Podcast: The Ride - Unlocked American Gladiators Orlando Dinner Theater
Episode Date: January 11, 2026Enjoy this sample of P:TR - The Second Gate. Find even more Second Gate episodes at Patreon.com/PodcastTheRideOrlando is/was truly the greatest place on Earth. Where else could you eat atroci...ous food while watching jacked-up American Gladiators kinda fight.Orlando is/was truly the greatest place on Earth.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_kAb3dh3EAFOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRidehttps://www.instagram.com/podcasttherideBUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ridePODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-rideSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Forever.
Three, two, one.
Welcome to Podcast the Ride the Second Gate.
I'm Tork, joined by Outlaw.
I'm pointing at you.
Outlaw.
That's right.
Embrace it.
Own it.
Outlaw.
I was going to call myself like young man or something.
Well, that's fine.
These are suggested.
But that's better.
That's more of an actual American gladiators name.
I'll call myself Outlaw.
Outlaw.
Yeah.
And over there.
it's throb
Oh,
Thross.
I was going to say
Scuttle and then
I realized that's a little
Scuttles is a little
little mermaid.
Yeah, that's why I was like,
wait,
there's a Disney thing
named Scuttle is
and then I remember.
Yeah,
scuttling isn't a tough word
to scuttle around.
What about in gorge?
Sure.
Well,
Throb and gorge.
Well, scuttle
kind of made sense
because you got to
scuttle between the barrier.
You got to dodge the bowl
and stuff.
You've got to be crafty and high.
Scurrying.
Scurrying is what you're thinking, I think, more.
You're thinking about scurrying, I think.
All right.
Over there is scurry.
Technically, an action verb.
Well, to each his own,
I just wanted to come in with a couple of suggestions.
And by the way, mine is Torque spelled with a cue,
not like Peter Torque.
Oh, yeah, thanks for making that distinction.
For our audience.
Yeah, yes, yeah.
Well, for at least one person in the room.
I'm just wanting to make sure that you didn't think I was making a monkeys.
You're talking about the torque as in the, is it a motorcycle movie from the early 2000s with a young Adam Scott?
Oh, right.
Yeah.
He's in torque.
He's in torque.
Yeah, he came to funnier die once and made a video about his experiences on the set of torque.
Is that true?
Yeah, it was something about an assistant director who was making him do something dangerous.
And it made him feel unsafe while making the movie torque.
Oh, oh dear.
forget the name of that.
Okay.
And Ken Marino is in it, playing a backstage role, much like in the rock and roller coaster
attraction.
It's the party was born to play.
But we are here to talk about something I've been wanting to do the deep dive on for a long
time.
This has been on a literal to-do list for a while.
I'm glad that we've landed here.
Today we are talking about American Gladiators Orlando Live.
However, I would like to overshoot that.
proper title and refer to it as what it is in my heart, which is the American Gladiator's
Dinner Theater.
This is something that was in Orlando.
And you know what?
The building did say American Gladiators' Dinner Theater as well.
There's a bit of branding confusion throughout this thing.
So I'm going to use the most descriptive one, because that's what this is.
If you don't know this, American Gladiators, the smash hit pop culture phenomenon, syndicated
televised pseudo sports show of the late 80s and early to midnight, 89 to 96, this thing ran.
We can talk about the show a little broader.
But, you know, very popular, like insane, garish, huge show with, you know, crazy bodybuilder types
performing stunts in sports that were made up for the show specifically, memorable theme,
you know, just like a vibrant great 90s memory.
When the show petered out and stopped airing on television, they wanted to do more with the brand,
and the gladiators wanted to work, and people involved in the show wanted to keep going in some way.
And someone had the idea to take all of those desires and to thrust them together,
to throb them together with the rather big at that time,
and maybe still a little bit,
the world of Orlando dinner theaters.
And I say dinner theater not so much as like,
whodunit mystery type dinner theater,
but, you know, medieval times,
and Pirates dinner adventure.
These dinner arenas really would be the proper way.
Yeah, dinner and a show, I guess,
is what medieval times would say.
Yeah, yeah, big, long piece of entertainment
where you're not in the dark,
You're eating, you're lit up to, you're eating a big piece of chicken, you're eating the worst chicken you've ever had, you're cheering on your guy against your opponents.
And it does, these things do sort of align.
You can certainly see why on paper American Gladiators becoming a new current version of medieval times makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, it is, I'm trying to think of even a better way.
Like, dinner in a battle is really the way these specific dinner theaters should be described because it is,
Pirates Dinner Adventure, it's medieval times, it's this,
it's probably Dolly's Dixie Stampede or whatever it's called now.
It's completely that, yes, yeah, yeah.
But you're watching fighting.
It's like you're in the Coliseum, which is also, by the way, a great idea for an Orlando
Dinner Theater.
You're in like a Coliseum and there's Gladiators.
Is that been done?
That feels like that's, no, I don't think that's ripe.
You know what?
As I discovered doing this, I think almost every other type of themes.
an era was done.
And I'm kind of surprised that somewhere in, well, I guess by the 2000s, they figured out
that this area is not as fruitful as, and guaranteed financially successful as anybody thought
that it was.
So what I was going to say, like, you'd think maybe the movie Gladiator would prompt more
of that stuff, but I guess not.
And will the new one, will the success of Gladiator too lead to the dinerceum?
Or the food isium.
What's the co what's the cuisine of seam?
Yeah.
What's the cleanest way to combine those words?
Mnishment to see them.
The coleslaw seam.
Because that's one of the dishes you get.
Right, right.
This is only, this is related.
But I'm realizing now that when we were in Orlando and I drive, I noticed that the
body show that's at the pirate dinner adventure in Buena Park, Tietro Martini, which closed
in Buena Park, is still in Orlando.
I saw a sign for it.
Wow.
So I don't know if they move.
Is it its own venue and does it not share with the pirates?
That's what I'm wondering because there is a Pirates Center adventure in Orlando as well.
Yes.
The sister cities of Buena Park and Orlando.
That's why I think of them.
That's why yeah.
And that's why Buena Park is so high in your heart.
Right.
It's one of the greatest cities in the world.
I feel like there should be a portal to Orlando.
You don't have to take a plane.
It's just like there's a magic hole in Buena Park that you step through and you step out into Orlando.
That's how it feels.
It does.
Yeah.
It's like you're not that far.
Like one minute you're in downtown LA
Right, and then maybe, you know, 25 minutes later, if you're lucky, you're in the silliest place you've ever seen.
It doesn't feel like the rest of the city, not even Anahe.
It even feels like singular from Anaheim.
Yeah, you show up next to the big wizard gift shop or the empty lot where the Florida Project Motel used to be.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Well, the location of this gets us close to one of these like roadside looks like something kind of places
which is a gift shop that looks like a big orange.
Well,
Oh,
the big orange.
Yeah.
This is,
I was showing James the building.
See if she recognized her from Libyan Flower.
And she's like,
I can kind of picture the area.
And she looked up in this,
the building this used to be in is about 10 minutes from Pop Century.
Yeah.
It's not that,
it's not that far.
Hey, look,
this should have been a point in its favor.
Yeah.
That it is fair.
close to Disney World.
I think that I,
you bring up I drive,
you bring up International Drive,
like the big crazy stretch,
you know,
near Disney and Universal,
where every single corner and block,
it is like just one,
it is just a murderer's row
of every crazy two-story chain restaurant
and weird pseudo-themed thing.
And at one point in time,
a lot more of these dinner theaters,
which I'll bring up a few of these kind of in history.
But I, that was some of what spurred me to, to push for this episode finally, is that, you know, you and I made it down there, Mike.
And I was like, I drive.
We got to explore some of this crazy I drive stuff, like the American Gladiator's Dinner Theater.
But looked into it, not I drive, not I drive.
Different area, as you says, as Jane pointed out, pretty close, like 10 minutes east.
But it's actually, it was on a stretch in Kissimmee.
It's very close to Fun Spot Kasimi
If anybody's been there
I think there's another one
The center of all the action
Throw a dart
Throw a dart
That might be
Because we did
I'm too excited to sleep
The Kissimmee St. Cloud
Archery ad
Might be worth
examining
Well then maybe you get into some other
What the hell was going on in Kissimme
Yeah
Because
I think it's just the episode
Casimmy St. Cloud
Obviously with a strong focus on
Darts
Or arrows
Arrows.
Yeah, arrows, I think.
It was a big archery target.
There's SeaWorld.
There's Universal Studios.
I believe Pirates, Dinner Adventure, and Tietro Martini are in the same, at least...
In Florida, too?
Yes.
It is a shared.
I believe it's shared, but it might be two different buildings next to each other.
I can't tell from here.
Okay.
And do you have any sense of if the Florida one does the seasonal show Vampirates?
Very good question.
I can look into it.
And I will right now.
Great, great. And can you befriend someone in that show as well?
What is the one of the odds of a vampiret talking to you in Florida?
In Florida?
Honestly, probably pretty high.
We might know a vampire.
I know.
Because I knew a vampire in Blounta Park.
If the show had kept going, we might have known a gladiator, too.
We might have...
That's true.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
We might know the hot soup pitcher company if it kept going.
One of the greatest inventions of mankind, the hot.
vegetable soup pitchers that is if you're getting a pitcher of coke yeah but it's a bunch of soup in
the pitcher yeah they're like now you think that they would use the same ones but first of all you
don't want the cross-contamination you don't want the vegetable soup uh in the coke although i've
combined those things and they're excellent but yeah really you need the hotter pitcher to be
it's got to be thicker in order to have the soup in it as opposed to the cold cola
Scott, when I tell you I had this same conversation in my mind a few hours ago.
How?
Whether the pitchers could be the same?
Yeah, do the pitchers get?
Are they one pitcher used for everything?
And I'm like, oh, no, that hot soup pitcher has to be temperature safe.
It couldn't be the coat pitcher.
Well, that's, now I shows the character of somebody who thought that there should be specific,
because you mentioned the hot soup pitcher company as opposed to the cold one.
I guarantee it's the same pitchers.
Well, I'm assuming...
This is some of the worst food on the planet Earth.
I thought mine was...
This is one of my revelations.
I thought the food was fine.
God.
I just never...
The doughboy's despised Pirates Terra Ventryphrine food,
one of the worst places they've ever been.
Maybe the worst meal Aaron has ever had in their life.
You guys...
It is the worst.
We come from different worlds.
There's no...
There's no doubt about it.
I don't bake chicken a lot.
This is the worst.
Mike Carlson is saying.
It's some of the worst food on planet Earth.
It's some of the worst food on planet Earth.
I don't know how you can say that it was pretty good.
Salamic vinegar red on pasta.
The salad is like wet newspaper.
The chicken is just like an odd texture that I've never seen before or felt.
And then it's dark in there.
And it's like it adds.
It's like when you're like you were a kid and they put like spaghetti in a box and you put
your hand in there.
And you're like, oh.
Like it gives me that feeling.
I don't know.
Touching the chicken.
They had that love.
