie Murphy said some horrible things about John Landis and yet still made this movie with him. It's so confusing. Choked him on the set, I believe. Choked him?

I said stuff about the trial like essentially, like imagine that. You're like, well, I think that this guy was involved in these kids dying. But yeah, sign him up. Get him on Cop 3. Why not? That's how little he gave a shit.

Now, that all being said, I think in another category, this is a very detailed... 1994 is the curse of this because they have absolutely thought out an entire full theme park with Wonderworld.

It's so detailed. And characters. This is the thing we're saying. And I almost feel, yeah, now that we're doing it, I feel almost bad. I feel like this should have been in a different category because, yes, I think it could have won. I mean, you know what? There are no rules. Could we throw this and replace it with something else?

That's interesting. Yeah, why not? If there's one we don't feel like. Let's look at the other list of what's won. I really don't want to give too much shine to anything with the name Landis attached to it. What do you mean? Why? Why?

Seems like great family to me. Yeah. Look, also in its favor, a wonderful George Lucas cameo. Yeah. We were doing George Lucas voices before. Let me do my impression of that. Hey!

He says, hey, and then let's go. Incredible to see George Lucas acting and clad in a t-shirt with one of the characters from this park. Now, they figured out, I think, again, in any other category, you'd love it. They invented a whole mythology of like mickey and friends-esque characters including okie dokie the elephant who eddie murphy has to dress up like um and at the end of the film a new character is added to the line the the climax the reward for axel Foley for his hard work doing whatever is happening in this movie

is that they debut Axel Fox. He gets his own original character that wears a jacket like he wears. And a big balloon blows up and a bunch of confetti on top of a merry-go-round. It's a very exciting ending. The marching band at the park plays the Beverly Hills Cop theme, which apparently exists in the world of Beverly Hills Cop. Yeah, there's a Wonder World song.

There is a Wonder World song. Wonder World portrayed by what is now called California's Great America. At the time was Paramount's Great America, and this is different from Six Flags Great America, which was your park, Mike? That is correct. I never remember. A lot of confusing things, yeah. different from Six Flags Great America, which was your park, Mike, right?

That is correct. Never remember. A lot of confusing things, yeah. Yeah. The song, the song is the Sherman Brothers. They got the actual Sherman Brothers. I mean, this would be killing potentially in another category. I think this beats Wally World.

Yeah. I think this replaces Wally World. I would like a vote. I would like a vote right now. Should we replace this? Well, hold on. We got a vote. Or can it replace something else?

I don't know. We have to figure out what happens here. I mean, yeah, it's really good. It's definitely really good. They have Disney dollars. Counterfeit money is a part of the story. They film on real rides. They film on an earthquake

on the Universal Tour. It's good. It's pretty good. Don't we have to vote in this category first? I'm throwing my vote to Dinosaur World. So am I.

Dinosaur World is awesome. I'm just my vote to Dinosaur World. Yeah, so am I. I'm just saying. I'll throw Dinosaur World. Yeah. Dinosaur World is awesome. So I'm just saying, can we throw, can we replace Wally World with Wonder World? But isn't that just a rematch? You're right. That is a rematch. All right, we got to throw up the whole bracket into Disarray.

No, I think it's out. All right, fine. Well, let's revisit, maybe potentially Dinosaur World. But yeah, I mean's it is it is great and if if we do abandon it can i just say no we got to move on it turns out i read this that they could not figure this the screenwriter had a week to figure out a pitch on beverly hills cop three what it was going to be uh and in that week he read an article about the about to open universal city walk they were starting to build it if you remember, it was one of those articles

that was really hoity-toity about the fake microcosm betraying what an actual community should be, like these stupid iFluid and what everybody said about CityWalk. And the guy was just like, well, that's a funny environment. That's an environment where Axl is still like, would be a fish out of water so city walk inspired this movie that's extremely theme park specific um maybe all food for thought for why you might want to bring it back into the the competition but we'll see okay

um so in an extremely long first round extremely long oh. So we, we just have to plow more. I mean, we kind of said all our thoughts already. We just now got to go versus here. Um, and let's not even recap. Let's just dive right in. We're going into,

we're going in around two, uh, which places. And again, if you ever want to call, let's put, um, wonder world in,

we'll, we'll talk about it. Um, so that brings us to itchy and scratchy land versus glove world um what do we do there what do we do there uh yeah that's tough i mean glove world as i said is very clever there's a ton of different specifics itchy and scratchy land is tough again because i don't think the rides are as good there but the land itself as we were saying the sort of experience of going on vacation there would be fun yeah yeah but the the i keep coming back to the actual theme park itself that has to be the anchor for this experience yeah so that's where i'm struggling right here yeah well there's that log rock kind of what you get to see, and

that's just bad, and it hurts you, and your log gets... It's only called log ride. It gets torn down the middle, and arrows get fired at you, and you land on a cushion. It doesn't operate like a real ride would. Right. That is fun, though.

But then there's the tunnel of glove and glove world, which I really like I think that's a funny joke there's a super dangerous mode to that as well that comes up this is so tough I guess

underwater seems really fun to do I don't know am I going to go back to Scott's argument, though, that won this, that beat my beloved Duff Gardens? That Parents Island and all of its fun? Yeah. There's no version of Parents Island because, yes, look, we're getting older. And I'm not a young man anymore. I can't go to Pleasure Islands. I won't be recruited by Gideon or Honest John.

I do need a few of those experiences as I get older. 100 bars and restaurants. I don't know. SpongeBob's fun, but I know where my heart lies. Yeah, I think it's between Scratchy Land. Alright, okay. Moving along

and we'll take out Glove World and that takes us then to Jurassic World versus Luna Park on Futuron. Now we kind of skipped Luna Park. Maybe we have to go over it a little to see if it can hold water against Jurassic World. Right. Now what I'll say about Luna Park is that it feels very Duff Gardens-y to me. Obviously it's a Matt Groening show. There's some similarities in the way they're portraying rides as kind of janky

with old robots. There's a joke about how because it's the future, they don't know how people landed on the moon or what that was all about, which I think is very funny. But the ride itself is very low-fi, low rent. And I appreciate that about it.

It's full of robots and it's charming. It's still charming, even though the characters, or at least Fry, doesn't like it. Doesn't like that specific ride and some of the other aspects of the park. So I do appreciate that. It's another Disneylandneyland uh analog general yeah you got your goofy gophers you have essentially a country bear jamboree so that's

cool but i don't know if i like the show the show is just that they pop up and make little jokes and the country bear jamboree is so much more that is exactly the same thought i had there's a joke that monsanto is presenting that that show which is very funny but they don't show me in there that they're having a jamboree and it's because I clicked on it to refresh myself and I went oh yeah that's funny but there's no real banjo plan or fiddle plan I mean maybe there is maybe they're not showing it but they have to show they have to show me I I sort of said imagination for the Scooby-Doo one, but... Yeah, I mean, Whalers on the Moon is...

I remember this is an early Futurama episode. I remember being very excited at Pirates of the Caribbean parody when it aired. But some of the other jokes and stuff, like skee-ball, virtual skee-ball, virtual virtual skee-ball, that's more of an arcade joke than a theme park joke. That is an arcade joke. I agree with Jason. virtual virtual ski ball. That's more of an arcade joke than a theme park joke. That is an arcade joke. I agree with Jason.

And that's different. That's different. Do we like that it's in a big dome? It's in a bubble on the moon. Yeah. And that's pretty cool. So you don't need a spacesuit to be in there. That's fun.

I do like that. I mean, it feels much more... There is something cold and impersonal about Jurassic World. And that's kind of even some of the idea in the movie of it sort of it doesn't have that magic that uh that the original i guess did even though the movie the original park never opened in the movie universe i don't know yeah it's like a um it's like an la live it's very it's very It's very corporate in its chosen restaurants and everything. But hey, you see dinosaurs.

The T-Rex is there. That's one thing to give it up for. You would see that T-Rex get splashed. You could be in the splash zone of the big thing, the mega fish, whatever it's called. It's hard because seeing dinosaurs seems pretty good but being on the moon is crazy too those are two crazy things oh wait a minute yeah i want to go crazy ass things yeah and it's tough because basically it's gonna come down to because i think actually the contents of luna park i like more. Because if Jurassic World showed us that it had one ride that felt very classic dark ride,

I do always like that to be an element of a park. Something that feels very much tied to your classic Disney dark rides. Yeah. So that's what it's coming down to when I'm thinking about it. Seeing a dinosaur for real or being on the moon and then getting to kind of see a fun, janky Disneyland. It's hard. When you put it like that, it's hard because the dinosaur is crazy. But you might meet Buffett.