They're like, touch a zombie pirate and then that's someone's chicken entree an hour later.
They just serve it right up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, with hand contamination.
Who cares?
We got to move these babies.
You will not find worse food.
Why on that?
Jesus, Mike, sanity has been reached food-wise on the show after many, many long
months of avoiding it altogether.
Something that we'll learn in this episode also is that this, I mean, it shouldn't be a
surprise, but the food being extremely cheap is absolutely a part of the model.
Oh, yeah.
It was extremely on purpose, and I can point to the specific person who pushed this model,
and you may be surprised.
You may not be surprised who this source ends up.
I may, there's a very good Orlando Sentinel article from 1995, and it was giving good details,
and then right at the end, it hit like two things.
where I was like, oh, of course, Scouts all over there.
Yes, credit to Orlando Sentinel really like unlocked it.
Because there's not a ton of info about this thing.
So some excellent articles that sent me down some rabbit holes.
I had so much fun.
I don't want to build it up too much.
I just, I know I loved learning about what I learned about.
And dare I say, we're hovering around a word that we haven't said in a while, strangely.
This word that was really looming over the podcast.
And I don't know why.
Maybe we've just picked more benign topics lately.
But today, guys.
Guys are on the menu.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
There are definitely some guys in the picture here.
And I'm welcome back, guys.
I had a feeling.
I had a feeling just reading, just seeing some of the names.
I was like, oh, these wonderful names.
I don't know what it is that's speaking to me about them.
But I will say the article that I read, which was kind of a rundown of how this started and came together,
no mention of food.
Yeah, no, there's almost no information.
I can't vouch for how much better or worse it is than any than the pirates' food.
I would guess same or worse.
That's what I'd throw out.
But anyway, as far as location, not I drive, but on a stretch called Erlo Bronson Memorial Highway.
I feel like I've come across the street in Orlando travels.
I think maybe part of Erlo Bronson Memorial Highway maybe connects all the way.
to Disney World itself.
I think that is possible.
And I, just in seeing it on a map,
I got curious who Erlo Bronson is.
Or was, and I'll say was,
because he has passed.
But he was an old guy in the Florida House of Representatives.
He was a massive Florida landowner
who sold some of the land that is today Disney World.
He made Walt's Dreams come true.
Sold for like $100 an acre.
I don't know how much he had.
But, you know,
Earl O'O was one of the guys that Walt swindled when he came into town.
Yeah, yeah.
But he got a street named after him, so it all worked out.
And, you know, it's maybe fine because would you believe that a Florida representative in the 1960s and 70s engaged in a lot of segregationist and McCarthyist tactics,
some not good stuff along with a bunch of his fellow representatives to where Erlo and his whole gang,
they all got a kind of a group name together.
They were referred to in the Florida House as the pork chop gang.
Okay.
Yeah, which is, you know, I guess refers to that whole,
that government pork and that spending all that stuff.
But I hear pork chop gang, and I think...
Like the old gang Jason was in when he was a little kid with a bunch of other friends of his.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
An off-brand reboot of the rascals that...
that's so some straight to video enterprising filmmakers
tried to get off the ground with a,
I was gonna say an eight-year-old Jason,
but it could have been like,
it was all eight-year-olds
and then a 30-year-old.
Yeah, Mike and I had already done
an imprepidimate UCBit
and then I fell in.
Well, you know, if you go down the store
with bulk candy,
inevitably, everyone scoops it out into bags,
but you know one or two pieces fall off
and those are no man's land,
so you've got to grab those single pieces.
is that was that your audition monologue for the pork shop game yeah well that's that was a tip
i gave them and that's like that's a great idea that's a great idea tall boy you're in because
i was taller than all the only time my life was ever taller than the room well i hope they
listen to you um so the the the place itself um well how else to go about this i mean like
does there anything else we need to say about american gladiators i think i feel like people
probably know what it is. It's crazy red, white, and blue costumes. It's the most fit
people you've ever seen. Kickass theme with the ultimate, like, filmed at Universal Studios,
Hollywood with the fountain in the beginning of the show, although it wasn't always film there
moved to CBS Radford at some point. But the, you know, just a watch to this day that goes down
smooth. It's not like I'm watching a lot of old American gladiators, but it was the, like cable era,
If you land on that, and I think there's a Pluto and all that, it's like, you love it.
You love these, and all these, you know, they're all names something crazy.
It's ice and saber and blast.
It's, it's just a lot of fun.
It's definitely in the wake of rock and wrestling, WWF at the time, Hulk Hogan.
It's definitely in that zone where like- And kind of capitalizing on like Bodybuilder Mania post-Schwarzenegger, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
But if you've never seen it, it's like an adult.
Guts.
Adult Nickelodeon guts.
Yeah, I was thinking that it's like, well, we're probably on the episode about
guts that we did with Mo herself or an episode about Nickelodeon Stuyas.
We were like, if you've never seen guts, imagine like a kid American gladiators.
Well, it works the other way, although this came first.
This was years before, yes.
Imagine adult guts.
American Gladys has a lot more high-powered Nerf cannons.
Yes, things that would be dangerous.
Rifles.
Ritows to use.
Things at the pork shop gang would blast each other's heads off.
Did you watch the video on YouTube?
The video about this?
Yeah.
The infomercial.
The 30-minute infomercial.
Oh, I sure did.
Oh, I didn't catch that.
It's really a tremendous 30 minutes.
It's kind of the best piece of material that exists about this thing.
Yeah.
It's, uh, we should have passed it around.
You learn a lot.
You learn a lot.
You learn a lot.
And I was just going to say, yes, you could if you're listening to this.
and you really want to know before you get into the analysis of podcast the right.
It tells you about the different events that you will see at the dinner theater,
which also were on the show.
Which that's, you know, that's a good,
that's a good way to go about it maybe in terms of what,
what this was a little bit.
And yeah,
because they did all of these like invented kind of hyper,
what's the,
like,
uh,
what,
like they're,
they're all like,
uh,
roller ball,
like scary future sports.
Every,
everything in American Gladiators would be in a,
a dystopian verhoven movie of here's what sports are in the future yeah but they make it very
friendly and fun yeah and they try to i mean they definitely hype it up as being i think it was at power
like one of them is called power ball which is really funny now in hindsight because they said
that's the lottery if you didn't know but i think they refer to powerball as like the deadliest sport
on this intermercial they hype it up as like this will kill you yes they are hyping it up to that degree
and then the ultimate musical hype up that you could do,
which is in the background during...
Mortal Kombat.
Yes.
Which lasts for a while, and they keep looping.
I feel like Mortal Kombat as well.
But then isn't Powerball...
That is mainly like...
It's sort of like a fast-paced disposing of your lunch items.
Yeah, it's like...
It's a bunch of cans.
It's like four basketball hoops on the ground.
And you got to run and throw your basketball in them fast.
Yeah.
And you got a big, scary guy.
or woman coming at you.
Sure.
And I'm sure that is very imposing and difficult.
And by the way,
everyone,
also the premise of the show is that there are the weak to,
there's the staff, right?
You're, it's, you know,
think of it as a beat the geeks.
Think of it as a more obscure thing than this.
But here's the,
here's the ones who are always there.
And then it's outside opponents,
come in and try to take on the gladiators.
And those outs, to even be there,
you've got to be a,
fighter fighter or former military or something.
You know, like the immense shape you have to be in to even try to do this.
There was apparently the premise in the show that the winner of the season would be
asked to join permanently as a permanent gladiator.
And then they lost that premise between one and two when they realized they didn't want
to keep anybody or something.
But anyway, yeah, you get sort of a greatest hits in this dinner theater show of the real
things that they would do, such as
Powerball. Do you have
other favorites? The assaults.
That's the first one they
talked about, the assault.
And you're like, ah, it's not
sounds so fun. It's not a word
that today you want people saying,
assaults. So like, yeah, it wasn't
then either, by the way. Yeah, yeah. It goes
from assault to Powerball,
which is really funny
in 2025, I feel like,
or something's really awful sounding, and then
something sounds fun like you can win some money.
What's the, I'm blanking now, the joust, what's the joust called?
Is it the joust?
Yes, joust is the thing where they're up on the platforms.
Yes, that's the iconic, I think, the most iconic of all the American gladiators events.
Well, there's that, but there's also where they're rolling around in the balls.
Yeah, but it feels iconic to me due to the Simpsons joke.
Yeah.
And what, Luanne Van Houghton, is that her name?
Yeah, yeah.
Goes on a date where is dating a gladiator?
Piro.
Piro.
Yeah.
And they leave in his wrong.
which is one of the big balls.
Yeah.
But, you know, kind of a big hamster ball or something.
Right, right.
But that actually moves around.
That may be too big and expensive of equipment to do at this Gladiator Dinner Theater.
Yeah.
Which if you haven't started guessing already, this is a little lower rent than the television show.
Yeah.
The joust is just basically a staff with like cushioned pads on each side.
It's like a big cue tip.
It's like a big cue tip.
and you're trying to knock
each other off your platform.
I think it was maybe the main event
or on the cover,
there was an Nintendo game
of American Gladiators.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, right. Yes.
I would love to do the joust, I think.
I would do it.
As long as it's like softish
on the bottom,
I think I could still do the joust.
How long you think you're holding up
in the joust?
Who am I against, though?
I don't,
the weakest gladiator who ever did it.
Oh, but they are a gladiator.
Yeah.
What, what, been are we planning?
What, it's me?
Mike versus Scott?
Well, that's, possibly.
Okay.
Well, if it's the weakest gladiator,
let's call him Sputter.
I think I could,
I think it could last 30 seconds.
Maybe that's generous.
I don't know.
It's very generous, yeah.
Even against Sputter?
I think you're getting hit three times.
Sputter now?
No.
Butter's 65 years old now probably.
Why are we, you're fishing for that it's people exactly like you or that it's old gladiators.
I think probably the old, I think an old gladiator, unless they're like, like, you know, very injured, I think is probably still got a good shot.
I would like to take on an old gladiator.
I think a lot of them are great, you know, because there's this documentary, which gets into this thing a little bit.
And I think, I think a lot of them are in fantastic shape to this day.
There are competing documentaries.
Oh.
Which I forgot about.
There's this, is it Netflix is one and then there's a 30 for 30 on America.
Oh, I forgot this.
Yes.
I forgot my friend John Katz, who I don't know if he still works for absolutely, but he did for a while.
He, and he's involved in Santa Monica, Democrats, Santa Monica political issues.
he was my boss on the American Glatterners remake.
Oh, right.
My college classmate and hired all of us on the incredibly disreliased.
Yeah.
And just listeners, you may have heard this before, but if you don't remember,
Jason was one of the 2008 American Glacier.
Yeah, I was Sputter.
That was really, that was very callous.
I would prefer not to take on Mike in my current state, but okay,
if it's for the glory of the gladiators.
Yeah.
Do you think we have,
we don't have any gladiators
listening in the audience,
do you think?
Any of like the group who,
how many gladiators,
honestly,
how many people can officially call themselves gladiators?
The answer to that depends on
if you count the people in this show or not.