But you can go to Margaritaville in our actual world, and it's not a very good restaurant. It's not a great restaurant. I might admit that. You make a very good restaurant. It's not a great restaurant. I might admit that. You make a good argument there. It is the moon. We're not taking into account that this is going to the moon. Going to the moon

and then seeing a fun robot show. Yeah. I... Hmm. Do you guys know what you're voting yet? I don't. Oh boy. This is the longest episode

of Candidates. At least longest in quarantine. I don't know, Mikey. You might have sold me on the moon. I hadn't considered that before. The actual practical implications of a theme park on the moon. Yeah. And then it's Moon Street USA and, you know, there's probably bars up there too. Moon Street USA might push me over the edge.

I think I'm giving it to Luna Park. I think I am too. Okay. Well, then it doesn't matter. Wow. You might have upset. I don't know. Maybe I'll do a protest vote for Jurassic World

just to say thanks for the effort. And I really liked the Jurassic World. I almost can't believe that we're heading into this without into the end without Jurassic Park but I'm glad it was obvious I think and this is we got to be bold. Yeah. Wow

Luna which we end up with two it's now a graining a graining on categories yeah. Okay so we advance that It's now a graining. A graining on graining categories. Okay. So we advance that and that takes us to scary stuff. Horror Land from Goosebumps versus Spooky Island from Scooby Doo 2002. This is tough.

This is tough. Okay. Spooky Island is obviously not as fleshed out, but that image is so powerful. Yeah. It was strong. Yeah. What a skyline. And, you know, bad things are going on on Spooky Island, but it's not... I think a lot of people don't encounter the bad things, whereas everyone at Horrorland gets hurt or endangered.

That is a good point because Spooky Island seems like, yeah, you can come away with nothing bad happening. But the sheer amount of stuff you can do at Horrorland. There's Werewolf Village, Horror Rapids, Vampire Village, Monster Zoo. There's just the sheer amount of stuff. Seems like it goes and goes. It goes and goes.

Mad Labs is an area on Horrorland which mainly consists of mad scientists like buildings and architecture. Toxic Gunk dunk. Yeah. Shock and roll. Brain drain. Terror tombs is an area filled with mummies. There's like a weird, and I'm forgetting where I put this in from,

there's a weird dentist thing too, which sounds like it would hurt you, but what an idea for a themed experience. Plasma plaza. Yeah. an idea for a themed experience. Plasma Plaza? Yeah, the fact that it's thought out and was used as the basis for world building to tie together different goosebumps

like sub-universe. Yeah, I think... Now, here, let me show you this. This is actually just something I'm coming upon now. There's a photo I have here that I think has maybe swayed me a little bit more. And let me... Got how to do this, of course.

Here we go. Look at this. Well, that's better than the Toronto television series that I watch. This is more expansive than that. That's a very tall coaster with a witch, the cauldron, Black Widow, a drop ride,

big dragon, ooh, yeah. Because the original book Horrorland, it was a little bit more like kind of a carnival. But from reading about what they've done since and all the different lore,

it feels like they've expanded it to be sort of a multi-day resort. That's good. But you are going to get hurt or psychologically damaged if you go. That is the one trade-off. Yeah, it's scary. You have to ride in a coffin down the river. Right, but that's built in that like like in the way that disneyland is meant to spark joy from 8 to 80 it's accomplishing its stated goal of causing abject horror but i think that spooky island is achieving its goal of being spooky but also um lesser outcast music is playing and there's uh like

tiki bars and it's like a burning man that has more infrastructure so i don't have to be like a survivalist to be there but something bad could happen to you at spooky island as well there is a possibility of it maybe but we know that they've established contact with the mystery gang or whatever they're called so you know they might come and fix it for me right i'm just saying there's risks involved in both of these so if there are risks and maybe you're right maybe they're not equal risks but if there are risks with both of these and i was about to declare what i was going to say, but now I'm trying, I'm second guessing my thoughts.