I do.
There is a fan website
that certainly does count them.
Yeah.
But I have a number?
By that point,
my guess is like 30.
Wow, that is low.
I was thinking 50, but yeah, I guess it would be.
Well, I don't know.
Well, then new people, 2008 people.
Your pal's Wolf and Phoenix.
Phoenix, okay.
Right.
Gina Carrano and.
What was her name?
I don't remember.
I don't recall.
But in the original?
No, no, in the 2008 agreement, the writer-strike filler version.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I think there's maybe more than 30 books.
maybe I'm wrong.
Uh,
they,
if you,
if you look,
if you look,
if you look,
she was crush.
She was crushed.
Wow.
Yeah, Karano was crush.
Um,
wow.
And today she's crushing,
uh,
weak,
woke minds.
That's right.
Defiance.
Um,
if you search American gladiators
live,
you will find also,
there was a live touring
version of gladiators
in addition to this show
having live in it.
Okay.
Oh,
which I think
planted the
seeds of, well, this has worked, you know, on the road. So why could there not be a permanent
version? And would that not be a good deal for some of the real gladiators to, you don't even
have to go on the road. You've got a family. You bring the family. Bring the family to Disney World.
You're 10 minutes away. Yeah. This certainly will not become a seedy, sad development that ends
the franchise for at least a decade after. Uh, uh, I might have, maybe I underdivism.
I'm looking at a pretty big list, you know,
because I got ones popping up I've never seen
Raider and Rhino and Rio
and Rocket.
I see Zapp.
I see Kahn.
Ooh, Khan.
Like Spalled How?
Like Rath of Kahn, Kahn.
Oh, wow.
Uh-huh.
Not C-O-N.
Not C-O-N, no.
You're starting to get to, like,
maybe a few dozen gladiators?
Yeah, maybe, and also they've,
apparently there's a BBC version.
We can't, look.
American gladiators.
They talk about the British one in that video.
Oh, okay.
Because one of the guy, Thor,
the guy Thor is from England,
and he kind of shits on the English gladiators.
He's like, you know, America's where it's at.
That's really what, no offense to my British counterparts,
but, you know, America's where the real action is.
Jesus, wow.
So it wasn't better that even though you're closer to the roots of jousting?
You would think.
That doesn't make for more quality jousting.
Yeah, but was it called England gladiators?
English Red, English gladiators.
That's such a.
different vibe.
Yeah.
That is such a more like,
there's like,
you get hit in the face
with a glove to start the match.
Maybe just,
I believe,
okay,
it looks like just gladiators.
I see that now,
yeah.
I see.
Okay.
There's a whole list of those
gladiators, too.
Um,
it also inspired another show
called Ice Warriors.
Oh,
there was gladiators in 2024.
Wow.
And that British one?
It looks like it,
yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
So they,
there probably is a whole new crop
of gladiators.
I'm also getting,
not to get distracted here.
I'm starting to get interested in
ice warriors. A gladiators
type, it was like gladiators
but on an ice rink and they all
have even cooler names because
the names are longer because they do
like Viking type
Krell the tormentor.
Wow, that's great.
Morka the Fireblade
Thorgon the Beast
Zalan the
Xalan the serene.
Wow. Oh, a nice one. There's room for
Serenity in here too.
I didn't know the ice ones.
I really like the martial arts.
WMAC Masters.
WMAC, yeah, what is that stand for?
Is this another syndicated?
That was on Fox.
After like Fox Kids.
It was like ninjas in a battle dome of some kind.
But it was also kind of WWF like storylines behind the scenes.
This was like this was maybe a Sabon related.
Yes.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, there was some Power Rangers elements to it.
filmed at Universal Studios Florida.
This is what I'm gonna,
I think what this episode will become
is kind of like its own little gladiator match
within topics to like see what rises
to the top as something we want to keep talking about
because there's more.
There's so many things that I'm hearing about
for the first time via like especially other dinner theaters.
Right.
There's a lot to unpack here.
Maybe you should start diving into the real.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
into the thing.
So,
anyway, so here's the idea.
We'll do like a greatest hits of the best and also cheapest to recreate Gladiator.
They did the wall.
They did do the wall.
It had the same size, so they say, as the wall on TV.
But, you know, things look bigger on TV.
Probably should have done it bigger because it's in person.
Right, yeah.
But they also, they had something that the show didn't have,
which is a really tall American flag.
They're the tallest, most patriotic flag you ever seen.
Isn't that nice?
That's, I think it's very nice.
So, you know, what else?
Yeah, they add the wall so, you know, it culminates in the same way.
But so, you know, definitely makes sense on paper.
Orlando Sentinel article, you know, they bring up the gladiators to a tour several years ago
and the live concept went over very well, said Steve Scarano, who brought together.
the investor group that financed the dinner show.
Visitors,
visitors can watch it all with a meal for 39.95.
That's still the price.
Yeah, you're right.
That is still how much Pirates dinner at venture cost, I'm pretty sure.
So that's expensive for the time.
Yeah, seemingly.
But also the second show at the night was just the show, no dinner.
That was 27.95.
This is what I would do at every one of these.
If you give me a non-dinner option, please.
Do any of them do this?
Do they all do it?
And I don't know.
The food is precisely what I want to know.
I don't think there's food with Teatro Martini.
I don't know about that.
I bet there's a version of it with food.
I think there's options, but isn't it kind of in the outer lobby stage area?
Well, at least in point in part, we just said it's closed.
So I don't know what the Orlando setup is.
I'm seeing now this, I swear I paid $40 for my seat at Vampirates, but I'm seeing six.
It's one of those things where there's 10 different types of discounts to get,
depending on what.
It's just like whatever, if you're like a, if you have low patience for finding deals,
you'll pay $60.
But if you do two Google searches, you will easily find it for $25 to $30 to $40.
Anything in the Groupon range.
Right.
They have to.
They rely on things like this.
A coupon or what was the other one?
I don't know.
There was a set.
There was a Groupon competitor.
I don't know if it's still around.
There were a few, I think, but I don't recall.
Anyway, the, okay, so Scarano wouldn't say how much money he and other investors put into the venture,
but another producer Blowski said it was up in the millions.
The show employs 213 people.
They, in classic chain restaurant endeavor kind of thing that we talk about,
they're instantly out of the gate talking about, we're going to do a ton of these.
We're going to do one in Vegas.
My favorite.
London.
It's always the best.
That's the guy.
The multi-city hubris.
That's the trademark of a guy, too.
It really is.
And I'm not sure which one.
I don't know that they're,
the people talking right here don't seem like guys.
Sure.
But there are guys.
Guys do come up.
Yeah.
And the guys might help influence that thinking.
Yes.
It's just guy.
It's typical guy thinking.
Yeah.
Whether it's said by a true guy or not.
Yeah.
Us on the cover of a book.
Typical guy thinking.
Typical.
guy thinking. And it's and there's like like crooked martini glasses. It's the book cover that of that every
Chelsea lately guest got. We're gonna be a bestseller typical guy thinking.
Anyway, another person said we liked it from day one. We felt that the TV show was very popular and
that Orlando needed something as an alternative to other dinner theaters here. And this is sort of the
point that I was making and this is the rabbit hole that I started going down due to these Orlando
of Sentinel articles is other related dinner theaters, including the one that occupied this
theater before American Gladiators came there.
So this space was not built for American Gladiators.
It was, I don't know if it was built for this, but this is what was there.
Something called Fortune Feast Dinner and Game Show.
This lasted less than a month.
we've come across some bombs in our time
and this show you would consider
American Gladiators because it only lasted
a couple of years right but I mean
a month is not that's seeming like a
global phenomenon compared to less than a month
yeah yeah I always I'm always mystified
when I learned about Broadway
musicals and stuff that like last less than three
months and it's like that took years
to mount that took so much money
and so much manpower
it didn't even make it to six months.
It's got to be so broken to not even just like to sputter.
Sputter, yeah.
Yes.
The headline from the Orlando Sentinel article
it says,
and now of course I just got an ad which took a fortune feast closes for some fine tuning.
Such as entire concept,
entire business plan.
This thing,
So this, it was a little cheaper for only 35.95.
Here's what the, okay, let me explain.
Fortune, Fortune Feast Dinner, maybe.
Game show, huh?
Okay, here's what it was.
Was you're in Sherwood Forest.
It's Robin Hood and it's Merry Men and it's stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
But stealing the rich and giving to the poor, couldn't we make that an interactive concept like a game show?
Like, let's make a deal.
So this was a Sherwood Forest Robin Hood game show.
Man, I am so in the weeds.
Like, I forgot all these details.
I was like, oh, okay, it'll be like a Jeopardy stage and you eat chicken or beef.
And I'm like, no, it's Sherwood Forest.
It's gamified Sherwood Forest and the Mary Band.
Gameified Sherwood Forest.
Do you mean like that they fight the king?
No, no.
They, you play games of.
of skill and memory and chance.
You do fun games and it's what's behind door number two.
That is what happens in this Robin Hood thing.
Yeah.
I, we're talking a combination of let's make a deal and all hell breaks loose in Sherwood Forest.
It's roast chicken and Robin Hood.
And then it was described by the guy who started at Barum Corsandi as,
I was trying to find a theme that nobody had the rights to.
And take from the rich and give it to the poor went with my idea for a game show.
The audience can come in to eat and leave with a new car.
So in the search for something that no one, he is right.
No one had ever thought of it.
Yeah.
And it is funny because I guess you could have done like let's make a deal live.
Yes, but that might require the rights to let's make a deal.
Unless you just have to change enough words.
Let us let you and I consider.
forging some kind of arrangement that you could do.
Do we know, like, was Friar Tuck involved?
Don't know that.
No, I don't know that it depends also on Robin Hood has been public domain for a while, I would think.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then I think the answer lies there.
I think if Friar Tuck is public domain, then yes, he was in it.
Okay.
If not.
So like we could do, like Sherlock Holmes was on the table, probably, I'm guessing.
He was probably, he came to your table.
He was at this, too.
Also, Sherlock Holmes is there.
Help Sherlock solve a mystery and win a Ford probe.
I don't even remember that car.
I don't even know.
I've never heard that in my life.
You may have made that up?
I don't know.
Ford Probe.
50, 50.
A glamorous Ford Probe.
It's just fine latchback.
What year was that?
I don't know.
They stopped making them 97.
When did people stop?
That lasted less than a month.
But that's way into like alien stuff
where people just thought of probes
is going up someone's rectum.
Yeah.
That's too, that's too recent
for calling something the Ford probe.
That's bizarre.
If you want to go exploring uncharted territory.
Yeah.
Find yourself deep and dark uncharted territory.
Get yourself a probe.
Buy American.
your probes.
Listeners, I don't know if you'd believe this, but a lot of this stuff is not well documented
or preserved.
Oh, not terribly.
But I did find a post on the Orange County Regional History Center, and it is the cast and
crew windbreaker.
Great.
That was donated as a piece of history.
Yes, donated as a piece of history.
by, oh, I don't want to spoil your fun and say this name.
I'm sure you're going to get around.
Peter Blowstein?
Yeah, it was Peter Blowstein.
Well, the fun wasn't saying the name Peter Blowstein.
I'm a stupid, yeah, but there's some details about Peter Blowstein.
There's a ton of details about Peter Blowstein.
Let me first close out Barham Corsandi and say that Bar, I was curious,
is there anything else about Orlando Game Show entrepreneur Barum Corsandi?
what happened to him after fortune feast and dinner and game show went bust.
Well, apparently, he was also involved in American Gladiators Orlando Live.
And I found this out through a deep Google where I discovered that somewhere in him doing business with American Gladiators Orlando Live,
he was arrested at Miami International Airport in connection with 160 grand not paid in state sales tax.
My God.
He pleaded no contest to a single count of theft of state funds.
Wow.
So this is, you know, the guy number one, and it's a, it's a mini guy because there's literally no more information.
But like, one of the first names you encounter is a guy, like, here's what we know about this guy.
Robin Hood Game Show.
Great.
Next thing we know about him.
Sent to prison.
I mean, I'm sorry.
Not sent to prison.
arrested at the airport, forced to pay $160 grand.
What?
Because he stole from the state.
Well, he was robbing from the rich.
He was robbing from the rich.
To give to the poor.
He himself.
Get to the poor.
Who I suspect is not maybe that poor.
But, you know, his same idea applies.
Could we win back the money we spend on these tickets for dinner in the show?
Oh, no, absolutely not.
You'll never see that again.
Well, I was thinking about this.
Like, I do, I envy these people who just can make something stupid happen.
Yeah.
Because it would be fun to have a bad dinner and see a show.
And you would be responsible for that, creating the whole thing.
It seems fun.
But the inevitable amount of, like the amount of money it takes to put this up means you're
going to have to get the money from weird places.
And then that means that you're probably a little bit looser with laws.
So it does make sense.
A lot of like being mired in funding and people who fund things.
Right.
You're going to get really.
tempted to start stealing. Right. So much money. And then you just, that, that money becomes meaningless
to you at a certain point. And then 160,000 is just like, whatever. But here's the thing is that,
if you can successfully make the switch to being one of these people, you get to do it into infinity
until you die. You get to be the president. Yes. Obviously, the president is the, is the biggest
example. The most famous example of this. Another. All right. The one.
more chance, but we'll see.
But we're also seeing it with
that somehow people are
giving money to the fire festival guy
despite every
everywhere that it's supposed
to, every city he's saying he's doing it in, saying
he is not doing it here. There is
no thing. I just watched to think
about this last night and like, you know,
you could go on an
ATV expedition with your
favorite rapper. People
make phone calls. No rapper.
are attached.
There is one football player who has been somebody,
I forget who was on a Super Bowl winning team.
The music festival Fire Fest has booked one act and it's a football player.
Oh, it's an ex-fell place.
He hurt me.
But he's going to.
I'd go party with him and the Bahamas or wherever.
He's going to make a bunch of money again.
Yeah.
Like, yes.
It just, that's how this works.
I don't understand it exactly.
Yeah.
But you just...
He's one who went to jail.
Even if you're...
Maybe especially if you're one of the ones who go to jail.
You get to do it again as many times...
And it's just a matter of like...
Because I don't think you or I could get away with it.
I think.
I don't think so.
You just have to like just make this...
You have to become this person fully.
Yeah.
If you do so, you get 12 cracks at that bat.
Yeah, easily.
Before you go to jail.
Infinite dinner theaters.
Before you go to jail for two weeks and then get out and do another 12.
And go, go,
make all your contacts for the next time you do it.
Yeah.
No, I know.
It's really, we should try to put together like a comprehensive list of guys of like people
who seem to have this ability to just scam people or at least just thrust their terrible
ideas.
And I actually, American Gladys Live is a good idea.
I don't want to trash it.
No, this one actually makes sense.
But this is more in execution that it falls apart.
Yeah.
Right.
So.
There was a guy going around.
the internet the other day and he's like
when you drop out at Stanford
after your first day
and then a month later your most
cracked out friends join you to start
building your startup and
it's just the nastiest room
full of like
guys on MacBook pros
one of them has their shoes off
and their feet up and then
at some point someone
does not the most damning detail I've ever heard but
do you know the guys or you're just saying
no I've seen
no this this was a thing that was
going around and then at some point it's like yeah we had an engineer uh he almost passed out one
day from working and so we had to put in uh air safety monitors because it's just like everyone's like
i don't know what the ventilation like is in that room to have a dozen people like working out
of like a one bedroom apartment studio we got drive we got we got the juice we don't need air
We got Riz
Who needs hair
When you got Riz
We're smelling this guy's feet
This guy's got his feet out
And it's like
The Fire Festival guy
Where it's like
Oh they made one app
For credit card processing
Or it's like
This is a new kind of credit card
And it just holds a lot
Of a lot of events
But you're like
I didn't see him talk about
The credit card in a lot
Jason we should
After we're done with this
You get your shoes off
And we got work to do
We need to start
getting on our computers.
Jason, get your shoes off.
Mike shut off the air.
All of us, cramming in the closet over there
instead of the lightly bigger room that we're in.
Someone turn one of these monitors
vertically for some reason.
That's good because we're thinking different.
We're flipping everything on its side.
Flip the script.
Yeah, I agree.
No, it's, we got to figure out our scam.
After years of pitching,
perfectly good theme park ideas that no one is taking,
it's time to start doing it,
our way, which is by stealing.
Yeah, I know. If I had no, like, if I didn't have, if I was like a single guy and I had like nothing to lose,
it does seem fun to try to be a weird scammy guy, doesn't it? It does. There's too many people.
You definitely seem like the type from the way that you were raised to suddenly become a major scamster.
But wouldn't that be fun? Like, that would be fun to go completely against your programming.
Mm-hmm. No one would suspect it. No one would suspect it.
That's true. You have good cover. Yeah.
Yeah. So I'm not doing it.
I have too much to lose.
You think this guy's scamming us?
I listen to this podcast where he said all this stuff that his mom made him do.
Right, that would hold up in court.
Thought a poster was going to land on his head and suffocate him.
Yeah, when I was, like, 10 people.
I told, I took $5 million from 10 different people and they were all suing me together.
And we would play clips of that and they would say, well, this man is innocent, your honor.
You know, like, 10 years ago, the, like, early streaming of 10 years.
years ago in different websites and you know there was so much money flying around that some people
just pocketed and disappeared oh yeah of course it's all it's what it's what anyone was trying to do
that's all it was just being in the cash hurricane i grabbed oh i got a 20 yes the money money long the internet
was just money laundering comedy websites were money laundering but not not like the fruitful
trustworthy world of orlando dinner theaters in the 1970s up and up and up
In 1980s.
Now all of,
now, now we start getting into people who I,
who I kind of like,
Peter Blaustein,
as you said,
he was the producer of the show as far as the entertainment.
It seems like maybe,
do we all go down the rabbit hole of this person?
Because the rabbit hole of this person
leads us to some people we really like.
Peter Blastine was a long time Disney guy.
He put together the opening ceremonies of Walt Disney World in 1971,
a lot of stuff for Disney program shows and stuff for them.
But at some point, he left Disney and went to work producing dinner attractions for the company Orlando Entertains LLC.
He produced a show called King Henry's Feast.
He produced a show called Marty Graw.
These were all on I Drive.
And Orlando Entertains LLC.
That name might not mean anything to you, but the guy who ran it.
might mean something to you.
The name is Robert Earl.
Oh, the Bain restaurateur?
That's right.
He's always here.
The famous man who makes great sandwiches
for construction workers
to fill up their hungry bellies.
It all started with King Henry's Feast.
You can feast like a king here in Orlando, Florida.
Yes, you can.
I'm going to make so much money
for loud Hawaiian shirts
from King Henry's Feast
Robert Earl is here
So this guy is a
This is a Robert Earl
Acolyte
Although Robert Earl was not involved
In American Gladiators
Dinner Theater
He would have made it work
I think
Yeah for three years longer
Than
It actually
They're building the third or fourth
location of the Earl of Sandwich
At downtown Disney at this point
And it's like a
Like a finally
Like a dream campus
For Earl of Sandwich
Yeah, with like a bar on the top
Of it or something
This might be one of the best spots
This is going to be fucking awesome.
I'm so excited about that in the poros.
Don's with Disney is going to be where it's at.
Yeah.
Thank you, Robert Earl.
We're all of sandwich briefly in the old La Brea Bakery Space.
I think at some point was in like a temporary trailer.
Yeah, well, it still is.
You can get a sandwich on the way out by the ESPN zone,
but you also can get it at LaBrea Bakery.
Well, much like Walt Disney animation,
which was shoved into a couple of bungalows.
Yeah.
Maybe everybody thought it was on the,
way out that it had lost the good graces of the Disney Corporation.
Right.
But instead it went there, it grounded out, and it did its best work.
And just as then Disney animation rose from the, uh, rose from the ashes like a
phoenix and made beauty and the beast in Aladdin and entered its, uh, golden age.
So will Earl of Sandwich with its glistening new two-story location.
It's going to be great.
Robert Earl wins again.
It's going to be great.
Would you describe the sandwiches as great?
No.
Yeah, I was going to say, that was really, that did confuse me.
It's going to be great.
The food you mean?
No.
Fine to good.
Once in a while I get a good one and usually it's fine.
Eight bucks or something, nine dollars?
I stole, by the way, I'm like, you know, there's a lot of like, and they got poros now and they got dintai fung.
I'm putting money on these ending up the worst poros and the worst dintai fung in the entire organization.
That's a good point.
I don't, that dintai fun looks cool though.
I haven't had it there.
And I'm sure it's good now.
Well, sure.
But like if any location was going to start to lose the shine, it would be the downtown
Disney one.
But I could counter is Disney Springs.
Like the boat house is still apparently where it's at as far as like the quality
hasn't dipped now.
It's not a chain.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
So what could, could the magic be sustained?
I don't think Disney Springs is as bad as downtown Disney or citywalk.
That's probably right.
Yeah.
I think there's something,
there's something a more inherent quality going on.
Portos, dintai fung.
There's another place coming soon as well that has different kinds of food and drinks.
I wouldn't,
I wouldn't get in.
That's just like there's a lot of things like being injected.
Everything's under construction.
Stuff takes so long.
I just think there's so much vibrancy coming there and life will be injected that I think
I'm very optimistic about the future of downtown Disney.
Sorry,
I looked at photos of it again.
And one of the photos that they've released is a chef,
drizzling vinegar onto a bunch of tomatoes.
The place that you say is the most toxic,
discusses, the most masculine.
I didn't.
I said the market it.
Like, the signs on the construction.
But they've only released three pieces of marketing,
and one of the pieces of marketing
is a man pouring vinegar onto tomatoes.
Yeah, it's just getting image probably, right?
No, it's, no, I don't, you're accusing them of just buying
existing photos.