I'm going to, I'm going to really put it on you. I'm going with spooky Island. I also just want, like, I really wanted, even though of course, more on mountain can't be in,

I really want some bad CGI to be in here. And that does it for, I really just love that Vista of spooky Island. So then I'm going to give it to horror land. So Mike, it's your call. See, here's the thing. And now I've talked to myself about all the different things with Horrorland. And maybe actually that is a deficit to Horrorland.

Is that perhaps there's now so much media surrounding it. There's not a unified Horrorland that even exists maybe they've sort of thrown too many ideas at it and spooky island is a much you can feel it's of a piece if we're thinking of it in terms of an album a musical album spooky island looks like it's a finite thing it's a piece that was designed meticulously horror land is maybe of, and this is going to sound like a knock at our beloved Knott's, but Knott's is very much suffers from, oh, here's the section that was built when there was a coaster craze in the 80s. Here's when we're chasing this trend. And now they're doing, of course, much more stuff we love, which is theming and characters and

tying everything to what mythology. If you're viewing it if you're viewing it like an album you know think of it like the soundtrack of scooby-doo the motion picture with shaggy sugar ray a buster rhymes uncle cracker cover of freaks come out at night um and if you imagine that's the kind of music that you're hearing which is you probably are on spooky island well and you definitely be seeing some fashion nightmares i mean mean, come on. Frosted tips? Long dresses worn with jeans underneath? Yikes. What were we doing back then?

Fred and Daphne and Velma are the most tastefully dressed people on Spooky Island. I think I'm going to go Spooky Island. Wow. All right. I'm gonna go Spooky Island yeah alright I've just really been rooting for Spooky Island since we started talking about this alright yeah

the Frosted Sugar Ray Sugar Ray is there don't forget that I like Sugar Ray yeah they're performing they're hanging out

by the pool I've seen Sugar Ray twice live thank god in the last 10 years hanging out by the pool. I've seen Sugar Ray twice live. Thank God. In the last 10 years. They sounded great, honestly. I was front row in one of these concerts.

Socially distanced with masks and everyone was tested. I met him in the last three months. 10 days. Sugar Ray. It was at some casino in Florida, and there were no masks. Mark coughed on you. Okay, so that takes us to Wally World versus Dinosaur World. And you know what?

I don't think there's even- No fucking contest. Yeah, yeah. Look, Vacation, obviously the better movie uh but oh my god are you like dino yeah this is a 12 seed defeating a one seed you love to see it but dino world is yeah one of the great portrayals of an attraction yeah unbelievable immaculate wow attention to detail and who and even if you don't know what the rest of the park is, just that main...

Even if there weren't anything else. But there seems to be a great wooden roller coaster. So much going on at Dinosaur World. The real final four. Yeah, we are down to four. Here they are. Yes, we got it. It is.

Itchy and Scratchy Land from The Simpsons, Luna Park from Futurama Spooky Island from Scooby-Doo and Dinosaur World from the Martin Short Vehicle Clifford We are down to four

I'm pretty happy with it I love it There's ones I almost wish Jurassic World could have made it further I almost wish If you were doing just a pure four maybe jurassic world is in there and maybe wonder world is in there but um i don't know agree disagree um yeah it's tough i mean this is i'm not yeah i don't know that's those are the only two i would maybe slot in i mean obviously i would want duff gardens over itching scratch land know. Those are the only two I would maybe slot in. I mean, obviously, I would want Duff Gardens over Itchy and Scratchy Land,

but that's the only other two I would maybe slot in. There's a part of me that would want that, too. I don't know. I have my regrets, but you've got to look forward, especially when it's a longest episode candidate. So, Itchy and Scratchy Land versus Luna Park. Clash of the Grainings. Again, I think you have to think about that moon argument that really illuminated something.