No, what you said is that it's faux,
masculine. Is the faux masculinity in the vinegar or the tomatoes? Which part of the equation is the
faux? I thought just the black and gold. I don't know. It just dropped me the wrong way. I don't know.
Leave me alone. Look, it is my unfortunate duty to tell you that I will never stop thinking about
this opinion that you've asserted. And I have 1,000 questions about it.
Blister's back to have people sent me similar things.
It's something about when you just plop it down on butcher paper or like a silver
trape, like, just something.
But do we know that's what the restaurants like?
No, I just said that's what the pictures look like.
And one of the pictures is a man putting vinegar on tomatoes.
I like that.
All right.
So we do like one of the three things.
And we do like steak, but we don't like.
I think, well, I'll write.
Okay.
I will write a list of things
I have to click my thoughts on this discussion
and then we'll do it
we'll do it on the Arthur and Sun's episode
I did not mean to open a can of worms
Of course you didn't mean to
But when you say things like that
Cans of worms are open
Here's what it was just funny because you said it was very masculine
And all we knew that it was called Arthur and Sons
And there was a picture of some meat and a picture of a drink
And I thought it was funny that out of context
of like the aggressive like barbecue lifestyle with like men's wear and this without any of that
context i thought it was funny to refer to that as like faux masculine you know what i'm saying
yeah versus like the aggressive like hey we have barb we have our smoker out here and the guy's
got the apron and they're doing the whole thing it felt very it did feel more generic which is i think
what you said the second i think yeah i think that's what i was aiming for yeah i do tend to like
barbecue, I think there's more craft involved.
I think there's usually more flavor involved.
I was going to say, how do we end up in you?
What you just said is, we got the smoker.
And then you said you like barbecue.
When is now why is barbecue the problem?
Look, it's not the problem for me, unless you're a vegetarian.
I'm just saying, if you have a smoker, that's basically a military weapon.
Look, Dean Norris has a smoker.
I know.
You're excited about it.
Yeah.
Everyone's in full support of Dean Norris's work here.
Of course we are.
I'm just saying that's more of the aesthetic that I see a lot of where it feels like kind of aggressive in the way it's marketed.
Arthur and Sons feels very nothing.
It feels like nothing to me.
But a steak and bourbon to me is a good, a nice treat once in a while.
You know what I'm saying?
I would agree.
It's all just opinions.
I just like a sloppy pile of pork.
I don't know what do you want to.
No, but you're not agree.
You can like that.
You can like, yeah.
And if it was, if the guy who is insane.
saying that people like steak and bourbon
together? You can't deny
that this is a combo that people have.
I don't really like those
things that much. That's fair.
It was stated as if it in and of itself
was a problematic combo.
It just seemed a little
generic to me. It just kind of rubbed me
the wrong way. I've not really
explored retelling. Not like a nice dry rub.
Yeah. That's rubbing you the right way.
I like a mustard base or a vinegar
base, I think usually from
the Carolinas. Here's what I think.
I think Arthur and, I think we're all going to get a meal we really enjoyed Arthur and Sons, bourbon, and stick.
I think I agree.
When you realize that that's not the only things that they have, well, here's the thing.
It's going to be a nice meal because we're at downtown Disney and it's going to taste at least a letter grade higher, especially if there's like a porch or something.
If there is any problem with it, it will be due to the fact that it is a restaurant at downtown Disney.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is the greater enemy.
And maybe we even like had a nice little time at the past.
patio part of Earl of Sandwich before we go to Arthur and Sons.
The future, I, Citywalk, I have more of a mystery about what it's going to be.
But I think downtown Disney's going to be good.
I am excited about the future of downtown Disney.
No one wants to get in on this with me?
I'm a little more skeptical.
Okay.
Well, I feel like one of the best meals we have,
they're Ralph Brennan's jazz kitchen within just a few years.
It was stripped of, like, a lot of its character and personality.
That definitely sucks, yeah.
Personality of the place certainly was stripped, I agree.
But we don't know if the food is bad.
We don't know if the food got worse, do we?
One thing I know is that the big rolling hills, like the big grassy area that they put in is one of the biggest hits in recent Disney history.
Yeah.
It is, there are so many children running, frolicing, having the time of their life.
Now, does this go against some things that I said about, I don't know, certain types of things you put on the ground, grass, you might say.
although that was referring to different gross
You were talking about different ones, yeah.
That gross, that was a photo of gross
that was very tiny
and it's mainly used for stroller parking.
This gross is rolling and giant
and there's like, there's dimensionality to it
and I got no beef with this gross.
My son had a lot of fun on the gross.
Yeah, no, I, the grass is all,
we've had a lot of fun on the grass
the last year or two of Disneyland.
Yeah.
So my daughter, the grass is good.
The grass is greener.
It sounds like one that they did deliver
based on the concept art, there was a lot of girls.
Yeah, no, it's absolutely true.
And so, ah, the future is so bright.
This is the most optimistic I am about the country,
is just specifically at downtown Disney.
At least one zone of several blocks in this country.
Yeah.
It's going to be better than it's ever been.
Yep.
Okay, back to all this.
So now we're dealing with a guy who used to be in the Robert Earl Enterprise.
Now I know about King Henry's Feast.
Now I know about Marty Grau.
And where all this ties together is that Peter Blountein went to go work on a new show for Robert Earl.
And all of this information is on the website of a guy named Ron Schneider.
Ron Schneider was the original actor who played DreamFinder in Epcot, the face character, the walk-around guy.
He also played a character who's come up on the show before, old C.L. Wamp Hopper.
God bless him.
This guy is back.
A man who is DreamFinder and who is C.E.
Wampopper has entered the world, has entered the domain.
There was always a crossover that we didn't know about between C.L.
Wampopper and Robert Earle, and here it is, it happened.
So this guy's friend leaves Disney to go work for Earl.
He's starting a new concept.
And he asked Ron, are you ready to maybe hang up the big purple hat and join?
And he went and worked with Peter and Robert and made a third I-Drive dinner show called
the Fort Liberty Wild West Dinner Show.
All of these on the same stretch of you can go to every one of them.
I wish you could eat each, like breakfast, lunch and dinner at different theater shows on I drive.
Spend your entire day.
Oh, the hey day.
All three meals.
Yeah.
Three great shows.
It all only costs you $120.
Yes.
Assuming that they don't get you with extra add-ons.
What a time.
I mean, I don't think I realize, like how much.
Robert Earl made I drive, and it's all still in his shadow, you know?
Right.
Is there, there's a Bucca de Beppo there? It's all there.
So, here, so this guy, none of this is central to American Gladiators.
I just, I'm so excited that there's more restaurants we don't know about.
So here's quote, Ron Schneider.
I'd seen King Henry's Feast and was wary of working for Robert Earl.
The food was okay, but I'd found the show to be rather dull.
I felt King Henry's Feast was beautifully produced, but to authenticate.
and stuffy.
If I'm going to create a show from scratch,
I want it to be exciting and truly funny
with a good plot,
an audience participation integral to the story.
So, with the first time
that former Dreamfinder and C.L.
Mom Popper meet Robites Robert Earl.
Robert says,
Ronald, I need you to understand
one thing about me.
I charge people $28 for a meal
that costs me 150.
I put on a show so they won't complain about the food.
Quote, Ron Schneider.
Do you mind if the show is good?
Not at all.
Then we'll get along fine.
Cool.
That's a scene I want to film.
I want, if there was any desire for, all right, guess what Hollywood studios?
We're making Robert Earl the movie.
Oh, God.
We are finally telling the story.
And who's that now?
He runs a restaurant's just up the street.
It's up at the top of the studio.
What is that now?
Oh, God.
Is that place still open?
Yes, it is.
I've why me and the host of a show I do and the listeners of the show talk about it all the time.
So if that's a random sampling of the American populace,
everyone's thinking about Robert Earl and his restaurants at all times.
You sure it didn't just become a grocery outlet bargain market because I swear to play at Hollywood.
I know most things did. I know most things did.
It's so funny too that he's just like,
oh, I feed these little piggy's slop.
They don't mind.
because they're distracted, like, doesn't matter.
He's really, like, that is such a, like, a shitty evil thing to say.
Yeah, yeah.
The food is awful, and they don't care.
I put a little dose of okay sauce on top of dog food to where you can't tell that it is dog food on first bite.
You will buy the sixth bite, but by then you're engrossed in the show and you want to know all that King Henry's feast.
I need you to remember the acronym SFS.
Slop for Slobs.
Is that a real one?
No.
Because I would have believed it.
Yeah, you can't imagine it, right?
That was a secret.
Someone's listening who is in the organization
and they're picturing the poster
and they're like, my God.
Yeah.
How did Jason know?
I'm going to get a cease and descess
because they trademark that term.
More Robert is going to like hire you
because he's impressed.
It. Someone gets it.
Brilliant. Brilliant young man.
Yeah. But then what happened to him?
We're like, we put on a show so you can't tell that the food is terrible.
Years later, Buketa-de-Beppo, there's no show.
I think everyone's left to figure it out.
Yeah.
Unless looking at the head of the pope in a glass cube counts as a show.
Yeah, any number of podcasters, they just come and spend money and they want to sit in the
Pope room by
by the
form statue
of Pope John Paul the second.
Also, by the way,
in an episode,
I don't know,
like a month or so ago,
I asked if anybody
pre-gamed
conclave at the
Universal Cinema
by going to the
Bukadabepo
and asking for the
Pope Room
and that I never heard
anything else about that
and I forgot that I said it.
And then all of a sudden
last night,
friend of the show,
Pascas Joe Quazala texted,
I did it.
I did conclave
with pregame
in Pope Room or I tried but we didn't have enough people so they turned us down.
I pulled over to the side of the road to tell you this.
I could not wait to tell you this.
Wow.
So one hero out there.
That's great.
At least tried.
Were you getting, maybe I'm getting ahead of you.
Did you see what happened to King Henry's?
Are you going to get there?
No.
What happened to King Henry's?
It turns, it's an olive garden.
Great.
Great.
Yeah, I think all of, I think Marty Grau is a, uh, Walgreen.
None of these exist.
None of these.
Even if Orlando locals are listening,
maybe you remember them faintly from long ago,
but none of them exist today.
Onstage Entertainment Inc. of Las Vegas,
the company best known for the Legends in Concert,
impersonator shows.
More guys.
Acquired King Henry's Feast,
blazing pianos,
and Wild Bill's dinner theater,
including For Liberty,
from then owner Orlando entertains.
But onstage ran into financial difficulty
sustaining major losses
from the now closed
Daytona Beach and Toronto shows
of legends in concert.
On December 9th, 1999,
whatever, the mortgage holder
on King Henry's Theater
obtained a foreclosure judgment
against the company
after late and missed payments
and poor old King Henry's
was subsequently dethroned.
And then on June 22nd, 2000,
the feast ended and the castle closed.
The valuable I Drive real estate kingdom
on which it sat
was redeveloped into a less kingly olive garden.
So the Olive Garden
I guess is the Olive Garden still there on I
Drive? I bet it is.
It seems like it would be.
Olive Guards don't seem to be having a lot of trouble.
No, they do, yeah, they thrive.
Good margins.
Yeah, yeah, let me tell you,
the Olive Garden food costs 125,
but we charge 29 for it.
Doesn't that take some,
don't you want to think that on some level,
Robert Earl was like,
I want to give good food to the people?
Like, I want to believe that on some level
he believes that the food is good.
It's that he's now.
He's like a Craven Supervillain.
I don't know.
I guess I'm not surprised to find out that he's going to 100%.
He is like synonymous with restaurants that are uniformly bad.
Yeah.
Are any of the Earl restaurants any good?
Yeah, good question.
Probably not.
Chicken guy.
Chicken guy's not bad.
I mean, yeah, we like, I don't know how it's doing now, but it's a more even-handed
presence.
Yeah.
Cut me a deal.
Got to make the food good.
Olive Garden, yes, is still there.
Okay.
Well, we should all honor its memory as we passed by that all of garden.
You met this time.
It's just this time where, like, there is a fort.
There's an old West fort.
And there's a castle.
And yeah, sure, half of that stuff is still there.
But I want all of it to be there.
And yes, the world's largest McDonald's is there.
But it doesn't look nearly as stupid as it used to.
No.
This was the stupidest street in America.
There is so much.
What happened?
And it's so decaying now.
when you draw like parts of i drive yeah because i walked a big stretch because my plane kept getting
delayed on that monday and i ended up walking all the way down to the hooters walking all the way
back you're just walking along i drive i did oh i walked so much that monday i was at i was a
city walk i walked through the hotels and then i ended up on i drive you want you walked up to the
hooters opened the door closed your eyes said you all should be ashamed of yourselves slam the door and marched away
Yes.
I saw the seafood place that had like a big three different cars that deliver seafood with giant crabs.
Did you see this?
I posted this on Instagram.
Oh, no.
These photos were insane.
I'll show you these.
Okay.
It's crazy.
They were crazy.
I drive is, I mean, we just, there's a lot to learn about it.
There's a lot about its history.
There's a lot about what it is today.
I think we could do a trip where we only do I drive and don't go to parks.
Oh, God.
Like a Boston lobster feast on I drive.
has, I guess, a fleet of vehicles that look like this.
Wow.
A giant lobster on top of...
The lobster is bigger than the car itself.
Yeah, is that street legal?
I don't know.
They're like VW bugs.
That looks like an accident happened in a parade and a crazy movie, like, jingle all the way.
Yeah.
Like, he was driving through Lobster Day, the parade.
And then it ended up attached to his car.
And he's like, ah!
If you order seafood from there, I think you get it delivered in a VW.
with a giant lobster attached to the top of the car.
It looks like the red VW bug is being delivered like a baby by the lobster.
Yeah, it does.
I mean, I was so excited.
Mike, I know you want to be optimistic,
but those kind of look like 20-year-old VW bugs that have been moved at a long time.
You think they're just parked there for 20 years?
Yeah.
No, I think they look like the paint looks sort of new on them.
Orlando listeners, let us know.
Have you seen this proud fleet of lobster cars
circling around your neighborhood?
Let us know.
Or if not, send them your way.
Order.
Place an order.
And watch this armada arrive in your house.
A lot of this thematic decay that you're talking about kind of reminds me of family-friendly
era of Vegas.
Yes, absolutely.
Where a lot of stuff is still standing.
Mm-hmm.
And a lot of it has been torn down.
and the stuff that's still standing,
some of it is begrudging.
Like, begrudging that we have to run
a knock off medieval times and Excalibur
that we have to do with.
Do you think it's begrudging?
I bet people like that.
No, I think people like, I think guests like it.
But you think the hotel is like,
let's just put a cheap gastro pub in here,
just like throw some stencil art up.
Yeah.
You don't have to pay all these performers.
Or like the roller coaster in New York, New York.
And it's like, we could take this stuff down and have another room of slot machines and make the same amount of money.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes.
Well, yeah, that roller coaster is begrudgingly kept up.
Like the person doing the repairs, I think.
I barely.
I'll fix one of the five screws.
It wasn't pleasant like 19, 20 years ago when I went on it.
I can't imagine now.
I don't think it ever worked.
Anyway, none of this has anything to do with America.
I guess it's all to say the pedigree of people who are putting this American gladiators experience together.
A guy, an acolyte of Robert Earl himself, a friend of C.L. Wampopper.
A Padawan of Robert Earl.
Have you heard the story of Dorf Plague is the wise?
And a guy who I consider a roguish Hans Soler.
type character, Baram Corsandi, who marches to the beat of his own drum and doesn't care if his
game show idea doesn't make any sense or if he ever gets caught at the Miami airport for stealing
from the state.
This is the Rokes Gallery putting together this remarkable thing.
And that's not all because the real stars of the show, I think we've got a name.
I'm just going to say all of the gladiators who you could see at this show.
Some were from the TV series.
Some were new editions just for Orlando.
And here is the heart of the show.
Dallas, Flame, Flash, Hawk, Ice, Jade, Jazz, Laser, Quake, Sabre, Siren, Sky, Tank, Thor, Titan, Tower.
The man named Tower.
Turbo, Viper, Cobra, Rage, Raven, Elektra, and Tigra.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now that I've, that's like a, like a list of random words that I would say into a computer so that now I could be scanned and used as AI forever.
Oh, yeah.
Just put all that in and you can steal my voice after I'm dead.
So that's the group.
Now, I don't remember who exactly is from the show.
In this infomercial that you referred to, Mike, you definitely meet some people who were from the show.
Let's see.
I know that I'm going off the Netflix.
documentary. Sky is
original TV, American Gladiator.
Laser, ice.
Someone named Dan. I don't remember what his
gladiator name was, but Dan came
for several shows and then
realized it was shady and got
out of there. Would be great if you saw
Jade and Laser
and Turbo
and then Dan.
He's proud of who he is.
He doesn't need to impress you.
He doesn't need a moniker.
He loves himself.
Zap did not go
Quote zap in the documentary
I didn't go
I'm so happy I didn't go
That was a debacle
And it's hard to tell
Exactly what made it
A debacle
This is what's a little mysterious
I guess we can go off
Of that infomercial a little bit
That shows the promise
Of what it was and what it could be
You meet some of the newer gladiators
They get some sit-down time
With the host of the infomercial
John Romano
There's a sit-down
between John Romano and a guy named Tank.
I love Tank.
I'm really glad we got so much time with Tank,
so much more than the other gladiators that you meet.
Tank tells you during his interview,
I strive on excellence.
I don't think of the word he.
I don't want him to be smart.
I want him to be strong.
There's a couple things in there where I don't know
that he's using language correctly.
He's not so far off.
No, I know what he's going for.
Yeah.
They follow Tank to Jungleland, where you see exactly the kind of man, Tank is.
He meets up with Jeff Quatrochi.
I regret not writing that down.
Thank you for catching that, Mike.
Yeah.
So Tank and Jeff Quatrochi start looking around all the wild animals you can see at Jungleland, I guess another Kissimmee attraction.
And Tank decides it's not enough just to look.
He wants to wrestle.
He wants to get in there and get up.
close and personal with some gators.
And he like, yeah, he's like, he touches him.
He's like got him by the mouth.
He keeps like being like, I'm not going to hurt these.
Don't worry.
I'm not hurting him.
Then he's like, he's like shoving his chin to force an alligator's chin,
like an alligator's mouth closed.
And you're like, I guess you're not hurting him.
But you've got to be annoying the animal.
Yeah.
Animal doesn't need you doing that.
Yeah, the animal probably wants to.
Yeah, the gator wants to be able to open and close its own mouth.
Gator draws closed gently, right?
As far as I know.
Okay.
That's what Tank believed, at least, in filming this piece.
Tank also, then he climbs on top of the 126-foot alligator that is out front of jungle land.
I want to know more about jungle land as well, quite frankly.
Then at the end of the piece, he tells you, I'm not the prettiest one, but I can guarantee I'm the craziest one.
So Tank.
Tank's great. You meet Titan, you meet Dallas, you meet Thor, you meet Flash. Flash touts his own agileness.
Yes, I caught that as well.
No, they're not really the word.
The fight.
Yeah.
I found out Flash was hired to be a referee for this show, and then original series Gladiator Viper got sidelined.
And before you know it, this guy became Flash.
You're in Flash.
The most interesting of the, I don't know,
tank's probably the most interesting,
but eventually you meet a female gladiator
by the name of Siren.
You get a bunch of time with Siren.
John Romano, the host,
seems especially eager to talk up Siren,
seems really fawning over Siren in particular
and telling you all about Siren's life story
and how Siren went deaf very sadly.
when she was very young.
That did not stop her from becoming exceedingly strong
and winning a lot of bodybuilding competitions
and getting into America's Cup,
the yachting competition.
And you're kind of like,
why are we going on and on some?
And this is all nice,
but like there's an energy here.
And then he says,
and she's probably got to be one of my favorite,
let's say my favorite,
my favorite of all the gladiators in the show,
because I happen to be married to her.
So, uh,
he goes,
she's my wife or something.
Like he gets so,
like, cute.
He gets like so like mushy all of a sudden
Because I actually didn't know where it was going
I'm just like he's really talking about her a lot
And then he also goes like she's like wife
Maybe she didn't say that
But that was the vibe I that's what I remember
He got all like ooh like that
That was the energy all of a sudden
This is a toughest gal
You're gonna see her on the floor
And also
So then I start having
A lot of questions at this
And don't get me
In this interaction
Everything seems fine
But I'm also
So, like, why, why is this guy the host of this?
And I thought I saw him in the documentary clips, too.
He's the host of the live show as well.
He's the person who introduces the gladiator dancers.
It's the kind of thing that tells you maybe this won't be, like, as good as the show.
Yeah.
If they are killing time with dancing.
And if they are killing time with something that Siren gets to do, which is because she's deaf,
she does a performance of heal the world, of Michael Jackson's heal the world using sign language.
Yes.
Sung by the most questionable Michael Jackson impersonator you've ever.
Uh-huh.
And all of this, like, well, like, all right, that's, that's nice and fine.
But also, you're like, what's the show, though?
Like, it's, why is that in there?
Yeah.
It seems like a lot of extra stuff.
And then, like, I'm there to see, uh, thrust or whatever.
I'm not here to see John Romano.
Who's John Romano?
And there's, there was just enough shadiness to this guy.
That I started having some questions about John Romano.
I do some Googling about John Romano.
I discover that so he became, because I was like,
is he part of it because he's married to Siren,
or did they meet doing this?
Like what brings him into the picture?
And it's that he met her when they were both bodybuilders.
And he said, I'll become your manager.
And also, let's get married,
the best arrangement that you can have.
If you're looking for a manager,
choose your significant other.
Always.
Just a little bit of,
basically, I just, all right,
let me just look up a few interviews
with John Romano, Bodybuilder.
Pretty quickly find an interview
where he's saying a bunch of stuff
about how, well, I ended up in Mexico
because my wife kidnapped my child.