You are going to the moon, but this didn't invent going to the moon. But it did make a tangible place for you to go once you go there. It's also in the year 3000. It's a long ways away. You have to be there first right um now yeah now when we're putting these two up against each other it's they're similar they're very similar as far as parks are concerned it's just the moon element that the moon element is the only thing that would make me go with luna park over itching scratch land that would have to

supersede all the other stuff we've talked about. All the other rides, all the other robots. The park itself. Yeah, the park itself, Itchy and Scratchy Land is undeniably better. You maybe have to consider some of the rides that you don't get to see. There is a sign at the beginning of the rides that are closed. The Head Basher, the Bloodbath, the Mangler. And then what the joke is that it's the first aid station or the nurse's station or something um you got uh the restaurant tavern on the screen where you have to enter under a big

knife that's coming down um there's the actual danger element like like they're now itching scratchy land you are maybe supposed to get hurt that's's maybe like in the design although you get hurt somewhat. Although I guess not. I mean they designed the robots not to hurt you but then right there you have robot parades all the time. Yes, and obviously that's really good. Yes, it just comes down to that moon element

I think for this because they both have the stuff you're looking for from a themed experience. I don't think Luna Park is fleshed out enough for me, compared to Itchy and Scratchy Land. I think there's just more stuff you like. I agree. Itchy and Scratchy Land

is moving on. We've gained speed. I feel like we'll keep gaining speed. Because there was division with the other one. But there's no division with Dinosaur. We love Dinosaur World as much as Clifford. Yes. We're all little Cliffords.

100% Dinosaur World. Dinosaur World, move on. I don't like the realization that we're all Cliffords. We are three Cliffords hosting a podcast. That is the new tagline for this podcast. Our partners are all Charles Grodin yelling, can you just be like a normal boy? Jason, of course.

And our parents are also screaming that. Jason, though, is the only one, though, that is half Charles G groan and half clifford wow wow ah that actually oh no accurate description i think yeah it's probably not great when i if i meet with agents and managers i try to explain myself that way and it's like oh yeah two characters from a fucking bomb from a million years ago. Very neat. You are definitely selling yourself to us. An old crank and a guy who likes to play creeps.

I'm a combo of both. But I'm nice, please. I'll work long hours. Clifford in general, I feel like is like, he thought he could do Pee-wee. Pee-wee is a little boy in theory, but you don't really think about it.

And you're just always thinking about that this is a grown man. You kind of don't overcome the creepiness. And like you don't stop and think that peewee is 11 or whatever he's supposed to be. Well, isn't his other character just kind of peewee too? Ed Grimley, is that the name? They're similar.

Yeah, Ed Grimley is very similar to peewee, yeah. Yeah is that the name ed they're similar yeah they're similar ed grimley is very similar to peewee yeah yeah yeah that's true um martin shore very very talented uh performer uh has had many uh unnerving characters in his his long career oh yeah what he excels at yeah it's always bizarre that like the the weird pale mop topped jackie rogers jr oh yeah i love them all but like there's no um as a kid they he scared me for sure yeah yeah more often than not i guess fronk is lovable yes father of the bride yeah that's the but if that's your most normal, it's your most relatable guy, maybe the guy who Captain Ron bothers. Maybe that's the most human Martin Short character.

But we're not here to talk about the Martin Short filmography. We're here to talk about the final two. We suddenly plowed the last two, and I love the last two. I'm very happy with the last two. Here's a question does um uh wonder world beat itchy and scratchy land hmm i don't think so i don't think so probably not yeah yeah you've

got the cartoon element you've got the yeah it's yeah so inventive um does jurassic world beat itchy and scratchy i don't guess not because it already lost yeah i don't think so um well all right just kind of road testing these so that brings us to um is is also is itchy and scratchy land the episode also from 1994 no way is that right be itchy and scratchy land and that episode is from the fourth from the sixth season which aired in on october 2nd 1994 wow two it's now a clash of the 1994s um wow wow um interesting um well a good era and you know what And you know what? This is not a screenwriter era. This is a tactical. There's tangible experiences. So much in Itchy and Scratchy Land. robots, real danger. Dinosaur World obviously is like, can you imagine if it existed? If you could go on Larry the Scary Rex,

that it would be very, it would feel like pirates. It would feel like, it's in the era of Indiana Jones too, right? It's like in a time where Disney was killing it and if they did something that was as good as the movie scene is. Right.

Yes. It'd be incredible and that's and then what you're saying thinking of the quality of it from the dinosaur uh the ride uh and then taking that and applying what they would have done then to the whole theme park yeah you have to start your my imagination starts to run wild with what this whole thing would be as you're saying disney sea level attraction i think so um now do you maybe we've docked uh points in the past or maybe you don't get the best sense of what the whole thing is and you really only know larry the scary rex but that is a blockbuster attraction. It's almost like, yeah, if they didn't have anything else.

But like, yeah, is it bad that it relies on our imagination? Yeah, is that enough? Is that enough to defeat the iconic Itchy and Scratchy Land? Right, but if this were just Final Four fake theme park ride Final Four... Oh, then easy. Oh, easy. Then no question. But just because The Simpsons have more jokes and more stuff,

does that mean it wins? Potentially. You have a better sense of what the whole thing is. Again, Parents Island. I don't know if alcohol is even allowed at dinosaur world they have not addressed this in this movie that's not about this right but the ride itself is so good really you would have to imagine that the park comes close to that level. Let me show you.

Let's look at this picture. And this is taken off my TV. It's not full clarity quality. But just to get a sense of, okay, what is the rest of this? There's three volcanoes in a row. That might all be the structure of the Larry the Scary Rex ride. You've got big lakes. There's a big brontosaurus in one.

The rest you can't necessarily tell, but there is a Knott's quality, I think. It looks a little rustic. Knott's had that great dinosaur ride, which is kind of attributed in Wonder World and Beverly Hills Cop. Imagine if it's little or dark rides that are like Kingdom of the Dinosaurs. And yeah, this is a nice looking park from just this kind of blurry painting. Nice piece of concept art for sure. It's really good.

I think I have maybe one more visual from the movie just if that's helping us with anything. Let me share the screen. So, I mean, there's the outside of Larry the Scary Rat. Incredible facade. Although, but, how about this, though? Isn't, in theory, isn't that what the T-Rex Cafe looks like? It is very similar.

Does not the T-Rex cafe suck? It is not good. Well, I've never dined, so I can't say from first hand. My friends, Tyler and Kia, did, and they said it stank to high heaven. Scott, those mountains are in the distance, so that can't be the show area for Larry the Scary Rex. Still separate. So there might be full journey to the center of the Earth in those different volcanoes. And you've also got, there's a dinosaur there.

There seems like a Skyway type attraction. There's a brontosaurus behind them. Let me say this. Let me throw this into your brains. If you didn't have any affection for The Simpsons or Itchy and Scratchy as a property before going to Itchy and Scratchy

land wouldn't that take out a lot of the novelty and fun if we're just judging this based truly on the design and the rides and you take out your years of watching the simpsons as a little kid and loving it you're in the simpsons universe maybe you're an adult and you know of the cartoon you almost have more to combat in that when we were kids the movie clifford was around and i

feel like maybe i said to my parents should we see Clifford and they said no that looks bad and then I watched it on Comedy Central and I thought it was bad so I'm almost more I'm overcoming this this huge like gulf of hate in order to get to where I have

gotten to with Dinosaur World which is and it's all new this is new feelings that we all found together now what theme parks are about making memories together you're feeling we're filling in a lot of blanks about dinosaur world we you we all have talked recently about like revisiting some childhood cartoons the ninja turtles cartoon the x-men cartoon and so many of them you go like i didn't remember them not moving this much like i guess my brain filled in the blanks and i remember it fondly i've been getting a new kind of youtube recommendation which is um someone has taped someone in the past taped full blocks of fox

kids from start of airing through commercials with full episodes. I'm very excited to revisit those because I think that'll be a real trip. But I think it's your scratchy land laid out, kind of laid out in front of you, Michael. It is. But so much of the enjoyment of itchy and scratchy land is because we know it's a parody of Disney. We know that these are all jokes. So much of my love of itchy and scratchy land is because it's packed with jokes that are references to things at Disneyland. It's all sort of based on there's layers to Itchy and Scratchy Land and to the enjoyment of it.

Obviously, we're talking about Parents Island a lot because we know that would purely be a fun experience to go to a dumb TGI Fridays where you ring in the new year. But would I rather go to a fresh kind of old feeling Dinosaurland Park that looks like Scott's the picture Scott just pulled up? Or would I go to this park that is a joke park based around Disneyland? Which one is better? And I'm trying to take all of my nostalgia for the Simpsons and for my childhood viewing when I'm thinking about it, because I think if the ride quality is to be believed at dinosaur land, that park might be better. That's the, that's where I'm leaning.