That's where he is today.
He runs a Gold's gym in Mexico.
He also started talking about another bodybuilder,
and they said, where'd you meet him?
He said, in prison.
This guy also did some job.
jail time.
He was a commodities in stockprone.
He went to jail for wire fraud.
Okay.
A lot of white,
a lot more white collar crime this episode than I was expect.
I know.
With gladiators,
you think it's like,
I went to jail for jousting a guy's head off.
That it's all the boring reasons to go to jail.
Why did you go to prison?
Because I wouldn't rat out the group of guys who were ultimately culpable.
I was the one exposed.
It was me.
I was a hero for,
going to jail.
So, I don't know, a bunch of weird stuff.
And then I was like, wait a minute.
So he was married to the Gladiator.
And then so they must have had a kid together.
And then something shady happened and she left with the.
And then I kept going, no, married a different Gladiator.
He was married.
When this started, he was married to Siren.
When it ended, he was married to Elektra.
Had a kid with her.
Isn't that always the way?
So this was Gladiator on Gladiator cheating.
this guy is still around
and I have a number of questions
just about him and Siren
who had a very sad life
and I have questions about what happened there
and comments lead me to believe
that's not good thing
but also this guy I think is a like
proponent of steroid use
so I don't know if I want him
coming after me
just we may have a guy on our hands
if you watch this infomercial
is he the guy that wrote this cookbook
called muscle meals
Why yes
That is one of his claims to fame
I also saw the cover of muscle meals
Describe the cover of muscle meals
Well he is shirtless
He's got a big whisk
It's a big whisk too
Like a really
Extra big whisk
And he's got a big chef's
A big tall chef's hat on
And it says a cookbook
To build muscle and lose fat
It says muscle meals
Delicious low fat
High Protein recipes
By John Romano
The giant chef's head
than the giant wick, and he is so, he is so musly and so shirtless.
Because shirtless as you can be and kind of oiled up, it's a hell of a cover.
It's a very good cover.
He also is so much thicker today than he was when any of this was done.
This is a massive man.
He's like, I guess like Stallone is really big at age 80.
So, and like seems sometimes bigger than he was when he was younger.
Yeah. So yeah, similar
Uh-huh.
Situation.
It's a strange.
I just don't, it felt very like, you guys must come across people like this in the wrestling world.
We're like, who is it?
Is he one of the, no, he's like a promoter, but now why is he on camera?
And people are just kind of like fish their way into things.
And what it leads to ultimately, this is this clip in the gladiators documentary that's
kind of showing you how this whole thing was the nadir of like you've just heard one
of the gladiators say the whole thing was sad and you know you go from like you're on tv and everybody's
cheering you in a tv studio to now you're on a dirt floor and people are eating pork shops and and then
they play a home video clip and i think it's this guy romano and he says all right thanks for coming
out everybody uh remember tomorrow uh the gladiator grand christmas buffet from seven to eleven
the gladiators will be there you should be too drive safe everyone i just remember a thing that
stuck out to me in the Orlando
sent an article was the phrase
a number of the people have moved their families
to Orlando
because ended with the justification
of like well look gladiators
only tapes a few weeks of the year
so this is actually better
this is a better thing we're doing more work
this is better than the show
they should be glad that they're here
we give them the extra pork shops
I want to move my family to Orlando
so I'm jealous and general of it
It just feel like clock's ticking on that one
I can feel it
I know the days
I think I say it to a different person
every day in the last two or three weeks
I said yeah well
I could move to Orlando
I when we were down
when we were just down there
at some point I told Aaron
Mike's gonna do it
I just could feel it
if I look if I had no connection
to any family or anything else
yeah I'm gone
Well you gotta fix that
You gotta sever your connection
to that family
My wife better not kidnap my child
and take her
Then I'll be able to go to Orlando turn.
Then I'll be able to go to Orlando.
Guilt free.
So it actually, you know, it actually worked out because, you know, there was some disagreements with my wife.
But I was able to come down here and finally achieve my dinner theater dreams.
It's something I've been talking about on this podcast that I stopped doing.
I got rid of them too.
And I came down here.
I gained 100 pounds in muscle weight.
And I run this awesome dinner theater.
I serve the shittiest steak and the shittiest bourbon to a bunch of a bunch of dune.
dudes.
It sucks.
The food sucks.
I spent $0.25 cents per meal.
It's the lowest quality steak and the lowest quality
protein.
Fucking animals will eat it.
They don't give a shit.
You want to say, hey, you want to tell me there's anything foe about this masculinity?
Rip your shirt off, flex.
I'm bigger than John Romano now.
It's my new life.
Mike weighs 360 pounds.
I do feel like 10 years talking about wrestling world connection.
I feel like Mike was like, you know,
you can buy
or like human growth hormone
went properly administered
or heat's G8
or what's the one that's good
for your joints and skin?
It's just powder.
Collagen.
Collagen.
You have a lot of questions
for Jane about red lights.
This is,
we're going to come to,
we like at some point
Mike is going to leave.
We're going to go visit Mike.
He's going to have
the home that is seven times bigger
than what we have combined here.
Yeah.
and he's going to he
will live in it alone but he will
be alone he'll be essentially like
a human refrigerator
size wise yes yeah
yeah
I did find
and jaw wise
you'll be as square as a refrigerator
and I'll be young looking too
Jason Scott oh my God
it's been a minute
why is your hair that color
why your hair so white and blonde
can I get you guys anything 20 raw eggs
anything
and this a guy
Ben, Jason, you come around on that yet?
You will.
I'll make you do it.
I know the good stuff.
Come on, I got black and gold in the office here.
I want you to enjoy the aesthetic.
Makes me feel good.
This is outlaw.
This is, I go by outlaw now.
It's funny, you gave me that name as a joke in that one episode.
And then I thought, huh, I can see that.
I can really see that.
I'm talking to a couple of guys that I met overseas about investing in a couple different restaurant adventures.
You guys want to end?
There's a lot of.
think everyone talks about the hair signs and turkey but the cuisine signs coming out of there
I'm also marketing a new line of hair growth tonic I also what I figured out so I'm talking to
the ninja turtle guys to try to get the rights I think they're going to come around but if they
don't it's just it's just they can't copyright the word turtle and they can't copyright martial arts
in general so it's the it's the turtle martial arts dinner theater you root for whichever and we
know, we're prepared to use different Renaissance painter names if we have to.
Yeah, and look, I got, look, I can fall right back on Battletoads.
I got the guy who owns the Battletoads.
He's ready to go.
He wants to get in and in on this.
He's going to invest in my hair growth tonic too.
And so he's really like, I'm in my back pocket.
No problem.
Hey, you guys, make yourself at home.
What do you want?
You want the guest room over here, Jason?
There you go.
This is all future builds to the karate tortoise grand champion's dinner explosion.
Yeah.
That is a water bed, Jason.
Now, it's...
The tortoises live in the bed.
They like it in there.
It forces them to seal their jaws shut.
Which is what they prefer, actually.
I take them out to wrestle with them,
then I put them back in the waterbed.
I'm not hurting them.
I'm not hurting them.
To not be able to use that snapping jaw to pry that mattress open with their mouths.
We lost a couple.
No, they didn't.
Didn't die. It's just law. I don't know where they are.
Remember, turtle's tail also it's
dick. Keep it in mind.
Keep it in mind while you're playing with them.
That was another thing. I always ran from that.
And then I looked, then I looked at that Leonardo one day.
I saw, I saw a big throbbing hog.
And I said, that's what I need to be like.
I like him, like the hog.
His tail dick is green, green like dollars.
That's what it's all bad for me.
For me, outlaw?
I see green everywhere I go.
I see Everglades green.
I see green in dollars.
I see green in karate tortoises.
Hey, Jason, come and make yourself home in the bed.
Why is he only talking to me?
Hey, Jason, Robert Earle's fucked on that bed.
Oh, wow.
I got a camera in there.
I got it from Bob of the Love Spunch.
He comes over here sometimes up from Tampa.
He gave me his sex cameras.
God.
I got tape of Robert Earl, man.
Oh, God.
You want to watch it?
You want to watch it?
I'm not going to name it.
names but I remember we wondered once if the gladiators ever listened to the show well don't know
about that but I've had sex with three of them I got the tape you want to watch them you want to watch
the tape here all shot and Bubba vision jason come on I look like you're gonna throw up still clear angles
you're not eating your steak my life coach is coming over in like an hour or two he's more of a guru
do you remember Rick Flair he's got this energy drink yeah he's 905 he's 95
One more match
I'm gonna do one more match
He's only wrestled 20 times
This last year
The old guy wrestlers
Get super strength
When they punch
You guys seen my daughter around
Is she driving by now?
I think she's 10
Cars don't
Also cars, you don't need to drive cars
anymore man
It's the future
I choose to
It burns as much
Fossil as possible
Yeah I'm an old school guy
For a lot of things
Old cars powered by coal
My politics are old school too
2025 politics
So the building is still standing
The building sure is still standing
Is it called
Correct me if I'm wrong
But the name is it the church of the rock?
It's the rock church
The rock church
The building closed and the building
This dinner arena
Has since the closure of American Gladiators
Been a church
It has been a church
It has been a church for so
many years for so much longer than it was ever
fortune feaster American gladiators
that this if anything could inspire me to start going
back to church if this was my local church
and it's where it's where outlaw will go
uh outlaw like to church I go four times a week
and they left some of the lifting stuff backstage
so
me and the bo the hunkiest priest you've ever seen
the chaplain
the chaplain get down we lift
I was not, I could not tell if it was like Jesus is my rock or if it was rock and roll church.
Oh, no, no, no.
Although that would have been a very good idea for a dinner theater experience.
Another one that Outlaw could try to open all he's down there.
No, it's, well, the sign still says Orlando Arena on it as if it is the main arena in the town.
Yeah.
But in fact, Orlando Arena equals the rock church.
And then you can like, okay, here's a.
It was this way during American Gladiators, too, is that it was a mixed-use venue.
So there's footage of it in the Netflix documentary, and it is like, I mean, I love it aesthetically.
There's like a light, the lightest art deco, the worst art deco you've ever seen.
Yeah.
And kind of some Miami style, just like pink neon stripe.
Really like it aesthetically.
But then it's because, like, they built it to where like, oh, and we can charge for stores that are underneath that are in the same.
So there's like at the in the 90s it was a TC boat TC BY yogurt and then just like a liquor store and today there's so like here's the sign the rock church.
There's a nails place Indian restaurant Farmers Insurance.
So Farmers Insurance is just built into this mega church.
Yeah. There's a dip and dots brick and mortar store next to the world.
I heard of it.
Yeah.
I saw that.
Have you ever been to a dip and dots brick and mortar store?
I don't think so always just dance.
And you're a dip and dots guy.
I love dipping dots.
Yeah, yeah.
This is an episode.
I know, we've been talking about that for long time.
Steve, dip and dots.
There's, as of 2023, there was another remnant.
Oh.
I fan, there's a YouTube short.
A vlog or went.