I think that might be a better park, a more satisfying experience and a new, more feeling original experience as opposed to going on stuff at itchy and scratchy land which is all all i get how they're making fun of a thing that i've been on before disney yeah right yeah if there's no precedent for dinosaur world right there's dinosaur experiences obviously but it's not making fun of so many of the things on this list are jokes based on stuff at Disney. The people, the good people who made Clifford, they were trying to make an original dinosaur experience. They were trying to give people something completely new using, of course, the classic theme park tropes and ideas, but giving us a wholly new themed experience and something that we actually feel like we've been on at the end which is why i'm voting for dinosaur world oh my goodness

how do yeah okay okay we have one locked in so the power is in our hands um i think I think one thing also, there's things like in Wonder World where it's a little bit like, oh, this is kind of a corny attraction. They do not make that choice with Dinosaur World. Right. This is just a great- High level. As if the log flume in Splash Mountain stopped up at the perch, gave you a full scene with a pterodactyl who comes back in a different mode flying. Then you see one of the greatest animatronics you've ever seen fire a laser at it. Yeah. I'm almost like if there was nothing else here.

Right. Itchy Scratchy Land is of like irony and great funny jokes but isn't it nice to not have to see irony once in a while that's all our personalities are isn't it nice to have a break yeah that's true and i think a thing to acknowledge in the universe of the movie charles groden appears to be good at what he does. Yes. He wants this project, this transportation infrastructure. That's his passion.

He's trying to solve Los Angeles. He's fixing stuff that we need, and he'd probably be good at it. And Dinosaur World was a stepping stone to that. So yeah, he might actually solve los angeles oh in that way that we're always like like oh you know walt was testing out these forms of transportation to maybe take them to make like transportation in your city or the airport or whatever more efficient let's take these disney ideas incubate them and then do them on a bigger scale isn't that what uncle martin is do you talk about your walt figures and you're like and we love our rides, our Tonys and our Joe Roadies who

have their personal stamp. Uncle Martin is absolutely one of those. Absolutely, he is. And then Clifford is us, just passionate about these places being immersed. We're three Cliffords. We're three Cliffords. I think I know how I'm voting. Mommy, I want to go to Dinosaur World. I want to go to Dinosaur World

Take me Uncle Martin I I Mike Michael Drew me to the edge And then that mischievous maniac Clifford pushed me over the cliff Unbelievable Wow Dinosaur World from the disliked

1994 Martin Short vehicle, Clifford, takes the fake theme park final four. A tumultuous one. Rules were broken. Major beloved franchises were tossed to the side in favor of very disliked ones, and that's what took it all the way.

Boy, that was an incredible speech, Mike. Thank you. I think we all... Did anyone sort of think this could be it? I was wondering a little bit. I was for sure going to come in with a lot of passion for Larry the Scary Rex, and I wondered if it'd be reciprocated,

if it'd be a little like, oh, interesting, so you liked that. And then so the comfort in discovering that all three of us felt the same way. Well, we all have ride taste, and it's impossible to watch that and not go, oh, my God. That would be amazing. It's impossible. It does everything. On the 360, it's like exactly as advanced of a coaster as I could do as a kid. Probably still today.

That's as far as I could go. Yeah. It's a coaster and a dark ride. There's surprises. There's a little splashdown like the Matterhorn. It becomes addictive as you watch it in fast motion. And I'm sorry that it hurt Clifford and that he had to be pulled out of Larry's jaws. But it all worked out.

He's a nice old monk now, teaching Ben Savage to not be bad. So there's that. It all worked out. Clifford got perspective from his experience, and I feel a lot of perspective right now. I definitely, when I glanced, I was like thinking Itchy and Scratchy

Land was gonna win, but I definitely was like, oh, Dinory the scary rex is gonna push this one very far into the tournament at least from my perspective i didn't know how everyone else was gonna feel i thought i was gonna actually lose too i thought even though i gave one of the best speeches of my life uh just now the most inspiring speeches i've ever given uh i thought there was a chance that you'd go, yeah, that's true, but we like

Itchy and Scratchy Land. It wouldn't have been bad. Is there maybe also the bias in general, maybe I have it, of like, doesn't it just feel obvious to say, like, The Simpsons is good, so we give, of course we love The Simpsons. It's like the fundamental of my brain.

I love The Simpsons so much, and I love that episode so much. But isn't it more, we're charting, we're like assigning new IP by suddenly liking this Clifford thing so much. It's too obvious, I think, The Simpsons. That's part of it, but as I said at the start of this i'm gonna try to divorce myself from the material and that's what i believe i successfully did here i think this is absolutely the right choice i think you're right it's the more interesting choice for sure but i do think it's the right i do think it's the correct choice and you know you could uh squibble and squabble with various things about this decision but i think there's no question

that in all these things the best fullest most thought out most awesome ride no question is larry the scary rex and isn't that what it's all about is rides and somewhat like places you know bars and stuff but i got i pushed some bars and stuff as far as I wanted to. But I mean, no one commits to the bit, I think, as hard as Larry the Scary Dinosaur. Like, no one commits to the theme park, you know, assignment quite like this movie. And it doesn't need to. That's the other thing.

It doesn't have to. They could have just done, like, a rinky-dink sort of. It's one of the only ones on the list that didn't do a jokey make fun of thing yeah played it like it sucked it's one of the less insane things in clifford somehow so which luckily thankfully you can watch just that piece on youtube but maybe i want to watch the whole movie now. Oh, I definitely will. And I want to watch it in full quality, too.

In sparkling HBO Max quality. Now, they have new movies. They have Wonder Woman 84, and they have Tom and Jerry. But now I think, and they have some of the Sopranos. They have wonderful pieces of art. But I think now the crown jewel of HBO Max is clearly the Larry the Scary Rex scene in Clifford. And a bungled rollout, but HBO Max, it is starting to feel like old streaming Netflix,

where it's like, man, they have everything. They have so much on there. Might be the best now. Yeah, it's the Clifford of streaming services. And I hope there's a longer cut of Clifford somewhere involving more of this theme park that could be released in a four-hour version. Yeah, this is where i

want to like try to contact a production designer i want to know more maybe there's more like layers to this onion that we can unpeel yeah for other probably dinosaur world episode clearly this is the one with the meat on the bone um let's get out of here because this has been a mega one but for with good reason uh you survivedived, Podcast, The Ride, the fake theme park Final Four. Do we maintain fakeness? All three have been faked. Are they all

fake? Is that how this works, or do we change the format entirely next time around? That's a good question. Is this like a trilogy of fakeness? And now we can do something different. Or is it a cinematic universe of fakeness that now we can do something different. Is it a cinematic universe of fakeness that never ends that has 40 episodes?

Right. I mean, is that... If you're trying to nudge us to doing a thick seat Final Four because that's not anything having to do with fakeness, possibly. I'm not sure that that's what I'm trying to do. I wouldn't say at all that's what... I think fans expect, I think, that fake all that's what... Maybe we... I think, you know, fans expect

I think that fake is part of it. Because fake gets alliterative with Final Four. Right, right, right. In a way that thick just isn't. Right? Right. I understand what you're saying. So we'll talk about it off air. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But give us your thoughts. Tell us what you want us to do and, you know, come revel

in Larry the Scary Rex with us on our social media. And for three bonus episodes every month, subscribe to Podcast the Ride the Second Gate at patreon.com slash podcasttheride. Guys, it's been transcendent. I feel as exhausted as Uncle Martin after a week with Clifford,

but more positive i think than him right but i just want us to all remember and i and i guess the live may you know they're we're three cliffords for sure we've determined that and there's a lot of talk people like sometimes they oh what are the what are the listeners or the fans of the podcast called and we really haven't had a name. We haven't like dubbed a name, an official one, but I, let me throw it out there that we just call them Clifford's.

This seems like a path to Stan. This seems like this is where this becomes like a bad term, like a bunch of Clifford's storm the Capitol. It's possible. I don't know if it starts here It'll start in an innocent place I think You know But maybe yes maybe you're right

Maybe it grows into something monstrous I don't know I'm just throwing it out as a possibility Let me ask the listeners Do you want to be referred to as Cliffords Are you Are you our Cliffords after this experience Perhaps that's for you to decide Let us know thanks for listening That was something So long Are you our Cliffords after this experience? Perhaps that's for you to decide.

Let us know. Thanks for listening. That was something. So long. Bye. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey.

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