And there is a, I've never heard this phrase before, like a souvenir shop kind of adjacent to the church of the rock.
And it says everything.
$2.49 or less.
That's $2.49.
And on the wall of hats, there is a line of pristine American Gladiator's Orlando Live hats.
Wow.
So you may be able to still find a brand new hat.
You can find, this is an Orlando vlogger I've seen before, Mr. Nooks and Crannies.
What's a funny day?
V's videos.
I stayed in a lot of hotels.
as I've looked up, you know.
You get Mr. Nook and Crannies over
trying this water mess.
You can get it.
You can get them swole.
So, yeah, so if you're in Kissimmee,
pop over to the 249 or less souvenir shop,
and you may be able to find an American Gladiator's Live hat.
Wow.
Wow.
I would like that.
I mean, that's, like, for years, that's all I knew about this place.
There was briefly an American Gladiator's thing,
and that it quickly turned into a church.
and I've looked it up on Street View before, like long before we did.
I think before there was a podcast.
It's just like, what does that look like?
And there's a little art deco thing.
Like they tried to make it look cool and hip once.
But now it's just, and just a couple of stray details on the way out.
Because like another, a few other things you notice, in that old footage where it's up
above the liquor store and the TCBY, it says a Merry Gladdy's Dinner Theater.
And it's in a logo that resembles the font of the show, but is not the font of the show.
I was watching this with Aaron, she pointed out, you never hear that theme song.
You hear Mortal Kombat and other songs they probably don't have the rights to, but they're probably the one that they had to.
And we could use the song, right?
No, whoever that was.
That's like a great composer.
I forget who wrote the, oh, whoa.
Bill Conti or something, Gladiator's theme.
Bill Conti, yes.
Wow, Natalie.
Rocky, I want to say.
Yes, yeah, Rocky Square composer.
Batman, too?
Did he also?
No, that's a different guy.
Anyway, sorry.
But yeah.
The original Batman?
Yeah, who's the...
Neil...
Neal Hept?
I'm confused.
I'm confusing Hefty and Conti is what I'm doing.
Hepti, is that his name?
Hefti?
Yes, Neil Neal hefty.
Anyways.
But so, yes, no theme, no...
So it's this weird where they have the rights and they have some of the people, but like
not exactly.
So good.
So it's all a little bit wrong.
I know that some of the vet where it's a little bit, it's kind of a copy of a copy.
Something's wrong with it.
Is this sanctioned or not?
I also like that in the infomercial, the number to call to get information is 1-800 battle-four.
Yeah, they keep saying that.
And they make people say it.
So, tank, where can they go to?
And they make siren sign it.
Everybody's got to plug, 1-800 battle four.
And there's not, look, there's not much more to, nobody went and filmed the thing,
I know.
So I can't speak to the quality of it.
The only thing as far as what it was or the aftermath of it is that all.
the gladiators, it basically has the slot in the gladiator documentary that O.J. in Miami and Vegas
has where it's just like, and it's, oh, it's all, it's coming apart here. This is where it gets shady.
And I don't think anything horrible happened while everyone was dead, but it was just like absolute
misery for everyone. It made them realize this chapter is over. We can't just cling on to this
lifestyle that we, like the show is done. We got to move on. We have to see who we are now.
And a number of the gladiators seem to have like unlocked a new chapter and they're still friends and their heads.
So there's some like happy stories.
But the, this weird dinner theater just served as the wake up call of like, it's over.
That's a real hard pill to swallow once you moved across country.
Yeah, yeah.
Brought the family.
One guy notably said, it's hard, man.
You know, it was hard.
It was hard to be away from the family.
And I'm like, oh, so you didn't bring a smart move baby.
Very possibly.
What else to anybody?
I don't know. Desperate they called it.
Sad they called it.
Oh, another thing about it is that they had the same competitors every night.
So there's the gladiators and now, all right, and now meet Michael Jones.
But Michael Jones, they can't find a new Michael Jones every night to, like a new regular guy to fight the gladiators.
So those were like ringers.
And they say in the doc, like, we got to be friends of those people.
You don't want to go out and kick their asses.
I see them every day.
I like them.
So you lost the like cold gladiator defeating their enemy, dropping them off the wall.
Yeah.
So I think the action wasn't good.
I think there was too much music and bad Michael Jackson impersonation going on.
Again, no information about the food.
If I had to venture a guess, it was probably not so good.
Yeah.
And yeah, I don't know.
Like, unfortunately, this thing lights me up in concept and then just something about
about it. It was just a seedy fair.
Is it because they would compete
for real
in events?
Like, it wasn't a stage show
like medieval times is
or Pirates Dinner Adventure.
Yeah, I don't know. Wait, are you asking
because this is a question Aaron had us too. It was like
was it fixed? Well, that is the
overall question that I'm not sure about.
Yeah. Yeah. Jason, you worked on the newer
version. Was anything fixed? Do you know?
I don't have the question about the show.
Yeah, I don't think.
Oh, right, right.
I think the dinner theater, they could have gone like,
you want to win tonight?
Michael Jones, you win?
Yeah, well, that's true.
Yeah, that was a thing where I'm like,
did they pull, like, athletic dads from the audience?
And I'm like, no way.
There's no way they're filling up a dad from, like, Tampa with clam chowder.
Yeah.
And then they're like, get up there and joust.
Well, I was planning on sipping on pitcher soup tonight.
But I suppose I could climb the wall.
I've had five Miller genuine drafts in the lobby.
And I am ready to fire the cannon at the audience.
It's terrifying.
You son of a bitch.
They puked on Dallas.
They didn't make it to the cheesecake that night.
It's like a boxing match.
It's like a prize for like a boxing match could end in the first round.
You might not get as exciting of a show with boxing.
Yeah.
Oh, I see what I'm saying?
Like it could just, they could be.
having a kind of an unexciting night if everything was legit.
Oh, and that's why you need to build, why Robert Earl needs to weave a narrative.
Yes, right.
In order to, like, sustain the, again, to distract people from the food, like, exciting things.
Right.
That's why, in the third act, you need a bunch of aerial silks.
Mm-hmm.
If this show didn't, this is the rule of successful dinner theaters.
Aerial silks while people are getting dessert.
Yes.
Or else they'll notice that it's very hard cookies.
It's in Pirates.
It's in Pirates Dinner Adventure that you.
You got to do, you're in the air with some, like, pieces of cloth.
So beautiful.
That has to happen.
That has to happen.
The human body.
So what's more beautiful?
We saw it at the Santa's Secret.
Mm-hmm.
There's other, something makes me feel more alive.
And somebody's spinning around on a ribbon.
Um, anyway, I, it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's too bad.
This just didn't work for whatever reason.
Uh, I think it opened around Christmas 95 by November 96 that it filed for bankruptcy.
But it was one of those files of,
bankruptcy where it's like, well, it's actually, it's good for us. It's good, and it's to help
everyone that we're doing this. And then it did stay afloat for two more years, but that was that.
And then they gave it over to God. And we lost our opportunity to hang with the gladiators,
to share a soup pitcher with Hawk. It was not meant to be.
Jesus, take the wheel. End our debt.
So RIP, dearly departed. It was,
is fun to talk about as I thought.
I don't know what all gets promoted to episodes.
I'd say dip and dots.
I don't maybe,
there's not a ton of information about,
but I'll show you guys the flyers really quick
for King Henry's Feast.
Oh yeah, I know.
I saw those.
And for Fort Liberty.
One of which was in Mercado,
Mediterranean Village.
I have questions about that.
That sounds interesting.
There's no end to the amount of I drive
that I want to know about.
And I know there will be no end
the amount of I drive nights
that outlaw,
the hot on the town
newly unencumbered
is able to
scrounge up
yeah
and I just get like four or five
chicken breast
uh
Kasmi St. Cloud
the center of the action
yeah
dipping dots
yeah WMAC Masters
my mansion's literally
in the center of the
I showed them the ad
with the bullseye
and I said where can I be in the center
my whole life I've been on the side
I've been just watching the action.
Not anymore, baby.
I'm the action.
You understand?
I'm the action.
And he throws Jason out his balcony, which is a big deal because it's four stories high.
Mike paid $250,000 and got the biggest shoddiest mansion that's ever been built.
Floors two and three are not finished.
And you know what?
Neither is floor four.
I also died, but I just stepped wrong.
I've been building, I've been putting it together.
They just dumped all the pieces.
on the lawn and I've been assembling
it. Like, I can do this. I put toys together.
I do Legos. This is like
ultimate Legos. Yeah.
Jason, I also sleep on the
tortoise bed, so just a heads up.
I'll be in here later. I'll be in here later. I'll do
a lot of sleep punch in these days.
I'm going to be farting this room
up like
there ain't no guy.
Creatine chicken breasts.
Don't make a good combination.
Remember, say you're long, we got to set her own for 6 a.m.
We got to go to the rock church in the morning.
That's right.
I'm playing lead guitar.
We got to a tone.
Oh, I've been saved, by the way.
I do most of Frankie Valley's hits.
I mean, he's still out there.
He's still out there performing, but I'm in a tribute to him.
I hold him up.
I got baptized at the Lazy River at H-2O-Live,
the Margaritaville Waterpark.
Yeah, that's no, that failed years ago.
another church bought it,
they had the whole lazy river blessed.
So you could just crank through baptisms.
You could do 50 an hour, you boys in?
If not, I'm going to ask you to go back to Sinners, California.
The church bought up a lot of eye drive, honestly, at this point.
It's more than half religion owned.
It's still an olive garden, but the never-ending pasta is all blessed.
So it's the same as eating the host.
Spaghetti, the old spaghetti factory is a factory now.
Mr. Trump brought a bag.
Hey, Jason, after you're done eating the bowl,
the never-ending pasta bowl,
you put our keys in it.
No, no.
You want to, you in?
You know what I'm saying.
You take the bowl home.
You put your keys in it.
Then we go to church next morning, though,
to a tone, so don't worry.
All right, none of that happened.
As soon as we walk through these doors
that erases all that,
dip your hands in that all the water, brother.
We're clean.
We're clean.
We call this sizzling save.
Sizzling save.
All right.
You survived podcast, The Ride.
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Your dollars are the initial seed money
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Granted, it's really going to kick into overdrive
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for three-mill a pop.
If you could all change your pledges to 10 grand a month, that would really help us, or me specifically.
If you've ever been like, I like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but I wish it was just Mr. Hyde.
And he was crazy.
I thought you were going to say Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dinner show where they fight.
Good idea.
All right.
Team Hyde.
Let me hear you.
The hard side.
Yeah, that's good.
You're green.
That means green for the monster hide.
and where is my Jekyllator's at?
Now everyone come together over your shrimp skewers.
Just like crushing up pills.
Snorten lines say it has the energy to do four shows a night of Jekyll and I live.
Oh yeah.
Oh God.
Fucking pumped.
Let me add him.
I had six more shows.
Get a four a.m. going.
Are you not in Gorge?
Forever.
This has been a Forever Dog production.
Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gerdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Sillio, and Alex Ramsey.
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